The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, March 13, 1904, Page 7

THE SAN FRANCISCO ' SUNDAY CALL. 7 by Jack SAYTHER'S London,) career meteori was the lai 0-for the m with this of ub shoulders e other than ther's voy- ked his dis- bank, gain I s de cabir e care ease with made the landing, there went round to the latch to enter, mind and let fall Then she suddenly kn and kissed the e rude it hold. If Pierre Foun- e gave no sign, and the in the time to come was never But the next instant one of placidly lighting his pipe, ed by an unwonted harshness n's voice. H fou! Le Goire! You mak’m ft more “etter,” Pierre commanded. bearskin; plenty blanket. 1e nest was soon after disrupted and the major portion tossed up to the f the shore, where Mrs. Sayther vn to wait in comfort. him come thees tam,” he whis- after a lon~ silence, his gaze the river to the head of tke Ah pered bent v island A cance, with a paddle flashing on was slipping down the cur- » a mans form and swung rhythmi- Dipping long strokes 1. in concert with the rled the tiny craft urrent ard brought re. Another instant d at the top of the bank, e, hand under hand, either side en In he bov oman vork. the f fresh killed moose. Then followed -her and together, swift rush, they drew up the The dogs were a whining T them, and as the girl stop g them caressingly the man’s upon M her, who had He shed his ey un- conscicusly as though his sight were i ving him, and looked again. Karen,” he said coming for- d extending his hand, “I he moment I was dream- vblind for a time this nd since then my eyes have tricks with me.” now, Dave, I threatened often and 1 would have, too, only— only—— Only I didn’t give the word.”, David Payne laughed and watched the Indian girl disappearing into the cabin. Oh, I understand, Dave, and had I been in your place I'd most probably have done the same. But I have come Then come a little bit further into 1 and get something to eat,” iall. ignoring or missing gestion of appeal in And you must be tired, too. h way you traveling? Up? Then you wintered in Dawson, or came Your camp?’ He ageurs circled about d held back the he open, a to enter. came up on the ice from Circle last winter,” he continued, “and down here for a while. Am on Henderson Creek, been thinking of 11 up the Stuart iver “You aren’t changed much, are you?” asked, antly, striving to ion upon a more perhaps, and a How do you But che shrugged her shoulders and peered through the dim ftight at the Indian girl, who had lighted the fire and wi. frying gr chunks of moose meat, alternated with thin ribbons of bacon. “Did you stop in Dawson long?” The man was whittling stave of birch- wood into a rude ax handle, and asked the question without raising his head. “Oh, a few days,” she answered, fol- lowing the girl with her eyes, and hard- ly hearing. “What were you saying? In Dawson? A month, in fact, and gl=d to get away. The arctic male is elemental, you know, and somewhat strenuous in his feelings.” 7 ot/ 1 et ’,/A 7”% e “Bound to be when he gets right down to the soil. He leaves convention with the spring becC at home. But you were wise in your choice of time for leav- inz. You'll be out of the country be- fore mosquito season, which is a bless- ing your lack ®f experience will not permit you to appreciate.” “I suppose not. But tell me about yourself, about your life,. What kind of neighbors have you? Or have you any?” “I did have some,” he replied. “Mis- sov-‘2n chaps, and a couple of Cornish- men, but they went down to El Dorado to work at wages for a grubstake.” Mrs. Sayther cast a look of specula- tive regard upon the girl. *“But, of course, there are plenty of Indians about?” “Every mother’s son of them down to Dawson long ago. Not a native in the whole country, barring Winapie here, and she’'s a Koyokuk lass—conies from & thousand miles or so down the river.” Mrs. Sayther felt suddenly faint, and though the smile of interest in no wise waned, the face of the man seemed to draw away to a telescopic distance and the tiered logs of the cabin to whirl drunkenly about. “You do not ask why I came north?"” she asked. “Surely you know.” They had moved back from the table, and David Payne had returned to his ax handle. “Did you get my letter?” “A last one? No, I don't think so. Most probably it's trailing around the Birch Creek country or lying in some trader’s shack on the Lower River. The way they run the mails in here is shameful. No order, no system, no—"" “Don’'t be wooden, Dave. Heln me!” She spoke sharply now, with an as- sumption of authority which rested on the past. “Why don’t you ask me about myself? About those we knew in the old times? Have you no longer any interest in the world? Do you know that my husband is dead?” “Indeed, I am sorry. How long—" “David!” She was ready to cry with vexation, but the reproach she threw into her voice .xsed her. “Did you get any of my letters? You must " ~ve got some of them, though you never answered. “Well, I didp’t get the last one, an- nouncing, evidently, the death of your husband, and most likely others went astray; but I did get some. I—er—read them aloud to Winapie as a warning —that is, you know, to impress upon her the wickedness of her white sisters. And I—er—think she profited by it. Don’'t you?” & She disregarded the sting and went on. “In the last letter, which you did not receive, I told, as you hav. guess- ed, of Colonel Sayther’s death. That was a year ago. I also said that if you did not come out to me I would go in to you. And as I had often promised, I came.” k “I know of no promise.” “In the earlier letters?” “Yes, you promised, but as I neither asked nor answered, it was unratified. So I do not know of any such promise. But I do know of another, which you, too, may remember. It was very long ago.” He dropped the ax handle to the floor and* raised his head. “It was so very long ago, yet I remember it dis- tinctly, the day, the time, every detail. ‘We were in a rose garden, you and I— your mother’s rose garden. All things were budding, bjossoming, and the sap of spring was in our blood. And I drew you over—it was the first—and kissed you full on the lips. Don't you remem- ber?” “Don’t- go over it, Dave, don’t! I know every shameful line of it. How often have I wept! If you only knew how I have suffered—" “You promised me then—ay, and a thousand times in the sweet days that followed. Each look of your eyes, each touch of your hand, each syllable that fell from your lips, was a promise. And then—how shall I say?—there came a man. He was pld—old enough to have begotten you—and not nice to look upon, but as the world goes, clean. He had done no wrong, followed the letter of the law, was respectable. Fur- ther, and to the point, he possessed some several paltry mines—a scorg; it does not matter; and he owned a few miles of lands, and engineered deals and clipped coupons. ‘He——"" “But there ‘were other things,” she interrupted, “I told you. Pressure— money matters—want—my people— trouble. You understood the whole sit- uation. I could not help it. It was not my will. I was sacrificed, or I sacri- ficed, have it as you wish. But, my God! Dauve, I gave you up! You never did me justice. Think what I have gone through!” “It was not your will? Pressure? Under high heaven there was no thing to will you to this man’s bed or that.” “But I cared for you all the time,” she pleaded. “I was unused to your way of measuring love. I am still un- used.” I do not understand.” “We were speaking of this man you saw fit to marry. What manner of man was he? Wherein did he charm your soul? What potent virtues were his? True, he had a golden grip—an al- mighty golden grip. He knew the odds. He was versed in cent per cent. By so- cial measure he was not a bad man. But by your measure, Karen, by mine, by ours of the rose garden, what was he?" . “Remember, he is dead.” “The fact is not altered thereby. ‘What was he? A great, gross, material creature, deaf to song, blind to beauty, dead to the spirit. He was fat with laziness, and flabby-cheeked, and the round of his belly witnessed his glut- tony—" “But he is dead. It is we who are now—now! now! Don’t you hear? As you say, I have been incomstant. I have sinned. Good. But should not you, too, cry peccavi? If I have broken promises, have not you? Your love of the rose garden was of all time, or so you said. Where is it now?” “It is here! Now!" ha cried, striking his breast, passionately with clenched hard. “It has always been.” “And your love was a great love; there was none greater,” she continued; “or so you said in the rose garden. Yet it is not fine enough, large enough, to forgive crying mow at your feet?” The man hesitated. His mquth open- ed; words shaped vainly on his lips. She had forced him to bare his heart and speak trutlis which he had hidden from himself. “Look at me, Dave! Look at me! I am the same. after all.. And so are you, if you would but see, We are not changed.” 8 Her hand rested on his shoulder, and his had half-passed, rpughly, about her, when the sharp crackle of a match startled him to kimsélf. Winapie, alien me here, to the scene, was lighting the slow wick of the slush lamp. She appeared to start out against a background of utter bluck, and the flame, flaring sud- denly up, lighted her bronze beauty to vyal gold. “You see, it is impossible,” he groan- ed, thrusting the fair-haired woman gently from him. “It is impossible,” he repea “It is impossible.” “I am not a girl; Dave, with a girl's illusions,” she said, softly, though not daring to ccme back to him. “It is as a woman that I understand. Men are men. A common custom of the coun- try. I am not shocked. I divined it from the first.” “Tt is impossible.” “But it is not.” She was at his side again, her hand touching lightly, ca- ressingly, the sunburned back of his. “No, no,” he protested. “It is not right.” ““Come, Dave, you must see. She is not your kind. There is no race affin- ity. She is an aborigine, sprung from the soil, yet close to the scil, and im- possible to lift from the soil. Born savage, savage she will die. But we— you and I—the dominant, evolved race— the salt of the earth and the masters thereof! We are made for each other. The supreme call is of kind, and we are of kind. Reason and feeling dictate it.* Your very instinct demands it. That you cannot deny. You cgnnot escape the generations behind you. Yours is an ancestry which has survived for a thousand centuries, and for a hundred thousand centuries, and your line must not stop here. It cannot. Your ances- try will not permit it. Instinct is stronger than the will. The race is mightier than you. Come, Dave, let us go. We are young yet, and life is good. Come." ‘Winapie, passing out of the cabin to feed the dogs, caught his attention and caused him to ake his head and weakly to reiterate. But the woman's hand slipped about his neck, and her cheek predsed to his. His bleak life rose up and smote him—the vain strug- gle with pitiless forces; the dreary years of frost and famine; the harsh and jarring contact with elemental life; the aching void which mere animal ex- istence could not fill. “Come, Dave, come. I have for both. The way is soft.” She looked about her at the bare furnishings of the cabin. “I have for both. The world is at our feet, and all joy is ours. Come! come!” She was in his arms, trembling, and he held her tightly. He rose to,his feet. * * * But the snarling of hun- gry dogs and the shrill cries of Winapie bringing about peace between the com- batants came muffled to his ear through the heavy logs. And another scene flashed before him. A struggle in the forest—a bald-face grizzly, broken-leg- ged, terrible; the snarling of the dogs and the shrill cries of Winapie as she urged them to the attack; himself in the midst of the crush, breathless, panting, striving to hold off red death; broken-backed, entrail-ripped . dogs k- /ling in impotent anguish and dese- crating the snow; the virgin white run- ning scarlet with the blood of man and beast; the bear, ferocious, irresistible, crunching, crunching down to the core of his life, and Winapie at the last, in the thick of the frightful muddle, hair flying, eves flashing, fury incarnate, passing the long hunting knife again and again. Sweat started to his fore- head. He shook off the clinging woman and staggered back to the wall. And she, knowing that the moment had come, but 'unable to divine what was passing within him, felt all she had gained slipping away. “Dave! - Dave!" she cried. “I will not give you wp. If you do not wish to come we will stay. I will stay with you. The world is less to me than are you. I will be a Northland wife to you I will cook vour food, feed your dogs, break trail for you, lift a paddie with you. I can do it. Believe me, I am strong.” She sank to the flcor and threw her arms about his knee obbing. “And you do care f do eare for me. . Think! he years I have waited—sufferec never know He stooped ed her to her “Listen,” he d, opening th doer and Mftin outside. 1t cannot be are 1 alone to be considered. Y I wish vou a safe journey work when Mile, Qut you in the world right. Will yo Though she hand she look —if—if Winapie ered and stopped But < he grasped ! thought and answ struck with th cannot be conce nd it tougher hood. It must “Kiss me,” s lighting. away. . “Break camp, boatman, wh awake against h be going.” By the firelizht I st the woe in her face, but he received the extraordinary command as though it were the most usual thing in the world. “Which way? Dawson?" “No,” she answered, lightly emough. “Up—out—Dyea.” Mrs. Sayther waited till the luggage was made shipshape and her nest pre- pared. “We line up to de head of de island,” Pierre explained to her while running out the long tow rope. “Den we tak to das back channel where de water not queek, and I t'ink we mak good tam.” A scuffling and pattering of feet in the last year’s dry grass caught his quick ear, and he turned his head. The In- dian girl, circled by a bristling ring of wolf dogs, was coming toward them. Mrs. Sayther noted that-the girl's face, which had been apathetic throughout the scene in the cabin, had now quick- ened into blazing and wrathful life. “What you do my man?” she de- manded abruptly of Mrs. Sayther. “Him lay on bunk, and him look bad all the time. I say “What the matter, Dave? You sick? But him no say nothing. After that him say, ‘Good girl, Winapie, go way. I be all right bimeby.! What you do my man, eh? I think you bad woman.”™ Mrs. Sayther looked curiously at the barbarian woman who shared the life of this man while she departed alone in the darkness of night. “I think you bad woman,” Winapie repeated in the slow, methodical way of one who gropes for strange words in an alien tongue. “I think better you go away, no come no more. I Indian girl. You 'Merican woman. You good to see. You find plenty men. Your eyes blue like the sky. Your skin so white, so soft.” Coolly she thrust out a brown fore- finger and pressed the soft cheek of Karen Sayther. And to the eternal credit of the woman, she never flinched. Pierre hesitated and half stepped for- ward; but she motioned him away though her heart welled to him with secret gratitude. “It's all right, Pierre,” she said. ‘“Please go away.” He stepped back respectfully out of earshot, where he stood grumbling to himself and measuring the distance in springs. “Um white, um softy, like baby,” Winapie touched the other cheek and withdrew her hand. “Bimeby mosquito come. Skin get sore in spot; um swell, oh, so big; um hurt, oh, so much. Plenty mosquito; plenty spot. T think better you go now before mosquito come. This way,” pointing down the stream, “you go St. Michael's; that way,” pointing up, “you go Dyea. Bet- ter you go Dyea. Good-by.” And that which Mrs. Sayther then did caused Plerre to marvel greatly. For she threw her arms around the Indian girl, kissed her and burst into tears. “Bé good to him,” good to him.” Then she slipped half down the of the bank, called back, “Goed-by.” and dropped into the boat amidships. Pierre folloyed her -and cast off. He shoved the steering oar into. place and gave the signal. Le Goire lifted an old French chanson; the men, like a row of ghosts in the dim starlight, bent their backs to the tow line; the steering oar cut the black current sharply, and the boat swept out into the night. she cried. “Be tace