The Luck of the Kid

by Ridgwell Cullum

It was the second night of camping on the gravel flats of the Caribou River, and the last brief hour before seeking the fur-lined bags in which the northern man is wont to sleep. Chilcoot and Wilder were squatting side by side, Indian fashion, over the camp fire burning adjacent to the tent they shared with the Irishman. And the latter faced them beyond the fire, sprawled on the ground baked hard by the now departed summer heat.

Talk had died out. These men rarely wasted words. They had long since developed the silent habit which the northern solitudes so surely breed. But even so, for once there was a sense of restraint in their silent companionship. It was a restraint which arose from a sense of grievance on the part of both Chilcoot and the Irishman. And it had developed from the moment of quitting the mysterious habitation in the western hills.

The facts were simple enough from their point of view. Both the Irishman and Chilcoot had been left in complete ignorance of their leader’s adventures during his long night vigil in the deserted house. He had returned to them only to order a hurried departure, and had definitely avoided explanations in response to their eager inquiries by evasive generalisations.

“I just don’t get the meaning of anything, anyway,” he had declared, with a shake of the head. “Ther’s some queer secret to that shanty the folks who own it don’t reckon to hand out. If we’d the time to pass on up the creek maybe we’d locate the meaning of things. But we haven’t and seemingly that darn house is empty, and there isn’t a thing to it to tell us anything. No,” he said, “I’ve passed a long night in it and taken chances I don’t usually reckon to take, and I’ve quit it feeling like a feller who’s got through with a nightmare, an’ wonders what in hell he’s eaten to give it him. I’m sick to death chasing ghosts, and mean to quit right here. We’ll just need to report to our superiors,” he smiled, “an’ leave ’em to investigate. Meanwhile we’ll get right on after the stuff which seems to me to lie in one direction, and that’s the location where the dead missioner worked around. We’ll beat it down to the Caribou River for a last fling, and after that Placer’s the best thing I know.”

Chilcoot who understood his friend through long years of experience and association was by no means deceived. But his loyalty was the strongest part of him. He read behind the man’s words. He saw and appreciated the suggestion of excitement lying at the back of Wilder’s smiling eyes, and understood that the claimed unproductiveness of the night’s vigil was sheer subterfuge. Furthermore he realised that the hurriedly ordered departure had been inspired by the events of the night. But he attempted no further question. And even aided his friend in denying the torrent of questioning which the Irishman did not scruple to pour out.

Mike’s reminders of the obvious oil and coal wealth of the black, mysterious hills, and the queer soil of the whole region, left Wilder unmoved. He agreed simply. But he dismissed the whole proposition as being outside anything but the range of their natural curiosity. He reminded the persistent creature that the territory was Alaskan, and they were for the time being debarred from further investigation through being enrolled officers of the Canadian Police.

So he had had his way and the eastward journey was embarked upon. And as the waters of the oily creek passed away behind them, and the queer Fire Hills dropped back into the distance he hugged his secrets of the night to himself for the purpose of using them in the fashion he had already designed. Thus his companions were left puzzled and dissatisfied.

All the way down the great waterway of the Hekor, Wilder had pondered the position in which he found himself and the events which had led up to it. The figures of the blinded Japanese and his little wife haunted him. Then there was that carefully detailed chart which showed the locality of the dead missionary’s discovery to be on the Caribou River. And the thought of the Caribou had brought again into the forefront of his vision the memory of the fair young white girl who had passed him up the rapids which churned about its mouth, and with her parting farewell, had flung her invitation at him to that home which was ten miles up from the junction of the two rivers.

The memory of the Kid had been with him ever since he had first gazed down into her wonderful blue eyes, and had realised the perfect rounded figure of her womanhood under her mannish garb. He had always remembered those peeping golden strands of hair, which, despite her best effort to conceal them, never failed to escape from under the fur cap which was so closely drawn down over her shapely head. Then her wonderful skill on the water, her confidence and her pride in her achievement. He needed nothing beyond those things. The girl had held him fascinated. She had set all the youth in him afire. And now—now the wonder of it. The chances of those remote hills had sent him racing down towards her home full of a dream that surged through his senses with all the pristine fire of his hitherto unstirred manhood.

He was thinking of her now. He was thinking of his visit to her home that very noonday, the first of his arrival upon the river. As he sat over the fire silently contemplating the depth of its ruddy heart with calm unsmiling eyes, a passionate desire was stirring within him. Since the moment of return to his camp on the gravel flats, with the picture of that happy, unkempt home full of sturdy young life haunting him, he had been concerned only for the sweet, blue, smiling eyes of the girl of the northern wild.