In the “orderly” streets of a great city, a girl like Hildegarde would have been remarked, followed, probably accosted. She had had experience of that even in Valdivia, where nearly every creature knew who she was. In the vast and eager crowd on the Seattle water front she passed with little notice and wholly unmolested. Every one had business of his own. If the man who pushed against you till he nearly knocked you down was not an excited passenger rushing for the next ship, he was a company agent seeing off a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of machinery; or he was the gentleman in a smaller way of business, who was beating up trade in the neighborhood of the Last Chance Bazaar. Here and there on a tiny temporary platform, nearly swamped by the crowd, or standing insecurely on a jostled barrow, merchants whose ages ranged from eight to eighty, offered you something you’d bless them for every hour of your life at Nome. Here an improved sort of prospecting pan—you had only to carry it up to lat. 62° to fill it full of gold all day long. There was a Nome mosquito-mask, fastened like a gallows’-cap on the face of a stiff, pale figure of wax, lifted high in air, rigid, travestying death—horribly arresting. There was every kind of waterproof—hat, coat and boot; for, that summer at Nome meant nothing but rain, was the one point upon which every one agreed. By way of object lesson, “rockers” for separating Nome gold from Nome sand are being jogged to and fro upon the wharves; vendors of patent medicine are crying one another down; a different concentrated food is proclaimed at every corner, a new gold “process” every ten feet and bedlam all around you. Copper plates; pickaxes; shovels; and—“Here y’are! The last thing out! Compound-corkscrew-screw-driver-monkey-wrench, ’n’ can-opener. All y’ grub goes to Nome in cans. Y’ll starve to death right plumb in the middle o’ plenty, ’nless y’ get this yer noo compound-corkscrew-screw-driver-monkey—” The rest is drowned by the dernier cri in “Nome sto-o-o-ves! Burn-oil-burn-wood-burn-coke-burn-anything-in-hell-and-never-burn-the-dinner! Nome sto-o-o-ves!” Other hawkers so hoarse you heard nothing but “Nome! Nome!” as if they had it there—a nostrum you might buy at home.
Hildegarde’s mind went back to the old reconnaissance map in the dining-room. She so little she must climb upon a chair to read in her father’s fine, clear writing, the name opposite a tiny projection in the coast line. It had been a place only he seemed to know about. Now on every sign, on every lip, Nome! Nome! Nome!
Overheard fragments among new-comers at the shipping offices, no more “Which boat?” but “Can you, even by paying some feller a bonus, get anything in the shape of a ticket before June?”
The element of chance was not to be eliminated. It must be faced. On her way to the office of the Line she had first affected, she saw swinging on in front of her, hands in overcoat pockets, shouldering his way through the throng, one of those same high-booted, wide-hatted men of whom she had said at first, “He’s going, too!” But this man had been marked out by his air of enjoying the enterprise. Most people, even away from the maddening water front, bore about with them a harassed, or at best, preoccupied countenance, the majority sallow and seamed and weary. This wide-mouthed young giant with the fresh complexion—he was one of whom you felt not only “he knows,” but “he knows it’s all right.” Now, if he should be on his way to secure a passage at this same office, Hildegarde would take it as a lucky omen. But he carried his tall figure swinging by. His back seemed to say, “No, thank you. I know too much to be taken in by the Golden Sands Company.” Hildegarde went past the Golden Sands Company herself, without quite intending to. The ruddy-complexioned one was stopped by a fussy little, middle-aged man, who said, “Wonder if you can tell me where the Centrifugal Pump Company’s offices are?”
“What?” says the red-cheeked giant as Hildegarde went by. “You mean Mitchell, Lewis and Starver?”
“Y-yes,” said the fussy man. “Are they all right, do you think?” and the rest was lost. What a pity she couldn’t go up as simply as that, and ask his Giantship about the boats. But no. He was a rather young giant, and a little too enterprising-looking. No, better not. He stared at people. That wasn’t the sort of man she’d ever spoken to.
She hadn’t analyzed it, but with all her simplicity and all her sense of freedom, she was acutely sensitive about making any avoidable move that might be misconstrued. The unfortunate women of the world had spoiled things. Not only for themselves—for others, too. She crossed the street and went back toward the “Golden Sands.” Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the giant part from his interlocutor and disappear in the office of Hankin & Company. So that was the best line! Slowly she retraced her steps, turning over in her mind all she’d heard about Hankin & Company. Perhaps even without this last indication the evidence did point Hankinward. She went in. Craning over heads, and peering across shoulders she saw the huge young man talking to the agent. She edged her way nearer.
“You’ll have plenty o’ time to load your stuff. The Congress’ll be at the docks Toosday.”
“Sure?”