That was written five years before. Since then the "special" had been developed till a large staff was employed in the observation of the Elysian Fields. And still under all this espionage "Pap," as he was familiarly dubbed, moved about without any apparent concern, carrying on his underground schemes with every outward aspect of inoffensive honesty. All Leaping Horse knew him as a crook, but accepted him as he posed. He was on intimate terms with all the gold magnates, and never failed to keep on good terms with the struggling element of the community. But he was a "gunman." He had been a "gunman" all his life, and made small secret of it. The only change in him now was that his gun was loaded with a different charge.
"You figger he's dopey on her?"
"Crazy. God help the feller that monkeys around that hen roost."
"Yet he uses her for this play?"
"With reserve."
"How?"
Dr. Bill again gave a short hard laugh.
"You won't see her around with folk, except on that floor. Say, get a peek at the boxes across the way, with the curtains half drawn. They're all—occupied. You won't see Maude in those boxes, unless it's with Pap. She's down on that floor because she loves dancing, and for Pap's business. She's there for loot, sure, and she gets it plenty. She's there with her dandy smile to see the rest of the women get busy. Playing that feller's dirty game for all it's worth. And she's just a gal full to the brim of life. He's bought her body and soul, and I guess it's just for folks like us to sit around and watch for what's coming. If I've got horse sense there's coming a big shriek one day, and you'll see Pap clear through to his soul—if he's got one. He's fallen for that dame bad. But I guess he's done the falling. I don't guess any feller can gamble on a woman till she's in love, then I'd say the gamble is she'll act foolish."
Kars had no comment to offer. He was no longer watching Maude. The dancing had ceased, and the floor had cleared. The orchestra had already commenced the prelude to a vaudeville turn, and the drop curtain had revealed the stage.
His interest was centred on Pap Shaunbaum. The man was moving about amongst his customers, exchanging a word here and there, his dark, saturnine face smiling his carefully amiable business smile. To the elemental man of the trail there was something very fascinating in the way this one brain was pitting itself to plunder through the senses of the rest of his world.
But Dr. Bill knew it all with an intimacy that robbed it of any charm. He had only repulsion, but repulsion that failed to deny a certain attraction. His hot words broke through the noisy strumming of vaudeville accompaniment.
"For God's sake," he said, "why do we stop around this sink? You! Why do you? The long trail? And at the end of it you got to come back to this—every trip. I hate the place, I loathe it like a hobo hates water. But I'm bound to it. It's up to me to help mend the poor darn fools who haven't sense but to squander the good life Providence handed them. But you—you with your great pile, Pap, here, would love to dip his claws into, there's no call for you acting like some gold-crazed lunatic. Get out, man. Get right out and breathe the wholesome air Providence meant for you. Oh, I guess you'll say it's all on the long trail in the northland. There isn't a thing to keep you here."
"Isn't there?"
Kars leaned back in his chair. He stretched his great arms above his head, and clasped his hands behind his muscular neck.
"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."
"No. But I do." There was a curious, obstinate thrust to this big man's jaw. "By heaven, Bill! The feller responsible for the murder of my little gal's father, a father she just loved to death, don't git away with his play if I know it. The feller that hands her an hour's suffering needs to answer to me for it, and I'm ready to hand over my life in seeing he gets his physic. There's no one going to get away with the boodle Allan gave his life for—not if I can hold him up. That's just as fixed in my mind as I'm going to marry Jessie. Get that good. And I hold you to your word on the trail. You're with me in it. I've got things fixed, and I've set 'em working. I'm quitting for Seattle in the morning. You'll just sit around lying low, and doping out your physic to every blamed sinner who needs it. Then, with the spring, you'll stand by ready to quit for the last long trail with me. Maybe, come that time, I'll hand you a big talk of all the fool things I've got in my head. How?"
The other drew a deep sigh. But he nodded.
"Sure. If you're set that way—why, count me in."
"The man that can 'ante' blind maybe is a fool. But he's good grit anyway. Thanks, Bill. I—what's doing?"
The sharpness of Kars' inquiry was the result of a startled movement in his companion. Dr. Bill was leaning forward. But he was leaning so that he was screened by the heavy curtain of the box. He was craning. In his eyes was a profound look of wonder, almost of incredulity.
The vaudeville act had come to an end with a brazen flourish from the orchestra, and a waltz had been started on the instant. The eyes of the man were staring down at the floor below, where, already, several couples were gliding over its polished surface.
"Look," he said, in a suppressed tone of voice. "Keep back so he don't see you. Get a look at Chesapeake Maude."
Kars searched the room for the beautiful red-gold head. He looked amongst the crowd. Then his gaze came to the few dancers, their numbers already augmenting. The flash of jewels caught his gaze. The wonderful smiling face with its halo of red-gold. An exclamation broke from him.
"Alec Mowbray!"
But it was left to Bill to find expression for the realization that was borne in on them both.
"And he's half soused. The crazy kid!"
Maude seemed to float over the gleaming floor. Alec Mowbray, for all the signs of drink he displayed, was no mean partner. His handsome face, head and shoulders above the tall woman he was dancing with, gazed out over the sea of dancers in all the freshness of his youthful joy, and triumph. He danced well, something he had contrived to learn in the joyless country from which he hailed. But there was no reflection of his joy in the faces of the two men gazing down from the shelter of the curtained box. There were only concern and a grievous regret.
Bill rose with a sigh.
"I quit," he said.
Kars rose, too.
"Yes."
The two men stood for a moment before passing out of the box.
"It looks like that shriek's coming," Bill said. "God help that poor darn fool if Pap and Maude get a hold on him."
"He came down with Murray," Kars said pondering.
"Yes. He ought to have come around with his mam."
Kars nodded.
"Get a hold on him, Bill, when I'm gone. For God's sake get a hold on him. It's up to you."
CHAPTER XVIII
ON THE NORTHERN SEAS
The mists hung drearily on snow-crowned, distant hilltops. The deadly gray of the sky suggested laden clouds bearing every threat known to the elements. They were traveling fast, treading each other's heels, and overwhelming each other till the gloom banked deeper and deeper. It was the mockery of an early spring day. It had all the appearance of the worst depths of winter, except that the intense cold had given place to a fierce wind of higher temperature.
The seas were running high, and the laden vessel labored heavily as it passed the sharp teeth of the jaws of the wide sound which marked the approach to the northern land.
There was no sheltering bar here. The only obstruction to the fierce onslaught of the North Pacific waters was the almost submerged legion of cruel rocks which confined the deep water channel. It was a deadly approach which took years of a ship's captain's life to learn. And when he had learned it, so far as it was humanly possible, it quickly taught him how little he knew. Not a season passed but some unfortunate found for himself a new, uncharted rock.
The land rose up to overwhelming heights on either side, and these vast barriers narrowed the wind channel till the force of the gale was trebled. It swept in from the broad ocean with a roar and a boom, bearing the steamer along, floundering through the racing waters, with a crushing following sea.
There were twelve hours of this yet ahead of him, and John Dunne paced his bridge with every faculty alert. He watched the skies. He watched the breaking waters. He watched the shores on either side of him, as he might watch the movements of a remorseless adversary about to attack him. He had navigated this channel for upwards of fifteen years, and understood to-day how small was his understanding of its virtues, and how real and complete his fears of its vices. But it was his work to face it at all times and all seasons, and he accepted the responsibility with a cheerful optimism and an equal skill.
Once or twice he howled a confidence to his chief officer, who occupied the bridge with him. There were moments when his lips were at the speaking tubes, and his hand on the telegraph. There were moments when he stood with his arms folded over the breast of his thick pea-jacket, and his half-closed eyes searched the barren shores while he leaned against the shaking rail.
He had been on the bridge the whole night, and still his bodily vigor seemed quite unimpaired. His stocky body concealed a power of endurance which his life had hardened him to. He rarely talked of the dangers through which he had journeyed on the northern seas. He feared them too well to desire to recall them. He was wont to say he lived only in the present. To look ahead would rob him of his nerve. To gaze back over the manifold emergencies through which he had passed would only undermine his will. The benefit of his philosophy was displayed in his habitual success. In consequence he was the commodore of his company's fleet.
He passed down from his bridge at last. And it was almost with reluctance. It was breakfast time, and he had been summoned already three times by an impatient steward. At the door of his cabin he was met by John Kars who was to be his guest at the meal. These men were old friends, bound by the common ties of the northland life. They had made so many journeys together over these turbulent waters. To Kars it would have been unthinkable to travel under any other sea captain.
"Still watching for those jaws to snap?" said Kars, as he passed into the little room ahead of his host, and sniffed hungrily at the fragrant odor of coffee.
"Why, yes," he said. "Jaws that's always snapping generally need watching, I guess. A feller needs the eyes of a spider to get to windward of the things lying around Blackrock Sound. Say, I guess it wouldn't come amiss to dump this patch into the devil's dugout fer fool skippers, who lost their ships through 'souse,' to navigate around in. It has you guessin' most of the time. And you're generally wrong, anyway."
The men sat down at the table, and the steward served the coffee. For a few moments they were busy helping themselves to the grilled kidneys and bacon. Presently the steward withdrew.
"It's been a better trip than usual this time of year," Kars said. "It's a pity running into this squall just now."
The seaman raised a pair of twinkling eyes in his guest's direction.
"It's mostly my experience. Providence generally figgers to hand you things at—inconvenient times. This darn sound's tricky when there ain't breeze enough to clear your smoke away. It's fierce when it's blowing. Guess you'll be glad to see your outfit ashore."
"Ye-es."
"Up country again this year?"
Kars laughed.
"Sure."
The seaman regarded him enviously.
"Guess it must be great only having the weather to beat. A piece of hard soil under your feet must be bully to work on. That ain't been mine since I was fourteen. That's over forty years ago."
"There's something to it—sure." Kars sipped his coffee. "But there's other things," he added, as he set his cup down.
The seaman smiled.
"Wouldn't be Life if there weren't."
"No."
"You're shipping arms," John Dunne went on significantly. "Guns an' things don't signify all smiles an' sunshine. No, I guess we sea folks got our troubles. It's only they're diff'rent from other folks. You ain't the only feller shipping arms. We got cases else. An' a big outfit of cartridges. I was looking into the lading schedule yesterday. Say, the Yukon ain't makin' war with Alaska?"
The man's curiosity was evident, but he disguised it with a broad smile.
Kars' steady eyes regarded him thoughtfully. Then he, too, smiled.
"I don't reckon the Yukon's worrying to scrap. But folks inside—I mean right inside beyond Leaping Horse where the p'lice are—need arms. There's a lot of low type Indians running loose. They aren't to be despised, except for their manners. Guess the stuff you speak of is for one of the trading posts?"
"Can't say. It's billed to a guy named Murray McTavish at Blackrock Flat. There's a thousand rifles an' nigh two million rounds of cartridges. Guess he must be carryin' on a war of his own with them Injuns. Know the name?"
Kars appeared to think profoundly.
"Seems to me I know the name. Can't just place it for—— Say—I've got it. He's the partner of the feller the neches murdered up at Fort Mowbray, on the Snake River. Sure, that explains it. Oh, yes. The folks up that way are up against it. The neches are pretty darn bad." He laughed. "Guess he's out for a war of extermination with such an outfit as that."
"Seems like it." The skipper went on eating for some moments in silence. His curiosity was satisfied. Nor did Kars attempt to break the silence. He was thinking—thinking hard.
"It beats me," Dunne went on presently, "you folk who don't need to live north of 'sixty.' What is it that keeps you chasing around in a cold that 'ud freeze the vitals of a tin statue?"
Kars shook his head.
"You can search me," he said, with a shrug. "Guess it sort of gets in the blood, though. There's times when I cuss it like you cuss the waters that hand you your life. Then there's times when I love it like—like a pup loves offal. You can't figger it out any more than you can figger out why the sun and moon act foolish chasing each other around an earth that don't know better than to spend its time buzzing around on a pivot that don't exist. You can't explain these things any more than you can explain the reason why no two folks can think the same about things, except it is their own way of thinking it's the right way. Nor why it is you mostly get rain when you're needin' sun, and wind when you're needin' calm, and anyway it's coming from the wrong quarter. If you guess you're looking for gold, it's a thousand dollars to a dime you find coal, or drown yourself in a 'gush' of oil. If you're married, an' you're looking for a son, it's a sure gamble you get a gal. Most everything in life's just about as crazy as they'll allow outside a foolish house, and as for life itself, well, it's a darn nuisance anyway, but one you're mighty glad keeps busy your way."
At that moment, the speaking tube from the bridge emitted a sharp whistle, and the skipper, with a broad smile on his weather-beaten face, went to answer it.
The clatter of the winches ceased. The creaking of straining hawsers lessened. The voices of men only continued their hoarse-throated shoutings. The gangways had been secured in place, and while the crew were feverishly opening the vessel's hatches the few passengers who had made the journey under John Dunne's watchful care hustled down the high-angled gangway to the quay, glad enough to set foot on the slush-laden land.
The days of the wild rush of gold-mad incompetents were long since past. The human freight of John Dunne's vessel, with the exception of John Kars, was commercial. They were mostly men whose whole work was this new great trade with the north.
Kars was one of the first to land, and he swiftly searched the faces of the crowd of longshoremen.
It was a desolate quay-side of a disreputable town. But though all picturesqueness was given over to utility, there was a sense of homeliness to the traveler after the stormy passage of the North Pacific. Blackrock crouched under the frowning ramparts of hills which barred the progress of the waters. It was dwarfed, and rendered even more desolate, by the sterile snow-laden crags with which it was crowded. But these first impressions were quickly lost in the life that strove on every hand. In the familiar clang of the locomotive bell, and the movement of railroad wagons which were engaged in haulage for Leaping Horse.
Kars' search ended in a smile of greeting, as a tall, lean American detached himself from the crowd and came towards him. He greeted the arrival with the easy casualness of the northlander.
"Glad to see you, Chief," he said, shaking hands. "Stuff aboard? Good," as the other nodded. "Guess the gang'll ship it right away jest as soon as they haul it out o' the guts of the old tub. You goin' on up with the mail? She's due to get busy in two hours, if she don't get colic or some other fool trouble."
Abe Dodds refused to respond to his friend and chief's smile of greeting. He rarely shed smiles on anything or any one. He was a mining engineer of unusual gifts, in a country where mining engineers and flies vied with each other for preponderance. He was a man who bristled with a steady energy which never seemed to tire, and he had been in the service of John Kars from the very early days.
Kars indicated the snub-nosed vessel he had just left.
"The stuff's all there," he said. "Nearly fifty tons of it. You need to hustle it up to Leaping Horse, and on to the camp right away. Guess we break camp in two weeks."
The man nodded.
"Sure. That's all fixed. Anything else?"
His final inquiry was his method of dismissing his employer. But Kars did not respond. His keen eyes had been searching the crowd. Now they came back to the plain face of Abe, whose jaws were working busily on the wreck of the end of a cigar. He lowered his voice to a confidential tone.
"There's a big outfit of stuff aboard for Murray McTavish, of Fort Mowbray. Has he an outfit here to haul it? Is he still around Leaping Horse?"
Abe's eyes widened. He was quite unconcerned at the change of tone.
"Why, yes," he replied promptly. "Sure he's an outfit here. He's shipping it up to Leaping Horse by the Yukon Transport—express. He quit the city last November, an' come along down again a week ago. Guess he's in the city right now. He's stopping around Adler's Hotel."
Kars' eyes were on the "hauls" of the cargo boat which were already busy.
"You boys kept to instructions?" he demanded sharply. "No one's wise to your camp?"
"Not a thing."
"There's not a word of me going around the city?"
"Not a word."
"The outfit's complete?"
"Sure. To the last boy. You can break camp the day after this stuff's hauled and we've packed it."
"Good." Kars sighed as if in relief. "Well, I'll get on. Hustle all you know. And, say, get a tally of McTavish's outfit. Get their time schedule. I'll need it. So long."
Kars followed his personal baggage which a quayside porter had taken on to the grandiosely named mail train.
John Kars was standing at the curtained window of Dr. Bill's apartment in the Hoffman Apartment House. His back was turned on the luxuriously furnished room. For some time the silence had been broken only by the level tones of the owner of the apartment who was lounging in the depths of a big rocker adjacent to a table laden with surgical instruments. He had been telling the detailed story of the preparations made at the camp some ten miles distant from the city, and the supervision of whose affairs Kars had left in his hands. As he ceased speaking Kars turned from his contemplation of the tawdry white and gold of the Elysian Fields which stood out in full view from the window of the apartment.
"Now tell me of that boy—Alec," he demanded.
The directness of the challenge had its effect. Bill Brudenell stirred uneasily in his chair. His shrewd eyes widened with a shade of trouble. Nor did he answer readily.
"Things are wrong?" Kars' steady eyes searched his friend's face.
"Well—they're not—good."
"Ah. Tell me."
Kars moved from the window. It almost seemed that all that had passed was incomparable in interest with his present subject. He seated himself on the corner of the table which held the surgical instruments.
"No. It's not good. It's—it's darned bad." Bill rose abruptly from his chair and began to pace the room, his trim shoulders hunched as though he were suddenly driven to a desire for aggression. "Look here, John," he cried almost vehemently. "If you or I had had that boy set in our charge, seeing what we saw that first night, and knowing what I've heard since, could we have quit this lousy city for months and left him to his fool play over at Pap's? Not on your life. But it's what Murray's done. Gee, I could almost think he did it purposely."
Kars pointed at the rocker. There was a curious light in his gray eyes. It was a half smile. Also it possessed a subtle stirring of fierceness.
"Sit down, Bill," he said calmly. "But start right in from—the start."
The man of healing obeyed mechanically, but he chafed at the restraint. His usual ease had undergone a serious disturbance. There was nothing calculated to upset him like the disregard of moral obligation. Crime he understood, folly he accepted as something belonging to human nature. But the moral "stunt," as he was wont to characterize it, hurt him badly. Just now he was regarding Murray McTavish with no very friendly eyes, and he deplored beyond words the doings of the boy who was Jessie Mowbray's brother.
"The start!" he exploded. "Where can I start? If the start were as I see it, it 'ud be to tell you that Murray's a callous skunk who don't care a whoop for the obligations Allan's murder left on his fat shoulders. But I guess that's not the start as you see it. That boy!" He sprang from his seat again and Kars made no further attempt to restrain him. "He's on the road to the devil faster than an express locomotive could carry him. He's in the hands of 'Chesapeake' Maude, who's got him by both feet and neck. And he's handing his bank roll over to Pap, and his gang, with a shovel. He's half soused any old time after eleven in the morning. And his back teeth are awash by midnight 'most every day. You can see him muling around the dance floor till you get sick of the sight of his darn fool smile, and you wish all the diamonds Maude wears were lost in the deepest smudge fires of hell. Start? There is no start. But there's a sure finish."
"You mean if he don't quit he'll go right down and out?"
Bill came to a halt directly in front of his friend. His keen eyes gazed straight into the strong face confronting him.
"No, I don't mean that. It's worse," he said, with a gravity quite changed from his recent agitated manner.
"Worse?" Kars' question came sharply. "Go on."
"Oh, I did all you said that night. I got a holt on him next day at the Gridiron, where he's stopping. He told me to go to a certain hot place and mind my own business, which was doping out drugs. I went to Murray, and he served me little better. He grinned. He always grins. He threw hot air about a youngster and wild oats. He guessed the kid would sober up after a fling. They'd figgered on this play. His mother, and José, and him. They guessed it was best. Then he was going to get around back and act the man his father was on the trail. That was his talk. And he grinned—only grinned when I guessed he was five sorts of darned fool."
Bill paused. It might almost have been that he paused for breath after the speed at which his words came. Kars waited with deliberate patience, but his jaws were set hard.
"But now—now?" The doctor passed a hand across his broad forehead and smoothed his iron gray hair. He turned his eyes thoughtfully upon the window through which they beheld the white and gold of the Elysian Fields. "The worst thing's happened. It's in the mouth of every one in Leaping Horse. It's the scream of every faro joint and 'draw' table. The fellers on the sidewalk have got the laugh of it. Maude's got dopey on him. She's plumb stuck on him. The dame Pap's spilt thousands on has gone back on him for a fool boy she was there to roll. Things are seething under the surface, and it's the sort of atmosphere Pap mostly lives in. He's crazy mad. And when Pap's crazy, things are going to happen. There's just one end coming. Only one end. That boy's going to get done up, and Pap's to be all in at the doing. Oh, he'll take no chances. There'll be no shriek. That kid'll peter right out sudden. And it'll be Pap who knows how."
"Murray's in the city. Have you seen him?" Kars spoke coldly.
"I saw him yesterday noon. I went to Adler's at lunch time to be sure getting him."
"What did he say?"
"I scared him. Plumb scared him. But it was the same grin. Gee, how that feller grins."
"What did he say?" Kars persisted.
"He'd do all he knew to get the kid away. But he guessed he'd be up against it. He guessed Alec had mighty little use for him, and you can't blame the kid when you think of that grin. But he figgered to do his best anyway. He cursed the kid for a sucker, and talked of a mother's broken heart if things happened. But I don't reckon he cares a cuss anyway. That feller's got one thing in life if I got any sane notion. It's trade. He hasn't the scruples of a Jew money-lender for anything else."
Kars nodded.
"I'm feeling that way—too."
"You couldn't feel otherwise."
"I wasn't thinking of your yarn, Bill," Kars said quickly. "It's something else. That feller's shipped in a thousand rifles, and a big lot of ammunition. I lit on it through John Dunne. What's he want 'em for? I've been asking myself that ever since. He don't need a thousand rifles for trade."
It was Bill's turn for inquiry. It came with a promptness that suggested his estimation of the importance of the news.
"What is it?" he demanded.
"Is he going to wipe out the Bell River outfit?" Kars' eyes regarded his friend steadily.
For some moments no further word was spoken. Each was contemplating the ruthless purpose of a man who contemplated wiping out a tribe of savages to suit his own sordid ends. It was almost unbelievable. Yet a thousand rifles for a small trading post. It was the number which inspired the doubt.
It was Kars who finally broke the silence. He left his seat on the table and stood again at the window with his back turned.
"Guess we best leave it at that," he said.
"Yes. What are you going to do?"
"Look in at the Gridiron, and pass the time of day with young Alec." Kars laughed shortly. Then he turned, and his purpose was shining in his eyes. "Alec's Jessie's brother—and I've got to save that kid from himself."
CHAPTER XIX
AT THE GRIDIRON
Kars was early abroad. He left his apartment on the first floor of the same apartment house which furnished Bill Brudenell with his less palatial quarters, and sauntered down the main street in the direction of the Gridiron.
His mood was by no means a happy one. He realized only too surely that a man bent upon an errand such as he was stood at something more than a disadvantage. His life was made up of the study of the life about him. His understanding was of the cruder side of things. But now, when action, when simple force of character were his chief assets, he was called upon, or he had called upon himself, to undertake the difficult task of making a youth, big, strong, hot-headed, mad with the newly tasted joy of living, detach himself from his new life.
Nor was he without qualms when he passed the portals of the hotel, which ranked second only in ill-fame to Pap Shaunbaum's.
If the Gridiron possessed less ill-fame than its contemporary it was not because its proprietor was any less a "hold-up" than Pap. It was simply that his methods were governed by a certain circumspection. He cloaked his misdoings under a display of earnest endeavor in the better direction. For instance, every room displayed a printed set of regulations against anything and everything calculated to offend the customer of moral scruples—if such an one could be discovered in Leaping Horse. Dan McCrae enforced just as many of these regulations as suited him. And, somehow, for all he had drawn them up himself, none of them ever seemed to suit him. But they had their effect on his business. It became the fashion of the men of greater substance to make it a headquarters. And it was his boast that more wealth passed in and out of his doors than those of any house in Leaping Horse, except the bank.
Dan only desired such custom. He possessed a hundred and one pleasant wiles for the loosening of the bank rolls of such custom. No man ever left his establishment after a brief stay without considerably less bulging pockets.
When Dan espied the entrance of John Kars from behind the glass partition, which divided his office from the elaborate entrance hall, he lost no time in offering a personal welcome. Kars was his greatest failure in Leaping Horse, just as Pap had had to admit defeat. That these two men had failed to attract to their carefully baited traps the richest man in the country, a man unmarried, too, a man whose home possessed no other attraction than that of a well-furnished apartment, was a disaster too great for outward lamentation.
But neither despaired, even after years of failure. Nor did they ever lose an opportunity. It was an opportunity at this moment.
"Glad to see you back, Mr. Kars." The small, smiling, dangerous Dan was the picture of frank delight. "Leaping Horse misses her big men. Had a pleasant vacation?"
Kars had no illusions.
"Can't call a business trip a vacation," he said with a smile. "I don't reckon the North Pacific in winter comes under that heading either. Say, there's a boy stopping around here. Alexander Mowbray. Is he in the hotel?"
Dan cocked a sharp eye.
"I'll send a boy along," he said, pressing a bell. A sharp word to the youth who answered it and he turned again to the visitor.
"Guess you know most of these up-country folk," he said. "There's things moving inside. We're getting spenders in, quite a little. The city's asking questions. Mr. Mowbray's been here all winter, and he seems to think dollars don't cut ice beside a good time. I figger there's going to be a fifty per cent raise in the number of outfits making inside this season. There's a big talk of things. Well, it mostly finds its way into this city, so we can't kick any."
"No, you folks haven't any kick coming," Kars said amiably. This man's inquiries made no impression on him. It was the sort of thing he was accustomed to wherever he went in Leaping Horse.
At that moment a bell rang in the office, and Kars heard his name repeated by the 'phone operator.
"Ah, Mr. Mowbray's in," observed Dan, turning back to the office.
"Mr. Mowbray will be glad if you'll step right up, Mr. Kars." The 'phone clerk had emerged from his retreat.
"Thanks. What number?"
"Three hundred and one. Third floor, Mr. Kars," replied the clerk, with that love of the personal peculiar to his class. Then followed a hectoring command, "Elevator! Lively!"
Kars stepped into the elevator and was "expressed" to the third floor.
A few moments later he was looking into the depressed eyes of a youth he had only known as the buoyant, headstrong, north-bred son of Allan Mowbray.
The change wrought in one brief winter was greater than Kars had feared. Dissipation was in every line of the half-dressed youth's handsome face, and, as Kars looked into it, a great indignation mingled with his pity. But his indignation was against the trader who had left the youth to his own foolish devices in a city whose morals might well have shamed an aboriginal. Nor was his pity alone for the boy. His memory had gone back to the splendid dead. It had also flown to the two loving women whose eyes must have rained heart-breaking tears at the picture he was gazing upon.
The boy thing out a hand, and a smile lit his tired features for a moment as he welcomed the man who had always been something of a hero to him. He had hastily slipped on his trousers and thrust his feet into shoes. His pajama jacket was open, revealing the naked flesh underneath. Nor could Kars help but admire the physique now being so rapidly prostituted.
"It's bully of you looking me up," Alec said, with as much cordiality as an aching head would permit.
Then he laughed shamefacedly. "Guess I'm dopey this morning. I sat in at 'draw' last night, and collected quite a bunch of money. I didn't feel like quitting early."
Kars took up a position on the tumbled bed. His quick eyes were busy with the elaborate room. He priced it heavily in his mind. Nor did he miss the cocktail tray at the bedside, and the litter of clothes, clothes which must have been bought in Leaping Horse, scattered carelessly about.
"It don't do quitting when luck's running," he said, without a shade of censure. "A feller needs to call the limit—till it turns. 'Draw's' quite a game."
Alec had had doubts when John Kars' name had come up to him. He had only been partially aware of them. It had been the working of a consciousness of the life he was living, and of the clean living nature of his visitor. But the big man's words dispelled the last shadow of doubt, and he went on freely.
"Say," he cried, enthusiasm suddenly stirring him, "I'm only just getting wise to the things I missed all these years. It gets me beat to death how a feller like you, who could come near buying the whole blamed city, can trail around the country half your time and the other dope around on a rough sea with the wind blowing clear through your vitals."
"It's cleaner air—both ways."
The boy flung himself on the bed with his back against the foot-rail. He reached out and pressed the bell.
"Have a cocktail?" he said. "No?" as Kars shook his head. "Well, I got to, anyway. That's the only kick I got coming to the mornings. Gee, a feller gets a thirst. But who'd give a whoop for clean air? I've had so much all my life," he went on, with a laugh. "I'm lookin' for something with snap to it."
"Sure." Kars' steady eyes never changed their smiling expression. "Things with snap are good for—a while."
"'A while'? I want 'em all the time. Guess I owe Murray a big lot. It was him who fixed mother so she'd stake me, and let me git around. I didn't always figger Murray had use for me. But he's acted fine, and I guess I—say, I ran short of money a while back, and when he came along down he handed me a bunch out of his own dip, and stood good for a few odd debts! Murray! Get a line on it. Can you beat it? And Murray figgers more on dollars than any feller I know."
"You never know your friends till you get a gun-hole in your stomach," Kars laughed. "Murray's more of a sport than you guessed. He certainly don't unroll easy."
The boy's face was alight with good feeling. He sat up eagerly.
"That's just how I thought," he cried. "I——" A knock at the door was followed by the entrance of a bell-boy with the cocktail. Alec seized it, and drank thirstily.
Kars looked on. He gave no sign.
"That feller knows his job," he said, as the boy withdrew.
Alec laughed. He was feeling in better case already.
"Sure he does. A single push on that bell means one cocktail. He generally makes the trip twice in the morning. But say, talking of Murray, one of these days I'm going to make a big talk with him and just tell him what I feel 'bout things. I've got to tell him I've just bin a blamed young fool and didn't understand the sort of man he was."
"Then you've had trouble with him—again?" Kars' question had a sudden sharpening in it. He was thinking of what Bill had told him.
"Not a thing. Say, we haven't had a crooked word since we quit the old Fort. He's a diff'rent guy when he gets away from his—store. No, sir, Murray's wise. He guesses I need to see and do things. And he's helped me all he knows. And he showed me around some dandy places before I got wise."
He laughed boisterously, and his laugh drove straight to the heart of the man who heard it.
Kars was no moralist, but he knew danger when he saw it, moral or physical. The terrible danger into which this youth, this foolish brother of Jessie, had been plunged by Murray McTavish stirred him as he had not been stirred for years. Women, gaming, drink. This simple, weak, splendid youth. Leaping Horse, the cesspool of the earth. A mental shudder passed through him. But the acutest thought of the moment was of the actions of Murray McTavish. Why had he shown this boy "places"? Why had he financed him privately, and not left it to Ailsa Mowbray? Why, why, had he lied to Bill on the subject of a quarrel with Alec?
But these things, these thoughts found no outward expression. He had his purpose to achieve.
He nodded reflectively.
"Murray's got his ways," he said. "Guess we most have. Murray's ways mayn't always be our ways. They mayn't ever be. But that don't say a thing against 'em." He smiled. It was the patient smile of a man who is entirely master of himself. "Then Murray's got a kick coming to him, too. He's a queer figger, and he knows it and hates it. A thing like that's calculated to sour a feller some. I mean his ways."
Alec's agreement came with a smiling nod. He became expansive.
"Sure," he said. "You know Murray's got no women-folk around him. And I guess a feller's not alive till he's got women-folk around him." He drew a deep breath. "Gee," he cried, in a sort of ecstasy. "I know those things—now."
"Yes."
Kars was watching the play of emotion in the boy's eyes. He was following every thought passing behind them, measuring those things which might militate against his object.
"I can tell you a thing now I'd have hated to remember a while back," Alec went on. "Say, it used to set me plumb crazy thinking of it. There were times I could have shot Murray down in his tracks for it. It was Jessie. He was just crazy to marry her. I know," he nodded sapiently. "He never said a word. Jess knew, too, and she never said a word. She hates him. She hates him—that way—worse than she hates the Bell River neches. I was glad then. But it ain't that way now. We were both wrong. Maybe I'll make a talk with her one day. I owe Murray more than the dollars he handed me."
"Yes."
Not by the movement of an eyelid did Kars betray his feelings. But a fierce passion was tingling in every nerve as the youth went on talking.
"It's queer how folks get narrowed down living in a bum layout like the Fort." He smiled in a self-satisfied way. "I used to think José a wise guy one time. There's heaps of things you can't see right in a layout like that. I reckon Jessie ought to know Murray better. It's up to me. Don't you guess that way, too?"
Kars smilingly shook his head.
"It doesn't do butting in," he said. "Y'see folks know best how they need to act. You're feeling that way—now. No feller can think right for others. Guess folks' eyes don't see the same. Maybe it's to do with the color," he smiled. "When a man and a woman get thinking things, there's no room for other folks."
Kars' manner had a profound effect. He was talking as though dealing with a man of wide worldly knowledge, and the youth was more than flattered. He accepted the situation and the suggestion.
"Maybe you're right," he said at once. "I felt I'd like to hand him a turn—that's all."
Kars shrugged.
"It doesn't matter a thing," he said, with calculated purpose. "It's just my notion." Then he laughed. "But I didn't get around to worry with Murray McTavish. It's better than that."
He rose abruptly from the bed and moved across to the window. Alec was in the act of lighting a cigarette. The match burned itself out in his fingers, and the cigarette remained unlighted. His eyes were on his visitor with sudden expectation. Finally he broke into an uneasy laugh.
"Murray isn't the only ice on the river," he said weakly.
Kars turned about.
"Nor is he the only gold you'll maybe locate around. Do you feel like handling—other? Are you looking to make a big bunch of dollars? Do you need a stake that's going to hand you all the things you've dreamed about? You guess I'm a rich man. Folks figger I'm the richest man north of 'sixty.' Maybe I am. Well, if you guess you'd like to be the same way, it's up to you."
Alec was sitting up. The effects of his overnight debauch had been completely flung aside. His eyes, so like his father's, were wide, and his handsome face was alive with a sudden excitement. He flung his cigarette aside.
"Say, you're—fooling," he breathed incredulously.
Kars shook his head.
"I quit that years," he said.
"I—I don't get you," Alec went on at last, in a sort of desperate helplessness.
Kars dropped on to the bed again and laughed in his pleasant fashion.
"Sure you don't. But do you feel like it? Are you ready to take a chance—with me?"
"By Gee—yes! If there's a stake at the end of it."
"The stake's there, sure. But—but it means quitting Leaping Horse right away. It means hitting the old trail you curse. It means staking your life for all it's worth. It means using all that that big man, your father, handed you in life. It means getting out on God's earth, and telling the world right here you're a man, and a mighty big man, too. It means all that, and," he added with a smile that was unreadable, "a whole heap more."
Something of the excitement had died out of Alec's face. A shade of disappointment clouded his eyes. He reached out for another cigarette. Kars watched the signs.
"Well?" he questioned sharply. "There's millions of dollars in this for you. I'll stake my word on it it's a cinch—or death. I've handled the strike, and I know it's all I figger. I came along to hand you this proposition. And it's one I wouldn't hand to another soul living. I'm handing it to you because you're your father's son, because I need a feller whose whole training leaves him with the north trail beaten. It's up to you right here—and now."
The youngster smoked on in silence. Kars watched the battle going on behind his averted eyes. He knew what he was up against. He was struggling to save this boy against the overwhelming forces of extreme youth and weakness. The whole of his effort was supported by the barest thread. Would that thread hold?
Again came that nervous movement as Alec flung away his half-smoked cigarette.
"When should we need to start?" he demanded almost brusquely.
"Two weeks from now."
The egoism of the boy left him almost unappreciative of what this man was offering him. Kars had subtly flattered his vanity. He had done it purposely. He had left the youngster with the feeling that he was being asked a favor. There was relief in the tone of the reply. And complaint followed it up.
"That's not so bad. You said 'right away.'"
Kars' eyes were regarding him steadily.
"I call that right away. Well? I'm not handing you any more of it till you—accept," he added.
Alec suddenly sprang from the bed. He paced the room with long nervous strides. He felt that never in his life had he faced such a crisis. Kars simply looked on.
At last the boy spoke something of his thought aloud.
"By Gee! I can't refuse it. It's—it's too big. Two weeks. She'll be crazy about it. She'll—by gad, I must do it. I can——"
He broke off abruptly. He came to the foot-rail of the bed. He stood with his great hands clenching it firmly, as though for support.
"I'll go, Kars," he cried. "I'll go! And it's just great of you. I—I—it was kind of hard. There's things——"
Kars nodded.
"Sure," he said, with a smile. "But—she'll wait for you—if she's the woman you guess. It's only a year. But say, you'll need to sign a bond. A bond of secrecy, and—good faith. There's no quitting—once it's signed."
The big man's eyes shone squarely into the boy's. And something of the dead father looked back at him.
"Curse it, I'll sign," Alec cried with sudden force. "I'll sign anything. Millions of dollars! I'll sign right away, and I'll—play as you'd have me."
The boy passed a hand through his hair. His decision had cost him dearly. But he had taken it.
"Good." Kars rose from the bed. "Get dressed, Alec," he said kindly. "You'll sign that bond before you eat. After that I'll hand you all the talk you need. Call round at my apartment when you're fixed."
As John Kars passed out of the Gridiron one thought alone occupied him. Murray McTavish had lied. He had lied deliberately to Bill Brudenell. He had made no attempt to save the boy from the mire into which he had helped to fling him. On the contrary, he had thrust him deeper and deeper into it. Why? What—what was the meaning of it all? Where were things heading? What purpose lay behind the man's doings?