By care and patience we got safely down, and drew our load to the shanty. Indeed we drew it inside, for a breeze had sprung up, and it would have been a risk to handle anything in the open air.
It delighted me to see the pleasure with which my new friend examined what I had brought. "What! bovril!" she exclaimed, "and whisky! Oh, they will cure father! and sago, rice; and this lovely tinned fruit! Why, what a stock of things you have; are you storekeeping? I thought you were a miner."
I assured her that I was, and nothing more, but that my partner had been up the season before, had done well, and gained experience, so that when we came in during the summer we had brought a large stock of food—larger than was absolutely necessary—in case of accidents. I added that I was deeply thankful we had done so, as things had turned out. I begged her to use all she could, for her father's good, to say nothing of her own; and to remember that there was plenty more where this came from.
Her father was much better than when I first saw him, but he was still ill and frail. He welcomed me warmly, clasping my big rough hand in his thin white ones, saying as he did so, "Welcome back. I never can thank you enough for all your goodness. You have saved my daughter's life, and I hope, too, I may recover and prove to you my gratitude."
I cut this matter short, begging him to use what I had been so pleased to bring.
His daughter, being present, went over a list of the dainties, as she called them, and was quite cheerful, which gladdened Mr Bell, and they both spoke hopefully of the future.
It was not long before we two had a kettle boiling, food cooked, and were enjoying what she assured me was the best meal she had eaten in that region. Bacon and beans, the staples with miners, had never been satisfactory food to her father and herself.
Naturally it was a delight to me to be thus familiarly associated with her. During my absence she had tidied the shanty, and had also donned a better dress—that is, a cleaner one—less worn and ragged. She had done something to her hair, and had tried to make her hands more presentable. Her beauty was, I suppose, enhanced by this, and to me it seemed that if she was not so thin, and had a little more colour on her cheeks, and could lose the sad look that seldom left her face, she would be perfect.
As for me, I had done nothing to improve my dress or looks. I did get some snow melted at my place, and rubbed and scrubbed my hands; but I could not say they were improved, though a portion of the grease and blackness was gone.
We sat with her father for a while. He was a smoker, but all his tobacco was gone: he tried to join me, but could not manage it, although he was decidedly better. We propped him up, and he talked with me, and then of course they wished to know how I came to be in that part, and how I came across them, and about England; asked if I knew the part they came from, and said a little about where my people lived. He appeared to know our name, having visited in the neighbourhood, so that we got on well. He was very feeble, spoke with difficulty, and his daughter May, as he always called her, helped him out, finished sentences for him, and described to me what she knew he wished to tell me. As for how I came to be in that neighbourhood, that was easily explained. I told of Meade's discovery the first time he came into the Yukon; how he had returned this last summer, and had brought me with him. I told how fortunate we had been in getting gold, and so forth, and generalised a good deal. I said nothing about Meade's death—I merely stated that he had left me, that I had been alone for months, had become heartily tired of it, and had determined to get to Dawson "somehow" with what I could haul out. I was making preparation for this when I heard the shots, which May afterwards told me she fired every few hours for a week, hoping to attract some one; but of late she had quite despaired. They were certain they should both die. Indeed, as I knew, when the joyful sound of my gunshots, and soon after the barking of the dog, roused hope in her, her father had swooned away, and but for my wonderful advent, and what I had in my bag, she believed he would not have rallied.