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Title: The mate of the Vancouver

Author: Morley Roberts

Release date: September 8, 2022 [eBook #68936]
                Most recently updated: October 11, 2022

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Street & Smith, Publishers

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MATE OF THE VANCOUVER ***







  THE MATE OF THE
  VANCOUVER



  BY

  MORLEY ROBERTS

  AUTHOR OF "KING BILLY OF BALLARAT," ETC.



  NEW YORK
  STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
  238 WILLIAM STREET




  Copyright, 1892,
  By CASSELL PUBLISHING CO.

  Copyright, 1900
  By STREET & SMITH




CONTENTS.


PART I.

On Board the Vancouver


PART II.

San Francisco and Northward


PART III.

A Golden Link


PART IV.

Love and Hate


PART V.

At the Black Cañon




THE MATE OF THE VANCOUVER.



PART I.

ON BOARD THE VANCOUVER.

I am going to write, not the history of my life, which, on the whole,
has been as quiet as most men's, but simply the story of about a year
of it, which, I think, will be almost as interesting to other folks
as any yarn spun by a professional novel writer; and if I am wrong,
it is because I haven't the knowledge such have of the way to tell a
story.  As a friend of mine, who is an artist, says, I know I can't
put in the foreground properly, but if I tell the simple facts in my
own way, it will be true, and anything that is really true always
seems to me to have a value of its own, quite independent of what the
papers call "style," which a sailor, who has never written much
besides a log and a few love-letters, cannot pretend to have.  That
is what I think.


Our family--for somehow it seems as if I must begin at the
beginning--was always given to the sea.  There is a story that my
great-grandfather was a pirate or buccaneer; my grandfather, I know,
was in the Royal Navy, and my father commanded a China clipper when
they used to make, for those days, such fast runs home with the new
season's tea.  Of course, with these examples before us, my brother
and I took the same line, and were apprenticed as soon as our mother
could make up her mind to part with her sons.  Will was six years
older than I, and he was second mate in the vessel in which I served
my apprenticeship; but, though we were brothers, there wasn't much
likeness either of body or mind between us; for Will had a failing
that never troubled me, and never will; he was always fond of his
glass, a thing I despise in a seaman, and especially in an officer,
who has so many lives to answer for.

In 1881, when I had been out of my apprenticeship for rather more
than four years, and had got to be mate by a deal of hard work--for,
to tell the truth, I liked practical seamanship then much better than
navigation and logarithms--I was with my brother in the _Vancouver_,
a bark of 1100 tons register.  If it hadn't been for my mother, I
wouldn't have sailed with Will, but she was always afraid he would
get into trouble through drink; for when he was at home and heard he
was appointed to the command of this new vessel, he was carried to
bed a great deal the worse for liquor.  So when he offered me the
chief officer's billet, mother persuaded me to take it.

"You must, Tom," she said; "for my sake, do.  You can look after him,
and perhaps shield him if anything happens, for I am in fear all the
time when he is away, but if you were with him I should be more at
ease; for you are so steady, Tom."

I wasn't so steady as she thought, I dare say, but still I didn't
drink, and that was something.  Anyhow, that's the reason why I went
with Will, and it was through him and his drinking ways that all the
trouble began that made my life a terror to me, and yet brought all
the sweetness into it that a man can have, and more than many have a
right to look for.

When we left Liverpool we were bound for Melbourne with a mixed cargo
and emigrants; and I shouldn't like to say which was the most mixed,
what we had in the hold or in the steerage, for I don't like such a
human cargo; no sailor does, for they are always in the way.
However, that's neither here nor there, for though Will got too much
to drink every two days or so on the passage out, nothing happened
then that has any concern with the story.  It was only when we got to
Sandridge that the yarn begins, and it began in a way that rather
took me aback; for though I had always thought Will a man who didn't
care much for women, or, at any rate, enough to marry one, our anchor
hadn't been down an hour before a lady came off in a boat.  It was
Will's wife, as he explained to me in a rather shamefaced way when he
introduced her, and a fine-looking woman she was--of a beautiful
complexion with more red in it than most Australians have, two
piercing black eyes, and a figure that would have surprised you, it
was so straight and full.

She shook hands with me very firmly, and looked at me in such a way
that it seemed she saw right through me.

"I am very pleased to see you, Mr. Ticehurst," she said; "I know we
shall be friends, you are so like your brother."

Now, somehow, that didn't please me, for I could throw Will over the
spanker boom if I wanted to; I was much the bigger man of the two;
and as for strength, there was no comparison between us.
Besides--however, that doesn't matter; and I answered her heartily
enough, for I confess I liked her looks, though I prefer fair women.

"I am sure we shall," said I; "my brother's wife must be, if I can
fix it so."

And with that I went off and left them alone, for I thought I might
not be wanted there; and I knew very well I was wanted elsewhere, for
Tom Mackenzie, the second Officer, was making signs for me to come on
deck.

After that I saw her a good deal, for we were often together,
especially when she came down once or twice and found Will the worse
for liquor.  The first time she was in a regular fury about it, and
though she didn't say much, she looked like a woman who could do
anything desperate, or even worse than that.  But the next time she
took it more coolly.

"Well, Tom," she said, "he was to take me to the theater, but now he
can't go.  What am I to do?"

"I don't know," said I, foolishly enough, as it seemed, but then I
didn't want to take the hint, which I understood well enough.

"Hum!" she said sharply, looking at me straight.  I believe I blushed
a little at being bowled out, for I was I knew that.  However, when
she had made up her mind, she was not a woman to be baulked.

"Then I know, Tom, if you don't," she said; "you must take me
yourself.  I have the tickets.  So get ready."

"But, Helen!" I said, for I really didn't like to go off with her in
that way without Will's knowing.

Her eyes sparkled, and she stamped her foot.

"I insist on it!  So get ready, or I'll go by myself.  And how would
Will like that?"

There was no good resisting her, she was too sharp for me, and I went
like a lamb, doing just as she ordered me, for she was a masterful
woman and accustomed to have her own way.  If I did wrong I was
punished for it afterward, for this was the beginning of a kind of
flirtation which I swear was always innocent enough on my side, and
would have been on hers too, if Will had not been a coward with the
drink.

In Melbourne we got orders for San Francisco, and it was only a few
days before we were ready to sail that I found out Helen was going
with us.  I was surprised enough any way, for I knew the owners
objected to their captains having their wives on board, but I was
more surprised that she was ready to come.  I hope you will believe
that, for it is as true as daylight.  I thought at first it was all
Will's doing, and he let me think so, for he didn't like me to know
how much she ruled him when he was sober.  However, she came on board
to stay just twenty-four hours before we sailed; the very day Will
went up to Melbourne to ship two men in place of two of ours who had
run from the vessel.

Next morning, when we were lying in the bay, for we had hauled out
from the wharf at Sandridge, a boat ran alongside just at six
o'clock, and the two men came on board.

"Who are you, and where are you from?" I asked roughly, for I didn't
like the look of one of them.

"These are the two hands that Captain Ticehurst shipped yesterday
from a Williamstown boarding house," said the runner who was with
them.

I always like to ship men from the Sailor's Home, but I couldn't help
myself if Will chose to take what he could get out of a den of
thieves such as I knew his place to be.

"Very well!" said I gruffly enough.  "Look alive, get your dunnage
forward and turn to!"

One of them was a hard-looking little Cockney, who seemed a sailor
every inch, though there weren't many of them; but the other was a
dark lithe man, with an evil face, who looked like some Oriental
half-caste.

"Here," said I to the Cockney, "what's your name?"

"Bill Walker, sir," he answered.

"Who's the man with you?  What is he?" I asked.

"Dunno, sir," said Walker, looking forward at the figure of his
shipmate, who was just disappearing in the fo'c'sle; "I reckon he's
some kind of a Dago, that's what he is, some kind of a Dago."

Now, a Dago in sailor's language means, as a rule, a Frenchman,
Spaniard, or Greek, or anyone from southern Europe, just as a
Dutchman means anyone from a Fin down to a real Hollander; so I
wasn't much wiser.  However, in a day or two Bill Walker came up to
me and told me, in a confidential London twang, that he now believed
Matthias, as he called himself, was a half-caste Malay, as I had
thought at first.  But I was to know him better afterward, as will be
seen before I finish.

Now, it is a strange thing, and it shows how hard it is for a man not
accustomed to writing, like myself, to tell a story in the proper
way, that I have not said anything of the passengers who were going
with us to San Francisco.  I could understand it if I had been
writing this down just at the time these things happened, but when I
think that I have put the Malay before Elsie Fleming, even if he came
into my life first, I am almost ready to laugh at my own stupidity.
For Elsie was the brightest, bonniest girl I ever saw, and even now I
find it hard not to let the cat out of the bag before the hour.  As a
matter of fact, this being the third time I have written all this
over, I had to cut out pages about Elsie which did not come in their
proper place.  So now I shall say no more than that Elsie and her
sister Fanny, and their father, took passage with us to California,
as we were the only sailing vessel going that way; and old Fleming,
who had been a sailor himself, fairly hated steamboats--aye, a good
deal worse than I do, for I think them a curse to sailors.  But when
they came on board I was busy as a mate is when ready to go to sea,
and though I believe I must have been blind, yet I hardly took any
notice of the two sisters, more than to remark that one had hair like
gold and a laugh which was as sweet as a fair wind up Channel.  But I
came to know her better since; though in a way different from the
Malay.

When we had got our anchor on board, and were fairly out to sea,
heading for Bass's Straits, I saw her and Helen talking together, and
I think it was the contrast between the two that first attracted me
toward her, not much liking dark women, being dark myself.  She
seemed, compared with Will's wife, as fair as an angel from heaven,
though the glint of her eyes, and her quick, bright ways, showed she
was a woman all over.  I took a fancy to her that moment, and I
believe Helen saw it, when I think over what has happened since, for
she frowned and bit her lip hard, until I could see a mark there.
But I didn't know then what I do now, and besides, I had no time to
think about such things just then, for we were hard at it getting
things shipshape.

Tom Mackenzie, the second officer, and a much older man than
myself--for he had been to sea for seventeen years before he took it
into his head to try for his second mate's ticket--came up to me when
the men were mustered aft.

"Mr. Ticehurst," said he gruffly, "I should be glad if you'd take
that Malay chap in your watch, for I have two d--d Dagos already, who
are always quarreling, and if I have three, there will be bloodshed
for sure.  I don't like his looks."

"No more do I," I answered; "but I don't care for his looks.  I've
tamed worse looking men; and if you ask it, Mackenzie, why I'll have
him and you can take the Cockney."

I think this was very good of me, for Bill Walker, I could see, was a
real smart hand, and a merry fellow, not one of those grumblers who
always make trouble for'ard, and come aft at the head of a deputation
once a week growling about the victuals.  But Mackenzie was a good
sort, and though he was under me, I knew that for practical
seamanship--though I won't take a back seat among any men of my years
at sea--he was ahead of all of us.  So I was ready to do him a good
turn, and it was true enough he had two Greeks in his watch already.

When we had been to sea about a week, and got into the regular
routine of work, which comes round just as it does in a house, for it
is never done, Will got into his routine, too, and was drunk every
day just as regular as eight bells at noon.  Helen came to me, of
course.

"Tom, can't you do something?" she said, with tears in her eyes, the
first time I ever saw them there, though not the last.  "It is
horrible to think of his drinking this way!  And then before those
two girls--I am ashamed of myself and of him!  Can't you do anything?"

"What can I do, Helen?" I asked.  "I can't take it from him; I can't
stave the liquor, there's too much of it; besides, he is captain, if
he is my brother, and I can't go against him."

"But can't you try and persuade him, Tom?" and she caught my arm and
looked at me so sorrowfully.

"Haven't I done it, Helen!" I answered.  "Do you think I have seen
him going to hell these two years without speaking?  But what good is
it--what good is it?"

She turned away and sat down by Elsie and Fanny, while just
underneath in the saloon Will was singing some old song about "Pass
the bottle round."  He did, too, and it comes round quick at a party
of one.

I can see easily that if I tell everything in this way I shall never
finish my task until I have a pile of manuscript as big as the log of
a three years' voyage, so I shall have to get on quickly, and just
say what is necessary, and no more.  And now I must say that by this
time I was in love with Elsie Fleming, in love as much as a man can
be, in love with a passion that trial only strengthened, and time
could not and cannot destroy.  It was no wonder I loved her, for she
was the fairest, sweetest maid I ever saw, with long golden hair,
bright blue eyes that looked straight at one, but which could be very
soft too sometimes, and a neat little figure that made me feel, great
strong brute that I was, as clumsy as an ox, though I was as quick
yet to go aloft as any young man if occasion called for the mate to
show his men the way.  And when we were a little more than half
across the Pacific to the Golden Gate, I began to think that Elsie
liked me more than she did anyone else, for she would often talk to
me about her past life in sunny New South Wales, and shiver to think
that her father might insist on staying a long time in British
Columbia, for he was going to take possession of a farm left him by
an old uncle near a place called Thomson Forks.

It was sweet to have her near me in the first watch, and I cursed
quietly to myself when young Jack Harmer, the apprentice, struck four
bells, for at ten o'clock she always said, "Good-night, Mr.
Ticehurst.  I must go now.  How sleepy one does get at sea!  Dear me,
how can you keep your eyes open?"  And when she went down it seemed
as if the moon and stars went out.

When it was old Mackenzie's first watch I was almost fool enough to
be jealous of her being with him then, though he had a wife at home,
and a daughter just as old as Elsie, and he thought no more of women,
as a rule, than a hog does of harmony, as I once heard an American
say.  Still, when I lay awake and heard her step overhead, for I knew
it well, I was almost ready to get up then and there and make an
unutterable fool of myself by losing my natural sleep.

And now I am coming to what I would willingly leave out.  I hope that
people won't think badly of me for my share in it, for though I was
not always such a straight walker in life as some are, yet I would
not do what evil-minded folks might think I did.  Somehow I have a
difficulty in putting it down, for though I have spoken of it
sometimes sorrowfully enough to one who is very dear to me, yet to
write it coolly on paper seems cowardly and treacherous.  And yet,
seeing that I can harm no one, and knowing as I do in my heart that I
wasn't to blame, I must do it, and do it as kindly as I can.  This is
what I mean: I began to see that Helen loved me more than she should
have done, and that she hated Will bitterly, but Elsie even worse.

It was a great surprise to me, for, to tell the truth, women as a
general rule have never taken to me very much, and Will was always
the one in our family who had most to do with them.  And for my part,
until I saw Elsie I never really loved anyone, although, like most
men, I have had a few troubles which until then I thought
love-affairs.  So it was very hard to convince myself that what I
suspected was true, even though I believe that I have a natural
fitness for judging people and seeing through them, even women, who
some folks say do not act from reason like men.  However, I don't
think they are much different, for few of us act reasonably.  But all
this has nothing to do with the matter in hand.  Now, I must confess,
although it seems wicked, that I was a little pleased at first to
think that two women loved me, for we are all vain, and that
certainly touches a man's vanity, and yet I was sorry too, for I
foresaw trouble unless I was very careful, though not all the woe and
pain which came out of this business before the end.

The first thing that made me suspect something was wrong, was that
Helen almost ceased to keep Will from the bottle, and she taunted him
bitterly, so bitterly, that if he had not usually been a
good-tempered fellow even when drunk, he might have turned nasty and
struck her.  And then she would never leave me and Elsie alone if she
could help it, although she was not hypocrite enough to pretend to be
very fond of her.  Indeed, Elsie said one night to me that she was
afraid Mrs. Ticehurst didn't like her.  I laughed, but I saw it was
true.  Then, whenever she could, Helen came and walked with me, and
she hardly ever spoke.  It seems to me now, when I know all, that she
was in a perpetual conflict, and was hardly in her right mind.  I
should like to think that she was not.

I was in a very difficult position, as any man will admit.  I loved
Elsie dearly; I was convinced my brother's wife loved me; and we were
all four shut up on ship-board.  I think if we had been on land I
should have spoken to Elsie and run away from the others, but here I
could not speak without telling her more than I desired, or without
our being in the position of lovers, which might have caused trouble.
For I even thought, so suspicious does a man get, that Helen might
perhaps have come on board more on my account than on Will's.

All this time we were making very fair headway, for we had a good
breeze astern of us, and the "Islands" (as they call them in San
Francisco), that is the Sandwich Islands, were a long way behind us.
If we had continued to have fine weather, or if Will had kept sober,
or even so drunk that he could not have interfered in working the
ship, things might not have taken the turn they did, and what
happened between me and the Malay who called himself Matthias might
never have occurred.  And when I look back on the train of
circumstances, it almost makes me believe in Fate, though I should be
unwilling to do that; for I was taught by my mother, a very
intelligent woman who read a great deal of theology, that men have
free will and can do as they please.

However, when we were nearing the western coast of America, Will, who
had a great notion--a much greater one than I had, by the way--of his
navigation, began to come up every day and take his observations with
me, until at last the weather altered so for the worse, and it came
on to blow so hard, that neither of us could take any more.  Now, if
Will drank enough, Heaven knows, in fine weather, he drank a deal
harder in foul, though by getting excited it didn't have the usual
effect on him, and he kept about without going to sleep just where he
sat or lay down.  So he was always on deck, much to my annoyance, for
I could see the men laughing as he clung to the rail at the break of
the poop, bowing and scraping, like an intoxicated dancing master,
with every roll the _Vancouver_ made.

For five days we had been running by dead reckoning, and as well as I
could make out we were heading straight for the coast, a good bit to
the nor'ard of our true course.  Besides, we were a good fifty miles
farther east than Will made out, according to his figures, and I said
as much to him.  He laughed scornfully.  "I'm captain of this ship,"
said he; "and Tom--don't you interfere.  If I've a mind to knock
Mendocino County into the middle of next week, I'll do it!  But I
haven't, and we are running just right."

You see, when he was in this state he was a very hard man to work
with, and if we differed in our figures I had often enough a big job
to convince him that he was wrong.  And being wrong even a second in
the longitude means being sixty miles out.  And with only dead
reckoning to rely on, we should have been feeling our way cautiously
toward the coast, seeing that in any case we might fetch up on the
Farallon Islands, which lie twenty miles west of the Golden Gate.

On the sixth day of this weather it began to clear up a little in the
morning watch, and there seemed some possibility of our getting sight
of the sun before eight bells.  Will was on deck, and rather more
sober than usual.

"Well, sir," said I to him, for I was just as respectful, I'll swear,
as if he was no relation, "there seems a chance of getting an
observation; shall we take it?"

"Very well," said he.  "Send Harmer here, and we'll wait for a
chance."

Harmer came aft, and brought up Will's sextant, and just then the
port foretopsail sheet parted, for it was really blowing hard, though
the sun came out at intervals.  I ran forward myself, and by the time
the watch had clewed up the sail and made it fast, eight bells had
struck.  When I went aft I met Harmer.

"Did you get an observation!" I asked anxiously, for when a man has
the woman he loves on board it makes him feel worried, especially if
things go as they were going then.

"Yes, Mr. Ticehurst," said he, "and the captain is working it out
now.  But, sir, if I were you I would go over it after him, for two
heads are better than one," and he laughed, being a merry,
thoughtless youngster, and went into his berth.

However, I did not do what he said, thinking that we should both get
an observation at noon.  We were very lucky to do so, for it began to
thicken again at ten o'clock, and we were in a heavy fog until nearly
twelve.  And as soon as eight bells was struck, the fog which had
lifted came down again.

When I got below Will already had the chart out, and was showing the
women where we were, as he said; and when I came in he called me.

"There, look, Mr. Chief Officer! what did I tell you?  Look!" and he
pricked off our position as being just about where he had reckoned.

I took up the slate he had been making the calculation on, but he saw
me, and snatched it out of my hand.

"What d'ye mean?" said he fiercely; "what do you want?" and he threw
it on the deck, smashing it in four pieces.  I made a sign to Elsie,
and she picked them up like lightning, while Will called for the
steward and some more brandy, and began drinking in a worse temper
than I had ever seen him in.

When I passed Elsie she gave me the broken bits of slate, and I went
into my cabin, pieced them together, and worked the whole thing out
again.  And when I had done it the blood ran to my head and I almost
fell.  For the morning observation which Will only had taken was
wrongly worked out.  I ran out on deck like lightning, and found it a
thick fog all round us, for all the wind.  Old Mackenzie was in the
poop, and he roared out when he saw me:

"What's the matter, Tom Ticehurst?"

"Put the ship up into the wind, for God's sake!" I shouted.  "And
send a hand up aloft to look out, for the coast should be right under
our bows.  We must be in Ballinas Bay."  And as he ported the helm, I
rushed back into the cabin and took the chart out again to verify our
position as near as I could.  The coast ought to be in sight if the
fog cleared.  For we had run through or past the Farallones without
seeing them.

When I came down the women all cried out at the sight of me, for
though I controlled myself all I could, it was impossible, so sudden
was the shock, to hide all I felt.  And just then the _Vancouver_ was
coming into the wind, the men were at the lee braces, and as she
dived suddenly into the head seas, her pitches were tremendous.  It
seemed to the women that something must be wrong, while Will, who,
seaman-like, knew what had happened, though mad with drink, rushed on
deck with a fierce oath.  I dropped the chart and ran after him; yet
I stayed a moment.

"It will be all right," I said to the women; "but I can't tell you
now."  And I followed Will, who had got hold of old Mackenzie by the
throat, while the poor fellow looked thunderstruck.

"What the devil are you doing?" he screamed.  "Why don't you keep the
course?  Man the weather-braces, you dogs, and put the helm up!"

But no one stirred; while Tom Mackenzie, seeing me there, took Will
by the wrists and threw him away from him.  I caught him as he fell,
roaring, "Mutiny!  Mutiny!"

"It's no mutiny!" I shouted, in my turn; "if we keep your course we
shall be on the rocks in half an hour.  I tell you the land is dead
to loo-ard, aye, and not five miles off."

But it was less than that, for just then it cleared up a little.  And
the lookout on the foreyard shouted, "Land on the lee-bow!"  Then he
cried out, "Land right ahead!"  Whether Will heard him or not, I
don't know, but he broke away from me and fell, rather than went,
down the companion, and in a moment I heard the women scream.

I caught Mackenzie by the arm.

"It's for our lives, and the lives of the women?  He's gone for his
revolver!  I shall take command!"

And I sprang behind the companion like lightning.  And just in time,
for, as Will came up, I saw he was armed, and I jumped right on his
back.  His revolver went off and struck the taffrail; the next moment
I had kicked it forward to where Mackenzie was standing, and grasped
Will by the arms.

I had never given him credit for the strength he showed, but then he
was mad, mad drunk, and it was not till Walker and Matthias--for all
hands were on deck by this time--came to help me that I secured him.
In the struggle Will drew back his foot and kicked the Malay in the
face, and as he rose, with the evilest look I ever saw on a man's
countenance, he drew his knife instinctively.  With my left hand I
caught his wrist and nearly broke it, while the knife flew out of his
hand.  And then, even by that simple action, I saw that I had made an
enemy of this man, whom up to this time I had always been kind to and
treated with far more consideration than he would have got from rough
old Mac.  But this is only by the way, though it is important enough
to the story.

I had to tie Will's hands, and all the time he foamed at the mouth,
ordering the crew to assist him.

"I'll have you hung, you dogs, all of you!" he shrieked, while the
three women stood on the companion-ladder, white and trembling with
fear.

It was with great trouble that we got him below, and when he was
there I shut him in his berth, and sent the two stewards in with him
to see that he neither did himself harm nor got free, and then I
turned my attention to saving the ship and our lives.

We were in an awfully critical situation, and one which, in ordinary
circumstances, might have made a man's heart quail; but now--with the
woman I loved on board--it was maddening to think of, and made me
curse my brother who had brought us into it.  Think of what it was.
Not five miles on our lee-bow there was the land, and we could even
distinguish as we lifted on the sea the cruel line of white breakers
which seemed to run nearly abeam, for the _Vancouver_ was not a very
weatherly ship, and the gale, instead of breaking, increased, until,
if I had dared, I would have ordered sail to be shortened.

I went to the chart again.  Just as I took it, Mackenzie called to
me, "Mr. Ticehurst, there's a big flat-topped mountain some way
inland.  I think it must be Table Mountain."  Yes, he knew the coast,
and even as I looked at the chart, I heard him order the helm to be
put up.  I saw why, for when we had hauled into the wind, we were
heading dead for the great four-fathom bank that lies off Bonita
Point.  But there was a channel between it and the land.

I ran on deck and spoke to Mackenzie.  He pointed out on the
starboard hand, and there the water was breaking on the bank.  We
were running for the narrow channel under a considerable press of
canvas, seeing how it blew; for all Mac relieved her of when we first
put her into the wind was the main top-gallant sail.  And now I could
do nothing for a moment but try to get sight of our landmarks, and
keep sight of them, for the weather was still thick.

Fortunately, as it might have seemed for us, the chain-cables had
already been ranged fore and aft on the deck, and I told Mackenzie to
see them bent on to the anchors, and the stoppers made ready.  Yet I
knew that if we had to anchor, we were lost; in such a gale it could
only postpone our fate, for they would come home or part to a dead
certainty.

Mackenzie and I stood together on the poop watching anxiously for the
right moment to haul our wind again.

"What do you think of it, Mr. Mackenzie?" I said, as I clung on to a
weather backstay.  "Where do you think we shall be in half an hour?"

"I don't think I shall ever see Whitechapel again, sir," he answered
quietly, and I knew he was thinking of home, of his wife and his
daughter.  "She will go to leeward like a butter-cask in this sea;
and now look at the land!"  And he pointed toward the line of
breakers on the land, which came nearer and nearer.  We waited yet a
few minutes, and then I looked at Mackenzie inquiringly.  "Yes, I
think so, sir," he said, and with my hand I motioned the men at the
wheel to put the helm down again.  As she came into the wind the
upper foretopsail blew out of the boltropes, while the vessel
struggled like a beaten hound that is being dragged to execution, and
shivered from stem to stern.  For the waves were running what
landsmen call mountains high; she now shipped a sea every moment,
which came in a flood over the fo'c'sle head; and pouring down
through the scuttle, the cover of which had been washed overboard, it
sent the men's chests adrift in the fo'c'sle and washed the blankets
out of the lower bunks.  And to windward the roar of the breakers on
the bank was deafening.  I went below just for a moment.  I knew I
had no right to go there, my place was on deck, but could not help
myself.  I must see Elsie once more before we died, for if the vessel
struck, the first sea that washed over her might take me with it, and
we should never see each other again on earth.  But the two sisters
were not in the saloon.  I stepped toward their berth, and Helen met
me, rising up from the deck, where she had been crouching down in
terror.

I have said she was beautiful; and so she was when she smiled, and
the pleasant light fell about her like sunlight on some strange and
rare tropical flower, showing her rosy complexion, her delicate skin
of full-blooded olive, and her coils of dark and shining hair But I
never saw her so beautiful as she was then, clothed strangely with
the fear of death, white with passion that might have made a weaker
woman crimson with shame, and fiercely triumphant with a bitter
self-conquest.  She caught me by the arm.  "Tom, dear Tom," she said,
in a wonderful voice that came to me clearly through the howl of the
wind, "I know there is not hope for us.  He" (and she pointed toward
her husband's cabin) "has ruined us!  I hate him!  And, Tom, now it
is all over, and we shall not live!  Say good-by to me, say good-by!"

I stood thunderstruck and motionless, for I knew what she meant even
before she put up her hands and took me round the neck.  "Kiss me
once, just once, and I will die--for now I could not live, and would
not!  Kiss me!"  And I did kiss her.  Why, I know not, whether out of
pity (it was not love--no, not love of any kind, I swear) or from the
strong constraint of her force of mind, I cannot say; and as I lifted
my head from hers, I saw Elsie, the woman I did love, looking at me
with shame at my fall, as she thought, and with scorn.  I freed
myself from Helen, who sank down on her knees without seeing that she
had been observed, and I went toward Elsie.  She, too, was pale,
though not with fear, for perhaps she was ignorant of her danger, but
as I thought with a little feeling of triumph even then, for we are
strange beings, with jealousy and anger.

"You are a coward and a traitor!" she said, when I reached her.

"No, no, I am not, Elsie," I answered sharply; "but perhaps you will
never know that I am speaking the truth.  But let that be; are you a
brave woman?  For----  But where is your father?"

"With Fanny," she answered, disdainfully even then.

I called him, and he came out.

"Mr. Fleming," I said; "you know our position; in a few minutes we
shall be safe or--ashore.  Get your daughters dressed warmly; stay at
the foot of the companion with them, and, if it is necessary, come up
when I call you."

The old man shook hands with me and pointed to Will's wife.  I had
forgotten her!

"Look after her, too," I said, and went to Will's cabin.  He was fast
asleep and snoring hard.  I could hardly keep from striking him, but
I let him lie.  Was it a wonder that a woman ceased to love him?  And
I went on deck.

I had not been absent five minutes, but in that time the wind had
increased even more, the seas seemed to have grown heavier, the decks
were full of water, and the fatal wake was yet broader on the
weather-quarter.  All the men were aft under the break of the poop,
and most of them, thinking that we must go ashore, had taken off
their oilskins and sea-boots ready for an effort to save themselves
at the last.  Even in the state of mind that I was in then, I saw
clearly, and the strange picture they presented--wet through, some
with no hats on, up to their knees in water, for the decks could not
clear themselves, though some of the main deck ports were stove in
and some out in the bulwarks--remains vividly with me now.  Among
them stood Matthias, with a red handkerchief over his head, and a
swelled cheek, where Will had struck him.  By his side was Walker,
the only man in the crowd who seemed cheerful, and he actually
smiled.  Perhaps he was what the Scotch called "fey."

Suddenly Mackenzie called me loudly.

"Look sir, look!  There is the point, the last of the land!  It's
Bonita Point, if I know this coast at all!"

I sprang into the weather mizzen rigging, and the men, who had
noticed the second mate's gestures, did the same at the main.  I
could see the Point, and knew it, and I knew if we could only weather
it we could put the helm up and run into San Francisco in safety.
Just then Harmer, who was as cool as a cucumber, struck four bells,
and Matthias and a man called Thompson, an old one-eyed sailor, came
up to relieve the wheel.

The point which we had to weather was about as far from us as the
land dead to leeward, and it was touch and go whether we should clear
it or not.  The _Vancouver_ made such leeway, closehauled, that it
seemed doubtful, and I fancied we should have a better chance if I
freed her a little, to let her go through the water faster.  Yet it
was a ticklish point, and one not to be decided without thought in a
situation which demanded instant action.

"What think you, Mac," said I hurriedly; "shall we ease her half a
point?"

He nodded, and I spoke to the men at the wheel, and as I did so I
noticed the Malay's face, which was ghastly with fear, although he
seemed steady enough.  But I thought it best to alter the way they
stood, for the Englishman had the lee wheel.  I ordered them to
change places.

"What's that for, sir?" said Matthias, almost disrespectfully.  I
stared at him.

"Do as you are told, you dog!" I answered roughly, for I had no time
to be polite.  "I don't like your steering.  I have noticed it
before."

When the course was altered she got much more way on her, but neared
the land yet more rapidly.  I called the men on to the poop, for I
had long before this determined not to chance the anchors, and looked
down into the saloon to see if the women were there.

As I did so Mr. Fleming called me.

"If I can be of any use, Mr. Ticehurst, I am ready."

"I think not, Mr. Fleming," I replied as cheerfully as possible; "we
shall be out of danger in a few minutes--or on the rocks," I added to
myself, as I closed the hatch.

It was a breathless and awful time, and I confess that for a few
moments I forgot the very existence of Elsie, as I calculated over
and over again the chances as we neared the Point.  It depended on a
hair, and when I looked at Mackenzie, who was silent and gloomy, I
feared the worst.  Yet it shows how strangely one can be affected by
one's fellows that when I saw Harmer and Walker standing side by side
their almost cheerful faces made me hope, and I smiled.  But we were
within three cables' length of the Point, and the roar of the
breakers came up against the wind until it deafened us.  I watched
the men at the wheel, and I saw Matthias flinch visibly as though he
had been struck by a whip.  I didn't know why it was, I am not good
at such things, but I took a deeper dislike to him that moment than I
had ever had, and I stepped up to him.  Now in what followed perhaps
I myself was to blame, and yet I feel I could not have acted
differently.  Perhaps I looked threatening at him as I approached,
but at any rate he let go the wheel and fell back on the gratings.
With an angry oath I jumped into his place, struck him with my heel,
and then I saw Walker make a tremendous spring for me, with an
expression of alarm in his face, as he looked beyond me, that made me
make a half turn.  And that movement saved my life.  I felt the knife
of Matthias enter my shoulder like a red-hot iron, and then it was
wrenched out of his hand and out of the wound by Walker.

In a moment the two were locked together, and in another they were
separated by Mackenzie and the others; and Walker stood smiling with
the knife in his hand.  Although the blood was running down my body,
I did not feel faint, and kept my eye fixed on the course kept by the
_Vancouver_, while Mackenzie held me in his arms, and Harmer took the
lee wheel from me.

"Luff a little!" I cried, for we were almost on the Point, and I saw
a rock nearly dead ahead.  "Luff a little!" and they put the helm
down on a spoke or two.

The moments crawled by, and the coast crawled nearer and nearer, as I
began to feel I was going blind and fainting.  But I clung to life
and vision desperately, and the last I saw was what I can see now,
and shall always see as plainly, the high black Point with its ring
of white water crawl aft and yet nearer, aft to the foremast, aft to
the mainmast and then I fell and knew no more.  For we were saved.

When I came to, we were before the wind, and I lay on a mattress in
the cabin.  Near me was Elsie, and by her Helen, who was as white as
death.  Both were watching me, and when I opened my eyes Helen fell
on her knees and suddenly went crimson, and then white again, and
fainted.  But Elsie looked harder and sterner than I had ever seen
her.  I turned my face away, and near me I saw another mattress with
a covered figure on it, the figure of a dead man, for I knew the
shape.  In my state of faintness a strange and horrible delirium took
possession of me.  It seemed as if what I saw was seen only by
myself, and that it was a prophecy of my death.  I fainted again.

When I came to we were at anchor in San Francisco Bay, and a doctor
from the shore was attending to me, while Mackenzie stood by, smiling
and rubbing his hands as if delighted to get me off them.  I looked
at him and he knelt down by me.

"Mackenzie, old man," I whispered, "didn't I see somebody dead here?"

"Aye, poor chap," he answered, brushing away a tear; "it was poor
Walker."

"Walker!" I said.  "How was that?"

"Accident, sir," said old Mac.  "Just as we rounded the Point and you
fainted, the old bark gave a heavy roll as we put her before the
wind, and Walker, as he was standing with that black dog's knife in
his hand, slipped and fell.  The blade entered his body, and all he
said after was, 'It was his knife after all.  He threatened to do for
me yesterday.'"

"Where's Will?" I asked, when he ended, for I was somehow anxious to
save my brother's credit, and I shouldn't have liked to see him
dismissed from the ship.

"He's on deck now, as busy as the devil in a gale of wind," growled
Mackenzie.  "'Tis he that saved the ship.  Oh, he's a mighty
man!--but I don't sail with him no more."

However, he altered his mind about that.

Now, it has taken me a long time to get to this point, and perhaps if
I had been a better navigator in the waters of story-telling I might
have done just what Will didn't do, and have missed all the trouble
of beating to windward to get round to this part of my story.  I
might have put it all in a few words, perhaps, but then I like people
to understand what I am about, and it seems to me necessary.  If it
isn't, I dare say someone will tell me one of these days.  At any
rate, here I have got into San Francisco, a city I don't like by the
way, for it is a rascally place, managed by the professional
politicians, who are the worst men in it; I had been badly wounded,
and the Malay was in prison, and (not having money) he was likely to
stay there.

I was in the hospital for three weeks, and I never had a more
miserable or lonely time.  If I had not been stronger in constitution
than most men I think I should have died, so much was I worried by my
love for Elsie, who was going away thinking me a scoundrel, who had
tried to gain the love of my brother's wife.  Of course she did not
come near me, though I knew the Flemings were still in the city.  I
learnt so much from Will, who had the grace to come and see me,
thanking me, too, for having saved the _Vancouver_.

"You must get well soon, Tom," said he, "for I need you very much
just now."

I kept silence, and he looked at me inquiringly.

"Will," I said at length, "I shall never I sail with you again--I
can't do it."

"Why not?" he cried, in a loud voice, which made the nurse come up
and request him to speak in a little lower tone.  "Why not?  I can't
see what difference it will make, anything that has occurred."

No, he did not see, but then he did not know.  How could I go in the
ship again with Helen?  Besides, I had determined to win Elsie for my
wife, and how could I do that if I let her go now, thinking what she
did of me?

"Well, Will, I can't go," said I once more; "and I don't think I
shall go to sea again, I am sick of it."

Will stared, and whistled, and laughed.

"Ho!" said he; "I think I see how the land lies.  You are going to
settle in British Columbia, eh?  You are a sly dog, but I can see
through you.  I know your little love-affair; Helen told me as much
as that one day."

"Well, then, Will," I answered wearily, for I was out of heart lying
there, "if you know, you can understand now why I am not going to
sail with you.  But, Will," and I rose on my elbow, hurting myself
considerably as I did so, "let me implore you not to drink in future.
Have done with it.  It will be your ruin and your wife's--aye, and if
I sailed with you, mine as well.  Give me your hand, and say you will
be a sober man for the future, and then I shall be content to go
where I must go--aye, and where I will go."

He gave me his hand, that was hot with what he had been drinking even
then (it was eleven in the morning), and I saw tears in his eyes.

"I will try, Tom," he muttered; "but----"

I think that "but" was the saddest word, and the most prophetic, I
ever heard on any man's lips.  I saw how vain it was, and turned
away.  He shook hands, and went without saying more than "Good-by,
Tom."  I saw him twice after that, and just twice.

By the time I was out of the hospital the _Vancouver_ was ready to go
to sea, being bound to England; and she might have sailed even then,
only it was necessary for Tom Mackenzie and one or two others to
remain as witnesses when they tried Matthias for stabbing me.  I
shall not go into a long description of the trial, for I have read in
books of late so many trial scenes that I fear I should not have the
patience to give details, which, after all, are not necessary, since
the whole affair was so simple.  And yet, what followed afterward
from that affair I can remember as brightly and distinctly as if in a
glass--the look of the dingy court, the fierce and revengeful eyes of
Matthias, who never spoke till the last, and the appearance of Helen
and Fanny (Elsie was not there)--when the judge after the verdict
inflicted a sentence of eighteen months' hard labor on the prisoner.
Perhaps he had been in prison before, and knew what it meant, or it
was simply the bitter thought of a revengeful Oriental at being
worsted by his opponent; but when he heard the sentence, he leant
forward and grasped the rail in front of him tightly, and spoke.  His
skin was dark and yet pallid, the perspiration stood in beads on his
forehead, he bit his lips until blood came, while his eyes looked
more like the eyes of a human beast than those of a man.  This is
what he said as he looked at me, and he spoke with a strange
intensity which hushed all noise.

"When I come out of jail I will track you night and day, wherever you
go or whatever you do to escape me.  Though you think I do not know
where you are, I shall always be seeking for you, and at last I shall
find you.  If a curse of mine could touch you, you should rot and
wither now, but the time will come when my hand shall strike you
down!"

Such was the meaning of what he said, although it was not put exactly
as I have here written it down; and if I confess, as I should have to
do at last before the end of this story comes, that the words and the
way they were spoken--spoken so vehemently and with so fixed a
resolution--made me shiver and feel afraid in a way I had never done
before, I hope nobody will blame me; but I am sure that being in love
makes a coward of a man in many ways, and in one moment I saw myself
robbed of life and love just at their fruition.  I beheld myself
clasping Elsie to my bosom, having won from her at last an avowal of
her love, and then stabbed or shot in her arms.  Ah! it was dreadful
the number of fashions my mind went to work, in a quick fever of
black apprehension, to foretell or foresee my own possible doom.  I
had never thought myself cowardly, but then I seemed to see what
death meant better than I had ever done; and often the coward is what
he is, as I think now, from a vivid imagination, which so many of us
lack.  I went out of the court in a strange whirl, for you see I had
only just recovered.  If I had been quite well I might have laughed
instead of feeling as I did.  But I did not laugh then.

Now, on the next morning the _Vancouver_ was to leave the harbor,
being then at anchor off Goat Island.  All the money that was due to
me I had taken, for Will had given me my discharge, and I sent home
for what I had saved, being quite uncertain what I should do if I
followed Elsie to British Columbia.  And that night I saw the last of
Will, the last I ever saw, little thinking then how his fate and mine
were bound up together, nor what it was to be.  Helen was with him,
and I think if he had been sober or even gentle with her in his
drink, she would have never spoken to me again as she did on that day
when she believed that life was nearly at its end for both of us.
But Will, having finished all his business, had begun to drink again,
and was in a vile temper as we sat in a room at the American Exchange
Hotel, where I was staying.  Helen tried to prevent his drinking.

"Will," she said, in rather a hard voice from the constraint she put
on herself, "you have had enough of drink, we had better go on board."

"Go on board yourself," said he, "and don't jaw me!  I wish I had
left you in Australia.  A woman on board a ship is like a piano in
the fo'c'sle.  Come and have a drink, Tom."

"No, thank you," I said; "I have had quite enough."

And out he went, standing drinks at the bar to half a dozen, some of
whom would have cut his throat for a dollar, I dare say, by the looks
of them.  Then Helen came over and sat down by me.

"I have never spoken to you, Tom," she began, and then she stopped,
"since--you know, since that dreadful day outside there," and she
pointed, just like a woman who never knows the bearings of a place
until she has reckoned out how the house points first, to the East
when she meant the West, "and now I feel I must, because I may never
have the chance again."

She took out her handkerchief, although she was dry-eyed, and twisted
it into a regular ground-swell knot, until I saw the stuff give way
here and there.  She seemed unable to go on, and perhaps she would
not have said more if we hadn't heard Will's voice, thick with drink,
as he demanded more liquor.

"Hear him!" she said hurriedly, "hear the man who is my husband!
What a fool I was!  You don't know, but I was.  And I am his wife!
Ah!  I could kill him!  I could!  I could!"

I was horrified to see the passion she was in; it seemed to have a
touch of real male fury in it, just as when a man is trying to
control himself, feeling that if one more provocation is given him he
will commit murder, for she shook and shivered, and her voice was
strangely altered.

And just then Will came back, demanding with an oath if she was ready
to go.  She never spoke, but I should have been sorry to have any
woman look at me as she did at him when his eyes were off her.  I
shook hands with her and with him, for the last time, and they went
away.

Next morning, being lonely and having nothing to do I went out to the
park, made on the great sand-dunes which runs from the higher city to
the ocean beach and the Cliff House on the south side of the Golden
Gate.  For the sake of a quiet think I went out by the cars, and
walked to a place where few ever came but chance visitors, except on
Sunday.  It is just at the bend of the great drive and a little above
the road, where there is a large tank with a wooden top, which makes
a good seat from which one can see back to San Francisco and across
the bay to Oakland, Saucelito, and the other little watering-places
in the bay; or before one, toward the opening of the Golden Gate, and
the guns of Alcatraz Island, where the military prison is.  Here I
took my seat and looked out on the quiet beautiful bay and the sea
just breaking in a line of foam on the beach beneath me.  The sight
of the ships at anchor was rather melancholy to me, for my life had
been on the sea.  It seemed as if a new and unknown life were before
me; and a sailor starting anything ashore is as strange as though
some inveterate dweller in a city should go to sea.  There were one
or two white sails outside the Heads, and one vessel was being towed
in; there was a broad wake from the Saucelito ferry-boat, and far out
to sea I saw the low Farallones lying like a cloud on the horizon.
It was beyond them that my new life had begun, really begun; and
though the day was fair, I knew not how soon foul weather might
overtake me, and I knew indeed that it could only be postponed unless
fate were very kind.  I don't know how long I sat on that tank
drumming on the hollow wood, as I idly picked up the pebbles from the
ground and threw them down into the road; but at last I saw what I
had partly been waiting for--the _Vancouver_ being towed out to sea.
I had no need to look at her twice; I knew every rope in her, and
every patch of paint, to say nothing of her masts being ranked a
little more than is usual nowadays.  I had no glass with me, but I
fancied I could see a patch of color on her poop that was Helen.

I watched the vessel which had been my home--and which, but for me,
would have been lying a wreck over yonder--for more than an hour, and
then I turned to go home, if I can call an American hotel "home" by
strained politeness, and just then I saw a carriage come along.  Now,
I knew as well before I could distinguish them that Elsie, Fanny, and
her father were in that carriage, as I did that Helen was on board
the _Vancouver_; and I sat down again feeling very faint--I suppose
from the effects of my wound, or the illness that came from it.  The
carriage had almost passed beneath me--and I felt Elsie saw me,
though she made no sign--before Mr. Fleming caught sight of me.

"Hi! stop!" he called, and the driver drew up.  "Why, Mr. Ticehurst,
is that you?  I thought the _Vancouver_ had gone?  Besides, how does
a mate find time to be out here?  Things must have changed since I
was at sea.  Come down!  Come down!"

I did so, and shook hands with them all, though Elsie's hand lay in
mine like a dead thing until she drew it away.

"The _Vancouver_ has gone, Mr. Fleming," said I; "and there she
is--look!"

They all turned, and Elsie kept her eyes fixed on it when the others
looked at me again.

"Well," said Fleming, "what does it all mean?  Where are you going?
Back to town?  That's right, get in!"  And without more ado the old
man, who had the grip of a vise, caught hold of me, and in I came
like a bale of cotton.  "Drive on!"

"Now then," he went on, "you can tell us why you didn't go with them."

I paused a minute, watching Elsie.

"Well, Mr. Fleming," I said at last, "you see I didn't quite agree
with my brother."

"H'm!--calls taking the command from the captain not quite agreeing
with him," chuckled Fleming; "but I thought you made it up, didn't
you?"

"Yes, we made it up, but I wouldn't sail with him any more.  I had
more than one reason."

Again I looked at Elsie, and she was, I thought, a little pleasanter,
though she did not speak.  But Fanny pinched her arm, I could see
that, and looked roguishly at me.  However, Mr. Fleming, did not
notice that byplay.

"Well," he said, a trifle drily as I fancied, "I won't put you
through your catechism, except to ask you in a fatherly kind of way"
(Elsie looked down and frowned) "what you are going to do now.  I
should have thought after what that rascal of a half-bred Malay, or
whatever he is, said, that you would have left California in a hurry."

"Time enough, Mr. Fleming--time enough.  I have eighteen months to
look out on without fear of a knife in my ribs, and I may be in
China, or Alaska, or the Rocky Mountains then."

You see I wanted to give them a hint that I might turn up in British
Columbia.  Fanny gave me a better chance though, and I could have
hugged her for it.

"Or British Columbia perhaps, Mr. Ticehurst?" she said smiling very
innocently.

"Who knows," I answered, hastily; "when a man begins to travel, there
is no knowing where he may turn up.  I had a fancy to go to Alaska,
though."

For the way to Alaska was the way to British Columbia, and I did not
want to surprise them too much if I went on the same steamer as far
as Victoria.  And in four days I might see what chance I really had
with Elsie.

"Well," said the father, thoughtfully, "I don't know, and can't give
advice.  I should have thought that when a man was a good sailor and
held your position he ought to stick to it.  A rolling stone gathers
no moss."

"Yes," I answered, "but I am tired of the sea."

"So am I," said Fanny, "and I don't blame you, though you ought to go
with careless captains just on purpose to save people's lives, you
know, Mr. Ticehurst; for you saved ours, and I think some of us might
thank you better than by sitting like a dry stick without saying a
word."

With this she dug at Elsie with her elbow, smiling sweetly all the
time.

"Yes," said Elsie, "and there is Mr. Harmer now in the _Vancouver_.
Perhaps she will be wrecked."

This was the first word she had spoken since I had entered the
carriage, and I recognized by its spite that Elsie was a woman not
above having a little revenge.  For poor Fanny, who had flirted quite
a little with Harmer, said no more.

They put down at their hotel, and I went inside with them.

"Well," said Fleming, "I suppose we shan't see you again, unless you
do as Fanny says, and turn up in our new country.  If you do, be sure
we shall welcome you.  And I wish you well, my boy."

I shook hands with them again, and turned away; and as I did so, I
noticed some of their boxes marked, "Per SS. _Mexico_."  Fanny saw me
looking, and whispered quickly, as she passed me, "Tom Ticehurst, go
to Mexico!" and vanished, while Elsie stood in the gaslight for a
moment as if in indecision.  But she turned away.




PART II.

SAN FRANCISCO AND NORTHWARD.

I never felt so miserable and so inclined to go to sea to forget
myself in hard work as I did that evening after I had bidden farewell
to Elsie and her people.  It seemed to me that she had let me go too
easily out of her life for her to really care for me enough to make
her influence my course in the way I had hoped, and hoped still.
Indeed, I think that if she had not stayed that one undecided moment
after she withdrew her hand from mine, I should have never done what
I did do, but have looked for a ship at once.  For, after all, I said
to myself, what could a modest girl do more?  Why, under the
circumstances, when she thought me guilty of a deliberate crime,
hateful to any woman, to say nothing of my having made love to her at
the same time, it was really more than I could have expected or
hoped.  It showed that I had a hold upon her affections; and then
Fanny thought so too, or she would have never said what she did.  "Go
to Mexico!" indeed; if I wasn't a fool, it was not Mexico the
country, but _Mexico_ the steamer she meant.  I had one ally, at any
rate.  Still, I wondered if she knew what Elsie did, though I thought
not, for she alone kissed Helen when they said good-by, and Elsie had
only given her her hand unwillingly.  If I could speak to Fanny it
might help me.  But I was determined to go northward, and sent my
dunnage down on board the steamer that very evening.

In the morning, and early, for I lay awake all that night, a thing I
did not remember having done before, I went down on the Front at the
bottom of Market Street, where all the tram cars start, and walked to
and fro for some hours along the wharves where they discharge lumber,
or ship the coal.  It was quite a bright morning in the late autumn,
and everything was pleasant to look upon in the pure air before it
was fouled by the oaths of the drivers of wagons and the jar of
traffic.  Yet that same noise, which came dimly to me until I was
almost run over by a loaded wagon, pleased me a great deal better
than the earlier quiet of the morning, and by eight o'clock I was in
a healthy frame of mind, healthy enough to help three men with a
heavy piece of lumber just by way of exercise.  I went back to my
room, washed my hands, had breakfast, and went on board the steamer,
careless if the Flemings saw me, though at first I had determined to
keep out of their way until the vessel was at sea.  I thanked my
stars that I did so, for I saw Fanny by herself on deck, and when she
caught sight of me she clapped her hands and smiled.

"Well, and where are you going, Mr. Ticehurst?" said she, nodding at
me as if she guessed my secret.

"I am going to take your advice and go to Mexico!" I answered.

"Is it far here?  By land do you go, or water?"

"Not far, Fanny; in fact----"

"You are----"

"There now!" said I, laughing in my turn.

"Oh, I am so glad, Mr. Ticehurst!" said she; "for----" and then she
stopped.

"For what, Fanny?" I asked.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you.  I should be a traitor, and that is
cowardly."

"No, Fanny, not when we are friends.  If you tell me, would you do
any harm?"

"No," she answered doubtfully.

"Then treachery is meant to do harm, and if you don't mean harm it
isn't treachery," I replied coaxingly, but with bad logic as I have
been told since.

"Well, then, perhaps I'll say something.  Now suppose you liked me
very much----"

"So I do, Fanny, I swear!"

"No you don't, stupid!  How can you?  I'm not twins--that is, I and
somebody else aren't the same--so don't interrupt.  Suppose you liked
me very much, and I liked you very much----"

"It would be very nice, I dare say," I said, in a doubtful way that
was neither diplomatic nor complimentary.

"And suppose you went off, and suppose I didn't speak to my sister
for hours, and kept on being a nasty thing by tossing and tumbling
about all night, so that she, poor girl, couldn't go to sleep; and
then suppose when she did go off nicely, she woke up to find me--what
do you think--crying, what would it mean?"

"Fanny," I exclaimed, in delight, "you are a dear girl, the very
dearest----"

"No," she said, "no!"

"That I ever saw.  If there weren't so many folks about, I would kiss
you!"

And I meant it, but Fanny burst into laughter.

"The idea!  I should like to see you try it.  I would box your ears
till they were as red as beetroot.  But there, Tom, I am glad you are
coming on this dirty steamer.  For I have no one to talk to now but
Elsie, and she won't talk at all."

However, Fanny's little woes did not trouble me much, for I was
thinking of my own, and wondering how I ought to act.

"Fanny," said I, "tell me what I shall do.  Shall I lie low and not
show up until we are out at sea, or what?"

"If you don't want them to see you, you had better look sharp, for
they are coming up now, I see Elsie's hat," said Fanny.  And I dived
out of sight round the deck house, and by dint of skillful navigation
I got into my bunk without any one seeing me.

Now, the way Elsie found out I was on board was very curious, and
perhaps more pleasing to Fanny than to her.  My bunk was an upper
one, and through the open porthole I could look out on to the wharf.
As I lay there, in a much happier frame of mind than I had known for
many days, I stared out carelessly, watching the men at work, and the
passers-by; and suddenly to my great astonishment, I saw young Harmer
looking very miserable and unhappy.  He had left the _Vancouver_,
too, but of course without leave, as he was an apprentice.  Now, if I
was surprised I was angry, too.  It was such a foolish trick, and I
thought I would give him a talking to at once.  I spoke through the
port.

"You infernal young fool!" said I, "what are you doing here?  Why did
you leave your ship?"

If ever I saw a bewildered face it was Harmer's.  For some seconds he
looked everywhere for the voice, and could not locate it either on
the wharf, deck, or anywhere else.

"You ought to be rope's-ended for an idiot!" I went on, and then he
saw part of my face, but without knowing who I was.  He flushed
crimson, and looked like a young turkeycock, with his wings down and
his tail up.

"Who the devil are you, anyhow," he asked fiercely.  "You come out
here and I'll pull your ugly head off!"

"Thank you," I answered calmly, "my head is of more use to me than
yours is, apparently; and if you don't know my voice, it belongs to
Tom Ticehurst!"

Harmer jumped.

"Hurrah!  Oh, I'm so glad.  I was looking for you, Mr. Ticehurst, and
hunting everywhere."

"And not for anyone else, I suppose?" I put in, and then I saw him
look up.  I knew just as well as he did that he saw Fanny, and I
hoped that Elsie was not with her.  But she was.

"How d'ye do, Miss Fleming?" said he nervously; "and you, Miss Fanny?
I hope you are well.  I was just talking to Mr. Ticehurst."

I swore a little at this, and tumbled out of my bunk, and went on
deck to face the music, as the Americans say, and I got behind the
girls in time to hear the little hypocrite Fanny say sweetly:

"Oh, Mr. Harmer, you must be mistaken, I'm sure!  Mr. Ticehurst if
going to Mexico or somewhere.  He can't be here."

"Miss Fanny," said the boy earnestly, "I tell you he is, and
there--just behind you.  By Jove, I am coming on board!"

And he scrambled up the side like a monkey, as Elsie turned and saw
me.

I said good-morning to her and we shook hands.  I could see she was
nervous, and fancied I could see traces of what Fanny, who talked
hard, had told me.

"Dear me, Mr. Ticehurst!" said Fanny vigorously.  "You didn't shake
hands with me, and see the time it is since we last met!  Why, was it
yesterday, or when?  But men are so forgetful.  I never did like boys
when I was a little girl, and I shall keep it up.  Yes, Mr. Harmer,
now I can shake hands, for not having arms ten feet long I couldn't
reach yours over the rail, though you did hold them out like a signal
post."

Then she and Harmer talked, and I lost what they said.

"Where is your father, Miss Fleming?" I asked, for though I felt
obliged to talk, I could say nothing but that unless I remarked it
was a fine day.  But it had been fine for six months in California.

"He went ashore, Mr. Ticehurst, and won't be back until the steamer
is nearly ready to go.  But now I must go down.  Come, Fanny!"

"What for?" demanded that young lady.  "I'm not coming, I shall stay;
I like the deck, and hate the cabin--misty stuffy hole!  I shall not
go down; as the pilot told the man in the stupid song: 'I shall pace
the deck with thee,' Mr. Ticehurst, please."

"Thank you, Fanny," said I; "but I want to talk to Harmer here before
the steamer goes, and if you will go with your sister perhaps it will
be best."

She pouted and looked about her, and with a parting smile for Harmer,
and a mouth for me, she followed Elsie.  I turned to the lad.

"Now," I began, "you're a nice boy!  What does it all mean?"

"It means that I couldn't stay on the _Vancouver_ if you weren't
there, Mr. Ticehurst.  I made up my mind to that the moment I heard
you were leaving.  I will go on your next ship; but you know, if you
don't mind my saying it, I couldn't stand your brother; I would
rather be struck by you than called a cub by him.  A 'cub,' indeed--I
am as big as he is, and bigger!"

So he was, and a fine handsome lad into the bargain, with curly brown
hair, though his features were a little too feminine for his size and
strength.

"Harmer," I said drily "I think you have done it now very completely.
This is my next ship, and I am a passenger in her."

He didn't seem to mind; in fact, he took it so coolly that I began to
think he knew.

"That doesn't matter, Mr. Ticehurst," he said cheerfully; "I will
come with you."

I stared.

"The devil you will!  Do you know where I am going, what I am going
to do?--or have you any plans of your own cut and dried for me?"

"I don't see that it matters, Mr. Ticehurst," he answered, with a
coolness I admired; "I have more than enough to pay my fare, and if
you go to British Columbia I dare say I can get something to do
there."

"Ah?  I see," I replied; "you are tired of the sea, and would like to
marry and settle down, eh?"

He looked at me, and blushed a little.

"All the more reason I should go with you, sir; for then--then--there
would be--you know."

"What, Harmer?" I asked.

"A pair of us," he answered humbly.

"H'm, you are a nice boy?  What will your father say if he hears you
have gone off in this way?"

Harmer looked at me and laughed.

"He will say it was your fault, sir!  But I had better get my dunnage
on board."

And away he went.

"Harmer, come back!" I cried, but he only turned, nodded cheerfully,
and disappeared in the crowd.

On the whole, although the appearance of Harmer added a new
responsibility to those which were already a sufficient burden, I was
not ill-pleased, for I thoroughly liked him, and had parted with him
very unwillingly when I shook his hand on board the _Vancouver_ for
the last time, as I thought then.  At any rate, he would be a
companion for me, and if by having to look after him I was prevented
in any measure from becoming selfish about Elsie, I might thank his
boyish foolishness in being unable to prevent himself running after
Fanny, whom, to say the truth, I considered a little flirt, though a
dear little girl.  And, then, Harmer might be able to help me with
Elsie.  It was something to have somebody about that I could trust in
case of accident.

It was nearer eleven than ten when the steamer's whistle shrieked for
the last time, and the crew began to haul the warps on board.  I
could see that Elsie and Fanny were beginning to think that their
father would arrive too late, when I saw him coming along the wharf
with Harmer just behind him.  Up to this time I really believed Mr.
Fleming, with the curious innocence that fathers often show, even
those who from their antecedents and character might be expected to
know better, had never thought of me as being his daughter's lover;
but when he had joined his daughters on the hurricane deck, and
caught sight of Harmer and myself standing on the main, I saw in a
moment that he knew almost as much as we could tell him, and that for
a few seconds he was doubtful whether to laugh or to be angry.  I saw
him look at me sternly for a few seconds, then he shook his head with
a very mixed smile on his weather-beaten face, and, sitting down on
the nearest beach, he burst into laughter.  I went up the poop ladder
and caught Fanny's words:

"Why, father, what is the matter with you?  Don't laugh so, all the
people will think you crazy?"

"So I am, my dear, clean crazy," he answered; "because I fancied I
saw Tom Ticehurst and young Harmer down on deck there, and of course
it is impossible, I know that--quite impossible.  It was an
hallucination.  For what could they want here, I should like to know?
You don't know, of course?  Well, well, I am surprised!"

Just then I came up and showed myself, looking quite easy, though I
confess to feeling more like a fool than I remember doing since I was
a boy.

"Oh, then you are here, Ticehurst?" said the old man.  "It wasn't a
vision, after all.  I was just telling Fanny here that I thought I
was going off my head."

I laughed.

"Why, Mr. Fleming," I said, "is it impossible that I, too, should go
to Victoria, on my way to Alaska?"

Fleming looked at me curiously, and almost winked.  "Ah!  Alaska, to
be sure," said he.  "You did speak of Alaska.  It must be a nice
place.  You will be quite close to us.  Come over and give us a call."

"Thank you for the invitation," I replied, laughing.  "I will come to
tea, and bring my young friend with me."

For Harmer now walked up, shook hands with the old man in the most
ordinary way, and sat down between him and Fanny with a coolness I
could not have imitated for my life.  It is a strange thing to think
of the amount of impudence boys have from seventeen to twenty-three
or so; they will do things a man of thirty would almost faint to
attempt, and succeed because they don't know the risk they run.
Harmer was soon engaged in talk with Fanny, and I tried in vain to
imitate him.  I found Elsie as cold as ice; I could make no
impression on her and was almost in despair at the very outset.  If
Fanny had told me the truth in the morning, then Elsie held a great
command over herself.  I soon gave up the attack and retreated to my
berth, where I smoked savagely and was miserable.  You can see I did
not understand much about women then.

The passage from San Francisco to Victoria takes about four days, and
in that time I had to make up my mind what I was going to do.  If
what Fanny said were true, Elsie loved me, and it was only that
foolish and wretched affair with Helen that stood in my way.  Yet,
could I tell the girl how matters were?  It seemed to me then, and
seems to me now, that I was bound in honor not to tell her.  I could
not say to her brutally that my brother's wife had made love to me,
and that I was wholly blameless.  It would be cowardly, and yet I
ought to clear myself.  It was an awkward dilemma.  Then, again, it
was quite possible that Fanny was mistaken; if she did not care for
me, it was all the harder, and I could not court her with that mark
against me.  Yet I was determined to win her, and as I sat in my
berth I grew fierce and savage in my heart.  I swore that I would
gain her over, I would force her to love me, if I had to kill any who
stood in my way.  For love makes a man devilish sometimes as well as
good.  I had come on board saying, "If I see no chance to win her
before I get to Victoria, I will let her go."  And now when we were
just outside the Golden Gate, I swore to follow her always.  "Yes,
even if she spurns me, if she mocks, taunts me, I will make her come
to me at last, put her arms round my neck, and ask my forgiveness."
I said this, and unconsciously I added, "I will follow her night and
day, in sunshine and in rain, in health or sickness."

Then I started violently, for I was using words like those of the
Malay, who was waiting his time to follow me, and for ever in the
daytime or nighttime I knew he was whetting the keen edge of his
hate.  I could see him in his cell; I could imagine him recalling my
face to mind, for I knew what such men are.  I had served as second
mate in a vessel that had been manned with Orientals and the
off-scourings of Singapore, such as Matthias was, and I knew them
only too well.  He would follow me, even as I followed her, and as
she was a light before me, he would be a dark shadow behind me.  I
wished then that I had killed him on board the _Vancouver_, for I
felt that we should one day meet; and who could discern what our
meeting would bring forth in our lives?  I know that from that time
forward he never left me, for in the hour that I vowed to follow
Elsie until she loved me, I saw very clearly that he would keep his
word, though he had but strength to crawl after me and kill me as I
slept.  Henceforth, he was always more or less in my mind.  Yet, if I
could win Elsie first, I did not care.  It might be a race between
us, and her love might be a shield to protect me in my hour of need.
I prayed that it might be so, and if it could not, then at least let
me win her love before the end.

For two days I kept out of the Flemings' way, or rather out of the
way of the girls, for Mr. Fleming himself could not be avoided, as he
slept in the men's berth in a bunk close to mine.  I believe that the
first day on board he spoke to Elsie about me; indeed I know he did,
for I heard so afterward; and I think it was only on her assurance
that there was and could be nothing between us, that he endured the
situation so easily.  In the first place, although he was not rich,
he was fairly well off in Australia; and though the British Columbian
ranch property was not equal in value to that which he had made for
himself, yet it represented a sum of money such as I could not
scarcely make in many years in these hard times.  It would hardly be
human nature for a father to look upon me as the right sort of man
for his daughter, especially since I was such a fool as to quit the
sea without anything definite awaiting me on land.  So, I say, that
if he had thought that Elsie loved me I might have found him a
disagreeable companion, and it was no consolation to me to see that
he treated me in a sort of half-contemptuous, half-pitying way, for I
would rather have seen him like one of the lizards on the Australian
plains, such as the girls had told me of, which erect a spiny frill
over their heads, and swell themselves out the whole length of their
body until their natural ugliness becomes a very horror and scares
anything which has the curiosity or rashness to approach and threaten
them.

"What are you going to do in Alaska or British Columbia, Tom?" said
he to me one day.  "Do you think of farming, or seal-hunting, or
gold-mining, or what?  I should like to hear your plans, if you have
any."  And then he went on without waiting for an answer, showing
plainly that he thought that I had none, and was a fool.  "And that
young idiot Harmer, why didn't he stick to his ship?"

"Because he will never stick to anything, Mr. Fleming," I answered,
"though he is a clever young fellow, and fit for other things than
sailoring, if I'm a judge.  But as for myself I don't think I am, and
yet when I make up my mind to a thing, I usually do it."

"You usually succeed, then?" said he, with a hard smile.  "It is well
to have belief in one's own strength and abilities.  But sometimes
others have strength as well, and then"----

"And then," I answered, "it is very often a question of will."

He smiled again and dropped the subject.

On the third day out from San Francisco, when we were running along
the coast of Oregon, I found at last an opportunity of speaking to
Elsie.  I first went to Fanny.

"Fanny, my dear girl, I want to speak to you a few minutes."  I sat
down beside her.

"I think you know, Fanny, why I am here, don't you?" I asked.

"It is tolerably obvious, Mr. Ticehurst," she answered rather
gravely, I thought.

"Yes, I suppose it is; but first I want to be sure whether you were
right about what you told me on the morning we left San Francisco."

I was silent, and looked at her.  She seemed a trifle distressed.

"Well, Tom, I thought that I was," she answered at length; "and I
still think I am--and yet I don't know.  You see, Elsie is a strange
girl, and never confides in anyone since dear mother died, and she
would never confess anything to me.  Still, I have eyes in my head,
and ears too.  But since you have been with us she has been harder
and colder than I ever saw her in all my life, and she has said
enough to make me think that there is something that I know nothing
about which makes her so.  You know, I joked her about you yesterday,
and she got so angry all of a sudden, like pouring kerosene on a
fire, and she said you were a coward.  When I asked her why, she
turned white and wouldn't answer.  Then I said of course you must be
a coward if she said so, but I didn't think she had any right to say
it or think it when you had saved all our lives by your coolness and
courage.  And then, you know, I got angry and cried, because I like
you very much, just as much as I do my brother on the station at
home.  And I said she was a cruel beast, and all kinds of horrid
things, until I couldn't think of anything but making faces at her,
just as I did when I was a child.  And we are having a quarrel now,
and it is all about you--you ought to be proud."  And Fanny looked up
half laughing and half crying, for she dearly loved Elsie, as I knew.

"Well, my dear little sister Fanny," I said, "for you shall be my
sister one day, there is something that makes her think ill of me,
but it is not my fault, as far as I can see.  And I can't convince
her of that, except by showing her that I am not the man she thinks,
unless some accident puts me back into the place I once believed I
held in her thoughts.  But I want to speak to her, and I must do it
to-day.  To-morrow we shall be in Victoria, and I should not like to
part with her without speaking.  If I talk with her now, it will
probably take some time, so I want you, if you can, to prevent anyone
interrupting us."

Fanny nodded, and wiped away a tear in a quick manner, just as if it
were a fly.

"Very well, I will.  You know I trust you, if Elsie doesn't."  And
she went over to Harmer, who was in a fidget, and kept looking at me
as if he was wondering what I meant by talking so confidentially to
Fanny.

I found Elsie sitting by herself just forward of the funnel.  She was
reading, and though when I spoke she answered and put the book down
in her lap, she kept looking at it in a nervous way, as if she wished
I had not interrupted her; and we had been talking some minutes
before she seemed to wholly forget that it was there.

I spoke without any thought of what I was going to say.

"Miss Fleming (see, I call you that, though a little while ago it was
Elsie), I have determined to speak to you in spite of the way you
avoid me."

"I would rather you did not, Mr. Ticehurst," she said.

"It has come to a time when I must do as I think fit, even if I am
rude and rough.  I have something to say, and mean to say it, Miss
Fleming; and if I word it in rough or broken fashion, if I stumble
over it or stammer with my tongue, you will know why, just as you
know why I am here.  Come now, why am I on this steamer?"

She remained mute, with her head bent down, and the gold of her hair
loose over her eyes, so that I could not see them.  But she trembled
a little, and was ripping one of the pages of her book.  I took hold
of it and put it down.  She made no remonstrance, and I began to feel
that I had power over her, though how far it went I could not tell.

"Why am I here?" I went on scornfully.  "Oh, on a pleasure trip to
see the advertised coast from San Francisco to Sitka, to behold Mount
Elias and its glaciers!  By Heavens, I think I have ice nearer at
hand!  Oh, it is business?  I wish to gain wealth, so I give up what
I understand, and go into what is as familiar to me as a sextant is
to a savage!  It can't be business.  Do you know what it is, Miss
Fleming?  Look, I think there was a girl who I knew once, but she was
a kind, bright girl, who was joyous, whom I called by her Christian
name, who walked by my side in the moonlight, when the sails were
silvered and their shadows dark, when I kept the first watch in the
_Vancouver_.  I wonder what has become of her?  That girl would have
known, but----"

I stopped, and she was still stubborn.  But she did not move.  I went
on again:

"There must be evil spirits on the sea that fly like petrels in the
storm, and come on board ship and enter into the hearts of those they
find there.  Why----"

"I fear, Mr. Ticehurst," she interrupted, "that you think me a fool.
If I am not, then your talk is vain; and if I am, I surely am not fit
to mate with you.  Let us cease to talk about this, for it is
useless!"

I was almost choking with passion; it was so hard to be misconceived,
even though she had so much reason on her side.  Yet, since I knew
she was wrong, I almost wished to shake her.

"No!" I said at last, "I will not go until I have an understanding
one way or the other.  We have been beating about the bush, but I
will do it no longer.  You know that I love you!"

She drew herself up.

"How many can you love at a time, Mr. Ticehurst?" she said.

"One, only one," I replied.  "You are utterly mistaken."

"I am not mistaken!" she said; "and I think you are a coward and a
traitor.  If you were not, I might love you; but as you are, such a
thing is impossible."

I caught her by the wrist.  Instinctively she tried to free herself,
but finding she could not, looked up.  When she caught my eye, her
indignant remonstrance died on her lips.

"Look you, Elsie, what can I do?  Perhaps I cannot defend myself;
there are some situations where a man cannot for the sake of others.
I can say no more about that.  And I will make you see you are wrong,
if not by proof, by showing you what I am--a man incapable of what
you think me--and in the end I will make you love me."  I paused for
a moment, but she did not move.

"You have listened to me; Elsie, and you can see what I mean, you can
think whether I shall falter or swerve; and now I ask you, for I am
assured you do love me, or that you did, whether you will not trust
me now?  For you cannot believe that I could speak as I do if I had
done what you think."

I looked at Elsie, and she was very pale.  I could see that I had
moved her, had shaken her conviction, that she was at war with
herself.  I got up, went to the side, and then turned, beckoning to
her to look over to seaward with me.  She came almost like a woman
walking in her sleep, and took a place by my side.  I did so to avoid
notice, for I feared to attract attention; indeed, I saw two
passengers looking at us curiously, one of whom smiled so that I
began to wish to throw him overboard.  Yet I think, as a matter of
fact, I did wrong in allowing her to move; it broke the influence I
held over her in a measure, for I have often noticed since that to
obtain control of some people one should keep steadily insisting on
the one point, and never allow them to go beyond, or even to think
beyond it.  But then to do so one must be stronger than I was, or he
will lose control over himself, as I did, and so make errors in
judgment.

"Elsie," I said quietly, "are you not going to answer me?  Or am I
not worth it?"

Now, up to this moment I had taken her away from the past; in her
emotion she had almost forgotten Helen; she was just wavering and was
on the point of giving in to me.  Yet by that last suggestion of mine
I brought it back to her.  I could see in her mind the darker depths
of her fear and distrust of me, and what I rightly judged her hatred
and jealousy of Helen.  Though I do not think I know much of
character, yet in the state of mind that I was in then I seemed to
see her mind, as a much more subtle man might have done, and my own
error.  I could have cursed my own folly.  She had taken the book
again, and was holding it open in her hand.  Until I spoke she held
it so lightly that it shook and wavered, but she caught it in both
hands and shut it suddenly, as though it was the book of her heart
that I had been reading, and she denied my right to do it.  And she
turned toward me cold once more, though by a strange influence she
caught my thought.

"This is a closed book, Mr. Ticehurst.  It is the book of the past,
and--it is gone for ever."  She dropped it over the side with a
mocking smile.  But I caught hold of her hand and held it.

"Ah!" said I, "then we begin again.  If the past is dead, the present
lives, and the future is yet unborn.  You mean one thing now, and I
mean the other; but in the future we shall both mean the same.
Remember what I say, Elsie--remember it.  For unless I am dead, I
will be your acknowledged lover and your husband at last."

I dropped her hand and walked away, and when I looked back I saw her
following me with her eyes.  I would have given much then to have
been able to know of what she thought.  I went below and slept for
many hours a sleep of exhaustion, for though a man may be as strong
as a lion physically, an excess of emotion takes more from him than
the most terrible physical toil.

The next morning we were in Victoria, and I neither had, nor did I
seek, an opportunity of again speaking with Elsie.  But I did talk
for a few moments with Fanny.  I told her some part of what occurred,
but not much.  She said as much:

"You are keeping something back, Tom.  I think you know some reason
why Elsie won't have anything to do with you?"

"I do, Fanny," I replied: "but there is nothing in it at all, and one
of these days she will discover it."

"I hope so," said she, a little dryly for so young a girl; "but Elsie
is a little obstinate, and I have seen horses that would not jump a
gate.  You may have to open it yet, Tom."

"It may open of it itself, Fanny, or the horse may desire the grass
and jump at last; but I will never open it myself."

And I shook hands with her and Mr. Fleming.  I took off my hat to
Elsie, but said in a low voice:

"Remember what I said, Elsie, for I shall never forget."  And then
she turned away; but did not look back this time, as she had done
when we parted in the hotel.  Yet such is the curious state a lover
is in that I actually comforted myself that she did not, for if she
had, I said, it would have showed she was callous and cold.  Perhaps,
though she kept command over herself just for the time, it failed her
at the last, and she would not let me see it.

When they were gone, Harmer and I went ashore too.  As to the boy, he
was so desperately in love--calf-love--that I had to cheer him up,
and the way I did it makes me laugh now, for I have a larger
experience of boys and men than I had then.

"Never mind, Harmer," said I, "you will get over this in no time--see
if you don't."

He turned round in a blazing rage, and I think if it had not been for
the effects of the old discipline, which was yet strong upon him, he
would have sworn at me; for although Harmer looked as if butter
wouldn't melt in his mouth, I knew he had a very copious vocabulary
of abuse at his command, such as one learns only too easily at sea.

"What, Mr. Ticehurst!" he said stammering.  "Get over it?  I never
shall, and I don't want to, and, what's more, I wouldn't if I could!
It's not kind of you to say so, and I think--I think----"

"What, Jack?" said I, thunderstruck at this outburst, when I meant
consolation.

"That you'll get over it first.  There now!" said he, triumphant with
this retort I burst into laughter.

"Well--well, Harmer, I didn't mean to vex you.  We must not quarrel
now, for Jordan's a hard road to travel, I believe, and you and I
have got to make lots of money; at least you have; if we are going to
do anything in this country.  For it's what the Yankees call a tough
place."

"Yes," replied Harmer, now ashamed of of being angry.  "I heard one
fellow say to another on the steamer, 'You goldarned fellers from the
East think you're going to get a soft seat over here, but you bet
you'll have to rustle on the Pacific Slope or else git!'  And then he
turned to me.  'D'ye hear that, young feller?--you've got to rustle
right smart, or you'll get left.'"

And Jack laughed heartily trying to imitate the accent of his
adviser, but he found it hard to disguise his own pure English,
learnt in a home far across the seas and the wide stretch of the
American Continent.

That night we stayed in Victoria in a rough hotel kept by two
brothers, Cornishmen, who invited us both to have drinks on the
strength of our all being Englishman, though I should never have
suspected that they were such, so well did their accent disguise the
truth from me.  And in the morning, two days after, we went on board
the _Western Slope_ bound for New Westminster, on the mainland of
British Columbia, whither the Flemings had preceded us.




PART III.

A GOLDEN LINK.

What I have just written is but the connecting link between two
series of events--the hyphen between two words; and I shall not try
to hurry on to the strange drama of a few days to which all that
precedes it has been but the inevitable prologue, without which there
were no clear understanding of its incidents.  I am going, therefore,
to dispose of a whole year's events in a few words, though much
occurred in that time which might be worth relating, if I were a
professional writer, able to make things interesting to all, or if I
had the faculty of making word-pictures of places and scenes which
stand out clearly before me whenever I reflect, and the full times of
the past come up for review.

What Jack Harmer and I did for that year truly would take ten times
the space I have allowed myself, and have been allowed, and I shall
say but little now if I can only dispose of that twelve months in a
way that places my readers in a position to clearly understand what
passed in the thirteenth month after I had landed in British Columbia.

Now on our landing we had but £40 between us, and I was the possessor
of nearly all that amount, about two hundred dollars in American
currency.  It is true I had a hundred and fifty pounds in England,
which I had sent for, and Harmer had quite coolly asked his father
for fifty, which I may state here he did _not_ get in a letter which
advised him to return to England, and go in for something worth
having before it was too late.

"He means the Civil Service, I know," said Jack, when he read the
letter; "and I hate the notion.  They are all fossils in it, and if
they have brains to start with, they rarely keep them--why should
they?  They're not half as much use as a friend at court."

Perhaps he was right, yet I advised him to take his father's advice,
and he took neither his nor mine, but stuck to me persistently with a
devotion that pleased and yet annoyed me.  For I desired a free hand,
and with him I could not get it.  I had some idea of going in for
farming when I landed.  I would get a farm near Elsie's father, and
stay there.  But I found I hadn't sufficient money, or anything like
sufficient, to buy land near Thomson Forks.  So I looked round, and,
in looking round, spent money.  Finally, I got Harmer something to do
in a sawmill on Burrard's Inlet, a position which give him sufficient
to live on, but very little more; and yet he had not to work very
hard, in fact he tallied the lumber into the ships loading in the
Inlet for China and Australia, and wrote to me that he liked his job
reasonably well, though he was grieved to be away from me.  As for
myself, I went up to Thomson Forks, looked round me there, and at the
hotel fell in with a man named Mackintosh, an American from Michigan,
a great strong fellow, with a long red beard, and an eye like an
eagle's, who was going up in the Big Bend gold-hunting, prospecting
as they call it.  I told him, after we got into conversation, that I
wanted to go farming.

He snorted scornfully, and immediately began to dilate on gold-mining
and all the chances a man had who possessed the grit to tackle it.
And as I knew I really had too little money to farm with, it wasn't
long before he persuaded me to be his partner and go with him.  For I
liked him at once, and was feeling so out in the cold that I was glad
to chum with anyone who looked like knowing his way about.  We were
soon in the thick of planning our campaign, and Mac got very fluent
and ornamental in his language as he drank and talked.  However, I
did not mind that much, although his blasphemy was British Columbian,
and rather worse than that in use on board ship.  Yet people do not
think the sea a mean school of cursing.  Presently, as I turned round
at the bar, I saw Mr. Fleming, who did not notice me until I spoke.

"Good-morning, Mr. Fleming," I said; "will you drink with me?"

He turned round sharply at the sound of my voice, and then shook my
hand, half doubtfully at first, and then more heartily.

"Well, Ticehurst," he said at last, "I am glad to see you, after all.
Hang it, I am! for" (here he lowered his voice to a whisper) "I don't
care about the style of this place after New South Wales.  They
nearly all carry revolvers here, damn it! as if they were police; and
last time I came in, my man and another fellow fought, and Siwash Jim
(that's what they call him) tried to gouge out the other chap's eyes.
And when I pulled him off, the other men growled about my spoiling a
fight.  What do you think of that?"

And the old man stared at me inquiringly, and then laughed.

"Wish I could ask you over to the Creek, but I can't, and you know
why.  Take my advice and go back to sea.  Now, look here, let's speak
plain.  I know you want Elsie; but it's a mistake, my boy.  She
didn't care for you; and I know her, she's just like her mother, the
obstinatest woman you ever saw when she made up her mind.  I wouldn't
mind much if she did care for you, though perhaps you aint so rich as
you ought to be, Tom.  But then my wife had more money than I had by
a long sight, so I don't care for that.  But seeing that Elsie
doesn't want you, what's the use?  Take my advice and go to sea
again."

Here he stopped and gave me the first chance of speaking I had had
since I accosted him.

"Thank you, Mr. Fleming," I said firmly; "but I can't go back yet.  I
am glad you have no great objection to me yourself, but I believe
that Elsie hasn't either, and I'm bound to prove it; and I will."

"Well, you know best," he replied.  "But mind your eye, old boy, when
your friend the Malay comes out.  I shouldn't like to be on the same
continent with him, if I were you."

"I don't like being either," I said.  "But then it shows how fixed I
am on one object.  And I shall not go, even if he were to find out
where I am.  For I might have to kill him.  Yet I don't see how he
can find out.  Nobody knows or will know, except my brother, and he
won't tell him."

Fleming shrugged his shoulders and dropped the subject to take up his
own affairs.

"Damn this country, my boy! give me a plain where I can see a few
miles.  On my soul, this place chokes me; I can't look out five
hundred yards for some thundering old mountain!  At the Creek there
are hills at the back, at the front, and on both sides, and nearly
all are chokeful of trees, so that riding after the cattle is worse
than going after scrub cattle in Australia.  I can't get the hang of
the place at all, and though I am supposed to own nearly two hundred
head of cattle, I can't muster seventy-five on my own place.  Some
are up at Spullamacheen, some on the Nicola, and others over at the
Kettle River on the border, for all I know.  And the place is full of
cañons, as they call gulches in this place; and thundering holes they
are, two hundred feet deep, with a roaring stream at the bottom.  The
Black Cañon at the back of my place gives me the shivers.  I am like
a horse bred on the plains; when it gets on the mountains it is all
abroad, and shivers at the sight of a sharp slope.  I reckon I can
ride on the flat, old as I am, but here, if it wasn't for my
scoundrel Siwash Jim, who says he knows the country like a book, I
shouldn't know where to go or what to do.  Here he comes, the
vagabond!"

I had learnt by this time that Siwash means Indian, for in that
country they say Siwashes instead of Indians, so I thought Jim was
one of the natives.  However, I saw at once he wasn't, for though he
was dark, his features were pure white.  He had earned his nickname
by living with the Indians for so many years that he was more at home
with them than with white people, and he had acquired all their vices
as well as a goodly stock of his own, probably inherited.  He was a
slightly built man of about forty, with a low forehead, a sharp
aquiline nose, and no lips to speak of; his mustache was short, and a
mere line; his teeth were black with smoking and chewing; his legs
bowed with continual riding.  He wore mocassins, and kept his hair
long.  He was more than half intoxicated when he came in, carrying a
stock-whip coiled round his neck.  He did not speak, but drank
stolidly; and when he looked at me, I fancied it was with an air of
dislike, as though he had read my thoughts and knew how I regarded
him.

I drew Fleming aside.

"I don't like him," said I; "and wouldn't trust him farther than I
could swing a bull by the tail.  Do the girls like him?"

"Like him!" repeated Fleming, "they hate him, and want me to give him
the bounce, as they say here.  Elsie says he looks like a murderer,
and Fanny that he is uglier than a Murrumbidgee black fellow.  But
then he knows the country and does his work, and don't want to go.  I
don't care much either way, for when I can get all the cattle
together and put the place in order I shall sell out and go back.
Stay in British Columbia--no, sir, I won't! not if they make me
Governor.  I tell you I like to be where I can see ten miles.  Then I
can breathe.  I can go out at home and see all my station and almost
count the sheep and cattle from my door; and here I have to ride up
and ride down, and I never know where I am.  I'm going back just as
soon as I can."

And he went away then without asking where I was going or whether I
was doing anything.  Next morning I jumped on board the steamer with
Mac and started for the head of the Shushwap Lakes.  Thence we went
into the Big Bend, and though we never made the millions Mac was
always prophesying about and hungering for, our summer's work was not
wasted.  For before the season was over we had struck a rich pocket
and made about four thousand dollars a piece.

Of course I wanted to up stick and go back as soon as I had as much
as that, but Mac would not hear of it.

"No, Tom--no," said he; "there's more here yet."

And he eyed me so entreatingly that I caved in and promised to remain
with him prospecting, at any rate till the first snow.

But a week after making that agreement we both went down to the
Columbia for more provisions.  Finding none there, we had to make the
farther journey to the Landing.  There I found a letter waiting for
me from Harmer, saying that he was tired of the sawmill on the Inlet,
and wanted to join me.  I wrote back requesting him to be good enough
to stay where he was, but, to console him, promised that if I saw any
chance of his doing better with me I would send for him.  He asked
rather timidly for news of Fanny.  How could I give him news when I
knew nothing of Elsie?  Yet the simple mention of the girl's name
again made me anxious to get back to the Forks, and if one of the
steamers had come up the lake I think I should have deserted Mac in
spite of my promise.  Yet we had only brought down half the gold that
trip, perhaps because my partner had made a calculation as to what I
might do, having it on me, if we got within reach of some kind of
civilization, and I thought it best to secure the rest while I could,
though I thoroughly trusted Mac.  At the same time that I answered
Harmer's letter I wrote one to my brother, telling him both what I
had done and what I proposed doing later on.  And I begged him to be
careful, if he should be in San Francisco then, of the Malay when his
time was up.  For although his chief spite was against me, yet Will
was my brother, and I well remembered the look that he had cast on
him when he was kicked in the struggle between Will and myself.

The rest of the summer--and a beautiful season it was in the wooded
mountains--was spent in very unsuccessful prospecting.  For one
thing, after our success Mac had taken to prospecting for pockets;
and if gold-mining be like gambling as a general rule, that is almost
pure chance.  Once or twice he was in high spirits at good
indications, but on following them up we were invariably
disappointed, and we had to start again.  August and September
passed, and the higher summits above us were already white with snow,
which fell on us in the lower valleys as rain.  In October there was
a cessation of bad weather for a time, and Mac promised himself a
long fall season, but at the end of it we woke one morning to find a
foot of snow on our very camping ground.

"We shall have to get up and get," said I cheerfully, for I was glad
of it.

"Oh, no!" said Mac; "this is nothing.  It will all go again by
to-morrow; there will be nothing to stop us from another week or two.
Besides, yesterday I had a notion that I saw something.  I didn't
tell you, but I found another bit of quartz--aye, richer than the
piece I showed you at the Forks, Tom, and we've got to find out where
it comes from."

I groaned, but, in spite of argument, there was no moving him; and
though I was angry enough to have gone off by myself, yet knowing
neither the trail nor the country well, I had no desire to get lost
in the mountains, which would most assuredly have meant death to me.
However, I still remonstrated, and at last got him to fix ten days as
the very longest time he would remain: I was obliged to be content
with that.

But Mac was sorry before the hour appointed for our departure that he
had not taken my advice, "tenderfoot" and Englishman though I was.
On the evening of the eighth day the temperature, which had up to
that time been fairly warm in spite of our altitude and the advanced
season, fell suddenly, and it became bitterly cold.  Our ponies, who
had managed to pick up a fair living on the plateau where our camp
stood, and along the creek bottoms, came right up to our tent, and
one of them put his head inside.  "Dick," as we called him, was a
much gentler animal than most British Columbian cayuses, and had made
a friend of me, coming once a day at least for me to give him a piece
of bread, of which he had grown fond, though at first he was as
strange with it as a young foal with oats.  I put up my hand and
touched his nose, which was soft and silky, while the rest of his
coat was long and rough.  He whinnied gently, and I found a crust for
him, and then gently repulsing him, I fastened the fly of the tent.
Mac was fast asleep under his dark blankets, whence there came sudden
snorts like those a bear makes in his covert, or low rumblings like
thunder from a thick cloud.

But it was he who woke me in the morning, and he did it without
ceremony.

"Get up, old man!" he said hurriedly, while he was jamming himself,
as it were, into his garments.  "The snow's come at last--and, by
thunder, it's come to stay!  There's no time to be lost!"  And he
vanished into the white space outside.

When I followed I found him already at work packing the ponies, and
without any words I set to, struck the tent, rolled it up, and got
together everything I thought should go.  When I touched the tools
Mac turned round.

"Leave 'em, pard--leave 'em.  There's plenty of weight without that.
Aye, plenty--and too much!"

The last I only just caught, for it was said to himself.  In half an
hour we were off, leaving behind us nearly three weeks' provisions,
all the tools but two light shovels, and what remained after our
working the quartz.

"It's worth a thousand dollars," said Mac, regretfully, "but without
a proper crusher it's only tailings."

We moved off camp, Mac first, leading the nameless pony, which was
the stronger of the two, and I following with Dick.

The snow was two feet deep in many parts, and in some drifts much
more than that.  Fortunately, the trail was for its greater length
well sheltered, both by overhanging rocks and big trees, spruce,
cedar, hemlock, and pine, which helped to keep it clear; but it was
evident to me by the way the ponies traveled, and the labor it was
for me to get along with no other burden than the shovel, from which
I sometimes used to free Dick, that another fall of snow would make
traveling almost impossible.  Mac walked on in somber silence,
reflecting doubtless that it was his obstinacy which had brought us
into trouble, a thing I confess I was not so forgiving as to forget,
though merciful enough not to remind him of it.  It had taken us
three days to come up from the Columbia, and it seemed barely
possible under the circumstances to retrace our steps in the same
time, even although the horses were not so much burdened and there
was not so much hard climbing to be done.  But I could see Mac was
bent on getting out, and he traveled without more rest than we were
absolutely compelled to take on account of the animals.  As for
myself, I confess that though I had traveled that same trail twice,
yet so greatly was it altered by the snow that I should have lost my
way in the first mile.  For mountaineering and the knowledge of
locality are things not to be learnt in a hurry, they must come by
long custom, or by native instinct.

Sorrowfully--for I am always loth to harm even a noxious animal, as
long as it leaves me alone--I suggested to Mac that we should leave
the horses.  He shook his head.

"Who'll carry the provisions, then?" said he.

"Do you think we can get to the Landing, Mac?" I asked.

"We shall be lucky," he answered, with a significant nod, "if we get
to the other side of the Columbia.  Tom, I think I have let you in
for a winter up here, unless you care about snow-shoeing it over the
other pass.  I was a fool--say yes to that if you like."

It was late when we camped, but my partner was in better spirits than
he had been at noon when we held the above conversation, for we had
done, by dint of forced marching, quite as much as we did in fine
weather.  But the ponies were very tired, and there was nothing for
them to eat, or next to nothing, for the grass was deeply buried.  I
gave Dick a little bread, however, and the poor animal was grateful
for it, and stood by me all night, until, at the earliest dawn, we
packed them again with a load that was lighter by the day's food of
two men, and heavier to them by a day's hard toil and starvation.

Toward the afternoon of that, the second day, we came to the hardest
part of the whole trail, for, on crossing a river which was freezing
cold, we had to climb the side of an opposing mountain.  Mac's pony
traveled well, and though he showed evident signs of fatigue, he was
in much better case than mine, who every now and again staggered, or
sobbed audibly with a long-drawn breath.  I drew Mac's attention to
it, but he shook his head.

"He must go on, there's no two ways about it."  And he marched off.
I went behind Dick and pushed him for a while, and though I tired
myself, yet I am not sorry for what I did, even that little
assistance was such a relief to the poor wretched animal who, from
the time he was able to bear a weight, had been used by a packer
without rest or peace, as though he were a machine, and whose only
hope of release was to die, starved, wounded, saddle and girth
galled, of slow starvation at last.  Such is the lot of the pack
horse, and, though poor Dick's end was more merciful, his fellows
have no better fate to expect, while their life is a perpetual round
of ill-usage and hard work.

By about four o'clock in the afternoon the sky grew overcast, and the
light feathery flakes of snow came at first slowly, and then faster,
turning what blue distances we caught sight of to a gray, finally
hiding them.  Dick by this time was almost at a standstill.  I never
thought I was a very tender-hearted man, and never set up to be;
indeed, if he had been only stubborn, I might have thrashed him in a
way some folks would call cruel; and yet, being compelled to urge
him, both for his sake and my own, I confess my heart bled to see his
suffering and wretchedness.  Having scarcely the strength to lift his
feet properly, he had struck his fetlocks against many projecting
stones and roots until the blood ran down and congealed on his little
hoofs, which were growing tender, as I could see by the way he winced
on a rockier piece of the trail than common.  His rough coat was
standing up and staring like that of a broken-haired terrier, in
spite of the sweat which ran down his thin sides and heaving flanks;
while every now and again he stumbled, and with difficulty recovered
himself.

When we came to the divide, just as if he had said that he would do
so much for us, he stumbled again, and fell on the level ground,
cutting his knees deeply.  Mac heard the noise, and, leaving his pony
standing, he came back to me.

"He's done up, poor devil!" said he; "he'll go no further.  What
shall we do?"

I shook my head, for it was not I who arranged or ordered things when
Mac was about.  He was silent for a while.

"There's nothing for it," he said at last, "but one thing.  We must
put all the other kieutan can stand on him."

By this time I had got the pack off Dick, and he lay down perfectly
flat upon his side, with the blood slowly oozing from his knees, and
his flanks still heaving from the exertions which had brought him up
the hill to die on the top of it.

"Come on," said Mac, as he moved off with what he meant to put on the
other pony.

But at first I could not go.  I put my hand in my pocket, took out a
piece of bread, and, kneeling down by the poor animal, I put it to
his lips.  He mumbled it with his teeth and dropped it out.  Then in
my hat I got some water out of a little pool and offered it to him.
He drank some and then fell back again.  I took my revolver from my
belt, stroked his soft nose once more, and, putting the weapon to his
head between his eye and ear, I fired.  He shivered all over,
stiffened a little, and all was still except for the slow drip of the
blood that ran out of his ear from a vein the ball had divided.  Then
I went on--and I hope no one will think me weak if I confess my sight
was not quite so clear as it had been before, and if there was a
strange haziness about the cruelly cold trail and mountain side that
did not come from the falling snow.

At our camp that night we spoke little more than was absolutely
necessary, and turned in as soon as we had eaten supper, drunk a tin
of coffee, and smoked a couple of pipes.  Fortunately for the
remaining horse, in the place we had reached there was a little feed,
a few tussocks of withering frost-nipped bunch grass, which he ate
greedily to the last roots his sharp teeth could reach.  And then he
pawed or "rustled" for more, using his hoof to bare what was hidden
under the snow.  But for that we should have left him on the trail
next morning.

The toil and suffering of the third day's march were dreadful, for I
grew footsore, and my feet bled at the heels, while the skin rose in
blisters on every toe, which rapidly became raw.  But Mac was a man
of iron, and never faltered or grew tired; and his example, and a
feeling of shame at being outdone by another, kept me doggedly behind
him at a few paces' distance.  How the pony stood that day was a
miracle, for he must have been made of iron and not flesh and blood
to carry his pack, while climbing up and sliding down the steep
ascents and slopes of the hills, while every few yards some
wind-felled tree had to be clambered over almost as a dog would do
it.  He was always clammy with sweat, but he seemed in better
condition than on the second day, perhaps on account of the grass he
had been able to get during the night.  Yet he had had to work all
night to get it, while I and Mac had slept in the torpor of great
exhaustion.

Late in the evening we came to the banks of the Columbia, across
which stretched sandy flats and belts of scrub, until the level
ended, and lofty mountains rose once more, covered with snow and
fringed with sullen clouds, thousands of feet above where we stood.
Mac stopped, and looked anxiously across the broad stream; and when
he saw a faint curl of bluish smoke rising a mile away in the sunless
air, he pointed to it with a more pleased expression that I had seen
on his face since he had roused me so hurriedly on that snowy morning
three days ago.

"There is somebody over there, at any rate, old man," he said almost
cheerfully, "though I don't know what the thunder they're doing here,
unless it's Montana Bill come up trapping.  He said he was going to
do it, but if so, what's he doing down here?"

"Can't he trap here, then?" I asked.

"Well," replied Mac, "this might be the end of his line; but still,
he ought to be farther up in the hills.  There isn't much to trap
close down on this flat.  You see trappers usually have two camps,
and they walk the line during the day, and take out what is caught in
the night, setting the traps again, and sleeping first at one end and
then at the other.  However, we shall see when we get across."  And
he set about lighting a fire.

When we had crossed before there had been a rough kind of boat built
out of pine slabs, which was as crazy a craft to go in as a
butter-tub.  It had been made by some hunters the winter before, and
left there when they went west in the early spring, before we came
up.  I asked Mac what had become of it, for it was not where we had
left it, hauled up a little way on a piece of shingle and tied to a
stump.

"Somebody took it," he said, "or more likely, when the water rose
after we crossed, it was carried away.  Perhaps it's in the Pacific
by this."

I went down to the stump, and found there the remains of the painter,
and as it had been broken violently and not cut, I saw that his last
suggestion was probably correct.

We sat down to supper by our fire, which gleamed brightly in the
gathering darkness on the surrounding snow and the waters close
beneath us, and ate some very vile bacon and a greasy mess of beans
which we had cooked the night before we left our mountain camp.

"How are we going to cross, Mac?" said I, when we had lighted our
pipes.

"Build a raft," said he.

"And then?"

"When we are over?"

"Yes."

"Why, stay there, I guess, if it snows any more.  One more fall of
heavy snow will block Eagle Pass as sure as fire's hot!"

I shrugged my shoulders.  Though I had been expecting this, it was
not pleasant to have the prospect of spending a whole winter mewed up
in the mountains, so close before me.

"Does it get very cold here?" I asked at length, when I had reflected
for a while.

He nodded sardonically.

"Does it get cold?  Is it cold now?"

I drew closer to the fire for an answer.

"Then this is nothin'--nothin' at all.  It would freeze the tail off
a brass monkey up here.  It goes more than forty below zero often and
often; and it's a worse kind of cold than the cold back east, for
it's damper here, and not so steady.  Bah!  I wish I was a bear, so
as to hole up till spring."

All of which was very encouraging to a man who had mostly sailed in
warm latitudes, and hated a frost worse than poison.  And it didn't
please me to see that so good-tempered a man as Mac was really put
out and in a vile humor, for he knew what I could only imagine.

The conversation--if conversation it could be called--flagged very
soon, and we got out our blankets, scraping away the snow from a
place, where we lay close to each other in order to preserve what
warmth we could.  We lay in the position commonly called in America
"spooning," like two spoons fitting one into another, so that there
had to be common consent for changing sides, one of which grew damp
while the other grew cold.  Just as we were settling down to sleep we
heard the sudden crack of a rifle from the other shore, and against
the wind came a "halloa" across the water, Mac sat up very
unconcernedly; but, as for me, I jumped as if I had been shot,
thinking of course at first that the shot had been fired by Indians,
though I knew there were no hostile tribes in that part of British
Columbia, where, indeed, most of the Indians are very peaceable.

"I told you so," said Mac; "that's Montana Bill's rifle.  I sold it
him myself.  He's the only man up here that carries a Sharp."

He rose, and went down to the water's edge.  "Halloa!" he shouted, in
his turn, and in the quietness of the windless air I heard it faintly
repeated in distant echoes.

"Is that you, Mac?" said the mysterious voice.

"You bet it is!" answered my partner, in a tone that ought to have
been heard on the Arrow Lake.

"Bully old boy!" said Bill faintly, as it seemed.  "Do you know me?"

"Aye, I reckon I know old Montana's bellow!" roared Mac.

"Then I'll see you in the morning, pard!" came the voice again, after
which there was silence, broken only by the faint lap of the water on
the shingle, as it slipped past, and the snort of our pony as he blew
the snow out of his nostrils, vainly seeking for a tuft of grass.

We rose at earliest dawn, and saw Montana Bill slowly coming over the
level.  He sat down while Mac and I built a raft, and fashioned a
couple of rude paddles with the ax.

"Is the pony coming across, Mac?" I asked.

"We'll try it, but it's his own lookout," said he; "if he won't come
easy we shan't drag him, for we shall hev to paddle to do it
ourselves."

Fortunately for him he did want to go over, and, having a long lariat
round his neck, he actually swam in front of us, and gave us a tow
instead of our giving him one.

As we were going over, Mac said to me:

"I never thought I'd be glad to see Montana Bill before.  He's got
more gas and blow about him than'd set up a town, and he's no more
good at bottom--that is, he aint no more grit in him than a clay
bank, though to hear him talk you'd think he'd mor'n a forty-two inch
grindstone.  But I hope he's got a good stock of grub."

In a few minutes we touched bottom, and we shook hands with the
subject of Mac's eulogium, who looked as bold as brass, as fierce as
a turkeycock, and had the voice of a man-o'-war's bo'son.  We took
the lariat off the pony, and turned him adrift.

"Did you fellows strike it?" said Bill, the first thing.

"Enough to pay for our winter's board, I reckon," said Mac.  "Have
you got plenty of grub?"

Bill nodded, using the common American word for yes, which is a kind
of cross-breed between "yea" and the German "Ja," pronounced short
like "ye."

"You bet I've plenty.  Old Hank kem up with me, and then he cleared
out again.  He and I kind of disagreed first thing, and he just
skinned out.  Good thing too--for him!"

And Bill looked unutterable things.

"Is there any chance of getting out over the pass?" asked Mac.

"If you can fly," answered Bill.  "Drifts is forty foot deep in
parts, and soft too.  I could hardly get on snow-shoein' it.  Better
stay and trap with me.  Better'n gold-huntin' any time, and more
dollars in it."

"Why aint you farther up in the hills?" asked Mac, as we tramped
along.

"Dunno," said Bill; "I allers camp here every year.  It's kind of
clear, and there's a chance for the cayuses to pick a bit to keep
bones and hide together.  Besides, I feel more freer down here.  I
see more than 'ull do me of the hills walking the line."

And with that we came to his camp.

Now, if I tell all that happened during that winter, which was, all
round, the most uncomfortable and most unhappy one I ever spent, for
I had so much time to think of Elsie, and how some other man more to
her mind might go to windward of me in courting her--why, I should
not write one book, but two, which is not my intention now.  Besides,
I have been long enough coming to the most serious part of my history
to tire other people, as it has tired me; although I could not
exactly help it, because all, or at least nearly all, that happened
between the time I was on the _Vancouver_ and the time we all met
again seems important to me, especially as it might have gone very
differently if I had never been gold-hunting in the Selkirks, or even
if I had got out of the mountains in the fall instead of the
following spring.  For things seem linked together in life, and, in
writing, one must put everything in unless more particular
description becomes tedious, because of its interfering with the
story.  And though trapping is interesting enough, yet I am not
writing here about that or hunting, which is more interesting still;
and when a man tells me a yarn he says is about a certain thing, I
don't want him to break off in the middle to say something quite
different, any more than I like a man to get up in the middle of a
job of work, such as a long splice which is wanted, to do something
he wasn't ordered to do.  It's only a way of doing a literary Tom
Cox's traverse, "three times round the deck house, and once to the
scuttle-butt"--just putting in time, or making what a literary friend
of mine calls "padding."

So folks who read this can understand why I shall say nothing of this
long and weary winter, and, if they prefer it, they can think that we
"holed up," as Mac said, like the bears, and slept through it all.
For in the next part of this yarn it will be spring, with the snow
melting fast, and the trail beginning to look like a path again that
even a sailor, who was not a mountaineer, could hope to travel on
without losing his life, or even his way.




PART IV.

LOVE AND HATE.

It had been raining for a week in an incessant torrent, while the
heavy clouds hung low down the slopes of the sullen, sunless
mountains, when we struck camp in the spring-time, and loaded our
gaunt pack-ponies for the rapidly opening trail.  Our road lay for
some twenty miles on the bottom of a flat, which closed in more and
more as we went east, until we were in the heart of the Gold Range.
The path was liquid mud, in which we sank to the tops of our long
boots, sometimes even leaving them embedded there; and the ponies
were nearly "sloughed down" a dozen times in the day.  At the worst
places we were sometimes compelled to take off their packs, which we
carried piecemeal to firmer ground, and there loaded them again.  It
had taken us but four or four and a half days to cross it on our last
trip, and now we barely reached Summit Lake in the same time.

Yet, in spite of the miserable weather and our dank and dripping
condition, in spite of the hard work and harder idleness, when wind
and rain made it almost impossible to sleep, I was happy--far happier
than I had been since the time I had so miserably failed to make
Elsie believe what I told her; for now I was going back to her with
the results of my long toil, and there was nothing to prevent my
staying near her, perhaps on a farm of my own, until she should
recognize her error at last.  Yet, I thought it well to waste no
time, for though I had to a great extent got rid of my fears
concerning that wretched Matthias, still his imprisonment had but a
few more months to run, and he _might_ keep his word and his sworn
oath.  I wished to win her and wear her before that time, and after
that, why, I did not care, I would do my best, and trust in
Providence, even if I trusted in vain.

I have often thought since that it was strange how much John Harmer
was in my mind, from daylight even to dark, during the sixth day of
our toilsome tramp over Eagle Pass, for his image often unaccountably
came before me, and even dispossessed the fair face of her whom I
loved.  But it was so, and no time during that day should I have been
very much surprised, though perhaps a little angry, to see him come
round a bend in the trail, saying half humbly and half impudently, as
he approached me, "How do you do, Mr. Ticehurst?"  I almost began to
believe after that day in second sight, clairvoyance, and all the
other mysterious things which most sensible people look upon as they
do on charlatanry and the juggling in a fair, for my presentiments
came true in such a strange way; even if it was only an accident or
mere coincidence after all.  Yet I have seen many things put down as
"coincidences" which puzzled me, and wiser people than Tom Ticehurst.

We had camped in a wretchedly miserable spot, which had nothing to
recommend it beyond the fact that there really was some grass there;
for the wall of rock on our right, which both Mac and Bill considered
a protection from the wind, acted as break-winds often do, and gave
us two gales in opposite directions, instead of one.  So the wind,
instead of sweeping over us and going on its way, fought and
contended over our heads, and only ceased for a moment to rush
skrieking again about our ears as it leapt on the fire and sent the
embers here and there, while the rain descended at every possible
angle.  Perhaps it was on account of the fizzing of the water in the
fire, the rattle of the branches overhead, and the whistling of the
wind, that we heard no one approaching our grumbling company until
they were right upon us.  I was just then half a dozen paces out in
the darkness, cutting up some wood for our fire, and as the strangers
approached the light, I let fall my ax so that it narrowly escaped
cutting off my big toe, for one of the two I saw was a boy, and that
boy John Harmer!  I slouched my big hat down over my eyes, and with
some wood in my arms I approached the group and replenished the fire.
John was talking with quite a Western twang, as though he was
determined not to be taken for an Englishman.

"Rain!" he was saying; "well, you bet it's something like it!  On the
lake it takes an old hand to know which is land and which is water.
Old Hank was nearly drowned in his tent the other day."

"Serve him right!" growled Bill.  "But who are you, young feller?--I
never see you before, and I mostly know everybody in this country."

Harmer looked up coolly, and taking off his hat, swung it round.

"Well," he answered, "I aint what you'd call celebrated in B.C. yet,
and so you mightn't have heard of me.  But if you know everybody,
perhaps you know Tom Ticehurst and can tell me where he is to be
found.  For I am looking for him."

"Oh, you are, are you?" said Bill.  "Then what's he been doing that
you want him so bad as to come across in this trail this weather?"

"He hasn't been doing anything that I know, pard," said Jack; "but I
know he was up here with a man named Mackintosh."

"Ah!  I know him," replied Bill, "in fact, I've seen him lately.  Is
Tom Ticehurst a little chap with red hair and a squint?"

"No, he isn't!" shouted Jack, as if he had been libeled instead of
me.  "He's a good looking fellow, big enough to eat you."

"Oh, is he?" sneered the joker.  "I tell you what, young feller, it
would take a big man to chew up Montana Bill's little finger."

Harmer burst out laughing.

"So you're Montana Bill, are you?" said he.

"I am," answered Bill as gravely as if it were a kingly title.

"Well, then, old Hank said he could eat you up without pepper or
salt.  He's as mad at you as a man can be; says he's been practicing
shooting all the winter on purpose to do you up, and he puts a new
edge on his knife every morning."

"That'll do, young feller," put in Mac, seeing that Bill was getting
in a rage, and knowing that he was just the man to have a row with a
youngster.  "You're a little too fast, you are.  My name's
Mackintosh, if you want anyone of that name."

"Do I want you!" cried Harmer anxiously; "of course I do!  Do you
know where Ticehurst is?"

"Yes," replied Mac; while I stood close beside Harmer looking down at
the fire so that he couldn't see my face--I was laughing so.

"Then where is he?  Hang it! has anything happened to him that you
fellows make such a mystery about it?" he asked getting a little
alarmed, as I could tell by the tone of his voice.

"Well," replied Mac quietly, "I'll tell you.  He was up in the hills
with me, and we struck it rich--got a lot of gold, we did, you bet we
did," he went on in an irritating drawl; "and then came down when the
snow flew.  We had such a time getting out, young feller, and then at
last we came to the Columbia and there----"

"He was drowned?" said Harmer growing pale.

"No, he warn't," replied Mac.  "We got across all right, and stayed
all winter trapping with Bill here.  And let me tell you, young man,
you mustn't trifle with Bill.  He's a snorter, he is."

I could see "Damn Bill!" almost on Jack's lips, but he restrained it.

"And when the Chinook came up, and the snow began to melt a few days
back, we all got ready to cross the range--him, and Bill, and me.
That's six days ago.  And a better fellow than him you never struck,
no, nor will.  What do you think, pard?" he asked with a grin,
turning to me.

I grunted.

"And, young feller," Mac went on again, "if he's a pardner of yours,
or a shipmate--for I can see you're an Englishman--why, I'm glad he's
here and safe."

Then suddenly altering his tone, he turned fiercely on Harmer, who
jumped back in alarm.

"Why the thunder don't you shake hands with him?  There he is
a-waitin'."

And John sprang across the fire and caught me by both hands.

"Confound it, Mr. Ticehurst, how very unkind of you!" he said, with
tears in his eyes.  "I began to think you were dead."  And he looked
unutterably relieved and happy, but bursting with some news, I could
see.

"Wait till supper, Jack," said I; "and then tell me.  But I'm glad to
see you."

I was too, in spite of his leaving the Inlet without asking me.

As to the man with whom he came, Montana Bill knew him, and they
spent their time in bullying the absent Hank Patterson.  It appeared
that Harmer had hired him to come and hunt for me as far as the
Columbia River, in order to bury me decently, as he had been firmly
convinced that I was dead, when he learnt no news of me at the
Landing.

The whole five of us sat down to beans and bacon; but I and Harmer
ate very little because he wanted to tell me something which I was
strangely loth to hear, so sure was I that it could be nothing good.
It certainly must be bad news to bring even an impulsive youngster
from the coast to the Columbia in such weather.

"Well, what is it, Harmer?" said I at last.

He hesitated a moment.

"Is it anything about her?" I asked quietly, lest the others should
overhear.

"Who?  Miss F.?" he asked.  I nodded, and he shook his head.

"It's no such luck," he went on; "but I am so doubtful of what I have
to tell you, although a few hours ago I was sure enough that I didn't
know how to begin.  When Mat's sentence be up, Mr. Ticehurst?"

I had no need to reckon.

"The 15th of August, Jack."

He looked at me, and then bent over toward me.

"It's up already, sir."

"What, is he dead, then?"

"No, sir, but he has escaped."

And he filled his pipe while I gathered myself together.  It was
dreadfully unfortunate if it were true.

"How do you know this?" I said at length,

"I saw him in New Westminster one night."

"The deuce you did!  Harmer, are you sure?"

The lad looked uncomfortable, and wriggled about on his seat, which
was the old stump of a tree felled by some former occupants of our
camping ground.

"I should have been perfectly sure, if I hadn't thought he was in the
penitentiary," he said finally; "but still, I don't think I can have
mistaken his face, even though I only caught sight of it just for a
moment down in the Indian town.  I was sitting in a cabin with two
other fellows and some klootchmen, and I saw him pass.  There was not
much light, and he was going quick, but I jumped up and rushed out
after him.  But in the rain and darkness he got away, if he thought
anyone was following him; or I missed him."

"I'm glad you did, my boy; he would have thought little of putting
his knife into you," and here I rubbed my own shoulder mechanically.
"Besides, if he had seen you, that would have helped him to track me.
But then, how in the name of thunder (as Mac says) did he come here
at all!  It can't be chance.  Did you look up the San Francisco
papers to see if anything was reported as to his escape?"

Harmer brightened as if glad to answer that he had done what I
considered he ought to have done.

"Yes, sir, I did; but I found nothing about it, nothing at all."

I reflected a little, and saw nothing clearly, after all, but the
imperative necessity of my getting down to the Forks.  If Mat were
loose, why, I should have to be very careful, it was true; but
perhaps he might be retaken, though I did not know if a man could be
extradited for simply breaking prison.  And if he came up country,
and couldn't find me, he might take it into his Oriental skull to
harm anyone I knew.  The thought made me shiver.

"Did you stay at Thomson Forks, Harmer?" I asked, to try and turn the
dark current of my thoughts.

He blushed a little.

"Yes, sir, but only a day.  I saw no one, though."

"What, not even Fanny?"

"No, but I wrote to her and told her I was going up the Lakes to see
what had become of you."

"That was kind of you, Jack," said I; "I mean it was kind of you to
come up here.  How do you like the country, eh?"

He turned round comically, shrugged his shoulders, and said nothing.
I could see that early spring in the mountains did not please him,
especially as we were in the Wet Belt.

But if he did not like the country, I found he could stand it well,
for he was as hardy as a pack pony, and never complained, not though
we were delayed a whole day by the rain, and on our return to the
Landing had to go to Thomson Forks in Indian dugouts.  When we did
arrive there it was fine at last, and the sun was shining brilliantly.

Mac, Harmer, and I were greeted in the friendliest manner at the
hotel by Dave, the bar-tender, who was resplendent with a white shirt
of the very finest get up, and diamond studs.  He stood us drinks at
once.

"You're welcome to it, gentlemen, and more too.  For we did think
down here that you had been lost in the snow.  We never expected to
hear of you again.  I think a young lady round here must have an
interest in you, Mr. Ticehurst," said he knowingly, "for only two
days ago she called me out and asked more than particularly about
you.  When I told her nobody knew enough to make a line in 'Local
Items,' unless they said, 'Nothing has yet been heard,' I reckon she
was sorry."

"Who was it, Dave?" I asked carelessly "Was it Miss Fanny Fleming?"

"No, sir, it was not; it was Miss Fleming herself, and I must say
she's a daisy.  The best looking girl between the Rocky Mountains and
the Pacific, gentlemen!  Miss Fanny is nice--a pretty girl I will
say; but----"  He stopped and winked, so that I could hardly keep
from throwing my glass at his carefully combed and oiled head.  But I
was happy to think that Elsie had asked after me.

In the morning we got horses from Ned Conlan, and rode over to Mr.
Fleming's ranch, which was situated in a long low valley, that
terminated a mile above his house in a narrow gulch, down which the
creek came.  On either side were high hills, covered on their lower
slopes with bunch grass and bull pines, and higher up with thick
scrub, that ran at last into bare rock, on the topmost peaks of which
snow lay for nine months of the year.  As we approached the farm, we
saw a few of the cattle on the opposing slopes; and on the near side
of the valley were the farm-buildings and the house itself, which was
partly hidden in trees.  We tied our horses to the fence, and marched
in, as we fancied, as bold as brass in appearance; but if Harmer felt
half as uncomfortable as I did, which I doubt, I am sorry for him.
The first person we saw was Fanny, and the first thing she did was to
upset her chair on the veranda on the top of a sleeping dog, who at
first howled, and then made a rush at us barking loudly.

"Down, Di!" cried Fanny.  "How dare you!  O Mr. Ticehurst, how glad I
am you're not dead!  And you, too, Mr. Harmer, though no one said you
were!  Oh, where's father, I wonder--he'll be glad, too!"

"And Elsie, will she be glad as well, Fanny?" I asked.  She looked at
me slyly, and nodded.

"You'd better ask her, I think.  Here comes father."

He rode up on horseback, followed by Siwash Jim, swinging the noose
of a lariat in his right hand, as though he had been after horses or
cattle.

"Oh, it's you, Tom, is it?" said Fleming, who was looking very well.
"I'm glad you're not quite so dead as I was told.  And you, Harmer,
how are you?  Jim, take these gentlemen's horses to the stable.
You've come to stay for dinner, of course.  I shan't let you go.  I
heard you did very well gold-gambling last fall.  Come in!"  For that
news went down the country when we went to the Landing for grub.

I followed, wondering a little whether he would have been quite so
effusive if I had done badly.  But I soon forgot that when I saw
Elsie, who had just come out of her room.  I thought, when I saw her,
that she was a little paler than when we had last met, though perhaps
that was due to the unaccustomed cold and the sunless winter; but she
more than ever merited the rough tribute which Dave had paid her in
Conlan's bar.  She was very beautiful to them; but how much more to
me, as she came up, a little shyly, and shook hands softly, saying
that she was glad that the bad news they had heard of me was not
true.  I fancied that she had thought of me often during that winter,
and perhaps had seen she had been unjust.  At any rate, there was a
great difference between what she was then and what she was now.

We talked during dinner about the winter, which the three Australians
almost cursed; in fact, the father did curse it very admirably, while
Elsie hardly reproved his strong language, so much did she feel that
forty degrees below zero merited all the opprobrium that could be
cast on it.  I described our gold-mining adventures and the winter's
trapping, which, by the way, had added five hundred dollars to my
other money.

I told Fleming that I was now worth, with some I still had at home,
more than five thousand dollars, and I could see it gave him
satisfaction.

"What do you think of the country now, Mr. Fleming?" I asked; "and
how long shall you stay here?"

He shook his head.

"I don't know, my boy," he answered; "I think, in spite of the cold,
we shall have to stand another winter here.  This summer I must
rebuild the barns and stables; there are still a lot of cattle adrift
somewhere; and I won't sell out under a certain sum.  That's
business, you know; and I have just a little about me, though I am an
old fool at times, when the girls want their own way."

"What would you advise me to do?" said I, hoping he would give me
some advice which I could flatter him by taking.  "You see, when one
has so much money, it is only the correct thing to make more of it.
The question is how to do it."

"That's quite right, Ticehurst--quite right!" said he energetically.
"I'm glad you talk like that; your head's screwed on right; you will
be well in yet" (an Australian phrase for our "well off"), "I'll bet
on that.  Well, you can open a store, or go lumbering, or
gold-mining, or hunting, or raise cattle, like me."

I pretended to reflect, though I nearly laughed at catching Harmer's
eye, for he knew quite well what I wanted to do.

"Yes, Mr. Fleming, you're right.  That's nearly all one can do.  But
as to keeping a store, you see, I've been so accustomed to an
open-air life, I don't think it would suit me.  Besides, a big man
like me ought to do something else than sell trousers!  As to
gold-mining, I've done that, and been lucky once, which, in such a
gambling game, is against me.  And hunting or trapping--well, there's
nothing great in that.  I think I should prefer cattle-raising, if I
could do it.  I was brought up on a farm in England, and why
shouldn't I die on one in British Columbia, or" (and I looked at
Elsie) "in Australia?"

"Quite right, Tom," said Fanny, laughing, for she was too cute to
miss seeing what I meant.

Mr. Fleming looked at me approvingly.

"You'll die worth a lot yet, Tom Ticehurst.  I like your spirit.  I
was just the same once.  Now, I'll tell you what.  Did you ever see
George Nettlebury at the Forks?"

"No," I replied, "not that I know of."

"I dare say you have," said he; "he's mostly drunk; and Indian Alice,
who is always with him, usually has a black eye, as a gentle reminder
that she belongs to an inferior race, if she is his wife.  Now, he
lives about two miles from here, over yonder" (he pointed over the
valley).  "He has a house--a very dirty one now, it is true; a
stable, and a piece of meadow, fenced in, where he could raise good
hay if he would mend the fence and keep other folks' cattle out.  He
told me the other day that he was sick to death of this place, and he
wants just enough to go East with, and return to his old trade of
shipbuilding.  He says he will take $300 for the whole place, with
what is on it.  That don't amount to much--two cows, one old steer,
and a cayuse he rides round on.  If you like, we'll go over and see
him.  You can buy it, and buy some more cattle, and if you have more
next winter than you can feed, I'll let you have the hay cheap.  What
do you say?"

My heart leapt up, but I pretended I wanted time to think about it.

"Then let's ride over now, and you can look at the place," said he;
rising.

Harmer would not come, so I left him with the sisters.  When we
returned I was the owner of the house, stable, two cows, etc., and
George Nettlebury was fighting with Indian Alice, to whom he had
announced his intention of going East at once, and without her.

"I'm tired of this life; it's quite disgusting!" said George, as we
departed.  "I'm glad you came, Mr. Ticehurst, for I'm off too quick."

As we rode back to Thomson Forks, Harmer asked pathetically what he
was to do.

"We must see, Jack," I answered kindly.  "We'll get you something in
town."

"I'd rather be with you," he answered dolorously.

"Well, you can't yet, that's certain," said I.  "I can't afford to
pay you wages, when there will be no more than I can get through
myself; when there is, I'll let you know.  In the meantime you must
make money, Jack.  There's a sawmill in town.  I know the man that
runs it--Bill Custer, and I'll go and see him for you."

Jack sighed, and we rode on in silence until we reached the Forks.

After we had had supper Jack and I were standing in the barroom, not
near the stove, which was surrounded by a small crowd of men, who
smoked and chewed and chattered, but close by the door for the sake
of the fresher air, when we saw Siwash Jim ride up.  After tying his
horse to the rail in front of the house, to which half a dozen other
animals in various stages of equine despondency or irritation were
already attached, he swaggered into the bar, brushing against me
rather rudely as he did so.  Harmer's eyes flashed with indignation,
as if it was he who had been insulted.  But I am a very peaceable
man, and don't always fight at the first chance.  Besides, being so
much bigger than Jim, I could, I considered, afford to take no notice
of what an ill-conditioned little ruffian like that did when he was
probably drunk.  Presently Jack spoke to me.

"That beastly fellow keeps looking at you, Mr. Ticehurst, as if he
would like to cut your throat.  What's wrong with him?  Is he jealous
of you, do you think?"

It was almost blasphemy to dream of such a thing, and I looked at Mr.
John Harmer so sternly that he apologized; yet I believe it must to
some extent have been that which caused the trouble that ensued
almost directly, and added afterward to the danger in which I already
stood.  I turned round and looked at Jim, who returned my glance
furiously.  He ordered another drink, and then another.  It seemed as
if he was desirous of making himself drunk.  Presently Dave, who was,
as usual, behind the bar, spoke to him.

"Going back to the ranch to-night, Jim?"

Jim struck the bar hard with his fist.

"No, I'm not!  Never, unless I go to set the damned place on fire!"

"Why, what's the matter?" asked Dave, smiling, while Harmer and I
pricked up our ears.

"Ah!  I had some trouble with old Fleming just now," said Jim, in a
hoarse voice of passion.  "He's like the rest, wants too much; the
more one does, the more one may do.  He's a dirty coyote, and his
girls are----"  And the gentle-minded Jim used an epithet which made
both our ears tingle.

Jack made a spring, but I caught him by the shoulder and sent him
spinning back, and walked up alongside the men.  I saw my own face in
the glass at the back of the bar; it was very white, and I could
hardly recognize it.

"Mind what you say, you infernal ruffian!" I said, in a low voice,
"or I'll break your neck for you!  Don't you dare to speak about
ladies, you dog, or I'll strangle you!"  He sprang back like
lightning.  If he had had a six-shooter on him I think my story would
have ended here, for I had none myself.  But Jim had no weapon.  Yet
he was no coward, and did not "take water," or "back down," as they
say there.  He steadied himself one moment, and then threw the
water-bottle at me with all his force.  Though I ducked, I did not
quite escape it, for the handle caught me on the forehead near the
hair, and, in breaking, cut a gash which sent the blood down into my
left eye.  But I caught hold of him before he could do anything else.
In a moment the room was in an uproar; some of the men climbed on to
the tables in order to get a view, while those outside crowded to the
door.  They roared, "Leave 'em alone!" when Dave attempted to
approach, and one big fellow caught hold of Harmer and held him,
saying at the same time, as Jack told me afterward, "You stay right
here, sonny, and see 'em fight.  Mebbe you'll larn something!"

I found Jim a much tougher customer than I should have imagined,
although I might have handled him more easily if I had not been for
the time blind in one eye.  But he was like a bunch of muscle; his
arms, though slender, were as tough and hard as his stock-whip
handle, and his quickness was surprising.  He struck me once or twice
as we grappled, and then we fell, rolling over and over, and
scattering the onlookers, as we went, until we came against the legs
of the table, which gave way and sent three men to the floor with a
shock that shook the house.  Finally, Jim got his hand in my hair and
tried to gouge out my eyes.  Fortunately, it was not long enough for
him to get a good hold, but when I felt his thumbs feeling for my
eyes, all the strength and rage I ever had seemed to come to me, and
I rose suddenly with him clinging to me.  For a moment we swayed
about, and then I caught his throat, pushed him at arm's length from
me, and, catching hold of his belt, I threw him right over my head.
I was standing with my back to the door, and he went through it, fell
on the sidewalk, and rolled off into the road, where he lay
insensible.

"Very good!" said Dave; "very well done indeed!  Pick him up, some of
you fellows, and see if he's dead.  The son of a gun, I'll make him
pay for that bottle, and for the table!  Come, have a drink, Mr.
Ticehurst.  You look rather warm."

I should think I did, besides being smothered with blood and dust.  I
was glad to accept his invitation.

"Is he dead?" I asked of Harmer, who came in just then.

"Not he," said Jack, "he's coming to already, but I guess he'll fight
no more for a few days.  That must have been a sickener.  By Jove!
how strong you must be--he went out of the door like a stone out of a
sling.  Lucky he didn't hit the post."  And Harmer chuckled loudly,
and then went off with me to wash away the blood, and bandage the cut
in my forehead.

When I left town in the morning I heard that Jim was still in bed and
likely to stay there for some time.  And Harmer, who was going to
work with Bill Custer, promised to let me know if he heard anything
which was of importance to me.

On my way out to my new property I met its late owner and his Indian
wife in their ricketty wagon, drawn by the horse I had not thought
worth buying.  Nettlebury was more than half drunk, although it was
early in the morning, and when he saw me coming he rose up, waved his
hand to me, bellowed, "I'm a-goin' East, I am!" and, falling over the
seat backward, disappeared from view.  Alice reached out her hand and
helped her husband to regain his former position.  I came up
alongside and reined in my horse.

He looked at me.

"Been fightin' already, hev you; or did you get chucked off?  More
likely you got chucked--it takes an American to ride these cay uses!"
said he half scornfully.

"No," said I, "I wasn't chucked, and I have been fighting.  Did you
hear why Siwash Jim left Fleming!"

"No, not exactly," he returned; "but he was sassy with Miss Elsie,
and--oh, I dunno--but you hev been fightin', eh?  Did you lick
him--and who was it?"

"The man himself, Mr. Nettlebury," said I--"Jim; and I reckon I did
whip him."

He laughed.

"Good on you, old man!  He's been wanting it this long while past;
but look out he don't put a knife in your ribs.  Now then," said he
ferociously, turning to his wife, "why don't you drive on?  Here,
catch hold!" and giving her the reins, he lifted his hand to strike
her.  But just then the old horse started up, he fell over the seat
again, and lay there on a pile of sacking.  I hardly thought he would
get East with his money, and I was right, for I hired him to work for
me soon afterward.

When I came to the Flemings' there was no one about but the old man.

"Busy!" said he, "you may bet I'm busy.  I sent that black ruffian
off yesterday, and I've got no one to help me.  What's the matter
with your head?"

When I told him, he laughed heartily, and then shook my hand.

"I'm glad you thrashed him, Tom," said he; "I'd have done it myself
yesterday if I had been ten years younger.  When Elsie wanted him to
get some water, he growled and said all klootchmen, as he calls
'em--women, you know--were alike, Indian or white, and no good.  I
told him to get out.  Is he badly hurt?"

"Not very," I answered.

"I hoped he was," said the old man.  "It's a pity you didn't break
his neck!  I would as soon trust a black snake!  Are you going over
yonder?"

"I guess so," I answered; "I must get the place cleaned up a
bit--it's like a pigsty, or what they call a hog-pen in this country,"

"Well, I guess it is," he replied; "but come over in the evening, if
you like."

I thanked him and rode off, happy in one thing at least--I was near
Elsie.  I felt as if Harmer's suspicions about Mat were a mere
chimera, and that the lad in some excitement had mistaken the dark
face of some harmless Indian for that of the revengeful Malay.  And
as to Siwash Jim, why, I shrugged my shoulders; I did not suppose he
was so murderously inclined as Nettlebury imagined.  It would be hard
lines on me to have two men so ill disposed toward me, through no
fault of my own, as to wish to kill me.

I went back to the Flemings' after a hard day's work, in which I
burnt, or otherwise disposed of, an almost unparalleled collection of
rubbish, including old crockery and bottles, dirty shirts and
worn-out boots, which had been accumulating indoors and out for some
ten years.  After being nearly smothered, I was glad to go down to
the creek and take a bath in the clear, cold water which ran into the
main watercourse issuing, some two miles away, from the Black Cañon
at the back of the valley, concerning which Fleming had once spoken
to me.  That evening at his ranch was the pleasantest I ever spent in
my life up to that time, in spite of the black cloud which hung over
me, for Fanny was as bright and happy as a bird, while Elsie, who
seemed to have come to her senses, spoke almost freely, displaying no
more disinclination to me, even apparently, than might naturally be
set down to her instinctive modesty, and her knowledge that I was
courting her, and desired to be received as her lover.

I spoke to her late that evening when Fleming went out to throw down
the night's hay to his horses.  For Fanny vanished discreetly at the
same moment, and continued to make just enough noise in the kitchen
to assure us she was there, while it was not sufficient to drown even
the softest conversation.  Good girl she was, and is--I love her yet,
though--well, perhaps I had better leave that unsaid at present.

"Elsie," I said, when we were alone, "do you remember what I said
when we parted on the steamer?"

She cast her eyes down, but did not answer.

"I think you do, Elsie," I went on; "I said I should never forget.
Do you think I have?  Don't you know why I left my ship, why I came
to this country, why I went mining, and why I have worked so hard and
patiently for long, long months without seeing you?  Answer me; do
you know why?"

She hesitated a moment, lifted up her blue eyes, dropped them at the
sight of the passion in mine, and said gently, "I suppose so, Mr.
Ticehurst."

"Yes, you know, Elsie; it was that I might be near you, that I might
get rich enough to be able to claim you.  How fortunate I have been
in that!  But am I fortunate in other things, too, Elsie?  Will you
answer me that, Elsie?"

I approached her, but she held up her hand.

"Stay, Mr. Ticehurst!--if I must speak.  I may have judged you
wrongly, but I am not wholly sure that I have.  If I have not, I
should only be preparing misery for myself and for you, if I answered
your questions as you would have me.  I want time, and I must have
it, or some other assurance; for how can I wholly trust you when you
will not speak as you might do?"

Ah! how could I?  But this was far better than I had expected--far
better.

"Elsie," I answered quietly, "I am ready to give you time, all the
time you need to prove me, and my love for you, though there is no
need.  My heart is yours, and yours only, ever from the time I saw
you.  I have never even wavered in my faith and hope.  But I do not
care so long as I may be near you--so long as I may see you
sometimes, and speak to you.  For without you I shall be wretched,
and would be glad even if that wretched Malay were to kill me, as he
threatened."

I thought I was cunning to bring in Matthias, and indeed she lifted
her eyes then.  But she showed no signs of fear for me.  Perhaps she
looked at me, saying to herself there was no need of such a strong
man being afraid of such a visionary danger.  She spoke after a
little silence.

"Then let it be so, Mr. Ticehurst.  If what you say be true, there at
least is nothing for you to fear."

She looked at me straight then with her glorious blue eyes, and I
would have given worlds to catch her in my arms and press her to my
heart.  She went on:

"And if you never give me cause, why--"  She was silent, but held out
her hand.

I took it, pressed it, and would have raised it to my lips, only she
drew it gently away.  But I went to rest happy that night.  Give her
cause!--indeed, what cause could I give her?  That is what I asked
myself, without knowing what was coming, without feeling my
ignorance, my blindness, and my helplessness in the strange web of
fate and fated crime which was being woven around me--without being
conscious, as an animal is in the prairie, of that storm, so ready to
burst on my head, whose first faint clouds had risen on the horizon
of my life, even before I had seen her, in the very hour that I had
joined the _Vancouver_ under my own brother's command.  I went to
sleep, wondering vaguely what had become of him.  But we are blind,
all of us, and see nothing until the curtain rises on act after act;
being ignorant still, whether the end shall be sweet or bitter to us,
whether it shall justify our smiles in happiness, or our tears in
some bitter tragedy.


For two days I worked in and about my house, putting things in some
order, and on the third I rode over to the Flemings' early in the
morning, as it had been arranged that I was to go out with Mr.
Fleming to look after some cattle of his, which a neighbor had
complained of.  I never felt in better spirits than when I rode over
the short two miles which separated us, for the morning was calm and
bright, with a touch of that glorious freshness known only among
mountains or on high plateaus lifted up from the common level of the
under world.  I even sang softly to myself, for the black cloud of
doubt, which but a few days ago had obscured all my light, was driven
away by a new dawning of hope, and I was content and without fear.  I
shouted cheerfully for Fleming as I rode up, and he came to the door
with his whip over his arm, followed by the two girls.  I alighted,
and shook hands all round.

"Then you are ready, Mr. Fleming?" I asked.

"When I have put the saddle on the black horse," he replied, as he
went toward the stable, leaving me standing there, for I was little
inclined to offer to assist him while Elsie remained outside the
house.  Fanny was quite as mischievous as ever, and whether her
sister had told her anything of what had passed between us two days
before or not, she was evidently conscious that the relations between
Elsie and myself had somehow altered for the better.

"How do you find yourself these days, Tom?" she asked, with a merry
twinkle in her eye.

"Very well, Fanny," I answered.  "Thanks for your inquiry."

"Does the climate suit you, then?  Or is it the surroundings?"

"Both, my dear girl, as long as the sun shines on us!" I replied,
laughing, while Elsie turned away with a smile.

Fanny almost winked at me, and then looked up the road toward Thomson
Forks, which ran close by the ranch and led toward an Indian
settlement on the Lake about ten miles away.

"There's someone coming," she said, "and he's in a hurry.  Isn't he
galloping, Mr. Ticehurst?"

I looked up the road and saw somebody who certainly was coming down
the long slope from the crest of the hill with more than reasonable
rapidity.  I looked, and then turned away carelessly.  What was the
horseman to me?  I leant against the post of the veranda, which some
former occupant of the house had ornamented by whittling with his
knife, until it was almost too thin to do its duty, and began to
speak to Fanny again, when I saw her blush and start.

"Why, Mr. Ticehurst," she said, "it's Mr. Harmer!"

Then the horseman was something to me, after all.  For what but some
urgent need would bring Jack, who was entirely ignorant of horses and
riding, at that breakneck gallop over the mountain road?  My
carelessness went suddenly, and I felt my heart begin to beat with
unaccustomed violence.  I turned pale, I know, as I watched him
coming nearer.  I was quite unconscious that Elsie had rejoined her
sister, and stood behind me.

Harmer came closer and closer, and when he saw us waved his hat.  In
a moment he was at the gate, while I stood still at the house, and
did not move to go toward him.  He alighted, opened the gate, and,
with his bridle over his aim, came up to us.  He said good-morning to
the girls hurriedly, and turned to me.

"You must come to Thomson Forks directly, Mr. Ticehurst!" he said,
gasping, wiping his forehead with his sleeve.  "Something's happened,
I don't know what, and I can't tell; but she wants to see you at
once, and sent me off to fetch you--and so I came, and, oh! how sore
I am," and he wriggled suggestively, and in a way that would have
been comic under other circumstances.

I caught hold of his arm.

"What do you mean," I roared, "you young fool?  What's happened, and
who wants to see me?  Who's _she_?"

He looked up in astonishment.

"Why, didn't I say Mrs. Ticehurst, of course?"

I let him go and fell against the post, making it crack as I did so.
I looked at Elsie, and she was white and stern.  But she did not
avoid my eye.

"Well, what is it--what's happened?" I said at last.

"I don't know, I tell you, sir," said he almost piteously; "all I
know is that I was sent for to the sawmill by Dave, and when I came I
saw Mrs. Ticehurst; and she's dressed in black, sir, and she looked
dreadfully bad, and she just shook hands with me, and told me to
fetch you at once.  And when I asked what for, she just stamped, sir,
and told me to go.  And so I came, and that's all!"

Surely it was enough.  Much as I liked her, I would rather have met
Mat or the very devil in the way than had this happen now, when
things were going so well with me.  And in black?--good God! had
anything happened to my brother?  I turned white, I know, and almost
fell.

"You had better go at once, Tom," laid Fanny, who held me by the arm.
I turned, I hardly know why, to her sister.  Her face was very pale,
but her eyes glittered, and she looked like marble.  I know my own
asked hers a question, but I got no response.  I turned away toward
my horse, and then she spoke.

"Mr. Ticehurst, let me speak to you one moment.  Fanny, go and talk
to Mr. Harmer."

And Fanny and I both obeyed her like children.

She looked at me straight.

"How could I prove you, Mr. Ticehurst," she said, in a low voice,
"was what I asked the other night.  Now the means are in my power.
What are you going to do?"

"I am going to the Forks," I said, in bewilderment.  Her eyes
flashed, and she looked at me scornfully.

"Then go, but don't ever speak to me again!  Go!"

And she turned away.  I caught her arm.

"Don't be unjust, Elsie!--don't be cruelly unjust!" I cried.  What a
fool I was; I knew she loved me, and yet I asked her not to be cruel
and unjust.  Can a woman or a man in love be anything else?

"How can I stay away?" I asked passionately, "when my brother's wife
sends for me?  And she is in black--poor Will must be dead!"

If he was dead, then Helen was free.  I saw that and so did Elsie,
and it hardened her more than ever, for she did not answer.

"Look then, Elsie, I am going, and you say I shall not speak to you
again.  You are cruel, very cruel--but I love you!  And you shall
speak to me--aye, and one day ask my pardon for doubting me.  But
even for you I cannot refuse this request of my own
sister-in-law--who is ill, alone, in sorrow and trouble, in a strange
land.  For the present, good-by!"

I turned away, took my horse from the fence, and rode off rapidly,
without thinking of Harmer, or of Fleming, who was standing in
amazement at his stable, as I saw when I opened the swing-gate.  And
if Harmer had come up at a gallop, I went at one, until my horse was
covered with sweat, and the foam, flying from his champed bit, hung
about my knees like sea-foam that did not easily melt.  In half an
hour I was at Conlan's door, and was received by Dave.  In two
minutes I stood in Helen's presence.

When I saw her last she had that rich red complexion which showed the
pure color of the blood through a delicate skin; her eyes were
piercing and perhaps a little hard, and her figure was full and
beautiful.  She had always rejoiced, too, in bright colors, such as
an Oriental might have chosen, and their richness had suited her
striking appearance.  But now she was woefully altered, and I barely
knew her.  The color had deserted her cheeks, which were wan and
hollow; her eyes were sunken and ringed with dark circles, and her
bust had fallen in until she looked like the ghost of her former
self, a ghost that was but a mere vague memory of her whom I had
first known in Melbourne.

Her dress, too, was black, which I knew she hated, and in which she
looked even less like herself.  Her voice, when she spoke, no longer
rang out with assurance, but faltered ever and again with the tears
that rose to her eyes and checked her utterance.

I took her hand, full of pity for her, and dread of what she had to
tell me, for it must be something dreadful which had changed her so
much and brought her so far.

"What is it, Helen?" I said, in a low voice.

"What did I come for, you mean, Tom?" she asked, though desiring no
answer.  "I came for your sake--and not for Will's.  I thought you
might never get a letter, and I wanted to see you once again.  Ah!
how much I desired that.  Tom, you are in danger!" she spoke that
suddenly--"in danger every moment!  For that man who threatened your
life----"

I nodded, sucking my dry lips, for I knew what she meant, and I was
only afraid of what else she had to tell me.

"That man has escaped, and has not been caught.  O Tom, be
careful--be careful!  If you were to die, too----"

"What do you mean, Helen?" I asked, though I knew full well what she
meant.  She looked at me.

"Can't you think?  Yes, you can perhaps partly; but not all--not all
the horror of it.  Tom, Will is dead!  And not only that, but he was
murdered in San Francisco!"

I staggered, and sat down staring at her.  She went on in a curiously
constrained voice.

"Yes; the very first night we came ashore, and in our hotel!  He was
intoxicated, and came in late, and I wouldn't have him in my room.  I
made them put him in the next, and I heard him shouting out of his
window over the veranda soon afterward, and then I fell asleep.  And
in the morning I found him--I myself found him dead in bed, struck
right through with a stab in the heart.  And he was robbed, too.
Tom, it nearly killed me, it was so horrible--oh, it was horrible!  I
didn't know what to do.  I was going to send for you, and then I read
in the paper about Mat having escaped two days before, so I came away
at once."

She ceased and sobbed violently; and I kept silence.  God alone knows
what was in my heart, and how it came there; but for a moment--yes,
and for more than that--I suspected her, his wife, of my brother's
murder!  I was blind enough, I suppose, and so was she; but then so
many times in life we wonder suddenly at our want of sight when the
truth comes out.  I remembered she had once said she hated him, and
could kill him.  And besides, she loved me.  I shivered and was still
silent.  She looked up and caught my eye, which, I knew, was full of
doubt.  She rose up suddenly, came to me, fell on her knees, and
cried:

"No, no, Tom--not that!  For God's sake, don't look at me so!"

And I knew she saw my very heart, and I was ashamed of myself.  I
lifted her up and put her on a chair.  Heavens! how light she was to
what she had been, for her soul had wasted her body away like a
strong wind fanning a fire.

"Poor Will!" I said at last, and then I asked if she had remained for
the inquest.  No, she had not, she answered.  I started at her reply.
If I could think what I had, what might others not do?  For her to
disappear like that after the murder of her husband was enough to
make people believe her guilty of the crime, and I wondered that she
had not been prevented from leaving.  But on questioning her further,
I learnt that the police suspected a certain man who was a frequenter
of that very hotel; and, after the manner of their kind, had got him
in custody, and were devoting all their attention to proving him
guilty of the crime, whether there were _prima facie_ proofs or not.
Still, it seemed bitter that poor Will should be left to strangers
while his wife came to see me; and though she had done it to save me,
as she thought, yet, after all, the danger was hardly such as to
warrant her acting as she had done.  But I was not the person to
blame her.  She had done it, poor woman, because she yet loved me, as
I knew even then.  But I saw, too, that it was love without hope; and
even if it had not been, she must have learnt that I was near to
Elsie; and that I was "courting old Fleming's gal" was the common
talk whenever my name was mentioned.  I tried to convince myself that
she had most likely ceased to think of me, and I preferred to believe
it was only the daily and hourly irritation of poor Will's conduct
which had driven her to compare me with him to his disadvantage.
Well, whatever his faults were, they had been bitterly expiated; as,
indeed, such faults as his usually are.  It does not require
statistics to convince anyone who has seen much of the world that
most of the trouble in it comes directly from drink.

I was in a strange situation as I sat reflecting.  I suppose strict
duty required me to go to San Francisco, and yet Will would be buried
before I could get there.  Then what was I to do with his widow?  She
could not stay there, I could not allow it, nor did I think she
desired it.  Still she was not fit to travel in her state of nervous
exhaustion; indeed, it was a marvel that she had been able to come so
far, even under the stimulus of such unwonted excitement.  I could
not go away with her even for a part of the return journey, for I
felt Elsie would be harder and harder to manage the more she knew I
saw of Helen.  I ended by coming to the conclusion that she must stay
at the Forks for a while, and that I must go back and try to have an
explanation with Elsie.  Helen bowed her head in acquiescence when I
told her what she had better do, for the poor woman was utterly
broken down, and ready to lean on any arm that was offered her; and
she, who had been so strong in her own will, was at last content to
be advised like an obedient child.  I left her with Mrs. Conlan, to
whom I told as much as I thought desirable, and, kissing her on the
forehead, I took my horse and rode slowly toward home.

As I left the town I saw Siwash Jim sitting on the sidewalk, and he
looked at me with a face full of diabolical hatred.  When I got to
the crest of the hill above the town I turned in the saddle, and saw
him still gazing after me.

When half-way home I met Harmer, who was riding even slower than I,
and sitting as gingerly in the saddle as if he were very
uncomfortable, as I had no doubt he was.

"Well, Mr. Ticehurst," said he eagerly, when we came near, "what was
it?"

I told him, and he looked puzzled.

"Well," he remarked at last, "it seems to me I must have been
mistaken after all, and that I didn't see Mat when I thought I did.
Let me see, when did he escape?"

I reckoned it up, and it was only twelve days ago, for Helen had
taken nine days coming from San Francisco, according to what she told
me.

"Then it is impossible for me to have seen him in New Westminster,"
said Harmer.  "But it is very strange that I should have imagined I
did see him, and that he did escape after all."

Then I told him of my brother's death.

"Why, Mr. Ticehurst," he exclaimed, "Matthias must have done it
himself!  He must--don't you see he must?"

The thought had not entered into my head.

"No," said I; "I don't see it at all.  There's a man in custody for
it now, and it is hardly likely Mat would stay in San Francisco, if
he escaped, for two days.  Besides, it is even less likely that he
would fall across my brother the very first evening he came ashore."

Harmer shook his head obstinately.

"We shall see, sir--we shall see.  You know he didn't like Captain
Ticehurst much better than you.  Then, you say he was robbed of his
papers.  Was your address among them, do you think?"

I started, for Jack's suspicion seemed possible after all.  The
thing, looked more likely than it had done at first sight.  And yet
it was only my cowardice that made me think so.  I shook my head, but
answered "yes" to his question.

"Then pray, Mr. Ticehurst, be careful," said Jack earnestly, "and
carry your revolver always.  Besides, that fellow Jim is about again.
You hardly hurt him at all; he must be made of iron, and I heard last
night he threatened to have your life."

"Threatened men live long, Jack," said I.  "I am not scared of him.
That's only talk and blow.  I don't care much if Mat doesn't get on
my track.  He would be dangerous.  Did you see Miss Fleming before
you left?" I said, turning the conversation.

He shook his head.  She had gone to her room, and remained there when
I went away.

"Well, Harmer, I shall be in town the day after to-morrow," I said at
last, "and if anything happens, you can send me word; and go and see
Mrs. Ticehurst meanwhile."

"I will do that," said he, "but to-morrow morning I have to go up the
lake to the logging camp, and don't know when I shall be back.
That's what Custer said this morning, when I asked him to let me come
over here."

"Very well, it won't matter, I dare say," I answered.  "Take care of
yourself, Jack."

"Oh, Mr. Ticehurst," said he, turning round in the saddle, and
wincing as he did so, "it is you who must be careful!  Pray, do be
very careful!"

I nodded, shook hands, and rode on.

When I came to the Flemings', Fanny was at the big gate, and she
asked a question by her eyes before we got close enough to speak.

"Yes, Fanny," said I, "it was serious."  And then I told her what had
occurred.  She held out her hand and pressed mine sympathetically.

"I am so sorry, Tom," was all she said; but she said it so kindly
that her voice almost brought the tears to my eyes.

"Has Elsie spoken to you since I went, Fanny?" I asked, as we walked
down to the house together, while my horse followed with his head
hanging down.

"I haven't even seen her, Tom," she replied; "the door was locked,
and when I knocked she told me to go away, which, as it's my room
too, was not very polite."

In spite of my love for Elsie, I felt somewhat bitter against her
injustice to me, and I was glad to see that I made her suffer a
little on her part.  I know I have said very little about my own
feelings, for I don't care somehow to put down all that I felt, any
more than I like to tell any stranger all that is near my heart; but
I did feel strongly and deeply, and to see her, who was with me by
day and night as the object of my fondest hope, so unjust, was enough
to make me bitter.  I wished to reproach her, for I was not a
child--a boy, to be fooled with like this.

"Go and ask her to see me, Fanny, please," I said rather sternly, as
I stood outside the door.  "And don't tell her anything of what I
told you, either of Will or Matthias."

Fanny started.

"You never said anything of Matthias!" she cried.

"Didn't I, Fanny?  Well, then, I will.  He has escaped from prison,
and I suppose he is after me by this.  But don't tell Elsie.  Just
say I want to see her."

In a few moments she came back, with tears in her eyes.

"She won't, Tom!  She is in an obstinate fit, I know.  And though she
is crying her eyes out--the spiteful cat!--she won't come.  I know
her.  She just told me to go away.  What shall I do?" she asked.

"Nothing, Fanny," I answered; "you can tell her what you like.  Will
you be so cruel to your lover, little Fanny?"

She looked up saucily.

"I don't know, Tom; I shall see when I have one"--and she laughed.

"What about Jack Harmer, then?"

"Well, you see," and she looked down, "he's very young."  She wasn't
more than seventeen herself, and looked younger.  "And, besides, I
don't care for anybody but Elsie and father and you, Tom."

"Very well, Fanny," said I; "give me a kiss from Elsie, and make her
give it you back."

"I will, Tom," she said quite simply, and, kissing her, I rode off
quietly across the flat to my solitary home.




PART V

AT THE BLACK CAÑON.

Now, as far as I have gone in this story, I have related nothing
which I did not see or hear myself, which is, as it seems to me, the
proper way to do it, provided nothing important is left out.  But as
I have learnt since then what happened to other people, and have
pieced the story together in my mind, I see it is necessary to depart
from the rule I have observed hitherto, if I don't want to explain,
after I have come to the end of the whole history, what occurred
before; and that, I can see, would be a very clumsy way of narrating
any affair.  Now, what I am going to tell I have on very good
evidence, for Dave at the Forks, and Conlan's stableman told me part,
and afterward, as will be seen, I actually learnt something from
Siwash Jim himself, who here plays rather a curious and important
part.

It appears that the day after I was at the Forks (which day I spent,
by the way, with Mr. Fleming, riding round the country, returning
afterward by the trail which led from the Black Cañon down to my
house) Siwash Jim, who had to all appearance recovered from the
injuries, which, however, were only bruises, that I had inflicted on
him, began to drink early in the morning.  He had, so Dave says,
quite an unnatural power of keeping sober--and Dave himself can drink
more than any two men I am acquainted with, unless it is Mac, my old
partner, so he ought to know.  And though Jim drank hard, he did not
become drunk, but only abused me.  He called me all the names from
coyote upward and downward which a British Columbian of any standing
has at his tongue's end, and when Jim had exhausted the resources of
the fertile American language, he started in Siwash or Indian, in
which there are many choice terms of abuse.  But in spite of his
openness, Dave says it was quite evident he was dangerous, and that I
might really have been in peril at any time of the day if I had come
to town, for Jim was deemed a bad character among his companions, and
had, so it was said, killed one man at least, though he had never
been tried for it.  But though he sat all day in the bar, using my
name openly, he never made a move till eight in the evening, when he
went out for awhile.

When he returned he was accompanied by a thin dark man, wearing a
slouch hat over his eyes, whom Dave took to be a half-breed of some
kind, and they had drinks together, for which the stranger paid,
speaking in good English, but not with a Western accent.  Then the
two went to the other side of the room.  What their conversation was,
no one knows exactly, nor did I ever learn; but Dave, who was keeping
his eye on Jim, says that it seemed as if the stranger was trying to
persuade Jim to be quiet and stay where he was, and from what
occurred afterward there is little doubt his supposition was correct.
Moreover, my name undoubtedly occurred in this conversation, for Dave
heard it, and the name of my ranch as well.  Soon after that some men
came in, and, in consequence of his being busy, Dave did not see Jim
go out.  But Conlan's stableman says Jim came to the stable with the
stranger and got his horse.  When asked where he was going, he said
for a ride, and would answer no more questions.  And all the time the
strange man tried to persuade him not to go, and to come and have
another drink.  If Jim had been flush of money there might have been
a motive for this, but as he was not, there seemed then to be none
beyond the sudden and absurd fondness that men sometimes conceive for
each other when drunk.  But if this were the case, it was only on the
stranger's side, for when the horse was brought round to the door Jim
mounted it, and when the other man still importuned him not to go,
Siwash Jim struck at him with his left hand and knocked off his hat
as he stood in the light coming from the bar.  And just then
attention was drawn from Jim by a sudden shriek from the other side
of the road where Conlan's private house stood.  When Dave came out
and looked for him again, both he and the other man had disappeared
down the road, which branched about half a mile out of town into two
forks, one leading eastward and the other southward to the Flemings'.

Now, as I said before, most of that day I had been out riding with
Mr. Fleming, who left me early, in order to go to the next ranch down
the road, and I had told him the whole story about Mat's escape, and
my brother's death; which he agreed with me were hardly likely to be
connected.  Yet he acknowledged if they were I was in much more
danger than one would have thought before, because such a deed would
show the Malay was a desperado of the most fearless and dangerous
description; and besides, if he had robbed Will, it was more than
likely he knew where I was from my own letters, or from my address
written in a pocketbook my brother always carried, and which was
missing.  Of course, this conversation made me full, as it were, of
Mat; and that, combined with the unlucky turn affairs had taken with
regard to Elsie, made me more nervous than I was inclined to
acknowledge to her father.  So before I went to bed, which I did at
ten o'clock--for I was very tired, being still unaccustomed to much
riding--I locked my door carefully, and put the table against it,
neither of which things I had ever done before, and which I was
almost inclined to undo at once, for it seemed cowardly to me.  Yet I
thought of Elsie, and, still hoping to win her, I was careful of my
life.  I went to sleep, in spite of my nervous preoccupation, almost
as soon as I lay down, and I suppose I must have been asleep two
hours before I woke out of a horrible dream.  I thought that I was on
board ship, in my own berth, lying in the bunk, and that Mat was on
my chest strangling me with his long lithe fingers.  And all the time
I heard, as I thought, the sails flap, as though the vessel had come
up in the wind.  As I struggled--and I did struggle desperately--the
blood seemed to go up into my head and eyes, until I saw the fiend's
face in a red light, and then I woke.  The house was on fire, and I
was being suffocated!  As the flames worked in from the outside, and
made the scorching timbers crack again and again, I sprang out of
bed.  I had lain down with my trousers on, and, seeing at once there
must be foul play for the house to catch fire on the outside, and at
the back too, where I never went, I drew on my boots, snatched my
revolver up, and leapt at the front window, through which I went with
a crash, uttering a loud cry as I did so, for a piece of the glass
cut my left arm deeply.  As I came to the ground, I saw a horseman in
front of me, and by the light of the fire, which had already mounted
to the roof of the house, I recognized Siwash Jim.  Then, whether it
was that the horse he rode was frightened at the crash I made or not,
it suddenly bounded into the air, turned sharp round, and bolted into
the brush, just where the trail came down from the Black Cañon.  As
Jim disappeared, I fired, but with no effect; and that my shot was
neither returned nor anticipated was, I saw, due to the fact that the
villain had dropped his own six-shooter, probably at the first bound
of his horse, just where he had been standing.

I was in a blind fury of rage, for such a cowardly and treacherous
attack on an unoffending man's life seemed hardly credible to me.
And there my home was burning, and it was no fault of his that I was
not burning with it, or shot dead outside my own door.  But he should
not escape, if I chased him for a month.  I was glad he had been
forced to take the trail, for there was no possible outlet to it for
miles, so thick was the brush in that mountainous region.
Fortunately, I now had two horses; and the one in my stable, which I
had only bought from Fleming a week before, was not the one I had
been riding all that day.  I threw the saddle on him, clinched it up
tightly, and led him out.  I carried both the weapons, my own and
Jim's, and I rode up the narrow and winding path in a blind and
desperate fury, which seldom comes to a man, but it when it does it
makes him careless of his own life and utterly reckless; and as I
rode, in a fashion I had never done before, even though I trusted a
mountain-bred and forest-trained horse, I swore that I myself should
die that night, or that Siwash Jim should feel the just weight of my
wrath.  But before I can tell the terrible story of that terrible
night I must return once more, and for the last time, to Thomson
Forks.

I said, some pages back, that attention had been drawn from Siwash
Jim and his strange companion by a sudden shriek from Ned Conlan's
house.  That shriek had been uttered by Helen, who was still staying
with Mrs. Conlan, as she and her hostess were standing outside in the
dying twilight, and, after screaming, she had fainted, remaining
insensible for nearly half an hour.  When Dr. Smith, as he called
himself--though an Englishman has natural doubts as to how the
practitioners in the West earn their diplomas--had helped her
recovery, she spoke at once in a state of nervous excitement painful
to witness.

"Oh, I saw him--I saw him!" she said, in an hysterical voice.

"Who, my dear?" asked Mrs. Conlan, in what people call a comforting
way.

"Where is Mr Conlan?" was Helen's answer.  He came into the room in
which she was lying.  Helen turned to him at once.

"Mr. Conlan, I want you to take me out to my brother-in-law's
house--to Mr. Ticehurst's farm!"

They all exclaimed against her foolishness and demanded why; while
Conlan scratched his head in a puzzled manner.

"I tell you I must see him to-night, and at once!  For I saw the man
who swore to kill him."

The bystanders shook their heads sagely, thinking she was mad, but
Conlan asked if she meant Siwash Jim.

"No," she said, "it was not Jim."  But she must go, and she would.
With an extraordinary exhibition of strength, she rose and ordered
horses in an imperative tone, saying she was quite well enough to do
as she liked.

Mrs. Conlan appealed to the doctor, and he, perhaps being glad to
advise against the opinion of those present, as such a course might
indicate his superior knowledge, said he thought it best to let her
have her own way.  I think, too, that Helen, who seemed to have
regained her strength, had regained with it her old power of making
people do as she wished.  At any rate, Mr. Conlan meekly acquiesced,
and, saying he would drive her himself, went out to order horses at
once.  When the buggy was brought to the door, Helen got up without
assistance, and begged him to be quick.  His wife, who would never
have dared to even suggest his hurrying, stood aghast at seeing her
usually masterful husband do as he was bid.  They drove off, leaving
Mrs. Conlan to prophesy certain death as the result of this
inexplicable expedition, while the others speculated, more or less
wildly, as to what it all meant.

Conlan told me that Helen never spoke all the way except to ask how
much longer they were going to be, or to complain of the slowness of
the pace.

"Most women," said Ned, "would have been scared at the way I drove,
for it was pitch dark; and if the horses hadn't known the road as
well, or better, than I did, we should have come to grief in the
first mile.  But she never turned a hair.  She was a wonderful woman,
sir!"

It was already past eleven o'clock when they got to the top of the
hill just above Fleming's, and from there the light of my house
burning could be distinctly seen, although the place itself was
hidden by a rise, and Helen pointed to it, nervously demanding what
it was.

"Ticehurst must have been burning brush," said Conlan, offering the
very likeliest explanation.  But Helen said, "No, no," impatiently,
and told him to hurry.  Just then Conlan remembered that he did not
know the road across from Fleming's to my place, and said so.

"You had better stop at Fleming's, and send for him.  They aint in
bed yet, ma'am.  I see their light."

"I don't want to see the Flemings; I want Mr. Ticehurst," said Helen
obstinately.

"Well, we must stop at Fleming's," said Conlan, "if it's only to ask
the way.  I don't know the road, and I'm not going to kill you and
myself by driving into the creek such a night as this."

And Helen was fain to acquiesce, for she could not do otherwise.

When they reached the house Fanny was standing outside, and as the
light from the open door fell on Helen's pallid face, she screamed.

"Good Heavens, Mrs. Ticehurst!  Is it you?" she cried--"and you, Mr.
Conlan?  Oh, I am so glad!--father's away, and Mr. Ticehurst's house
must be on fire."

"Ah!" said Helen, "I thought so.  Oh, oh! he's dead, I know he's
dead!  I must go to him!  Fanny, dear, can you show us the way--can
you?  You must!  Perhaps we can save him yet!"

She frightened Fanny terribly, for her face was so pale and her eyes
glittered so, and for a moment the girl could hardly speak.

"I don't know it by night, Mrs. Ticehurst; but Elsie does," she said
at last.

"Where is she, then?" said Helen eagerly.

"She's gone over there now," cried Fanny, "for father had not come
home; and when we saw the fire, we were afraid something had
happened, so Elsie took the black horse and went over.  She's there
now."

"Then what shall we do?" cried Helen, in an agony, "he will be
killed!"

"What is it, Mrs. Ticehurst?" asked Fanny, trembling all over.  "Oh,
what is it!"

But she took no notice and sat like a statue, only she breathed hard
and heavily, and her hands twitched; as she looked toward my burning
home.

"Silence!" she cried suddenly, though no one spoke.  "There is
somebody coming."

And the three of them looked into the darkness, in which there was a
white figure moving rapidly.

"It is Elsie!" screamed Fanny joyfully; and Helen sprang from the
buggy, and stood in the light, as Elsie exclaimed in wonder at
Fanny's excited voice.

The two women stood face to face, looking in each other's eyes, and
then Elsie, who for one moment had shown nothing but surprise, went
white with scorn and anger.  How glad I should have been to have seen
her so, or to have learnt, even at that moment when I stood in the
greatest peril I have ever known, that she had ridden over to save or
help me, even though her acts but added a greater danger to those in
which I already stood.  For her deed and her look were the deed and
look of a woman who loves and is jealous.  But it might have seemed
to me, had I been there, that Helen's coming had overbalanced the
scale once more against me, and perhaps for the last time.  I am glad
I did not know that fear until it was only imagination, and the
imaginary canceling of a series of events, that could place me again
in such a situation.

The two women looked at each other, and then Elsie turned away.

"Stop, stop!" cried Helen; "what has happened?  Where is Mr.
Ticehurst?"

"What is that to you?" said Elsie cruelly, and with her eyes flaming.

"Tell us, Elsie," said Fanny imploringly.

"I will _not_!" said her sister--"not to this woman!  Go back, Mrs.
Ticehurst!  What are you doing here?"

Helen caught her by the arm, and looked in her face.

"Girl, I know your thoughts!" she said; "but you are wrong--I tell
you, you are wrong!  You love him----"

"I do not!" said Elsie angrily.  "I love no other woman's lover!"

Surely, though there were two dazed onlookers, these women were in a
state to speak their natural minds.

"Girl, girl!" said Helen, once more, "I tell you again, you are
wrong!  You are endangering _your_ lover's life.  Is he not your
lover, or did you go over there to find out nothing?  I tell you, I
came to save him, and to save him for you--no, not for you, you are
not worth it, though he thinks you perfection!  You are a wicked
girl, and a fool!  Come, come! why don't you speak?  What has become
of him?  Is he over there now?"

Elsie was silent, but yielding.  Fanny spoke again.

"Elsie--Elsie, speak--answer her!  What happened over there, and
where is the horse?"

Elsie turned to her, as though disdaining to answer Helen.

"Someone set his house on fire, I think; perhaps it was Jim, and Mr.
Ticehurst has gone after him!"

"Ah!" said Helen, as if relieved, "if that is all!  How did you know
he is gone--did you see him, speak to him?"

"No," said Elsie; "I did not!"

"Then how do you know?" cried Fanny and Helen, together.

"There was a man there----"

Helen cried out as if she were struck, and Elsie paused.

"Go on!" the other cried--"go on!"

"And when I came up he was sitting by the house.  I asked him if Mr.
Ticehurst was there----"

"Oh, you fool!" groaned Helen, but only Fanny heard it.

"And he got up," continued Elsie, "and said there was no one there,
but just as he was coming from his camp to see what the fire was, he
heard a shot, and when he got to the house he saw somebody just
disappear up the trail toward the cañon."

"Did you know him?" said Helen, as Elsie paused to take breath, for
when she began to speak she spoke rapidly, and, conceal it as she
would, it was evident she was in a fearful state of excitement.

"No," said Elsie; "but I think I have seen him before."

"Where is he, then?" cried Helen, holding her hand to her heart.  "Is
he there still?"

"No," cried Fanny, almost joyfully, "you gave him your horse to go
and find Tom, and help him, didn't you, Elsie?"

And Helen screamed out in a terrible voice, "No, no! you did not, you
did not--say you did not, girl!"

Elsie, who had turned whiter and whiter, turned to her suddenly.

"Yes, I did," she cried; "I did give him the horse."

Helen lifted her hands up over her head with an awful gesture of
despair, and fell on her knees, catching hold of both the girls'
dresses.  But she held up and spoke.

"Oh, you wretched, unhappy girl!" she cried.  "What have you
done--what _have_ you done?  To whom did you give the horse?  I know,
I know!  I saw him this very night--the man who swore to be revenged
on him if it were after a century.  The man who nearly killed him
once, and who has escaped from prison.  You have given him the means
of killing your lover--you have given Tom Ticehurst up to Matthias,
to a murderer--a murderer!"

And she fell back, and this time did not recover herself, but lay
insensible, still holding the girls' dresses with as desperate a
clutch as though she were keeping back from following me the man who
was upon my track that terrible midnight.  But Elsie stooped, freed
her dress, and saying to Fanny, "See to her--see to her!" ran down to
the stable again, just as her father rode through the higher gate.

And as that girl, who had known and ridden from her childhood, was
saddling the first one she came to in the stable, I was riding hard
and desperately in the dark not a quarter of a mile behind Siwash Jim.


The trail upon which we both were ran from my house, straight up into
the mountains for nearly ten miles, and then followed the verge of
the Black Cañon for more than a mile farther.  When I came up to that
place I stayed for one moment, and heard the dull and sullen roar of
the broken waters three hundred feet beneath me, and then I rode on
again as though I was as irresistibly impelled as they were, and was
just as bound to cut my way through what Fate had placed before as
they had been to carve that narrow and tremendous chasm in the living
rock.  And at last I came to a fork in the trail.  If I had not been
there before with Mr. Fleming, I should most likely have never seen
Jim that night, perhaps never again.  But we had stayed at that very
spot.  The left-hand fork was the main track, and led right over the
mountains into the Nicola Valley; while the left and disused one,
which was partially obliterated by thick-growing weeds, led back
through the impassable scrub and rough rocks to the middle of the
Black Cañon.  I had passed that end of it without thinking, for
indeed it was scarcely likely he would have turned off there.  The
chances seemed a thousand to one that Jim would take the left-hand
path, but just because it did seem so certain, I alighted from my
horse and struck a light.  The latest horse track led to the right
hand!  He had relied on my taking the widest path, and continuing in
it until it was too late to catch a man who had so skillfully doubled
on me.  I had no doubt that his curses at losing his revolver were
changed into chuckles, as he thought of me riding headlong in the
night, until my horse was exhausted, while he was returning the way I
had come.  I stopped to think, and then, getting on my horse, I rode
back slowly to where the trails joined at the edge of the Cañon.  I
would wait for him there.  And I waited more than half an hour.

It is strange how such little circumstances alter everything, for not
only would Jim's following the Nicola trail have resulted in
something very different, but, waiting half an hour, during which I
cooled somewhat and lost the first blind rage of passion in which I
had set out, set me reflecting as to what I should do.  If I had come
up with him at full gallop I should have shot him there and then.  He
would have expected it, and it would have been just vengeance; but
now I was quietly waiting for him, and to shoot him when he appeared
seemed to me hardly less cowardly conduct than his own.  Then, if I
gave him warning, he would probably escape me, and I was not so
generous as to let him have the chance.  Yet, in after years, seeing
all that followed from what I did, I think I was more generous than
just.  I ought to have regarded myself as the avenging arm of the
law, and have struck as coolly as an executioner.  But I determined
to give him a chance for his life, though giving him that was risking
my own, which I held dear, if only for Elsie's sake; and so I backed
my horse into the brush, where I commanded both trails, and, cocking
both revolvers, I sat waiting.  In half an hour I heard the tramp of
a horse, though at first I could not tell from which way the sound
came.  But at last I saw that I had been right in my conjecture, and
that my enemy was given into my hands.  My heart beat fast, but my
hands were steady, for I had full command over myself.  I waited
until he was nearly alongside of me, and then I spoke.

"Throw up your hands, Siwash Jim!" I said, in a voice that rang out
over the roar of the waters below us, "or you are a dead man!"

And he threw them up, and as he sat there I could see his horse was
wearied out.  If it had not been, perhaps my voice would have
startled it, and compelled me to fire.

"What are you going to do?" said he, sullenly peering in my
direction, for he could barely see me against my background of trees
and brush, whereas I had him against the sky.

"I will tell you, you miserable scoundrel!" I answered.  "But first,
get off your horse, and do it slowly, or I will put two bullets
through you!  Mind me!"

He dismounted slowly.

"Tie your horse to that sapling, if you will be kind enough," I said
further; "and don't be in a hurry about it, and don't attempt to get
behind it, or you know what will happen."

When he had done as I ordered, I spoke again.

"Have you got any matches?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Of course you have, you villain!  The same you set my house on fire
with.  Well, now rake up some brush, and make a little fire here."

"What for?" said he quickly, for I believe he thought for a moment I
meant to roast him alive.  I undeceived him if that was his idea.

"So that we can see each other," I replied, "for I'm going to give
you a chance for your life, though you don't deserve it.  Where's
your six-shooter?"

"I dropped it," he grunted.

"And I picked it up," said I.  "So make haste if you don't want to be
killed with your own weapon!"

What his thoughts were I can't say, but without more words he set
about making a fire, soon having a vigorous blaze, by which I saw
plainly enough the looks of fear, distrust, and hatred he cast at me.
But he piled on the branches, though I checked him once or twice when
I thought he was going too far to gather them.  When there was
sufficient light to illuminate the whole space about us and the
opposing bank of the cañon, I told him that was enough.

"That will do," I said; "go and stand at the edge of the cañon!"

He hesitated.

"You're not going to shoot me like a dog, and put me down there, are
you?" said he, trembling.

"Like a dog?" said I passionately; "did you not try to smother me
like a bear in his den, to burn me alive in my own house?  Do as I
tell you, or I'll shoot you now and roll your body in the river!  Go!"

And he went as I asked him.

"Have you got any cartridges?" I demanded.

He pointed to his belt, and growled that he had plenty.

"Then stay there, and I will tell you what I will do with you.  I am
going to empty your revolver, and you can have it when it is empty.
I will get off my horse and then you can load it again, and when I
see you have filled it, you can do your best for yourself.  Do you
hear me?"

He nodded his head, and kept his eyes fixed on me anxiously, as
though not daring to hope I was going to be so foolish as my word.
But I was, even to the extent of firing his revolver into the air,
though I had no suspicion of what I was really doing, nor what such
an act would bring about.

I alighted from my horse, and let him go, for there was no danger of
his running away.  I even struck him lightly, and sent him up the
trail out of the way of accident; and then, keeping my own revolver
pointed at Jim, who stood like a statue, I raised his in my left
hand.  I fired, and the reports rang out over the hills.  I threw
Siwash Jim his weapon, saying:

"Load the chambers slowly, and count as you do so."

What a fool I was, to be sure, not to have shot him dead and let him
lie!  Though I should not have been free from the dangers that
encompassed me, yet they would have been fewer, far fewer, and more
easily contended with.  But I acted as Fate would have, and even as I
counted I heard Jim count too, in a strained, hoarse voice--one, two,
three, four, five, six--and he was an armed man again, armed in the
light, almost half-way between us, that glittered in his eyes and
fell on my face.  And it was his life or mine; his life that was
worth nothing, and mine that was precious with the possibilities of
love that I yet knew not, of love that was hurrying toward me even
then, side by side with hate and death.

When Jim's weapon was loaded, he turned toward me with the barrel
pointed to the ground.  His eyes were fixed on mine, fixed with a
look of fear and hatred, but hatred now predominated.  I lowered my
own revolver until we both stood on equal terms.

"Look," said I sternly; "you see that burning branch above the fire.
It is already half burnt through; when it falls, look out for
yourself."

And he stood still, perfectly still, while behind and under him the
flood in the cañon fretted and roared menacingly, angrily, hungrily,
and the sappy branch cracked and cracked again.  It was bending,
bending slowly, but not yet falling, when Jim threw his weapon up and
fired, treacherous to the last.  But his aim was not sure, no surer
than mine when I returned his shot.  As we both fired again, I felt a
sting in my left shoulder, and the branch fell, slowly, slowly--ah!
as slowly as Jim did, for he sank on his knees, rolled over sideways,
and slipped backward on the verge of the cañon, its sloping,
treacherous verge.  And as he slipped, he caught a long root
disclosed by the falling earth, and with the last strength of life
hung on to it, a yard below me; as I ran to the edge, and stopped
there, horror-struck.  My desire for vengeance was satisfied, more
than satisfied, for if I could have restored him to solid ground and
life I would have done it, and bidden him go his way, so that I saw
him no more.  For his face was ghastly and horrible to see; his lips
disclosed his teeth as he breathed through them convulsively, and his
nostrils were widely distended.  I knelt down and vainly reached out
my hands.  But he was a yard below me, and to go half that distance
meant death for me as well.  I knelt there and saw him fail
gradually; his eyes closed and opened again and again; he caught his
lower lip between his teeth and bit it through and through, and then
his head fell back, his hands relaxed, and he was gone.  And I heard
the sullen plunge of his body as it fell three hundred feet into the
waters below.  I remained still and motionless for a moment.  What a
thing man was that he should do such deeds!  I rose, and a feeling of
sorrow and remorse for this terrible death of a fellow-creature made
me stagger.  I put my hand to my brow, and then peered over the edge
of the cañon.  What was I looking for?  Was I looking into the river
of Fate?  I took my revolver and threw it into the cañon, that it
should slay no other man.  As it fell it struck a projecting rock,
and, exploding, the echoes in the narrow space roared and thundered
up the gorge toward the east, where, just beyond the mountains, the
first faint signs of rosy dawn were written upon the heavens.  Was
that an omen of peace and love to me, of a fairer, brighter day?  I
lifted my heart above and prayed it might be so.  But it was yet
night, still dark, and the darkest hour is before the dawn, for as I
turned my back to the cañon and stepped across to the fire which had
lighted poor, foolish, ignorant Jim to his death, I looked up, and
saw before me the thin face I feared more than all others, and the
wicked eyes of my escaped enemy, Matthias of the _Vancouver_.

I have never believed myself a coward, for I have faced death too
often, and but a few minutes ago I had risked my life in a manner
which few men would have imitated; but I confess that in the horrible
surprise of that moment, in the strange unexpectedness of this sudden
and most unlooked-for appearance, I was stricken dumb and motionless,
and stood glaring at him with opened eyes, while my heart's blood ran
cold, For I was unarmed, by my own act of revulsion and remorse; and
wounded too, for I could feel the blood trickle slowly from my
shoulder that had been deeply scored by the second bullet from Jim's
revolver.  And I was in the same position that I had put him in, in a
clear space with thick brush on both sides, through which there was
no escape, and in which there was no shelter but a single tree to the
left of the blazing fire, which was already gradually crawling in the
dry brush.  Surely I was delivered into my enemy's hands, for he was
armed and carried a revolver, on whose bright barrel the fire glinted
harshly.  How long we stood facing each other I cannot say, but it
seemed hours.  If he had but fired then, he might have killed me at
once, for I was unable to move; but he did not desire that, I could
see he did not, as his hot eyes devoured me and gleamed with a light
of savage joy and triumph.  He spoke at last, and in a curiously
quiet voice, that was checked every now and again with a sort of sob
which made me shiver.

"Ah!  Mr. Ticehurst," he said slowly, "you know me?  You look as if
you did.  I am glad you feel like that.  You are afraid!"

I looked at him and answered:

"It is a lie!"

And from that time forward it was a lie, for I feared no more.

"No," he said, "I think not; you are pale, and just now you shook.  I
don't shake, even after what I have been through.  Look at me!"

He pointed his weapon at me, and his hand was as steady as a rock.
He lowered it again and stroked the barrel softly with his lean left
hand.

"You remember what I said to you," he went on, "don't you, Thomas
Ticehurst?  I do, and I have kept my word.  Ah!  I have thought of
this many times, many times.  They tortured me and treated me like a
dog in the jail you sent me to; they beat me, and kicked me, and
starved me, but I never complained, lest my time there should be
longer.  And when I lay down at night I thought of the time when I
should kill you.  I knew it would come, and it has.  But just now,
when I saw you by the side of your own grave, looking down, I didn't
know whether it was you or the other man, and I thought perhaps he
had killed you.  If it had been he, I would have killed him."

He paused, and I still stood there with a flood of thoughts rushing
through me.  What should I do?  If he had taken his eyes off mine for
but one single moment I would have sprung on him; but he did not, and
while he talked, I heard the horses champing their bits in the brush.
And cruelest of all, my own horse moved, and put his head through the
branches and looked at me.  Oh, if I were only on his back!  But I
did not speak.

"How shall I kill you?" said Matthias at last; "I would like to cut
you to pieces!"

He paused again, and then another horse that I had not yet seen moved
on the other side of the trail where he had come up.  It had heard
the others, and I knew it must be the animal he had ridden.  It came
out of the brush into the light of the fire, and I knew it was
Elsie's.  My heart gave a tremendous leap, and then stood still.  How
had he become possessed of it?  I spoke, and in a voice I could not
recognize as my own, so hoarse and terrible it was.

"How did you get that white horse, you villain?" I asked.

He looked at me fiercely without at first seeing how he could hurt
me, and then a look of beast-like, cruel cunning came into his eyes.

"Ah!" said he, "I knew her!  It was your girl's horse!  How did I get
it?  Perhaps you would like to know?  You will never see her
again--never!  Where is she now--where?"

He knew as little as I did, but the way he spoke, and the horrible
things he put into his voice, made me boil with fury.

"You are a lying dog!" I cried, though he had said nothing that I
should be so wrathful.  He grinned diabolically, seeing how he had
hurt me, and then laughed loud in an insulting, triumphant manner.
It was too much, and I made one tremendous bound across the fire, and
landed within three feet of him.  He fired at the same moment, and
whether he had wounded me or not I did not know; but the revolver
went spinning two yards off, and we grappled in a death-hug.

I have said that Siwash Jim was a hard man to beat, but whether it
was that I was weak with my wound or not, I found Matthias, who was
mad with hate and fury, the most terrible antagonist I had ever
tackled.  He was as slippery as an eel, as lithe as a snake, and
withal his grip was like that of a steel trap.  Yet if I could but
prevent him drawing his knife, which was at his belt, I did not care.
I was his match if not in agility, at least in strength, and I would
never let him go.  We were for one moment still, after we grappled,
and I trust I shall never see anything that looks more like a devil
than his eyes, in which the light of the fire shone, while he gnashed
his teeth and ground them until the foam and saliva oozed out of his
mouth like a mad dog's venom.  His forehead was seamed and wrinkled,
his cheeks were sucked in and then blown out convulsively, and his
whole aspect was more hideous than that of a beast of prey.  And then
the struggle began.

At first it was a trial of strength, for although I was so much the
bigger, he knew his own power and the force of his iron nerves, and
he hoped to overcome me thus.  We reeled to and fro, and twice went
through the fire, where I once held him for an instant with a
malicious joy that was short-lived, for the pain added to his
strength, and he forced me backward, until I struck the trunk of the
tree a heavy blow.  Then we swayed hither and thither, for I had him
by the right wrist and the left shoulder, not daring to alter my grip
on his right hand, lest he should get his knife.  He held me in the
same way, and at last we came to the very verge of the cañon, and
spurned the tracks that Jim had made in his agony.  For a moment I
thought he would throw us both in, but he had not lost hope.  If he
had, that moment would have been my last.  In another second we had
staggered to the fire, and he tried all his strength to free his
right hand.  At last, by a sudden wrench he did it, and dropped his
fingers like lightning on his knife, just as I bent his left wrist
over, and struck him in the face with his own clenched hand.  We both
went down; his knife ripped my shoulder by the very place that Jim's
bullet had struck, and we rolled over and over madly and blindly,
burning ourselves on the scattered embers, tearing ourselves on the
jagged roots and small branches, which we smashed, as I strove to
dash him on the ground, and he struggled to free his arm, which I had
gripped above the elbow, to end the battle at one blow.  But though
he once drove the point more than an inch into the biceps, and three
times cut me deeply, he did not injure any nerve so as to paralyse
the limb.  And yet I felt that I was becoming insensible, so
tremendous was the strain and the excitement, and I felt that I must
make a last effort, or die.  Somehow we rose to our knees, still
grappling, and if I looked a tithe as horrible as he did, covered
with blood, saliva, and sweat, I must have been horrible to see.  We
glared in each other's eyes for one moment, and then, loosing my hold
on his left arm, I caught his right wrist with both hands.  With his
freed hand he struck me with all his remaining strength full in the
face while I twisted his right wrist with a force that should have
broken it, but which only compelled him to relinquish the bloody
piece of steel.  And then we rolled over again, and lay locked in
each other's arms.  There was a moment's truce, for human nature
could not stand the strain.  But I think he believed I was beaten,
and at his mercy, for he was on top of me, lying half across my
breast, with his face not six inches from mine.  He spoke in a
horrible voice, that shook with hate and pain and triumph.

"I've got you now--and I'll kill you, as I did your brother!"

Great God! then it was he who had done it, after all.  Better had it
been for him to have held his peace, for that word roused me again as
nothing else could have done, and I caught his throat with both
hands, though he struck me viciously.  I held him as he lay on top of
me, and saw him die.  Then I knew no more for a little while, and as
I lay there insensible, I still bled.

What was it that called me to myself?  Whether it was that my soul
had gone out to meet someone, and returned in triumph, for I awoke
with a momentary feeling of gladness; or whether it was an
unconscious effort of the brain, in the presence of a new and
terrible danger, I cannot say.  All I know is that, when that spasm
of joy passed, I felt weak and unable to move under the weight of
Matthias, whose protruding eyes and tongue mocked at me hideously in
death, as though his revenge was even now being accomplished; and I
saw the fiery brush creeping across the space that lay between me and
the fire Jim had kindled at my bidding.  Was I to die by fire at the
last, when that horrible night was passing and the dawn was already
breaking on the eastern horizon?  For I could not stir, my limbs were
like lead, my heart beat feebly, and my feet were cold.  I lay
glaring at the fire, and, as I did so, I saw that the revolver I had
struck out of Matthias's hand was lying as far from the fire as the
fire was from me.  How is it that there is such a clear intellect at
times in the very presence of death?  I saw then that the shots I had
fired from that weapon had brought my enemy up just in time, for
otherwise he might have been wearied out or lost; and now I thought
if I could only get to it, to fire it, I might thus bring help: for
what enemies had I left now save the crawling fire?  I might even
bring Elsie.  But then, how did the dead villain who lay across me,
choking me still, get her horse, and what had happened to her in his
hands!  I tried to scream, and I sighed as softly as the vague wind
which was impelling the slow fires toward me.  How near they
came!--how near--and nearer yet, like serpents rearing their heads,
spitting viciously as they came?  And then I thought how slow they
were; why did they not come and end it at once, and let me die?  And
I looked at the fires again.  They were within two feet of me, I
could feel the heat, and within eighteen inches of the revolver.  I
was glad, and watched it feverishly.  But then the weapon's muzzle
was pointed almost at me.  Suppose it exploded, and shot me dead as
it called for help!  How strange it was!  I put up my hands feebly
and tried to move the dead body, so as to screen myself.  I might as
well have tried to uproot a tree, for I could barely move my hands.
I looked at the fire again as it crawled on and on, now wavering, now
staying one moment to lift up its thousand little crests and vicious
eyes, and then stooping to lick up the grass and the dried brush on
which I lay.  But as I glared at it intently, at last it reached the
weapon, and coiled round it triumphantly as though that had been its
goal, licking it round and round.  Would the flames heat the
cartridges enough, and if they did, where would the bullets go?  I
asked that deliriously, for I was in a fever, and instead of being
cold at heart, the blood ran through me like fire.  I thought I began
to feel the fire that was so close to me.  I heard the explosion of
the heated weapon.  I was yet alive.  "Come, Elsie! come, if you are
not dead--come and save me--come!"  I thought I cried out loudly, but
not even her ear, that heard a sharper sound afar, could have caught
that.  Once more and once again the cartridges fired, and I heard a
crash, saw a horse burst like a flame through the black brush, and
there was a white thing before my eyes.  I looked up and saw Elsie,
my own true love after all, and then I fainted dead away, and did not
recover until long, long after.

I ask myself sometimes even now, when those hours that were burnt
into my soul return to my sight like an old brand coming out on the
healed flesh when it is struck sudden and sharply, whether, after
all, my enemy had been balked of his revenge.  To die one death and
go into oblivion is the lot of all who face the rising sun, and,
after a while, veil their eyes when its last fires sink in the
western sea.  But I suffered ten thousand deaths by violence, by
cruel ambush and torture, by crawling flames and flashing knives in
the interval between my rescue and my recovery from the fever that my
wounds and the horror of it all brought upon me.  They told me--Elsie
herself told me--that I lay raving only ten days; but it seemed
incredible to me, as I shook my head in a vague disbelief that made
them fear for my reason.  If I had been in the care of strangers who
were unfamiliar to me, I might have thought myself a worn-out relic
of some dead and buried era, whose monuments had crumbled slowly to
ashes in the very fires through which my soul had passed, shrieking
for the forgetful dead I had loved.  But though I saw her only
vaguely like a spirit in clouds, or knew her, without sight as I lay
half unconscious, as a beneficent presence only, I grew gradually to
feel that Elsie, who still lived after the centuries of my delirium,
loved me with the passion I had felt for her.  I say _had_ felt, for
I was like a child, and my desire for her was scarcely more than a
pathetic longing for tenderness of thought and touch, until the great
strength which had been my pride returned in a flood and brought
passion with it once more.

How strangely that came to pass which I had foretold in my last talk
with Elsie!  I had said, angrily--for I was angered--that she should
one day speak to me, though she swore she would not, and that she
should implore my pardon.  And she did it, she who had been so strong
and self-contained, in the meekest and dearest way the thoughts of a
maiden could devise.  And then she asked me if I would marry her?
Would I marry her?  I stared at her in astonishment, not at her
asking, for it seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to
do, but at the idiocy of the Question.  "I do believe you love me,
Elsie," I said at last, "for I have heard that love makes the most
sensible people quite stupid.  If you were in your right senses,
dear, you would not have asked it----"

"I should think not, indeed!" she broke in.  But she smiled tenderly.

"Because you know very well that I settled that long enough ago, on
board the _Vancouver_," I said stoutly.

"Then I had no voice in it?" Elsie said.

"Not the least, I assure you!  I made up my mind."

"And so did I," said Elsie, softly.

"What do you mean, dear?"

She leant her head against my shoulder, and against my big beard, and
whispered:

"I made up my mind, dear Tom, that if you didn't love me, I would
never love anyone else, but go and be a nun or a nurse all my life.
And that's why I was so hard, you know!"

Yes, I knew that well enough.


And where was Helen, meantime?  I am drawing so near the end of my
story that I must say what I have to in a few words.  She had
remained at the ranch until the doctor had declared I was going to
recover (it was no fault of his that I did), and then she went away.
What she told Elsie I have never known, nor shall I ever ask; but
they parted good friends--yes, the best of friends--and she returned
home to Melbourne.  I never saw her again, at least not to my
knowledge, although once, when Elsie and I were both in that
city--for I returned to my profession--I thought, nay, for the moment
I made sure, that she had come to know of our presence there.  For
Elsie had presents of fruit and flowers almost every day she was at
Melbourne.  I part with her now with a strange regret, and somehow I
have never confessed to anyone that I was very vexed at her not
waiting until I was well enough to recognize her before she went.
For, you see, she loved me.

But--and this is the last--the time came when I was able to go out
with Elsie and Fanny, and though we rode slowly, it did not need
rapid motion to exhilarate me when she was by my side.  As for Fanny,
she used to lose us in the stupidest way, just as if she had not been
brought up in the bush, and been able to follow a trail like a black
fellow.  But when Harmer came out on Sundays, it was we who lost
them, for Fanny used to go off at full speed, while Jack, who never
got used to a horse for many months, used to risk his neck to keep up
with her.  Then she used to annoy him at night by offering him the
softest seat, which he stoutly refused, preferring to suffer untold
tortures on a wooden stool, rather than confess.  But I don't think
they will ever imitate us, who got married at last in the autumn at
Thomson Forks.  I invited almost everyone I knew to the wedding, and
I made Mac my chief man, much to Jack's disgust.  I would even have
invited Montana Bill, but he was lying in the hospital with a bullet
in his shoulder; while Hank Patterson could not come on account of
the police wanting him for putting it there.  But half the population
of the Forks had bad headaches next day; and if I didn't have to wear
my right hand in a sling on account of the shaking it got, it was
because I was as strong as ever.  The only man who looked unhappy was
Mr. Fleming, and he certainly had a right to be miserable,
considering that I had robbed him of his housekeeper, leaving him to
the tender mercies of flighty Fanny.  And she was so vicious to poor
Jack that he actually dared to say to me, "that if Elsie had the
temper of her sister, he was sorry for me, and that it was a pity
Siwash Jim and Mat had made a mess of it."  When I rebuked him, he
said merrily, "he guessed it was a free country, and not the poop of
the _Vancouver_."  So I let him alone, being quite convinced then,
and I have never changed my opinion since, though we have been
married almost five years, that Elsie Ticehurst is the best wife a
man ever had, and worth fighting for, even against the world.



THE END









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