“I’m sick of this. You brought me here by brute force. I won’t go on with it. Do you understand? I’ve tramped over that icy wilderness with you. I’ve suffered until I can suffer no longer. You never were a gentleman, and ordinary courtesy and respect for a woman are unknown to you, but surely you have a heart somewhere within you. Can’t you see this is killing me? Do you want to break my heart?”
“Hearts are hearts, ain’t they? And breaking one ain’t no worse than breaking another. No, I’m no gentleman—not the kind you bin used to. That’s why I came here—because here they’re only men, and I’d jest as soon be a man as anything else on earth. I reckon that where a man goes his woman should go too.”
She flushed at the appellation “woman.” 133
“You talk like a barbarian. I’m not your woman—you understand? Not your woman.”
“Figure out how you may,” he retorted, “when you buy a thing, you buy it, and it’s yours until someone pays you to git it, or someone is hefty enough to take it from you. As for that, if any guy thinks about cuttin’ in, he’s welcome to try.”
The true sense of his position was made patent. His rough philosophy was good. Had she been his by mere conquest, no man in the Klondyke would have disputed it. Being his wife, legally, his position was doubly strong. Only cunning could win through. She meant to exercise that faculty as soon as opportunity presented itself. And the opportunity was close at hand.
“I’m going up-river to-morrow,” he said, “to prospect a creek, and to stake two claims if it’s a promising place. I’ll be back before sundown.... Ain’t you goin’ to git supper?”
She was on the point of refusing to carry out the necessary abhorrent domestic work, but the chance of escape which his words gave rise to brought discretion to the forefront. She cooked a dish of beans and opened some canned fruit, 134 and they took their meal, thrusting it beneath the shielding mosquito-nets which seldom left their heads.
Half an hour later they made ready for sleep, in very close proximity to the hard ground, with a hanging canvas curtain between them.
“Good-night, Angela!” he said.