CHAPTER XI
"Then you're quite sure, Jack? You don't mind my being a—nobody?" The girl's tone was half-playful, half-sad. There was a note of wistfulness in the musical cadences of her voice.
The young man whom she had addressed answered with an emphasis that left no doubt as to his sincerity. His clear gray eyes were alight with love, as he looked into the dark, gypsy-like face of the girl at his side.
"Why, Nell, you're just everybody. You're everything worth while in this little old world of ours."
"You do say the sweetest things, Jack!" The shadowy eyes that met tenderly the warm gaze of the lover were lighted with fond appreciation. Then, of a sudden, the red lips trembled into a mischievous smile, as she added: "I guess I wouldn't give a snap for a sweetheart who was tongue-tied when he talked about my charms."
The two were seated in the main room of a small, roughly-built Alaskan cabin, which stood on the outskirts of a ramshackle village, created almost in a day by the gold lure's magic. The lovers had been left alone together on the eve of their wedding-day by the kindness of the girl's foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Ross. It was of these, who, in the tiny back room, were recalling the distant days of their own courtship, that Nell now spoke.
"They have been so good to me!" she said musingly. "I've told you that they were not really and truly my parents. I didn't tell you just how I came to be with them, because it was such a dreadful time to me. Even after all these years, I hate thinking of it."
"Don't!" Jack Reeves urged. "What's past is past, and there's no earthly reason for you to worry yourself over it by telling me."
The girl shook her head.
"I want to tell you, dear," she said simply. Then she fell silent for a little. The lover, watching the warm olive contour of the cheek against which the long black lashes swept as her eyes closed in meditation, rejoiced yet once again in the beauty and the daintiness of this maiden whom he had found and won for himself here amid the rigors of the Northland. He noted the slight drooping of the tenderly curving lips, and longed to kiss away their sadness. Presently Nell went on speaking, rather rapidly, as if anxious to be done with an unpleasant task, and in a tone that told of restrained emotion:
"It was twelve years ago that Papa and Mamma Ross found me. You know Papa Ross is a born pioneer, and Mamma has grown to be just like him. For years they have been moving with the frontiers. That time they were camping by a river down below. There had been a heavy storm, and the river ran high. They heard a cry from somewhere out in the night on the water. They ran to the bank and looked. But it was dark, and they couldn't see anything or hear another sound. Rover was with them—a splendid big Newfoundland." The girl's voice softened. "Rover died two years ago, just before we came up here. I loved him so!"
"I think I can guess," Jack ventured, as the girl paused. "It was Rover who saved you—for, of course, it was you out there in the river."
The girl nodded somberly.
"Yes," came her answer, very gently uttered; "I was out there in the river, drowning. The current swept me along with it. There was a point of the shore just below where Papa Ross had camped. I was carried into the eddies there. Somehow, Rover caught a glimpse of my face, or, maybe, just his instinct guided him. Anyhow, as Papa Ross has told me, Rover sprang into the river, and, when Papa Ross had followed around the inlet toward the point, he found the dog trying to drag me out of the water, up on the bank. Papa Ross carried me to the camp, and there he and Mamma worked over me for a long time. It was a close call, Papa Ross says, but finally they got me to breathing again.... And that's about all."
"And so," Jack questioned in some surprise, "you don't know any more than that?—where you came from, or anything?"
Once again Nell shook her head.
"No, nothing more than that. Papa Ross always thought that I must have struck my head somehow, there in the water. Anyhow, I was confused when I came to. I couldn't seem to remember anything exactly—except my name, Nell. Sometimes I have shadowy memories, but they melt away before I can get anything definite. So, you see, I'm just a nobody, Jack, as I told you—just a mystery that came out of the night and the river."
"Everybody to me," the lover declared again; "everything to me." And now, at last, he took the lithe, slender form of the girl into his arms, and kissed the sorrowfully drooping lips to smiles again.
But, after a little, when there came a lull in the caresses and murmured endearments, Jack Reeves spoke a question that was puzzling him:
"But I should think it would have been easy enough to trace you? If inquiries had been made, surely you might have learned where you came from, and who you were, and all that?"
But, once again, Nell shook her head, and this time very emphatically.
"Papa Ross did what he could, but it came to nothing. When we got to a town, he tried to find out about any girl's being lost like that. Nobody knew of any such case. There was no report of any child's having been drowned. He did what he could—I'm sure of that. Anyhow, as long as you don't care, Jack, I don't suppose I need to. But, somehow—" Nell's voice broke, and she sat silent, absorbed in melancholy reverie. Always, this mystery was a painful thing to her. Even now, when her happiness was full, on the eve of her marriage to the man she loved, she was grieved by the fact that she must come to her husband as a waif, a creature whose origin was unknown, a nameless bit of flotsam, dragged from the river by a dog. Then, in another moment, the depression of her mood was forgotten as she drew away from Jack's embrace, for she heard Papa Ross stamping heavily about the back room of the cabin—in kindly warning that he was about to intrude upon the lovers.
The next morning broke clear, and when at last the slowly clambering sun rose to traverse its short circle between the horizons, its slanting beams seemed full of warmth and good cheer, though the mercury stood at twenty degrees below zero. There was not a breath of wind, and the chill air, pure with a purity unknown to lower latitudes, was like the wine of life. The breath of it in the lungs set the blood a-tingle with joyousness. And the purity of the air had for its background the visible purity of the snow-mantle that lay over everything. Beneath the sun, the white expanse shimmered in prismatic brilliance. Afar, the mountains loomed in purple masses—the green of conifers seen through the vista of many miles.
And the day, in its spirit of vigorous life and wholesome gayety, was suited to the mood of the tiny temporary town, which sprawled here in the wilderness. For the place was en fête. The hardy men who had thus ventured into the wilds of the North welcomed the diversion of this romance among them, which was to culminate to-day in the wedding of Jack Reeves and Nell Ross at the Dyea Hotel. Public sentiment had insisted that the nuptials should be celebrated at the hotel. The hotel, truth to tell, was neither commodious nor imposing. But it was a boarded structure, the only one in the village, and it was by far the largest, small though it was. And the citizens were determined that they should be permitted to assemble in force on this auspicious day, when the glamour of love was to soften in some degree the austerity of the arctic land. So, betimes, the men of the community gathered at the hotel to await the marriage ceremony. A scant half-dozen women, courageous followers of the men they loved, were there as well. Some had been at pains to bring heaps of evergreen boughs, and with these the main room of the hotel—at once lobby, bar and office—was decorated. Caribou Bill brought a great bank of moss, for which he had dug through six feet of snow. To it was attached a piece of flaming-red paper, in which tea had originally been packed, and this paper had been laboriously cut by Caribou Bill into the shape of two hearts, lovingly joined as one. The symbol of wedded happiness was established by its smirking inventor on the central shelf above the bar, where it commanded the enthusiastic admiration of the populace.
It was noon to the second when Nell Ross and Jack Reeves stood in the center of the main room of the hotel before the one who was to make them man and wife. He, too, was at heart a pioneer, and he was, as well, an earnest worker for the saving of souls. His own preference, with a roving commission, had brought him to this remote place. He found a singular pleasure in the fact that his ministrations were required for the uniting of this winsome maiden and this virile, clean young man. It was as if the ceremony typified in some fashion the purity and vigor of life here within the frozen North.... It was noon to the second! The time-keeper was Harry, the Dog-Man, who carried a Waterbury watch, on the accuracy of which he would cheerfully have staked his hopes of eternal happiness. Because of the exactness of his time-piece, which none cared to deny, he had usurped the office of master of ceremonies. When he saw the two hands of the watch blent as one upon the hour of twelve, he raised his arm, and Nell and Jack moved forward within the little lane walled by the crowd, to stand before the clergyman, who regarded them with a benevolent smile, in which, unknown to himself, was something almost of envy in the presence of their youth and happiness and love.
So, the minister spoke the words that made this pair husband and wife.
There was a noise of snapping dogs outside. A man came into the hotel, stamping the snow from the high-buckled overshoes worn over his boots of felt. Behind him came a woman muffled in furs. She looked on the scene with a certain feminine interest, for she realized at once that a wedding was in progress; but without any personal concern. Indeed, she was rather displeased, being weary from a long journey over the snows, because she saw that she must wait for attention until the ceremony should be concluded. The man with her shook the hood of the parka from his head, and stood regarding with cynical amusement the two who had clasped hands before the clergyman. So he waited while the words were uttered that made the pair one. The ceremony ended, the husband kissed the bride; the minister in turn bent and touched his lips to hers, with a curious stirring of half-forgotten emotions.
Then the crowd surged forward, eager for its prerogative of a kiss. And, as she turned, Nell saw the man who had just entered, standing there with that smile of cynical amusement upon his handsome face. The eyes of the two met and battled. There came to her a strange feeling of dread. In this, the supreme moment of her life, wherein all had been happiness, there stirred a feeling of doubt, of evil anticipation.
The man, staring into the face of this beautiful girl upon whose nuptials he had stumbled by chance, experienced a thrill of emotion which he could not understand. Some secret monition moved him to an alarm. He felt an unreasonable disturbance in the presence of this girl.... Dan McGrew had no suspicion that he had blundered thus on the child who, years before, had been swept away from him in the darkness of the river's flood-tide.... Nor did the woman, who stood behind him so wearily, waiting for the end of this tiresome ceremony, guess that the gentle girl, blushing there under the storm of kisses claimed by the crowd, was, in fact, the daughter for whose death she had mourned through so many years.... Nell did not see the woman at all.
"THEY'VE STRUCK IT RICH ON FORGOTTEN CREEK!"
Of a sudden there came an interruption:
A man leaped through the doorway. He waved his hands and staggered as one drunken. His voice rose in a raucous shriek:
"They've struck it rich on Forgotten Creek!"
There was a moment of intense stillness. These men had fled from civilization in pursuit of the will-o'-the-wisp of gold. Now sounded the clarion call:
"They've struck it rich on Forgotten Creek!"
THESE MEN HAD FLED FROM CIVILIZATION IN PURSUIT OF THE WILL-'O-THE WISP OF GOLD.
For long seconds the stillness endured. Then, abruptly, there came a huge cachinnation. It was the mellow, roaring laughter of Bert Black, the only negro in this Aladdin village so close up under the Pole. The company looked at the man expectantly, and he answered the interrogation in their eyes:
"We-all is just shohly goin' to have a stampede!"
Then, again, the silence held for a little, while each and every man of them saw the vision of the straggled crowd trailing the waste places, lured on by the will-o'-the-wisp of gold.