North

“So here you be, my pretty!” cried Dalzene. “Come down to meet me did ye?” The man’s voice was thick of utterance. He was drunk.

Instantly the girl gained control of herself: “Stand out of my way! Let me pass!”

The man laughed coarsely: “Haw, haw, haw! Pretty sassy, hain’t you? Well, you won’t be so sassy agin you’ve had a chance to learn my ways.”

Swiftly the girl’s eyes surveyed the creek bed. The banks were high and steep. The man divined her intention: “No ye don’t! No use tryin’ to slip by us. Turn around an head back up the crick. I’ve got some business with yer pa—an’ later with you.”

“What do you mean?” again the deadly fear gripped at her heart.

“Remember what I told you that day in Nolan. Well, I ain’t fergot. I had plenty time to think it over, back there in Nome. Six months they kep’ me in their damn jail—all on account of you an’ Old Man Gordon—an’ now it’s my turn.” His voice fairly quivered with insane rage as he jerked off his mitten and extended the twisted claw that had been a hand. “An’ that’s what yer damn dog done! But he won’t never chaw no one else up! An’ Old Man Gordon won’t never beat another race, neither. An’ you—well—you an’ me might git on all right when you come to know me better—an’ then agin—we mightn’t.”

A cold calm took possession of the girl: “Don’t be a fool, Dalzene,” she said. “The man you just passed is coming back in a few minutes, and when he does, he will kill you.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it? That’s what’s goin’ on up here on Myrtle? Kind of thought Old Man Gordon’s b’iler would cost him about all the race money, time he got it up here. You ort to move down where they’s more men.”

Lou Gordon understood nothing of the man’s implication, but the look in the leering eyes brought a hot flush of shame to her face. Dalzene continued: “But, you don’t need to bother about him—he’s through.”

“What do you mean?” she shrieked the question, staring wide-eyed into the leering face.

The man laughed: “You know what yer friends would do to me if they ketched me on the Koyukuk. Well, I done it first—that’s all. He’s layin’ back there in the snow, ’bout five mile down the crick. An’ he ain’t comin’ back—none whatever.”

A single piercing cry forced itself from between the girl’s lips. Huloimee Tilakum was dead! And before her the man who had killed him stood and grinningly bragged of his deed. A red haze filmed her brain. Like a flash she whirled in her tracks and disappeared around the bend. In the cabin was the rifle! She would kill these two human beasts as she would kill wolves. A wild primordial fury gripped her heart—a fury that for the moment overshadowed the pain. This man had killed her man—and in red vengeance he should be killed!

With the hand of all men against him Jake Dalzene hated all men. Brooding upon this hate during the term of his imprisonment had transformed him into a veritable beast of hate. A malignant, dangerous thing of evil he was turned loose upon the North at the expiration of his term. Hating all men, he concentrated the full venom of his insane rage upon the Gordons upon whom he laid the blame for his downfall. It was Old Man Gordon who had caused him to lose his money on the Koyukuk, and indirectly had turned the whole Koyukuk against him. Over there they would kill him on sight—as they would kill a snake. The Gordon dog had maimed him for life, and Lou Gordon had treated him with supreme contempt in the roadhouse at Nolan, and later had outwitted him (as he thought) in Nome.

When he gained his freedom his one obsession was to even the score with the Gordons. He would slip over onto Myrtle, would kill the old man, and then—alone on the deserted creek with the girl—his eyes flickered with bestial lust as he thought of the girl. After that, if they killed him on the Koyukuk, they would have something to kill him for!

Dalzene was penniless. He needed an outfit, for the journey to Myrtle Creek. So he went to work on the dumps. It was there he met a fellow convict whose term had expired a month previous, and realizing that he might need help, cautiously sounded the man out. Satisfied, he laid stress upon the winnings of Gordon, and broached a scheme whereby they should visit Myrtle together, murder Gordon, divide whatever of loot there might be in the cabin.

The two pooled their earnings for the venture, and toward the middle of January, pulled out of Nome. The utmost caution had been used in the ascent of the Koyukuk from the mouth of the Alatna. Dalzene knew every foot of the country, and he was careful to detour past all camps and native villages. Once on Myrtle caution was relaxed. The deep snows of the winter had rendered it extremely improbable that there would be any travel on the abandoned creek, and the outfit held to the creek bed. The two celebrated their safe arrival on Myrtle with liberal quantities of hooch, the fiery liquor acting upon Dalzene’s brain added fuel to his desire for revenge.

Upon rounding a bend they had come face to face with MacShane. The rifle and heavy six gun with which they had provided themselves were lashed to the toboggan and the man was right upon them. To attempt to release the gun would invite disaster. With a sense of vast relief Dalzene noted that the man was using a toboggan. He was not a man of the Koyukuk, and in all probability would know nothing of the edict of the miners’ meeting. With elaborate heartiness, he tendered his bottle, but the other declined, and after a few words of commonplace conversation, he passed on and disappeared in the gloom.

Five miles farther on, Lou Gordon had come suddenly upon them, and all the hate of his warped soul leaped into Dalzene’s brain. Helpless she was, unarmed and completely at his mercy. He took fiendish delight in taunting her. When she mentioned the man who had passed on the trail, it was his devilish ingenuity alone that prompted him to concoct the lie about killing him. He divined that it would cause her pain—so he told her the man was dead. And he had gloated as the sound of the girl’s shriek rose on the air. That cry was music to the ears of Dalzene, and he chuckled all the way up the creek as his inflamed brain dwelt upon the pain that had showed in her eyes. She could not escape him. Old Man Gordon would be no match for him and his convict companion. So, as he mushed he laughed. Just before reaching the cabin, Dalzene paused, and unlashing the rifle from the sled, passed it to the other. About his own waist he strapped a belt from which dangled a six gun in a holster. Then, keeping the door in sight, they separated and cautiously advanced toward the cabin.

“Open up, Gordon!” he called, “Open up, an’ we’ll make a dicker.” There was no response from the interior, and Dalzene drew nearer. Pausing, he examined the snow, passing completely around the cabin, and walking to the boiler. Then he returned and took a position near the door. “So that’s the way of it!” he called, “The old man ain’t here! He ain’t be’n here since the last snow! So, yer here alone, eh?”

Within the cabin Lou Gordon gripped her rifle and answered: “I expect dad any minute!”

“You do, do you? Well, it’s be’n a good many minutes since he was here, an’ I guess he won’t be bustin’ in on our party. If he does he’ll git his’n like the stranger did back on the trail.”

Inside the cabin, the girl’s lips pressed into a straight white line, and her fingers gripped the rifle till the knuckles whitened. If she could only shoot! But the same log walls that protected her, protected her besiegers also. She wished now she had followed her first plan to lie in wait for them outside, but she had overestimated Dalzene’s cunning. She had figured that he would divide his forces, and that she would be struck down from behind before she could kill him. The heavily frosted panes of the windows gave her no chance to shoot from the cabin.

The dog kennels attracted Dalzene’s eye, and with a curse, he gripped his revolver and lurched toward them. “You kin say good bye to yer big lead dog, now!” he taunted. “I’ll fix him, fer chawin’ the hand off me! Damn him, he’s where he can’t git at me an’ I’ll shoot him all to pieces before I kill him.” At the girl’s side, in the cabin, Skookum sniffed the air suspiciously and a low growl rumbled in his throat, as the hair bristled upon his back. “Oh, why didn’t you kill him, Skookum?” whispered the girl in desperation.

She could hear Dalzene moving about near the kennels. Stealthily she raised the bar of the door, and opened it just a crack, the next moment the door slammed shut and the bar crashed into place. The other man had leaped for the opening. Stepping swiftly back the girl sent a bullet crashing through the door, and the man answered with a taunting laugh. “Try it agin, sis! If you hit me you git a cigar!”

A loud cry from Dalzene brought her up, tense, listening. “Damn you, don’t you kill that gal—she’s mine! I’ll tend to her case.”

In vain Dalzene sought for the great lead dog among the dogs in the corral, round and round the fence he walked trying to single him out in the gloom. The noontime dawn had not yet broken, and as the man stepped onto a mound of snow close beside the fence for a better view of the corral, his snowshoe caught upon an obstruction and he fell heavily. With a curse, he scrambled to his feet and kicked at the obstacle that had tripped him. It was immovable, but the kick had partially dislodged the loose snow from about it. Swiftly Dalzene dropped to his knees, and with his hands dug the snow away. The object was a little wooden cross, and placing his eyes close to its surface he read the inscription burned into the wood.

STUART GORDON
Died Jan. 13, 19—.

Slowly the man rose to his feet and with lust-gleaming eyes, stood staring down into the snow, while in his brain, a new plan was born. With the journey to Myrtle accomplished and Gordon out of the way, he would have no further use for his confederate. He would watch his chance, shoot him from behind, and the loot and the girl would be his own. He glanced up. The man was watching him. He would play for time. Swiftly he walked to the cabin. “Just when was it you was expectin’ the old man back?” he asked, following the words with a hoarse laugh that told the girl that he knew. She answered nothing.

Again the man spoke, changing his tactics: “Come on out, peaceable, an’ we won’t hurt you none,” he wheedled, “All I want is you should hit up to Nolan an’ fix it with the boys so they’ll let me back on the river. That’s all I want. Honest to God, it is. An’ they’ll do it if you tell ’em to.” Again, no answer. “All right, I got another proposition. Throw in with me, an’ we’ll stay here an’ work the old man’s claim. They ain’t no use tryin’ to buck me. I got you where I want you, an’ you ort to know it. The old man hain’t comin’ back. I jist stumbled onto his grave. How about it?”

Silence from the cabin. Suddenly into Dalzene’s hate-crazed brain leaped the memory of that other day when he had talked to this girl and she had not deigned reply. It was the day of the miners’ meeting. A sudden fury flared within him. And his voice raised to a bellow: “Damn you! You will come out! Come out, I say! Or, By God, I’ll burn you out! Bar the door all you want to, you can’t bar fire! Come out here! Damn you! Do you hear?”

Inside the cabin the girl stood gripping her rifle. Cold fear clutched her heart. She closed her eyes, and for a moment the world swam and she reeled, slightly. Fire! They would fire the cabin. Instantly she recovered herself. Well, it was the end. She would go out—when the smoke and heat forced her out. But she would go out shooting. She would never surrender! Never would that brute defile her living body with his foul touch. He might kill her, but he would never take her alive. The odds were two-to-one, but she would die fighting. She would kill them, or force them to kill her.

She could hear the enraged Dalzene ordering the man to carry spruce branches. She could hear the branches being heaped against the cabin. Then—the crackle of flames—louder and louder the crackling sounded, until it rose in a steady roar. The frost began to melt on the window panes, some chinking from high on the wall fell to the floor and the acrid smell of smoke reached her nostrils. Leaping to the window whose panes were fast clearing in the heat she saw Dalzene standing upon the edge of the creek facing the door. A cloud of smoke shot through with red flame swept past the window, concealing the figure. Stepping back the girl cocked her rifle and raising it waited for the smoke-screen to drift past.

“Wonder where they’re headin’?” muttered MacShane as the two-man outfit disappeared in the darkness. “Guzzlin’ hooch on the trail ain’t goin’ to git ’em far. The big one was plumb drunk. They’ll have to camp before long. Anyway,” he grinned, “They’ve left me a good trail!”

A half-hour later he pulled up his dogs before the door of a deserted cabin and explored its interior. “This will do till Old Man Gordon gets back,” he decided, and proceeded to unharness his dogs. This done, he carried his pack from the toboggan and tossed it upon the floor of the cabin. “Wonder where the old man went an’ how long he’s goin’ to stay?” he mused, “Nolan prob’ly. She said she expected him back any time.” A slow smile twisted the corners of his mouth. “I wonder if she’s found my note, yet? I wonder if she cares? Maybe I hadn’t ought to put that down—about us two bein’ tired of missin’ life. Wish I hadn’t. Wonder if she’ll be watchin’ for me to come back?” He paused abruptly, and stepping to the door, stared in the direction from which he had come. “I wonder if them two would bother her any?” Smiling at the thought, he returned to his unpacking. A few moments later he again stepped to the door and gazed up the creek. “Hell!” he muttered, “No one would bother a woman! But—the big one was drunk. She’s a sourdough all right an’ able to take care of herself. But—it wouldn’t hurt to kind of mush along up that way—maybe the old man’s got back.” MacShane laughed aloud: “Trouble with me is I’m just naturally honin’ to be near her. You can’t never tell what a drunk man will do. I’ve got a kind of a hunch I ought to hit the back trail—an’ when I get a hunch—I ride it!”

Fastening on his snowshoes he struck swiftly off up the creek. Their trail afforded good footing, and he walked rapidly.

At the point when the two-man outfit halted for the second time he paused and examined the tracks in the snow. “Someone else was comin’ down the creek besides me,” he muttered, “Someone in my trail—an’ when he met this other outfit he turned around an’—” MacShane’s words ceased abruptly as he further examined the marks left by the snowshoes where their edges overlapped the toboggan trail. “He was runnin’,” he exclaimed “What in hell?”

For an instant his heart ceased beating. Could it have been—her? Why had she turned back—running? The thought raced through his brain, and with a hoarse cry he dashed up the trail.

Rounding the last bend he stopped, horror-stricken. The red flare of flames confronted him. The cabin was on fire! No, it was light brush piled against the cabin! By the light of the leaping blaze he could make out the figures of the two armed men watching the cabin. The larger of the two stood upon the bank of the creek scarce twenty yards away. He caught the glint of the heavy revolver in the man’s hand. MacShane was unarmed. Swiftly releasing the thongs of his snowshoes, he dropped from the bank to a strip of wind-swept ice, dashed toward the motionless figure of the man.

“Come on out! Damn you! I told you the time would come when you would talk pretty to Jake Dalzene!” The words ended in a startled cry as MacShane hurled himself upon him. The six gun, knocked from his hand, buried itself in the snow.

A puff of wind eddied the smoke-screen and Lou Gordon dropped her eye to the sights of her rifle. The man she had so long feared—the man who had, in cold blood, murdered Huloimee Tilakum stood as he had stood before the smoke and flames had blotted him from her sight. Her finger tightened upon the trigger. The next instant the rifle was lowered and with face pressed close to the glass the girl was staring wide-eyed through the window. Another form had leaped into view behind the form of Dalzene. The words with which the man was taunting her ended in a hoarse cry of fear—and two bodies were struggling in the snow!

A blur of motion caught the corner of the girl’s eye and she turned her head to see the man with the rifle rushing to Dalzene’s assistance. Crossing the room at a bound, she hurled the heavy bar aside, flung the door open, raised her rifle, and fired. The man with the rifle staggered a few steps, and regaining his balance, turned toward her, bringing his rifle to his shoulder. Again she fired and the man sagged slowly at the knees and crumpled into the snow.

As the door opened Skookum sprang past his mistress with a hoarse growl of fury.

Upon the bank of the creek the two struggling figures had regained their feet. Neither had been able to recover the six gun. At the sound of shots they sprang apart and stared at the man in the snow.

The next instant the air was rent by a thin, shrill scream. The most blood-curdling sound MacShane had ever heard—coming as it did from the throat of a full-grown man—a cry so awful in its abandon of abject soul-terror as to cause a prickling sensation at the roots of his hair. Hardly had the shriek left the man’s lips than a great tawny shape hurtled through the air and MacShane gazed in horror as the gleaming white fangs that studded the cavernous yawning mouth closed with an audible crunch upon the man’s face. The great dog’s momentum carried him past, as he bowled the man into the snow. Strange, inarticulate sounds came from the writhing body and MacShane, after one horrified glance turned away. The man in struggling to rise turned his head toward him and where his face had been living eyeballs bulged from their sockets and between two naked, flesh-stripped rows of teeth a living tongue writhed in audible mouthings.

The great dog sprang again—and MacShane rushed to the girl. “Quick!” he cried, “We can save the cabin yet!” and with his bare hands began to tear the blazing boughs from the wall. Side by side they worked, tearing away the brush and throwing snow on the blazing eaves. The thick logs of the cabin wall, already smoking, were easily extinguished with snow.

MacShane rubbed a handful of snow upon the last glowing coal and as he turned from the wall his eyes met the eyes of Lou Gordon—those wondrous dark eyes that were living wells of—love! The next instant his arms were about her and the tears from those dark eyes were wetting his cheeks.

“This is the answer to your question,” he whispered, a few moments later when, with her head resting against his breast she looked up into his face.

“But we haven’t missed—life! For us life is just beginning,” she said.

“I sure hope Gordon will come back soon,” smiled the man. And for reply, the girl pointed to the little wooden cross that Dalzene had uncovered in the snow, and together they turned away.

“And now, my woman, we’ll be married,” said MacShane, as they paused at the door of the cabin. The girl looked into his face with a smile. “And I will be Mrs.—Huloimee Tilakum?” she asked, “Do you know, dear—” the unfamiliar word hesitated upon her lips. “You have never told me your name.”

“My name,” he laughed, “I told you once I would some day tell you my name. It is Burr MacShane——”

“Burr MacShane!” cried the girl, staring wide-eyed into his face. “Why dad has been hunting for you for years! He wanted to apologize for—what he said—back in Dawson. Dear old dad—if he could only know!”

“Maybe he does know,” whispered MacShane, softly, as his lips met hers.

“Wait!” she cried a few moments later, and darting into the cabin she reappeared with a grotesquely carved wooden doll, in a dress of faded silk. “Do you know what this is?” she asked, holding it up before him, “It has been my most treasured possession.”

The man smiled, “Yes,” he answered, “I gave it to you myself—years ago—that Christmas, in Dawson. I told you back in Nome it was a game—I knew you, an’ you didn’t know me—the biggest game of all, girl—and I won! And now I’m goin’ to claim the stakes. There’s a parson at Alekaket Mission,” he whispered and smiled happily as the girl’s face flushed crimson.

Skookum left off worrying at the thing that sprawled in the snow on the creek bank, and as the two stood arm in arm, he joined them, and rearing upward, placed a huge paw upon the breast of each. And as their hands stroked the great dog’s neck, the smouldering amber eyes glowed softly.

An hour later the two paused for a farewell look at the little cabin on Myrtle. Beside them the worthless iron boiler reared its gaunt black sides above the drifted snow.

The girl’s eyes filmed as they rested for a moment upon the little wooden cross, and as she turned away the Arctic gloom gradually lightened. She glanced upward toward the broad bands of purple and pink that shot into the zenith.

“Come!” she cried, and hurriedly led the way to the summit of a long bare ridge. “Look!” she pointed toward the southern horizon where a red disk upon the far-off rim of the world was dissipating the bands of purple and pink: “The sun! I watched it go down nearly three months ago,” she murmured, softly. “And my heart was heavy and sad. I thought I had lost you, dear. I thought that for me love was dead, and my life loomed dark and cold as the long, long night that was before me. But see—now it is day!”

“Yes, girl,” answered MacShane—“now it is day. It is a good omen. The sun means—life, and love, and happiness.

“I told Camillo Bill, way back in Dawson that my hunch said ‘North’—an’ I rode it!”

THE END