_ CHAPTER XVIII. ON THE NORTHERN SEAS
The mists hung drearily on snow-crowned, distant hilltops. The deadly gray of the sky suggested laden clouds bearing every threat known to the elements. They were traveling fast, treading each other's heels, and overwhelming each other till the gloom banked deeper and deeper. It was the mockery of an early spring day. It had all the appearance of the worst depths of winter, except that the intense cold had given place to a fierce wind of higher temperature.
The seas were running high, and the laden vessel labored heavily as it passed the sharp teeth of the jaws of the wide sound which marked the approach to the northern land.
There was no sheltering bar here. The only obstruction to the fierce onslaught of the North Pacific waters was the almost submerged legion of cruel rocks which confined the deep water channel. It was a deadly approach which took years of a ship's captain's life to learn. And when he had learned it, so far as it was humanly possible, it quickly taught him how little he knew. Not a season passed but some unfortunate found for himself a new, uncharted rock.
The land rose up to overwhelming heights on either side, and these vast barriers narrowed the wind channel till the force of the gale was trebled. It swept in from the broad ocean with a roar and a boom, bearing the steamer along, floundering through the racing waters, with a crushing following sea.
There were twelve hours of this yet ahead of him, and John Dunne paced his bridge with every faculty alert. He watched the skies. He watched the breaking waters. He watched the shores on either side of him, as he might watch the movements of a remorseless adversary about to attack him. He had navigated this channel for upwards of fifteen years, and understood to-day how small was his understanding of its virtues, and how real and complete his fears of its vices. But it was his work to face it at all times and all seasons, and he accepted the responsibility with a cheerful optimism and an equal skill.
Once or twice he howled a confidence to his chief officer, who occupied the bridge with him. There were moments when his lips were at the speaking tubes, and his hand on the telegraph. There were moments when he stood with his arms folded over the breast of his thick pea-jacket, and his half-closed eyes searched the barren shores while he leaned against the shaking rail.
He had been on the bridge the whole night, and still his bodily vigor seemed quite unimpaired. His stocky body concealed a power of endurance which his life had hardened him to. He rarely talked of the dangers through which he had journeyed on the northern seas. He feared them too well to desire to recall them. He was wont to say he lived only in the present. To look ahead would rob him of his nerve. To gaze back over the manifold emergencies through which he had passed would only undermine his will. The benefit of his philosophy was displayed in his habitual success. In consequence he was the commodore of his company's fleet.
He passed down from his bridge at last. And it was almost with reluctance. It was breakfast time, and he had been summoned already three times by an impatient steward. At the door of his cabin he was met by John Kars who was to be his guest at the meal. These men were old friends, bound by the common ties of the northland life. They had made so many journeys together over these turbulent waters. To Kars it would have been unthinkable to travel under any other sea captain.
"Still watching for those jaws to snap?" said Kars, as he passed into the little room ahead of his host, and sniffed hungrily at the fragrant odor of coffee.
"Why, yes," he said. "Jaws that's always snapping generally need watching, I guess. A feller needs the eyes of a spider to get to windward of the things lying around Blackrock Sound. Say, I guess it wouldn't come amiss to dump this patch into the devil's dugout fer fool skippers, who lost their ships through 'souse,' to navigate around in. It has you guessin' most of the time. And you're generally wrong, anyway."
The men sat down at the table, and the steward served the coffee. For a few moments they were busy helping themselves to the grilled kidneys and bacon. Presently the steward withdrew.
"It's been a better trip than usual this time of year," Kars said. "It's a pity running into this squall just now."
The seaman raised a pair of twinkling eyes in his guest's direction.
"It's mostly my experience. Providence generally figgers to hand you things at--inconvenient times. This darn sound's tricky when there ain't breeze enough to clear your smoke away. It's fierce when it's blowing. Guess you'll be glad to see your outfit ashore."
"Ye-es."
"Up country again this year?"
Kars laughed.
"Sure."
The seaman regarded him enviously.
"Guess it must be great only having the weather to beat. A piece of hard soil under your feet must be bully to work on. That ain't been mine since I was fourteen. That's over forty years ago."
"There's something to it--sure." Kars sipped his coffee. "But there's other things," he added, as he set his cup down.
The seaman smiled.
"Wouldn't be Life if there weren't."
"No."
"You're shipping arms," John Dunne went on significantly. "Guns an' things don't signify all smiles an' sunshine. No, I guess we sea folks got our troubles. It's only they're diff'rent from other folks. You ain't the only feller shipping arms. We got cases else. An' a big outfit of cartridges. I was looking into the lading schedule yesterday. Say, the Yukon ain't makin' war with Alaska?"
The man's curiosity was evident, but he disguised it with a broad smile.
Kars' steady eyes regarded him thoughtfully. Then he, too, smiled.
"I don't reckon the Yukon's worrying to scrap. But folks inside--I mean right inside beyond Leaping Horse where the p'lice are--need arms. There's a lot of low type Indians running loose. They aren't to be despised, except for their manners. Guess the stuff you speak of is for one of the trading posts?"
"Can't say. It's billed to a guy named Murray McTavish at Blackrock Flat. There's a thousand rifles an' nigh two million rounds of cartridges. Guess he must be carryin' on a war of his own with them Injuns. Know the name?"
Kars appeared to think profoundly.
"Seems to me I know the name. Can't just place it for---- Say--I've got it. He's the partner of the feller the neches murdered up at Fort Mowbray, on the Snake River. Sure, that explains it. Oh, yes. The folks up that way are up against it. The neches are pretty darn bad." He laughed. "Guess he's out for a war of extermination with such an outfit as that."
"Seems like it." The skipper went on eating for some moments in silence. His curiosity was satisfied. Nor did Kars attempt to break the silence. He was thinking--thinking hard.
"It beats me," Dunne went on presently, "you folk who don't need to live north of 'sixty.' What is it that keeps you chasing around in a cold that 'ud freeze the vitals of a tin statue?"
Kars shook his head.
"You can search me," he said, with a shrug. "Guess it sort of gets in the blood, though. There's times when I cuss it like you cuss the waters that hand you your life. Then there's times when I love it like--like a pup loves offal. You can't figger it out any more than you can figger out why the sun and moon act foolish chasing each other around an earth that don't know better than to spend its time buzzing around on a pivot that don't exist. You can't explain these things any more than you can explain the reason why no two folks can think the same about things, except it is their own way of thinking it's the right way. Nor why it is you mostly get rain when you're needin' sun, and wind when you're needin' calm, and anyway it's coming from the wrong quarter. If you guess you're looking for gold, it's a thousand dollars to a dime you find coal, or drown yourself in a 'gush' of oil. If you're married, an' you're looking for a son, it's a sure gamble you get a gal. Most everything in life's just about as crazy as they'll allow outside a foolish house, and as for life itself, well, it's a darn nuisance anyway, but one you're mighty glad keeps busy your way."
At that moment, the speaking tube from the bridge emitted a sharp whistle, and the skipper, with a broad smile on his weather-beaten face, went to answer it.
The clatter of the winches ceased. The creaking of straining hawsers lessened. The voices of men only continued their hoarse-throated shoutings. The gangways had been secured in place, and while the crew were feverishly opening the vessel's hatches the few passengers who had made the journey under John Dunne's watchful care hustled down the high-angled gangway to the quay, glad enough to set foot on the slush-laden land.
The days of the wild rush of gold-mad incompetents were long since past. The human freight of John Dunne's vessel, with the exception of John Kars, was commercial. They were mostly men whose whole work was this new great trade with the north.
Kars was one of the first to land, and he swiftly searched the faces of the crowd of longshoremen.
It was a desolate quay-side of a disreputable town. But though all picturesqueness was given over to utility, there was a sense of homeliness to the traveler after the stormy passage of the North Pacific. Blackrock crouched under the frowning ramparts of hills which barred the progress of the waters. It was dwarfed, and rendered even more desolate, by the sterile snow-laden crags with which it was crowded. But these first impressions were quickly lost in the life that strove on every hand. In the familiar clang of the locomotive bell, and the movement of railroad wagons which were engaged in haulage for Leaping Horse.
Kars' search ended in a smile of greeting, as a tall, lean American detached himself from the crowd and came towards him. He greeted the arrival with the easy casualness of the northlander.
"Glad to see you, Chief," he said, shaking hands. "Stuff aboard? Good," as the other nodded. "Guess the gang'll ship it right away jest as soon as they haul it out o' the guts of the old tub. You goin' on up with the mail? She's due to get busy in two hours, if she don't get colic or some other fool trouble."
Abe Dodds refused to respond to his friend and chief's smile of greeting. He rarely shed smiles on anything or any one. He was a mining engineer of unusual gifts, in a country where mining engineers and flies vied with each other for preponderance. He was a man who bristled with a steady energy which never seemed to tire, and he had been in the service of John Kars from the very early days.
Kars indicated the snub-nosed vessel he had just left.
"The stuff's all there," he said. "Nearly fifty tons of it. You need to hustle it up to Leaping Horse, and on to the camp right away. Guess we break camp in two weeks."
The man nodded.
"Sure. That's all fixed. Anything else?"
His final inquiry was his method of dismissing his employer. But Kars did not respond. His keen eyes had been searching the crowd. Now they came back to the plain face of Abe, whose jaws were working busily on the wreck of the end of a cigar. He lowered his voice to a confidential tone.
"There's a big outfit of stuff aboard for Murray McTavish, of Fort Mowbray. Has he an outfit here to haul it? Is he still around Leaping Horse?"
Abe's eyes widened. He was quite unconcerned at the change of tone.
"Why, yes," he replied promptly. "Sure he's an outfit here. He's shipping it up to Leaping Horse by the Yukon Transport--express. He quit the city last November, an' come along down again a week ago. Guess he's in the city right now. He's stopping around Adler's Hotel."
Kars' eyes were on the "hauls" of the cargo boat which were already busy.
"You boys kept to instructions?" he demanded sharply. "No one's wise to your camp?"
"Not a thing."
"There's not a word of me going around the city?"
"Not a word."
"The outfit's complete?"
"Sure. To the last boy. You can break camp the day after this stuff's hauled and we've packed it."
"Good." Kars sighed as if in relief. "Well, I'll get on. Hustle all you know. And, say, get a tally of McTavish's outfit. Get their time schedule. I'll need it. So long."
Kars followed his personal baggage which a quayside porter had taken on to the grandiosely named mail train.
John Kars was standing at the curtained window of Dr. Bill's apartment in the Hoffman Apartment House. His back was turned on the luxuriously furnished room. For some time the silence had been broken only by the level tones of the owner of the apartment who was lounging in the depths of a big rocker adjacent to a table laden with surgical instruments. He had been telling the detailed story of the preparations made at the camp some ten miles distant from the city, and the supervision of whose affairs Kars had left in his hands. As he ceased speaking Kars turned from his contemplation of the tawdry white and gold of the Elysian Fields which stood out in full view from the window of the apartment.
"Now tell me of that boy--Alec," he demanded.
The directness of the challenge had its effect. Bill Brudenell stirred uneasily in his chair. His shrewd eyes widened with a shade of trouble. Nor did he answer readily.
"Things are wrong?" Kars' steady eyes searched his friend's face.
"Well--they're not--good."
"Ah. Tell me."
Kars moved from the window. It almost seemed that all that had passed was incomparable in interest with his present subject. He seated himself on the corner of the table which held the surgical instruments.
"No. It's not good. It's--it's darned bad." Bill rose abruptly from his chair and began to pace the room, his trim shoulders hunched as though he were suddenly driven to a desire for aggression. "Look here, John," he cried almost vehemently. "If you or I had had that boy set in our charge, seeing what we saw that first night, and knowing what I've heard since, could we have quit this lousy city for months and left him to his fool play over at Pap's? Not on your life. But it's what Murray's done. Gee, I could almost think he did it purposely."
Kars pointed at the rocker. There was a curious light in his gray eyes. It was a half smile. Also it possessed a subtle stirring of fierceness.
"Sit down, Bill," he said calmly. "But start right in from--the start."
The man of healing obeyed mechanically, but he chafed at the restraint. His usual ease had undergone a serious disturbance. There was nothing calculated to upset him like the disregard of moral obligation. Crime he understood, folly he accepted as something belonging to human nature. But the moral "stunt," as he was wont to characterize it, hurt him badly. Just now he was regarding Murray McTavish with no very friendly eyes, and he deplored beyond words the doings of the boy who was Jessie Mowbray's brother.
"The start!" he exploded. "Where
can I start? If the start were as I see it, it 'ud be to tell you that Murray's a callous skunk who don't care a whoop for the obligations Allan's murder left on his fat shoulders. But I guess that's not the start as you see it. That boy!" He sprang from his seat again and Kars made no further attempt to restrain him. "He's on the road to the devil faster than an express locomotive could carry him. He's in the hands of 'Chesapeake' Maude, who's got him by both feet and neck. And he's handing his bank roll over to Pap, and his gang, with a shovel. He's half soused any old time after eleven in the morning. And his back teeth are awash by midnight 'most every day. You can see him muling around the dance floor till you get sick of the sight of his darn fool smile, and you wish all the diamonds Maude wears were lost in the deepest smudge fires of hell. Start? There is no start. But there's a sure finish."
"You mean if he don't quit he'll go right down and out?"
Bill came to a halt directly in front of his friend. His keen eyes gazed straight into the strong face confronting him.
"No, I don't mean that. It's worse," he said, with a gravity quite changed from his recent agitated manner.
"Worse?" Kars' question came sharply. "Go on."
"Oh, I did all you said that night. I got a holt on him next day at the Gridiron, where he's stopping. He told me to go to a certain hot place and mind my own business, which was doping out drugs. I went to Murray, and he served me little better. He grinned. He always grins. He threw hot air about a youngster and wild oats. He guessed the kid would sober up after a fling. They'd figgered on this play. His mother, and Jose, and him. They guessed it was best. Then he was going to get around back and act the man his father was on the trail. That was his talk. And he grinned--only grinned when I guessed he was five sorts of darned fool."
Bill paused. It might almost have been that he paused for breath after the speed at which his words came. Kars waited with deliberate patience, but his jaws were set hard.
"But now--now?" The doctor passed a hand across his broad forehead and smoothed his iron gray hair. He turned his eyes thoughtfully upon the window through which they beheld the white and gold of the Elysian Fields. "The worst thing's happened. It's in the mouth of every one in Leaping Horse. It's the scream of every faro joint and 'draw' table. The fellers on the sidewalk have got the laugh of it. Maude's got dopey on him. She's plumb stuck on him. The dame Pap's spilt thousands on has gone back on him for a fool boy she was there to roll. Things are seething under the surface, and it's the sort of atmosphere Pap mostly lives in. He's crazy mad. And when Pap's crazy, things are going to happen. There's just one end coming. Only one end. That boy's going to get done up, and Pap's to be all in at the doing. Oh, he'll take no chances. There'll be no shriek. That kid'll peter right out sudden. And it'll be Pap who knows how."
"Murray's in the city. Have you seen him?" Kars spoke coldly.
"I saw him yesterday noon. I went to Adler's at lunch time to be sure getting him."
"What did he say?"
"I scared him. Plumb scared him. But it was the same grin. Gee, how that feller grins."
"What did he say?" Kars persisted.
"He'd do all he knew to get the kid away. But he guessed he'd be up against it. He guessed Alec had mighty little use for him, and you can't blame the kid when you think of that grin. But he figgered to do his best anyway. He cursed the kid for a sucker, and talked of a mother's broken heart if things happened. But I don't reckon he cares a cuss anyway. That feller's got one thing in life if I got any sane notion. It's trade. He hasn't the scruples of a Jew money-lender for anything else."
Kars nodded.
"I'm feeling that way--too."
"You couldn't feel otherwise."
"I wasn't thinking of your yarn, Bill," Kars said quickly. "It's something else. That feller's shipped in a thousand rifles, and a big lot of ammunition. I lit on it through John Dunne. What's he want 'em for? I've been asking myself that ever since. He don't need a thousand rifles for trade."
It was Bill's turn for inquiry. It came with a promptness that suggested his estimation of the importance of the news.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Is he going to wipe out the Bell River outfit?" Kars' eyes regarded his friend steadily.
For some moments no further word was spoken. Each was contemplating the ruthless purpose of a man who contemplated wiping out a tribe of savages to suit his own sordid ends. It was almost unbelievable. Yet a thousand rifles for a small trading post. It was the number which inspired the doubt.
It was Kars who finally broke the silence. He left his seat on the table and stood again at the window with his back turned.
"Guess we best leave it at that," he said.
"Yes. What are you going to do?"
"Look in at the Gridiron, and pass the time of day with young Alec." Kars laughed shortly. Then he turned, and his purpose was shining in his eyes. "Alec's Jessie's brother--and I've got to save that kid from himself." _