“I got ’em on the boat,” continued Stampede viciously. “And she with me every minute, smiling in that angel way of hers, and not letting me out of her sight a flick of her eyelash, unless there was only one hole to go in an’ come out at. And then she said she wanted to do a little shopping, which meant going into every shack in town and buyin’ something, an’ I did the lugging. At last she bought a gun, and when I asked her what she was goin’ to do with it, she said, ‘Stampede, that’s for you,’ an’ when I went to thank her, she said: ‘No, I don’t mean it that way. I mean that if you try to run away from me again I’m going to fill you full of holes.’ She said that! Threatened me. Then she bought me a new outfit from toe to summit—boots, pants, shirt, hat and a necktie! And I didn’t say a word, not a word. She just led me in an’ bought what she wanted and made me put ’em on.”
Stampede drew in a mighty breath, and a fourth time wasted a match on his pipe. “I was getting used to it by the time we reached Tanana,” he half groaned. “Then the hell of it begun. She hired six Indians to tote the luggage, and we set out over the trail for your place. ‘You’re goin’ to have a rest, Stampede,’ she says to me, smiling so cool and sweet like you wanted to eat her alive. ‘All you’ve got to do is show us the way and carry the bums.’ ‘Carry the what?’ I asks. ‘The bums,’ she says, an’ then she explains that a bum is a thing filled with powder which makes a terrible racket when it goes off. So I took the bums, and the next day one of the Indians sprained a leg, and dropped out. He had the firecrackers, pretty near a hundred pounds, and we whacked up his load among us. I couldn’t stand up straight when we camped. We had crooks in our backs every inch of the way to the Range. And would she let us cache some of that junk? Not on your life she wouldn’t! And all the time while they was puffing an’ panting them Indians was worshipin’ her with their eyes. The last day, when we camped with the Range almost in sight, she drew ’em all up in a circle about her and gave ’em each a handful of money above their pay. ‘That’s because I love you,’ she says, and then she begins asking them funny questions. Did they have wives and children? Were they ever hungry? Did they ever know about any of their people starving to death? And just why did they starve? And, Alan, so help me thunder if them Indians didn’t talk! Never heard Indians tell so much. And in the end she asked them the funniest question of all, asked them if they’d heard of a man named John Graham. One of them had, and afterward I saw her talking a long time with him alone, and when she come back to me, her eyes were sort of burning up, and she didn’t say good night when she went into her tent. That’s all, Alan, except—”
“Except what, Stampede?” said Alan, his heart throbbing like a drum inside him.
Stampede took his time to answer, and Alan heard him chuckling and saw a flash of humor in the little man’s eyes.
“Except that she’s done with everyone on the Range just what she did with me between Chitina and here,” he said. “Alan, if she wants to say the word, why, you ain’t boss any more, that’s all. She’s been there ten days, and you won’t know the place. It’s all done up in flags, waiting for you. She an’ Nawadlook and Keok are running everything but the deer. The kids would leave their mothers for her, and the men—” He chuckled again. “Why, the men even go to the Sunday school she’s started! I went. Nawadlook sings.”
For a moment he was silent. Then he said in a subdued voice, “Alan, you’ve been a big fool.”
“I know it, Stampede.”
“She’s a—a flower, Alan. She’s worth more than all the gold in the world. And you could have married her. I know it. But it’s too late now. I’m warnin’ you.”
“I don’t quite understand, Stampede. Why is it too late?”
“Because she likes me,” declared Stampede a bit fiercely. “I’m after her myself, Alan. You can’t butt in now.”