CHAPTER XXII
GID HOLT COMES TO KUSIAK
The days grew short. In sporting circles the talk was no longer of the midnight Fourth of July baseball game, but of preparation for the Alaska Sweepstakes, since the shadow of the cold Arctic winter had crept down to the Yukon and touched its waters to stillness. Men, gathered around warm stoves, spoke of the merits of huskies and Siberian wolf-hounds, of the heavy fall of snow in the hills, of the overhauling of outfits and the transportation of supplies to distant camps.
The last river boat before the freeze-up had long since gone. A month earlier the same steamer had taken down in a mail sack the preliminary report of Elliot to his department chief. One of the passengers on that trip had been Selfridge, sent out to counteract the influence of the evidence against the claimants submitted by the field agent. An information had been filed against Gordon for highway robbery and attempted murder. Wally was to see that the damning facts against him were brought to the attention of officials in high places where the charges would do most good. The details of the story were to be held in reserve for publicity in case the muckrake magazines should try to make capital of the report of Elliot.
Kusiak found much time for gossip during the long nights. It knew that Macdonald had gone on the bond of Elliot in spite of the scornful protest of the younger man. The two gave each other chilly nods of greeting when they met, but friends were careful not to invite them to the same social affairs. The case against the field agent was pending. Pursuit of the miners who had robbed the big mine-owner had long ago been dropped. Somewhere in the North the outlaws lay hidden, swallowed up by the great white waste of snow.
The general opinion was that Mac was playing politics about the trial of his rival. He would not let the case come to a jury until the time when a conviction would have most effect in the States, the gossips predicted. They did not know that he was waiting for the return of Wally Selfridge.
The whispers touched closely the personal affairs of Macdonald. The report of his engagement to Sheba O'Neill had been denied, but it was noticed that he was a constant guest at the home of the Pagets. Young Elliot called there too. Almost any day one or other of the two men could be seen with Sheba on the street. Those who wanted to take a sporting chance on the issue knew that odds were offered sub rosa at the Pay Streak saloon of three to one on Mac.
As for Sheba, she rebelled impotently at the situation. The mine-owner would not take "No" for an answer. He wooed her with a steady, dominant persistence that shook even her strong, young will. There was something resistless in the way he took her for granted. Gordon Elliot had not mentioned love to her, though there were times when her heart fluttered for fear he would. She did not want any more complications. She wanted to be let alone. So when an invitation came from her little friends the Husteds, signed by all three of the children, asking her to come and visit them at the camp back of Katma, the Irish girl jumped at the chance to escape for a time from the decision being forced upon her.
Sheba pledged her cousin to secrecy until after she had gone, so that Miss O'Neill was able to slip away on the stage unnoticed either by Macdonald or Elliot. The only other passenger was an elderly woman going up to the Katma camp to take a place as cook.
Later on the same day Wally Selfridge, coming in over the ice, reached Kusiak with important news for his chief. He brought with him an order from Winton, Commissioner of the General Land Office, suspending Elliot pending an investigation of the charges against him. The field agent was to forward by mail all documents in his possession and for the time, at least, drop the matter of the coal claims.