KLONDIKE STORIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9918, 5 August 1910, Page 4

KLONDIKE STORIES.

♦ . By JACK LONDON '■ ''(Author o* "The Sea Wolf," "The Call of the Wild,'; etc.). , No, IV. FLUSH OF GOLD. [All Right? Reserved.] . Ljpn M'Fane was a bit grumpy, what "of losing his tobacco pouch, or else he might have told me, before Ave got to it, something about the cabin at Surprise Lake. All day, turn and turn iibout, Ave had spelled each other at (Joing to the fore and breaking trail for the dogs. It was heavy snowshoe work, and did not tend to make a man .voluble, yet Lon M'Fane might have found breath enough at noon, when Ave popped to boil coffee, with which to tell me. But ■he didn't. Surprise Lake?—it Avas Surprise Cabin to me. 1 .had never heard of it before, 'vl confess I Avas a bit tired. I had •"' fc«en looking for Lon to stop and make* camp any time for an hour; but I had ,Iqo much pride'to suggest making camp or., to ask him his intentions; and rot . ttVwas my man, hired at a liambomo to mush my dogs for me amL.to &bey my commands. I guess I was a bit. grumpy myself. He- said nothing. I was resolved to ask nothing, even if Ave' tramped on all night. 1 '"We came upon tho,cabin ab'V ; l.v. For 'a week of trail Ave had me" ro Mie, and, in ray mind, there ln<l I>!bi: -little likelihood of meeting anyone It i weak to come. And yet there ;b was, right'before my eyes, a cabin, with a Him light in the window and smoke curling up from the chimney. ' " Why . didn't you tell me ," I began, but was interrupted by Lon, jvho mattered: . •\J : Surprise Lake—it lies up a small feeder half a mile on. It's only a pond." "Yes. but the cabin—Avho lives in It?" I demanded. "A woman," was the answer, and tho neit moment Lon had rapped an -ihe'dooi' and a woman's voice bade hi'u '■ "Have you seen Dave recenay*" i/ie asked.Lon. "Nope." Lon answered, carekas'y. " I've been in the other direction, 3own city Avay. Dave's up Dawson ivay, ain't he?" .The woman nodded, and Lon fell to unharnessing the dogs, Avhile I unlashed the sled..and carried the camp outfit into, the ctfbin. The cabin Avas a largo, one-room affair, and the woman Avas evidently alone in it. She pointed to the stove,' Adhere" Ayatcr Avas already boiling, and Lon set about the preparation of supper, Avhilo I opened the fish bag and fed the dogs. I looked for Lon •to introduce us, and was vexed that he did not, for they were evident- " "You are Lon M'Fane, aren't you?" I. heard her ask him. "Why, I remember you now. The last time I saw you ,' It avas'on a steamboat, wasn't it? Why, li remember ..."

" Her speech seemed suddenly to he frozen,by the spectacle of dread winch, I knew from the terror I saw mounting V 111-her eyes, must be on her inner vision. To,iny astonishment, Lon was affected \, ;by her words and manner. His face 5.- showed desperate for a moment, for all '. '. voice sounded hearty and genial, as he said: '■<■'■ ""■ -" "The last time we met was at Daw»on, Queen's Jubilee, or Birthday—or i~, something—don't you remember?—the \. canoe races in the river, and the ob- , jtacle races down the main street?" ■. . As he talked the terror faded out of -_ ther eyes and her whole body relaxed. : "■ " " Oh, yes; Jdo remember," she said. »■•' And you won on© of the canoe races." •"' "How's Dave been makin' it lately? -' Striking it rich as ever, I suppose?" Lon asked, with apparent irrelevance. - She smiled and nodded, and then, noticing that I had .unla shed the bed

roll, she indicated the end of the cabin whore I might spread it. Her own bunk, I noticed, was made up at the - opposite end. '< " I thought it was Dave coming when I heard,your dogs," she said..

■ And after that she said nothing, contenting herself with watching LonV pooking operations,. and listening, the while, as for the sound of dogs along „ ■ t)ie trail. I lay back on the blankets, 1 'could make that much out; ' *' but no more could I make out. "Why in ,'„,. the deuce hadn't Lon given mo the" tip ii' wo arrived? I-looked at her \" unnoticed by her, and.the longer V'.-i I' looked th© harder it was to take ray eyes away. It was a wonderfully beau- / ' "tjful face, unearthly, I may say, with '■" .flight in it, or an expression or somo- :. . thing that was never on land or sea. ,*- Ifear and terror had completely vanished, and it was a placidly beautifulv -. face, if by " placid " one can eharacter- >" isp that intangible and occult something 'J 'tihat even now I cannot say was a radi- '- iflce or a light any more than 1 can say if was an expression. '"•Abruptly, as if for the first time, she became awaro of my presence. ''Have you seen Dave recently?" }he asked me. ■ifli was on the tip of my tongue to "ay, "Dave who?" when Lon coughed ' In the smoke that arose from the sizzling baoon. The bacon might havo .caused that cough, hut I took it as a . bint, and left mv question unasked. '•."No, I haven't." I answered. "You Kje, I'm new in this part of the coun- ''*. ".fe " ■""'But you don't mean*to say/' she Interrupted, "that you've never heard - - »f Dave—of big Dave Walsh?" ""You see," I apologised, "I'm new in the country. I've put in most of my time in the lowpr country, down Nome ■ way." " " Tell him about Dave," she said to -Lon. '

Lon seemed put out, but ho began in '. ,ihat hearty, genial manner that I had 'noticed before. It seemed a shade too hearty and genial, and it irritated me." -' "Oh, Dave is a fine man," he said, "ft damn fine man. He's a man, every Inch of him, Md he stands six feet four -in his"socks. His word is as good as his bond. The man lies who ever says Dave " * .told. & lie, and that man will have to fight'with me, too, as well—if there is anything left of him when Dave gets done with him. For Dave is p, fighter. ,Oh, yes, he's a scrapper from way back. ! He.got a grizzly with a .36 popgun. He 'got clawed some, but he knew what he was doin'. He'went into the cave on

purpose to get that'grizzly. 'Fraid of nothing. Free an' easy with his money, or his last shirt and match when out of money. Why, he drained Surprise Lake here in three weeks, an' took out ninety thousand,'' didn't he ?" She flushed and nodded her head ■ proudly. Through his recital she had S i followed every " word with keenest interest. ' "An' I must say." Lon went on, " that I was disappointed sore on nob * meeting Dave here to-night." ' - Lon served supper at one end of the liable of whip-sawed spruce, and we fell lo eating. A howling of the dogs took tlie woman to the door. She opened it j »n inch and listened. ' " Where-is Dave Walsh ?" I asked, in «n undertone.".Dead," Lon answered, "in hell, H»vhe'. I don't know. Shut up."

"But you just said that you expected to meet him here to-night," I challenge d. "Oh, shut up; can't you," Avas T/on's reply, in "the same cautious under tone. The woman had closed the door, and was returning, and I sat and meditated upon the fact that this man who told me to shut up received from mo a salary of 2oodol a month, to say nothing of his board. Lon washed tlie dishes, Avhile I smoked and watched the woman. She seemed more beautiful than ever—strangely and' Aveirdly beautiful, it is true. After looking at her steadfastly for five minutes"!, was compelled to come back to the real world, and to glance at Lon M'Fane.. This enabled me to know, without.discussion, that the Avoman, too, Avas real. At first I had taken her for the wife of Dave Walsh, but if Dave Walsh Avere dead, as Lon had said, then she could be only his widow. It Avas early to bed, for Ave faced a long day on the morrow, and as Lon crawled in beside me under the blanket I ventured a question. "That Avoman's crazy, isn't she?" "Crazy as a loon," he answered. And before I could formulate my next question Lon M'Fane, I swear, was off to sleep. He always Avent to sleep that Avay —just craAvled into tho blankets, closed his eyes, and Avas off, a demure little heavy breathing rising on the air. Lon never snored. i And in the . morning it was quick breakfast, feed the docs, loud the. sled, and hit the trail. We said good-byo as Ave pulled out, and the AA'oman stood in the doorway and watched us off. " I carried the vision of her unearthly beauty away Avith rac, just under my eyelids, and all I had to do at any time was to close them and sec her again. They way was unbroken, Surprise Lake being far off the travelled trails, and Lou and I took turn about at beating down the feathery snow Avith our big webbed shoes, so that the dogscould travel. "But you said you expected to meet Dave Walsh at the cabin," trembled" on the tip of my tongue a score of times. But I did not utter it.- .1 would Avait until we knocked off in the middle of the day. And Avhen the middle of the day came we went right on, for, as Lon explained, there was a camp of moose hunters at the t forks of the Teelee, and we could make there by dark. But Ave didn't make there by dark, lor Bright, the lead dog, broke his shoulder blade, and : avc lost an hour over him before we shot him. Then, crossing a timber jam on the frozen bed of the Teelee, the sled suffered aNvrcnching capsize, and it was a case of make camp and repair the runner, all of which we did. I cooked supper' and fed the dogs, while Lon made the repairs, and together wo got in a. night's supply of firewood. Then Ave sat on our blankets, our moccasins steaming on up'•ended sticks before the fire, and had our evening smoke.

"You didn't know .Jicr?" Lon queried suddenly. . I shook my head. "You noticed the colour of her hair and eyes ami her complexion; well, that's'where she got her name—she was like the first warm glow of a golden sunrise. She was called- the Flush of Gold. Ever heard of Flush of Gold?" Somewhere I had a confused and misty remembrance of having heard the name, yet it meant nothing to me. "Flush 'of Gold," I repeated; "sounds like the name of a dance house girl." Lon shook his head. " No, sho was a good woman; at least, in that sense, though she sinned greatly just the same."

"But why do you speak always of her in the past tense, as though sho were dead?" I demanded. "Because of the darkness on her soul that is the same as the darkness of death. The' Flush of Gold that I knew, that. Dawson know,, arid FortyMile knew before that, is dead. That dumb, lunatic creature we saw last night was not Flush of Gold." "And Dave?" I queried. "Big Dave Walsh?" "Ho built that cabin," Lon answered. "He built it for her . . .

and for.himself. ,He is dead. She is waiting for him there. Sho half believes he is not dead. But who can know the whim of a crazed mind? Maybe she wholly believes he is not dead. At any rate, she waits for him there in the cabin ho built. Who would rouse the dead P Then who would rouse the living that are dead ? Not I, and that is why I let on to expect to meet Dave Walsh there last night. I'll bet a stack that I'd a-bon more surprised than sho if I had met him there last night."

" I do not understand," I said. "Begin at the beginning, as a white man should, and tell me the whole tale." And Lou began.

"Victor Chauvet'was an old Frenchman—born in the south of France. He came to California in the days of gold. He was a pioneer. He found no gold, but, instead, became a maker of bottled sunshine—in short, a grape grower and wine maker. Also,, he followed gold excitements. That is what brought him to Alaska in the early days, and over the Chilcoot and down the Yukon long before the Carmack strike. The old town site of Tea-Mile was Chauvet's. He carried the first mail into Arctic City. He staked those coal mines on the Porcupine a dozen years ago. He grub-staked Loftus into the Nippennuck country. Now it happened that Victor Chauvet was a good Catholic, loving two things in this world—wine and women. Wine of all kinds he loved, but of woman only one, and she was the mother of Marie Chauvet."

Here I groaned'aloud, having meditated beyond self-control over the fact that I paid tlTis man 250d0l a month. "What's 'the matter now?" he demanded.

" Matter?" I complained. " I thought yon were telling the story of Flush of Gold. I don't want a biography of your old French wine-bibber."

Lon calmly lighted his pipe, took one good puff, then put the pipe aside. ""And you asked me to begin at the beginning?" he said. "yes," said I; "the beginning." '" And the beginning of Flush of Gold is the old French wine-bibber, for he was the father of Marie Chauvet, and Marie Chauvet was the Flush of Gold. What more do you want? "Victor Chauvet never had much luck to speak of. He managed to live, and to get along, and to take good care of Marie, who resembled the one woman he had loved. Ho took very good care of her. Flush of Gold was the pet name he gave her, Flush of Gold Creek .was named after her— Flush of Gold town, too. The old man was great on town sites, only he never landed them. It broke his heart that lie wasn't in on the Dawson, town site.

"Now, honestly," Lon said, with one of his lightning changes, "you've seen her, what do you think of her—of her looks, I mean? How does she strike your colour sense and' your beauty sense?"

" Sho is remarkably beautiful," I said. "I never saw anything like her in my life. In spite of thb fact, last night, that T guessed she was mad, I could not keep my eyes off of her.

It wasn't vulgar curiosity. It was wonder, sheer _ wonder, she was so strangely beautiful." "She was more strangely beautiful before the darkness fell on lier," Lou said, softly. " She was truly the .Flush of Gold. She turned all men's hearts . . . and heads. She recalls, with an effort, that I once won a canoe race at Dawson—l, who once loved her, and was told by her of her love lor me. It was her beauty that made all men love her. She'd a-got the apple from Paris on application, and there wouldn't have been any Trojan War; and, to top it off, she'd have thrown Paris down. And now she lives in darkness, and she who was always fickle for the first time is constant—and constant to a shade, to a dead man she does not realise is dead.

" And this is the way it was. You remember what I said last night of Dave Walsh—big Dave Walsh? Ho was all that I said, and more, many times more. He came into this country in the late eighties—that's a pioneer for you. He was twenty years old then. He was a young bull. When he was twenty-five lie could lift clear of the ground thirteen 501b sacks of flour. At first each fall of the year famine drove him out. Jt was a lone land in those days. No river steam boats, no grub, nothing but salmon bellies and rabbit tracks. But after famine chased him out three years ho said he'd had enough of being chased; and the next year he stayed. He lived on straight meat when he was lucky enough to get it; he at'o eleven dogs that winter; but lie stayed. And the next winter he stayed, and the next. He never aid leave the country again. He was a bull; a - great bull.' He could kill the strongest man in the country with hard work. He could outpack a Chilcoot Indian; he could outpaddle a Stick, and he could travel all day with wet feet when the thermometer registered 50 below aero; and that's going some, I tell you, for vitality. You'd freeze your feet at 25 below if you wet them and then tried to keep on. "DaveAValsh was a bull for strength. And yet he was soft ancr casy-natured Anybody could do him, the latest shorthorn in camp could lie his last dollar out of him. ' But it doesn't worry me,' he had a way of laughing off his softness :■ .' it doesjn't keep me awake nights.'* Now, don't get the idea that he had no backbone. You remember about the bear be went after with the popgun. When it came to fighting, Have was the blamedest ever. Ho was the limit, if by that I may describe his nnlimitedness when he got into action. He was easy and kind with the weak, but the strong had to give trail when he went by. And he was a man that men liked, which is the finest word of all, a man's man. "Dave never took part in the -big stampede to Dawson when Carmack made the Bonanza strike. You see, Dave was just then over on Mammon Creek strikin' it himself. He discovered Mammon Creek. Cleaned oighty-four thousand up that winter, and opened xip the claim, so that it promised a couple of hundred thousand for tin next winter. Then, summer bein' on and the ground sloshy, he took a triy up the Yukon to Dawson to see wha" Carmack's strike looked like. And then, he saw Flush of Gold. I remember the night. I Khali always remember. It was something sudden, and it makes one shiver to think of a strong man with all the .strength withered out of him by one glance from the soft eyes of a Aveak, blonde female creature like Flush of Gold. It was at her dad's cabin, old. Victor Chauvet's. Some friend had brought Dave along to talk over town sites on Mammon Creek. But little talking did he do, and what he did was mostly gibberish. I tell you the sight of Flush of Gold had sent Dave clean daffy. Old Victor Chauvet insisted after Dave left that he had been drunk. And so he had. He was drunk, he went away drunk, but Flush of Gold was the strong drink -that made him so.

"That settled it, that fust glimpse he caught of her. He did not start hack down the Yukon in a week, as he had intended. He lingered on a month, two months, all summer. And we, who had suffered, understood and wondered what the outcome would he. Undoubtedly, in our minds, it'seemed that Fhish of Gold had met her master. And why not? There was romance sprinkled all over Dave Walsh. He was a Mammon King, he had made the Mammon Creek strike, he was an old sour dough, one of the oldest pioneers in the land—-

men turned to look at him when lie went -hf, find gaM to one another in awed undertones, ' There goes Dave Walsh.' And why not? Ho stood six feet four; he had yellow hair himself that curled on His neck: and he was a bull—a yellow-maned bull just tinned thirty-one. " And Flush of Gold loved him, and, having danced him through a whole summer's courtship, at the end their engagement was made known. The fall of the year was at hand. Dave had to be back for the winter's' work on .Mammon Creek, and Flush of Gold refused to be married right away. Dave put Dusky Burns in charge of Mammon Creek claim, and himself lingered on in Dawson. Little use. She wanted her freedom a little longer; she must have it, and she would not many until next year. And so, on the first ice, after the freeze up, Dave Walsh went alone down the Yukon behind his dogs, with the understanding that the marriage would take place when he arrived on the first steamboat of the nest year. "Now, Dave was true as the Pole Star, and she Avas as false as a magnetic needle in a cargo of magnets. Dave was as steady and solid as she was fickle and fly-away, and in some way Dave, who never doubted anybody, doubted her. It was the jealousy of his love perhaps, and maybe it was the mossase ticked off from her soul to his; but, at any rate, Dave was worried by fear of her inconstancy. He was afraid to trust her till the next year; ho had so to trust her, and he was pretty well beside himself. Some of it I got from old Victor Chauvet afterwards, and from all that I have pieced together I conclude that there was something of a scene before Dave pulled north with his dogs. He stood up before the old Frenchman, with Flush of Gold beside him, and announced that they were plighted to each other. He was very dramatic, with fire in his eyes, old Victor said. He talked something about ' until death do us part,' and. old Victor especially remembered that at one place Dave took her by the shoulder with his great par.' and almost shook her as he said, ' Even unto death you arc mine, and I would rise from the grave to claim you.' Old Victor distinctly remembered those words, ' Even unto death you are mine., and I would rise from the grave to claim you.' And he told me afterwards that Flush of Gold was pretty badly frightened and that he took Dave "to one side privately and told him that that wasn't the way to hold Flush of Gold—that he must humour her and gentle her it he wanted to keep hei. There was no discussion in my mind but that Flish of Gold was frightened. She was a savage herself in her treatmen of men, while men had always treated her as a soft and tender and too utterly utter something that must not.be hurt. She didn't know Avhat harshness was . . . until. Dave Walsh, standing his six feet four, a big bull, gripped her and pawed her and as~ sured her that she was his until death, and then some. And besides, in Dawson that winter was a music playerone of those macaroni-eating*, greasy tenor Eyetalian dago propositions—and Flush of Gold lost her heart to him. Maybe it was only fascination —I don't know. Sometimes it seems to mo that she really did love Dave Walsh. Perhaps it was because he bad frightened her with that even unto death, rise from the grave stunt of his that she in the end inclined to the dago music player. But it is all guess work, and the facts are sufficient. He wasn't a dago; he "was a Russian count—this was straight, and he wasn't a professional piano player or auything of the sort. He played the violin and piano and he sang—sang well—but it was for his own pleasure and for the pleasure of those he sang for. He had money, too—and right here lot me say thatFlush of Gold never cared a rap for money. She was fickle, but she was never sordid.

11 But to bo getting along. She was plighted to Dave, and Dave was corning up on the first steamboat to get lier—that was the summer of '9B, and the first steamboat was to bo expected the middle of June. And Flush of Gold was afraid fo throw Dave, down and face him afterwards. It was all planned suddenly. The Russian music player, the count, was her obedient slave. She planned it. I know. I learned as much from old Victor afterwards. Tho count took his orders from her, and 1 caught that first steamboat down. It was the Golden Rocket. And so did Flush of Gold catch it. And so did J. I was going to Circle City, and I was flabergasted when I found Plush •of Gold ou board. I. didn't see her name down on the passenger list. She- was with the Count-fellow all the time, happy and smiling, and I noticed that tbe-Count-fellow was down on the list as having his wife along. Thert it was, state room, number and all. The first I knew that he was married, only I didn't see anything of tho wife . '. . unless Flush of Gold was so counted. 1 wondered if they'd sot married ashore before starting. There's been talk about them in Daw Son, you sco, and bets had been laid that trie Count-fellow had cut Dave out.

"I talked with the Purser. He didn't know anything more about it than I did, he didn't know Flush of Gold anyway, and besides he was almost rushed to death. You know what a Yukon steamboat is, but you can't guess what the Golden Rocket Avas Avhen it left Dawson that June of 1898. She was a hummer: Being the first steamer out, she carried alPthe scurvy patients and hospital wrecks. Then she must have carried a oouple of millions of Klondike dust and nuggets, to say nothing of a packed and jammed passenger list, deck passengers galore, and bucks and squar.si and dogs without end. And she wae loaded down to tlie guards with freight and baggage. There was a mountain of the same on the fore-lower-dock, and each little stop along the Avay added to it. I saw the box come aboard at Teelee Portage, and I knew it for what it was, though I little guessed the joker that was in it. And they piled it on top of everything- else on the fo'i'e-lower-dcck, and they didn't pile it any too securely either. The mate expected to come back to it again, and then forgot all about it. .1 thought "at the time that there was something familiar about the big huskydog that climbed over the baggage and freight and lay down nest to'tho'box.

" And then Ave passed the Glendale. bound up for .Dawson. As she saluted us 1 thought of Dave on board of her and hurrying to Dawson for Flush of Gold. I turned and looked at her where she stood by the rail. Her eyes were bright, but she looked a bit frightened by the sight of the other steamer, and she was leaning closely to the Count-fellow as for protection". She needn't have loaned so safely against him, and I needn't have been so sure of a disappointed Dave Walsh arriving at Dawson. For Dave Walsh wasn't on tho Glendale. There were a lot of things I didn't know, but was soon to knoAV—for instance, that the pair was not yet married. Inside half an hour preparations for the marriage took place. What of the .sick mcu 7n the main cabin, and of the crowded condition of the Golden Kocket, the likeliest place for tho ceremony' was

found forward, on the lower deck, in an open space next to the rail and gang plank, and shaded by the mountain of freight with the big box on top, and the sleeping dog beside it. There was a missionary on board, getting off at Eagle City, which was the next stop, so they had to use him quick. That's what they planned to do, get married on the boat. "But I've rim ahead of the facte. The reason why Dave Walsh wasn't on the Glendale was because he 'was on the Golden Rocket. It was this way. After loiterin' in Dawson on account of Flush of Gold, he went down to Mammon Creek on the ice. And there he found Dusky Burns doing so well with the claim, there was no need for him to be around. So ho put some grub on the sledge, harnessed the dogs, took an Indian along, and pulled out for Surprise Lake. He always had a liking for that section. Maybe you don't know how the creek turned out to be a four-flusher; but the prospects were good at the time, and Dave proceeded" to build his cabin and hers. That's the cabin we slept' in. After he finished it, he went off on a moose hunt to the forks of Teelee, takuV the Indian along.

"And this is what happened. Came on a cold snap. The juice went down forty, fifty/ sixty below zero. I remember that snap—l was at FortyMile, and I remember the very day. At eleven o'clock in the morning the spirit thermometer at the N.A.T. and T. Company's store went down to seventy-five- below zero. And that morning, near the forks of the Teelee, Dave Walsh was out after moose with that blessed Indian of his. I got it all from the Indian afterwards—we made a trip over the ice together to Dyoa. That morning Mr Indian broke through the ice and wet himself to the waist. Of course, he began to freeze right away. The proper thing was to build a fire. But Dave Walsh was a bull. It was only half a mile to camp, where a fire was already burning. What was the good of building another? He threw Mr Indian over his shoulder — and ran with him —half a mile—with the thermometer at seventy-five below. You know what that means. Suicide. There's no other name for it. Why, that buck Indian weighed over two hundred pounds himself, and Dave ran half a mile with him. Of course, he froze his lungs. Must have frozen them near solid. It was a torn-fool trick for any man to do. , And anyway, after lingering . horribly for seven weeks, Dave Walsh died.

" The Indian didn't know what to do with the corpse. Ordinarily, he'd have buried him and let it go at that. But lie knew that Dave Walsh was a big man, worth lots of money, a hi-yu skookum chief. Likewise he d seea / the bodies of other hi-yu skookums carted around the- country like they were worth something. So he decided .to take Dave's body to Forty Mile, which was. Dave's headquarters. You know bow the ice is on the grass roots in this country—well, the Indian, planted Davo under about a foot of soil—in short, he put Dave on ice. Dave could ' have stayed there a thousand years and still been the same old Dave. You understand—just the same as a refrigerator. Then the Indian brings over a whip saw from the cabin at Surprise ' Lake and makes lumber enough for the box. Also, waiting for the thaw, he goes out and shoots about 10,000 pounds of moose. This he keeps on ice, too. Came the thaw. The Teelee broke. He built a raft and loaded it with the meat, the bjg box Avith Dave inside, and Dave's team of dogs, and away they went down the Teelee:

"The raft got caught on a .timber jam and hung up two days. It Ayas scorching hot weather, and Mr Indian nearly lost his moose meat. So.when be got to Teelee Portage he. figured.a. steamboat would get to Forty M.ile quicker than his rait. He transferred his cargo, and. there vou are, fore lower deck ot the Golden" Rocket. Flush of Gold being married and Dave Walsh in his big box casting! the shade for her. And there's one other thing I clean forgot. No wonder I thought the husky dog'that came aboard at Teelee Portage was familiar. It Avas Pee-lat, Dave Walsh's lead dog and favourite—a terrible fighter, too. He was lying down beside the box. >

" Flush of Gold caught sight of me, called mc over, shook hands with me, and introduced nit to the Count. She was beautiful. I was as mad for her then as ever. She smiled into my eyes and said I must sign as one of the Avitnesses. And'there- was no refusing her. ' She was ever a child, cruel as children arc cruel. Also, she told, me she was in possession of the ; only two bottles of champagne in Dawson—or that had boon iff Dawson the night before; and before I know it I was scheduled to drink her and the Count's health. Everybody crowded round, the captain of the steamboat very prominent, trying to ring in on the wine, I guess. It Avas a funny wedding. Oil the upper deck the hospital wrecks. Avith various feet in the -graft', gathered and looked down to see. There Avere Indians all jammed in the circle, too, big bucks, and their squaws and kids, to say nothing of about twenty-five snarling wolf dogs. " The'missionary lined the two of them up and started in with the service. And just then, a dog fight started, high up on. the pile of freight— Vce-lat, lying beside the big box, and a white-haired brute belonging to one of-the Indians. The fight wasn't explosive at all. The brutes just snarled at each other from a distance—tapping at each other long-distance, you know, saying dast and dassent, dast and dasseiit." The noi«o was rather disturbing, but you could hear the missionary's voice above it. "There Avas no particularly easy way of getting at the two dogs, except from the ether side of the pile. But nobody was on that side—everybody Avatching the ceremony, you see. Even then everything m'iaht have been all right if tho 'Captain hadn't throAvn a club at the dogs. That Avas Avhat precipitated evorvtlTing. As I say, if the Captain hadii't thrown that club nothing might have happened. "The missionary had just readied the point where he was saying < In sickness and in health.' and ' Until death do us part.' And just then the Captain threw the club. I saAV the whole thing. It landed on *Pee-lat, and at that"instant the white brute jumped him. The club caused it. Their ttvo bodies struck the box. and it began to slide, its lower end tilting down. It was a long, oblong box. and it slid down sloAvly until it reached, the perpendicular, when it came doAvn-.on the run. The onlookers on that side the circio had time to get out from under. Flush of Gold and the Count, on the opposite side of the circle, were facing the box: the missionary had his back to it. The box must have fallen ten feet straight up and down, and it hit end on.

I '• Now. mind you, not one of us knew j/tliat Dave Walsh was dead. Wo thought he was on the Glcudale, bound for Dawson. The missionary had edged* off to one side, and so Flush of Gold faced the box when it struck. It was like in a play. It couldn't have been bettor planned. It struck on end, and on the right oiicl: the whole front of the box came off; and out swept Dayc- Walsh, on his feet, partly wrapped in a blanket, Ins yellow hair flying and showing bright in the sun. Kight out of the box. on. his foot, he swept upon Flush of Gold. She didn't know ho was dead, but it was unmistakable, after hanging up two days on. a timber-jam, that he was rising all right from the dead to claim her. Possibly that is what she thought. At any rate, the sight froze her. She couldn't movo. She just sort of wilted and watched Davo Walsh coming for her. And lie got her. It looked" almost as though ho throw his arms around her, hut whether or not this happened, down to the deck they went together. We had to drag Dave Walsh's body clear before we could get hold of her. She- was in a faint, but it would have been jmst as well if sho had*never come out of that faint; for when she did she fell tO' screaming tho way insane people do. Sho ko.pt it up for'hours, till she was exhausted. '•' Oh, yes, she recovered. You saw Kav Ust niorht. and know how inucis

recovered she is. Sho is not violent, it is true, but she lives in. darkness. She believes that she is waiting for Dave Walsh, and so she waits in the cabin he built for her. She is no longer fickle. It is nine years now that she has been faithful to Dave Walsh, and the outlook is that she'll be faithful to him to the end." Lou M'Fane pulled down, the top of the blankets and prepared to crawl in. "Wo have her grub hauled to her each year," he added, " and in general keep an eye on her. Last night was the first time she ever recognised us, though," " Who are the we?" I. asked. "Oh," was the answer, "the Count and old Victor Chauvet, and me. Do you know, I think the Count is the one to be really sorry for. Dave Walsh never did know that she was false to him. And she does not suffer. Her darkness is merciful to her." I lay silently under the blankets for the space of a minute. " Is the' Count still in the country?" I asked. But there was a gentle sound of heavy breathing, and 1 knew Lon M'Fane was asleep.