"There's so much to keep me here that life's not long enough to see it through. Time was, Bill, when I guessed it was the north that had got into my bones. But I didn't know. The long trail. The search. It was gold—gold—gold. Same as it is with any of the other fools that get around here. But I didn't just understand. That gold. No. I've been searching, and the search for new ground has been one long dream of life. But the gold I've been chasing wasn't the gold I thought it. It wasn't the yellow stuff these folks here are ready to sell their souls—and bodies—for. It was different. You guessed I had all the gold I needed. But I hadn't, not of the gold I've been chasing. I hadn't any of it. I—didn't even know its color when I saw it. I do now. And it's the color I've seen looking out of a pair of wonderful—wonderful gray eyes. Say, I don't quit the northland till I can take it all with me. All there is of that gold I've found on the long trail."
"Jessie?"
"Sure."
"Then why not take her?"
The vaudeville turn was in full swing and the folks below were standing around talking and drinking, and gazing with only partial interest at the feats of a woman acrobatic dancer. Bill was looking at her, too. But his thoughts were on the girl at Fort Mowbray and this man who was his friend.
"Why not take her?" he urged. "Take her away from this storm-haunted land, and set her on the golden throne you'd set up for her, where there's warmth and beauty. Where there's no other care for her than to yield you the wifely companionship you're yearning for. I guess she's the one gal can hand you those things. If you don't do it, and do it quick, you'll find the fruit in the pouch of another. Say, the harvest comes along in its season, and it's got to be reaped. If the right feller don't get busy—well, I guess some other feller will. There's not a thing waits around in this world."
The braying of the band deadened the sound of laughter, and the rattle of glasses, and the talk going on below. Kars was still gazing down upon the throng of pleasure seekers, basking in the brilliant glare of light which searched the pallid and unhealthy, and enhanced the beauty where artificiality concealed the real. His mood was intense. His thoughts were hundreds of miles away. Quite suddenly he turned his strong face to his friend. There was a deep light in his steady eyes, and a grim setting to his lips.
"I'm going to collect that harvest," he said, with a deliberate emphasis. "If you don't know it you should. But I'm collecting it my way. I'm going to marry Jessie, if your old friend Prov don't butt in. But I'm going to cut the ground under the feet of the other feller my own way, first. I've got to do that. I've a notion. It's come to me slow. Not the way notions come to you, Bill. I'm different. I can act like lightning when it's up to me, but I can't see into a brick wall half as far as you—nor so quick. I've bin looking into a brick wall ever since we hit Bell River, and I've seen quite a piece into it. I'm not going to hand you what I've seen—yet. I've got to see more. I won't see the real till I make Bell River again. If what I guess I'm going to see is right, after that I'm going to marry Jessie right away, and she, and her mother, and me—well, we're going to quit the north. There won't be a long trail in this country can drag me an inch from the terminals of civilization after that."
A deep satisfaction shone in the doctor's smiling eyes as he gazed at the serious face of his friend. But there was question, too.
"You've laid a plain case but I don't see the whole drift," he said. "Still you've fixed to marry Jessie, and quit this darnation country. For me it goes at that—till you fancy opening out. But you're still bent on the Bell River play. I've got all you said to me on the trail down. You figger those folks are to be robbed by—some one. Do you need to wait for that? Why not marry that gal and get right out taking her folks with her? Let all the pirates do as they darn please with Bell River. I don't get any other view of this thing right."