SHORT STORY.

Lake County Press, Issue 2266, 1 April 1909, Page 7

SHORT STORY.

(published by special arrangement,l pmmmmtmmmm A DESPERATE ENDEAVObW, A TALE OF ALASKA. By Hume NJsbef, Author of "Bail-up," "Through the Gap," "<£iyer Cromwell Mags," &c, &c. (COPYRIGHT.) CHAPTER lII.—THE FATE OF A WOMAN. continued. Cecil Waibrook was much bettci equipped than were most ot his lei-low-auventurers to the new Jil Dorado ot the snowy norm, lie had a years provisions with mm, unci money enougn to cany nun aiong in comtort as tar as the line ot civilisation extended.

It was the end of August before he reached Vancouver, anu althougn strongly advised to wait there, until spring, so eager was ne to' proceea north tliat Ue puid no attention to the warnings, except to provision -hnnselr. amply and provide hnnseii with extia turs. . He was about to face wintei in its most savage aspect, and piucK a loiiune, if possible, from the jaws ot death.

At Vancouver he was lucky enough to become acquainted with a Scoicn miner, by name Adam Wilson, wlio bad spent most of his life on the goldtields oX Australia, and who was now like Himself waiting on a cbance to

get to the Yukon River. Adam was a rough companion, but he had the experience that Cecil as yet lacked; therelore the two men joined forces, and securing a passage in the last boat of the season bound for Dyea, they shipped their traps and started ou their adventures. It was a rougn and slow as well as dangerous passage round that sterile and forbidding coast, and might have forced less resolute men to pause beiure they went on to more deadly dangers and privations, but the two comrades were both hercely impatient to move on. At Uvea, they procured what they required; a couple, of large sledges with dogs, horses, and two Indian guides, who for a heavy bribe consented to leave the settlement. They got to Juneau without mishap, and then- without pausing longer, than to purchase some more provisions, they pushed on towards the Chilkoot Pass. The settlers of Juneau, after vainly trying to persuade them to camp there till winter was over, saw them depart with grave foreboding. They were amply provided for in the matterof provisions, wraps, and furnishing, the weather still remained open, if piercingly cold, but winter was terribly close at hand. Three days after they had departed a dreadful blizzard swept over the land, and after that men barred their - doors and shut themselves inside their houses, to wait until the long Arctic night was over.

Cecil Walbrook and his comrade set out on that wild trail with dogged resolve to let no difficulties conquer them. As for the Indians, they were indifferent stoics, and cared nothing for the dangers and privations before them, so that they were well fed, and received their wages regularly. They were not social companions, these guides, but they knew their business thoroughly, and dm their duty faithfully—if sullenly. They got on fairly well for the first two days, then came that terrible blizzard which rushed down upon them without warning, froze everything up, and buried the land with snow. It caught them in a valley; so that its deadly force was considerably broken uy the lofty wall-like cliffs that surrounded them. This. was fortunate for them in the first place, as no human life could have survived that fearful storm on the heights. Fortunate also they were that it converted this valley into a prison, by stopping up all the passes from it. They did not think this during the long months of darkness that they were immured in this valley, but afterwards Cecil had reason to be grateful to Providence for that mercy shown to him.

The Indians acted promptly under the circumstances, after the worst ot the blizzard was over and the snow had for the. time ceased to fall. They hxed upon the highest elevation which the valley afforded, which chanced to be under a shelving cliff, and began to erect their winter quarters. All hands were employed at this work, fo.-. every hour was now vital. They pick ed at and shovelled the snow, whicl froze as fast as it fell, until they ha cleared a considerable space of ground, then they built their snow hut, leaving a small tunnel only to creep out and in.

After making the place as comfortable as possible, in fact, 'building this house round their stock, they occupied themselves cutting down as much lirewood as they could. The valley was fairly well wooded with larch and birch trees, and the blizzard had torn many of the young trees up by the roots, so that they had only to cut these into portable lengths and carry them inside. This task kept their blood in circulation, and themselves cheerful while it lasted.

They might as well have stopped in Juneau, however, as they saw now when it was too late to turn back, it would have saved them all the extra expense of having to feed their assistants and sacrifice the horses. The provender which they had brought for thair horses they, however, utilised to keep their mattresses and blankets from the ground, and the animals they killed and cut up for food; an hour's exposure outside made the pieces solid as blocks of ice. The dogs, however, they kept alive and CUM regularly. They were not uncomfortable in these winter quarters, for they had a good supply of food, drink, and tobacco. They were not without some pleasure and excitement either; for although the daylight was .short, three hours at most as the winter advanced, yet the moonlights were beautiful and some famished game found them out and fell victims to their guns. Cecil soon got used to the intense cold, which was often 80 degrees below zero, but his comrade Adam Wilson, succumbed to it, after a lingering month or two, and died before Christmas. They buried him otr

amongst the snow, aud then existence became mote dismal to Cecil Walbiuuk.

Uniy the most robust could have survived me extremity of that terrible winter, out it had one good effect on the survivor. He became like iron, and so was prepared tor the greater hardships still before him. When spring came, with its hurricanes of rain and wind, which cleared the passes,, he telt conudent of being able to face the thousand miles still before him. As tney struggled on their way through the horrors of the Chilkoot Pass, he was able to appreciate the mercy that had been shown to him, in locking him within that sheltering valley. When the snows had melted he passed hundreds of uncovered skele tons and corpses of victims who had fallen by the way. It was like walking through the Valley of Death, or tracing the course of an army. From Moscow to Poland must have resembled this trail, the spring after Napoleon's retreat; and tiie gold still lay beyond that awful sacrifice.

It took them three-and-a-half months of unparalleled privations and dangers, from Hoods, landslips, and other difficulties, before they reached Dawson City," and when they got there they found the place in a state of famine. All the winter the inhabitants had been on short commons, so that the stores which Cecil managed to bring he was forced to distribute.

The gold was there right enough; and if he had cared to realise on his stock he might have sold his goods at his own price to those famished diggers and their families. Cecil, however, had not the heart to do this; therefore in a very short time he was reduced to the condition of those around him, but by "his sacrifice he had won the goodwill of the whole community.

The gold was in the country right enough, and many had been successful. But the luck of Cecil Walbrook was that of the majority. All that short summer he toiled without success, and when winter came once again, he seemed as far as ever from his fortune. Pride, or shame at his failure, kept him from writing home.

Success or disaster, are often like epidemics; they run a course until some mysterious power checks them and turns them aside. Now, whether it was that Jack Colvin's money brought good fortune or.the sacrifice of Cecil had been accepted by the Fates, but from the hour that the banker, Edmund Walbrook, cashed that princely cheque. Fortune left off persecuting and bestowed upon him her best gifts instead. The first ten thousand sufficed to put him out of danger; before his next bills came due he was enabled to meet them out of the results of his own speculations without encroaching upon the standing fund, and before Christmas arrived, the bank was once more on its former steady and opulent basis. He had weathered the storm without causing alarm to the depositors and shareholders, and could once again face the world as an honest man.

But he would never be able to forget that awful crisis through which he had passed, unknown to all except himself, his absent son, and his God. When he went to church, it was no longer for the sake of respectability, but with the contrite and earnest spirit of a grateful sinner who had been spared to witness the Divine mercy. It takes a miracle to subdue most hearts, and few lives pass without one, at least, being vouchsafed to them, if they have eyes to see and wits to understand. Edith Stanmore told no one what Cecil had told her, but visited the banker and his wife, still as the engaged wife of their absent son. She thought with bitterness upon the father who had caused them to part, but she hid this feeling in her own breast, and went about hoping that all would yet be well. The last letters were dated from Dyea, and they knew no more could possibly come before the next year, therefore they had to wait as patiently as human nature could endure slow suspense. Christmas passed and Easter came, to be succeeded by hot summer, and still no signal from Cecil. Jack Colvin ran as often as he could down from the city and made himself agreeable, but he did not attempt any love-making. He was satisfied to be regarded as her friend for the present, and he could afford to wait. The time came for that bill of eighty thousand pounds to be met or renewed, and no word from the absent man. There were rumours now and then floated over from America of gold being discovered in British Columbia, but nothing in the nature of a boom to cause the London speculators to interest themselves. The difficulties of the country were too great for many men to risk. The few who had gone prospecting were, like Cecil Walbrook, unheard of. Explorers reported that only for a few weeks in the summer could life be supported; during the long winter, no life could exist. The land was an ice-locked and hopeless waste. Jack Colvin did not disturb the bill and agreement. He felt sure now that his money was gone, but he did not consider the priqe too high for* the chances he now had of winning the woman he sincerely and devotedly loved.

Another winter fell upon England, and then even Edith Stanmore gave up, hope. She had studied the geography of that far away north, and she knew that if Cecil had , survived he would have written. He was dead — and that love page was closed for ever! She was twentv-three this second winter, about the age when some women regard the past with regret, and the future with a vague uneasiness. As they get older they lose this unhappy dread, but the most steadfast of women at twenty-three do not like to contemplate those spreading years of solitude.

Jack Colvin had quietly but persistently made himself her most intimate friend, and ingratiated himself with her relatives. He was too important a personage for any of his other male acquaintances to offer to compete against him, and while treating her with the utmost respect he managed in his quiet, dominant way to keep rivals back.

'"■ The banker had long since mourned his son as dead, as all who had known him did; and so it came to pass that a little over twentv-four months from the date of Cecil Walbrook's departure Edith Stanmore engaged herself to his friend Jack Colvin. She did not love the man she had accepted, nor did he ask that yet from her; but she respected him. as all the world did, as an honorable and wellliving man. Jack Colvin was a Napoleon of/finance, and a grave student of hums' "nature, also the most devoted of overs, but he was not nor .could he be demonstrative as Cecil had been.

The tears she shed in her own room, as she burnt the letters of her dead hero, are unrecorded. In the future she would do her duty, and in time duty would become a sweet pleasure, as duty faithfully performed always becomes.

The marriage was fixed for December, and everything was prepared on a regal scale. The man who could drop eighty thousand without an afterconsideration would celebrate his happiness like a king. Two days before her wedding Edith received a letter in the writing of that hand that she thought long dead. She took it to her own room and read it carefully through, and then burned it, without a tear. It was written from New York, and annonuced v that Cecil was following it by the next boat. He had not written because he had been unsuccessful up to within a few weeks of his present letter. Now he was rich and returning. The bitterness which Edith had felt towards the father passed on to the son. Was a woman's heart to be weighed by gold? Could he think of her eating that heart out, longing for a word, and yet remain silent ? She wrote a reply which would reach him at Plymouth. It was brief, and as follows:—"Forget me. I have married your friend."

Jack Colvin that same day got his letter announcing that Cecil had sold one claim to a New York syndicate for three hundred thousand pounds, and was bringing over two other claims to float in London. He had discovered gold in prodigious quantities on the Yukon River.

Jack sat still after her read this letter from his partner, and thoujrht would he inform Edith about this un-

expected resurrection and let her decide which of her two lovers she would take now, or hold his tongue till after the marriage. He rose after a few moments of meditation, and locking this letter in beside the bill and agreement, murmured, "No. I'll let things take their course. If he has written to her she will have decided ; if not, it is too late."

Two days after this Mr._ and Mrs. Colvin departed upon their wedding tour. (The End.)

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