There was a hue and cry after him, but he was gone, and a sudden disgust for the place came over me. For two more days I worked, crushed by a gloom that momently intensified. Clamant and imperative in me was the voice of change. I could not become toil-broken, so I saw the foreman.

"Why do you want to go?" he asked reproachfully.

"Well, sir, the work's too monotonous."

"Monotonous! Well, that's the rummest reason I ever heard a man give for quitting. But every man knows his own business best. I'll give you a time-cheque."

While he was making it out I wondered if, indeed, I did know my own business best; but if it had been the greatest folly in the world, I was bound to get out of that canyon.

Treasuring the slip of paper representing my labour, I sought one of the bosses, a sour, stiff man of dyspeptic tendencies. With a smile of malicious sweetness he returned it to me.

"All right, take it to our Oakland office, and you'll get the cash."

Expectantly I had been standing there, thinking to receive my money, the first I had ever earned (and to me so distressfully earned, at that). Now I gazed at him very sick at heart: for was not Oakland several hundred miles away, and I was penniless.

"Couldn't you cash it here?" I faltered at last.

"No!" (very sourly).

"Couldn't you discount it, then?"

"No!" (still more tartly).

I turned away, crestfallen and smarting. When I told the other boys they were indignant, and a good deal alarmed on their own account. I made my case against the Company as damning as I could, then, slinging my blankets on my back, set off once more down the canyon.

I was gaining in experience, and as I hurried down the canyon and the morning burgeoned like a rose, my spirits mounted invincibly. It was the joy of the open road and the care-free heart. Like some hideous nightmare was the memory of the tunnel and the gravel pit. The bright blood in me rejoiced; my muscles tensed with pride in their toughness; I gazed insolently at the world.

So, as I made speed to get the sooner to the orange groves, I almost set heel on a large blue envelope which lay face up on the trail. I examined it and, finding it contained plans and specifications of the work we had been at, I put it in my pocket.

Presently came a rider, who reined up by me.

"Say, young man, you haven't seen a blue envelope, have you?"

Something in the man's manner aroused in me instant resentment. I was the toiler in mud-stiffened overalls, he arrogant and supercilious in broadcloth and linen.

"No," I said sourly, and, going on my way, heard him clattering up the canyon.

It was about evening when I came onto a fine large plain. Behind me was the canyon, gloomy like the lair of some evil beast, while before me the sun was setting, and made the valley like a sea of golden glaze. I stood, knight-errant-wise, on the verge of one of those enchanted lands of precious memory, seeking the princess of my dreams; but all I saw was a man coming up the trail. He was reeling homeward, with under one arm a live turkey, and swinging from the other a demijohn of claret.

He would have me drink. He represented the Christmas spirit, and his accent was Scotch, so I up-tilted his demijohn gladly enough. Then, for he was very merry, he would have it that we sing "Auld Lang Syne." So there, on the heath, in the golden dance of the light, we linked our hands and lifted our voices like two daft folk. Yet, for that it was Christmas Eve, it seemed not to be so mad after all.

There was my first orange grove. I ran to it eagerly, and pulled four of the largest fruit I could see. They were green-like of rind and bitter sour, but I heeded not, eating the last before I was satisfied. Then I went on my way.

As I entered the town my spirits fell. I remembered I was quite without money and had not yet learned to be gracefully penniless. However, I bethought me of the time-cheque, and entering a saloon asked the proprietor if he would cash it. He was a German of jovial face that seemed to say: "Welcome, my friend," and cold, beady eyes that queried: "How much can I get of your wad?" It was his eyes I noticed.

"No, I don'd touch dot. I haf before been schvindled. Himmel, no! You take him avay."

I sank into a chair. Catching a glimpse of my face in a bar mirror, I wondered if that hollow-cheeked, weary-looking lad was I. The place was crowded with revellers of the Christmastide, and geese were being diced for. There were three that pattered over the floor, while in the corner the stage-driver and a red-haired man were playing freeze-out for one of them.

I drowsed quietly. Wafts of bar-front conversation came to me. "Envelope ... lost plans ... great delay." Suddenly I sat up, remembering the package I had found.

"Were you looking for some lost plans?" I asked.

"Yes," said one man eagerly, "did you find them?"

"I didn't say I did, but if I could get them for you, would you cash this time-cheque for me?"

"Sure," he says, "one good turn deserves another. Deliver the goods and I'll cash your time-cheque."

His face was frank and jovial. I drew out the envelope and handed it over. He hurriedly ran through the contents and saw that all were there.

"Ha! That saves a trip to 'Frisco," he said, gay with relief.

He turned to the bar and ordered a round of drinks. They all had a drink on him, while he seemed to forget about me. I waited a little, then pressed forward with my time-cheque.

"Oh that," said he, "I won't cash that. I was only joshing."

A feeling of bitter anger welled up within me. I trembled like a leaf.

"You won't go back on your word?" I said.

He became flustered.

"Well, I can't do it anyway. I've got no loose cash."

What I would have said or done I know not, for I was nigh desperate; but at this moment the stage-driver, flushed with his victory at freeze-out, snatched the paper from my hand.

"Here, I'll discount that for you. I'll only give you five dollars for it, though."

It called for fourteen, but by this time I was so discouraged I gladly accepted the five-dollar goldpiece he held out to tempt me.

Thus were my fortunes restored. It was near midnight and I asked the German for a room. He replied that he was full up, but as I had my blankets there was a nice dry shed at the back. Alas! it was also used by his chickens. They roosted just over my head, and I lay on the filthy floor at the mercy of innumerable fleas. To complete my misery the green oranges I had eaten gave me agonizing cramps. Glad, indeed, was I when day dawned, and once more I got afoot, with my face turned towards Los Angeles.

Los Angeles will always be written in golden letters in the archives of my memory. Crawling, sore and sullen, from the clutch of toil, I revelled in a lotus life of ease and idleness. There was infinite sunshine, and the quiet of a public library through whose open windows came the fragrance of magnolias. Living was incredibly cheap. For seventy-five cents a week I had a little sunlit attic, and for ten cents I could dine abundantly. There was soup, fish, meat, vegetables, salad, pudding and a bottle of wine. So reading, dreaming and roaming the streets, I spent my days in a state of beatitude.

But even five dollars will not last for ever, and the time came when once more the grim face of toil confronted me. I must own that I had now little stomach for hard labour, yet I made several efforts to obtain it. However, I had a bad manner, being both proud and shy, and one rebuff in a day always was enough. I lacked that self-confidence that readily finds employment, and again I found myself mixing with the spineless residuum of the employment bureau.

At last the morning came when twenty-five cents was all that remained to me in the world. I had just been seeking a position as a dish-washer, and had been rather sourly rejected. Sitting solitary on the bench in that dreary place, I soliloquized:

"And so it has come to this, that I, Athol Meldrum, of gentle birth and Highland breeding, must sue in vain to understudy a scullion in a third-rate hash joint. I am, indeed, fallen. What mad folly is this that sets me lower than a menial? Here I might be snug in the Northwest raising my own fat sheep. A letter home would bring me instant help. Yet what would it mean? To own defeat; to lose my self-esteem; to call myself a failure. No, I won't. Come what may, I will play the game."

At that moment the clerk wrote:—

"Man Wanted to Carry Banner."

"How much do you want for that job?" I asked.

"Oh, two bits will hold you," he said carelessly.

"Any experience required?" I asked again.

"No, I guess even you'll do for that," he answered cuttingly.

So I parted with my last quarter and was sent to a Sheeny store in Broadway. Here I was given a vociferous banner announcing:

"Great retiring sale," and so forth.

With this hoisted I sallied forth, at first very conscious and not a little ashamed. Yet by and by this feeling wore off, and I wandered up and down with no sense of my employment, which, after all, was one adapted to philosophic thought. I might have gone through the day in this blissful coma of indifference had not a casual glance at my banner thrilled me with horror. There it was in hideous, naked letters of red:

"Retireing Sale."

I reeled under the shock. I did not mind packing a banner, but a misspelt one....

I hurried back to the store, resolved to throw up my position. Luckily the day was well advanced, and as I had served my purpose I was given a silver dollar.

On this dollar I lived for a month. Not every one has done that, yet it is easy to do. This is how I managed.

In the first place I told the old lady who rented me my room that I could not pay her until I got work, and I gave her my blankets as security. There remained only the problem of food. This I solved by buying every day or so five cents' worth of stale bread, which I ate in my room, washing it down with pure spring water. A little imagination and lo! my bread was beef, my water wine. Thus breakfast and dinner. For supper there was the Pacific Gospel Hall, where we gathered nightly one hundred strong, bawled hymns, listened to sundry good people and presently were given mugs of coffee and chunks of bread. How good the fragrant coffee tasted and how sweet the fresh bread!

At the end of the third week I got work as an orange-picker. It was a matter of swinging long ladders into fruit-flaunting trees, of sunshiny days and fluttering leaves, of golden branches plundered, and boxes filled from sagging sacks. There is no more ideal occupation. I revelled in it. The others were Mexicans; I was "El Gringo." But on an average I only made fifty cents a day. On one day, when the fruit was unusually large, I made seventy cents.

Possibly I would have gone on, contentedly enough, perched on a ladder, high up in the sunlit sway of treetops, had not the work come to an end. I had been something of a financier on a picayune scale, and when I counted my savings and found that I had four hundred and ninety-five cents, such a feeling of affluence came over me that I resolved to gratify my taste for travel. Accordingly I purchased a ticket for San Diego, and once more found myself southward bound.

A few days in San Diego reduced my small capital to the vanishing point, yet it was with a light heart I turned north again and took the All-Tie route for Los Angeles. If one of the alluring conditions of a walking tour is not to be overburdened with cash surely I fulfilled it, for I was absolutely penniless. The Lord looks after his children, said I, and when I became too inexorably hungry I asked for bread, emphasising my willingness to do a stunt on the woodpile. Perhaps it was because I was young and notably a novice in vagrancy, but people were very good to me.

The railway track skirts the ocean side for many a sonorous league. The mile-long waves roll in majestically, as straight as if drawn with a ruler, and crash in thunder on the sandy beach. There were glorious sunsets and weird storms, with underhanded lightning stabs at the sky. I built little huts of discarded railway ties, and lit camp-fires, for I was fearful of the crawling things I saw by day. The coyote called from the hills. Uneasy rustlings came from the sagebrush. My teeth, a-chatter with cold, kept me awake, till I cinched a handkerchief around my chin. Yet, drenched with night-dews, half-starved and travel-worn, I seemed to grow every day stronger and more fit. Between bondage and vagabondage I did not hesitate to choose.

Leaving the sea, I came to a country of grass and she-oaks very pretty to see, like an English park. I passed horrible tulé swamps, and reached a cattle land with corrals and solitary cowboys. There was a quaint old Spanish Mission that lingers in my memory, then once again I came into the land of the orange-groves and the irrigating ditch. Here I fell in with two of the hobo fraternity, and we walked many miles together. One night we slept in a refrigerator car, where I felt as if icicles were forming on my spine. But walking was not much in their line, so next morning they jumped a train and we separated. I was very thankful, as they did not look over-clean, and I had a wholesome horror of "seam-squirrels."

On arriving in Los Angeles I went to the Post Office. There was a letter from the Prodigal dated New York, and inclosing fourteen dollars, the amount he owed me. He said:

There was no time to lose, as February was nearly over. I took a steerage passage to San Francisco, resolving that I would mend my fortunes. It is so easy to drift. I was already in the social slough, a hobo and an outcast. I saw that as long as I remained friendless and unknown nothing but degraded toil was open to me. Surely I could climb up, but was it worth while? A snug farm in the Northwest awaited me. I would work my way back there, and arrive decently clad. Then none would know of my humiliation. I had been wayward and foolish, but I had learned something.

The men who toiled, endured and suffered were kind and helpful, their masters mean and rapacious. Everywhere was the same sordid grasping for the dollar. With my ideals and training nothing but discouragement and defeat would be my portion. Oh, it is so easy to drift!

I was sick of the whole business.

What with steamer fare and a few small debts to settle, I found when I landed in San Francisco that once more I was flatly broke. I was arrestively seedy, literally on my uppers, for owing to my long tramp my boots were barely holding together. There was no letter for me, and perhaps it was on account of my disappointment, perhaps on account of my extreme shabbiness, but I found I had quite lost heart. Looking as I did, I would not ask any one for work. So I tightened my belt and sat in Portsmouth Square, cursing myself for the many nickels I had squandered in riotous living.

Two days later I was still drawing in my belt. All I had eaten was one meal, which I had earned by peeling half a sack of potatoes for a restaurant. I slept beneath the floor of an empty house out the Presidio way.

On this day I was drowsing on my bench when some one addressed me.

"Say, young fellow, you look pretty well used up."

I saw an elderly, grey-haired man.

"Oh no!" I said, "I'm not. That's just my acting. I'm a millionaire in disguise, studying sociology."

He came and sat by me.

"Come, buck up, kid, you're pretty near down and out. I've been studyin' you them two days."

"Two days," I echoed drearily. "It seems like two years." Then, with sudden fierceness:

"Sir, I am a stranger to you. Never in my life before have I tried to borrow money. It is asking a great deal of you to trust me, but it will be a most Christian act. I am starving. If you have ten cents that isn't working lend it to me for the love of God. I'll pay you back if it takes me ten years."

"All right, son," he said cheerfully; "let's go and feed."

He took me to a restaurant where he ordered a dinner that made my head swim. I felt near to fainting, but after I had had some brandy, I was able to go on with the business of eating. By the time I got to the coffee I was as much excited by the food as if I had been drinking wine. I now took an opportunity to regard my benefactor.

He was rather under medium height, but so square and solid you felt he was a man to be reckoned with. His skin was as brown as an Indian's, his eyes light-blue and brightly cheerful, as from some inner light. His mouth was firm and his chin resolute. Altogether his face was a curious blend of benevolence and ruthless determination.

Now he was regarding me in a manner entirely benevolent.

"Feel better, son? Well, go ahead an' tell me as much of your story as you want to."

I gave an account of all that had happened to me since I had set foot on the new land.

"Huh!" he ejaculated when I had finished. "That's the worst of your old-country boys. You haven't got the get-up an' nerve to rustle a job. You go to a boss an' tell him: 'You've no experience, but you'll do your best.' An American boy says: 'I can do anything. Give me the job an' I'll just show you.' Who's goin' to be hired? Well, I think I can get you a job helpin' a gardener out Alameda way."

I expressed my gratitude.

"That's all right," he said; "I'm glad by the grace of God I've been the means of givin' you a hand-up. Better come to my room an' stop with me till somethin' turns up. I'm goin' North in three days."

I asked if he was going to the Yukon.

"Yes, I'm goin' to join this crazy rush to the Klondike. I've been minin' for twenty years, Arizona, Colorado, all over, an' now I am a-goin' to see if the North hasn't got a stake for me."

Up in his room he told me of his life.

"I'm saved by the grace of God, but I've been a Bad Man. I've been everything from a city marshal to boss gambler. I have gone heeled for two years, thinking to get my pass to Hell at any moment."

"Ever killed any one?" I queried.

He was beginning to pace up and down the room.

"Glory to God, I haven't, but I've shot.... There was a time when I could draw a gun an' drive a nail in the wall. I was quick, but there was lots that could give me cards and spades. Quiet men, too, you would never think it of 'em. The quiet ones was the worst. Meek, friendly, decent men, to see them drinkin' at a bar, but they didn't know Fear, an' every one of 'em had a dozen notches on his gun. I know lots of them, chummed with them, an' princes they were, the finest in the land, would give the shirts off their backs for a friend. You'd like them—but Lord be praised, I'm a saved man."

I was deeply interested.

"I know I'm talking as I shouldn't. It's all over now, an' I've seen the evil of my ways, but I've got to talk once in a while. I'm Jim Hubbard, known as 'Salvation Jim,' an' I know minin' from Genesis to Revelation. Once I used to gamble an' drink the limit. One morning I got up from the card-table after sitting there thirty-six hours. I'd lost five thousand dollars. I knew they'd handed me out 'cold turkey,' but I took my medicine.

"Right then I said I'd be a crook too. I learned to play with marked cards. I could tell every card in the deck. I ran a stud-poker game, with a Jap an' a Chinaman for partners. They were quicker than white men, an' less likely to lose their nerve. It was easy money, like taking candy from a kid. Often I would play on the square. No man can bluff strong without showing it. Maybe it's just a quiver of the eyelash, maybe a shuffle of the foot. I've studied a man for a month till I found the sign that gave him away. Then I've raised an' raised him till the sweat pricked through his brow. He was my meat. I went after the men that robbed me, an' I went one better. Here, shuffle this deck."

He produced a pack of cards from a drawer.

"I'll never go back to the old trade. I'm saved. I trust in God, but just for diversion I keep my hand in."

Talking to me, he shuffled the pack a few times.

"Here, I'm dealing; what do you want? Three kings?"

I nodded.

He dealt four hands. In mine there were three kings.

Taking up another he showed me three aces.

"I'm out of practice," he said apologetically. "My hands are calloused. I used to keep them as soft as velvet."

He showed me some false shuffles, dealing from under the deck, and other tricks.

"Yes, I got even with the ones that got my money. It was eat or be eaten. I went after the suckers. There was never a man did me dirt but I paid him with interest. Of course, it's different now. The Good Book says: 'Do good unto them that harm you.' I guess I would, but I wouldn't recommend no one to try and harm me. I might forget."

The heavy, aggressive jaw shot forward; the eyes gleamed with a fearless ferocity, and for a moment the man took on an air that was almost tigerish. I could scarce believe my sight; yet the next instant it was the same cheerful, benevolent face, and I thought my eyes must have played me some trick.

Perhaps it was that sedate Puritan strain in me that appealed to him, but we became great friends. We talked of many things, and most of all I loved to get him to tell of his early life. It was just like a story: thrown on the world while yet a child; a shoeblack in New York, fighting for his stand; a lumber-jack in the woods of Michigan; lastly a miner in Arizona. He told me of long months on the desert with only his pipe for company, talking to himself over the fire at night, and trying not to go crazy. He told me of the girl he married and worshipped, and of the man who broke up his home. Once more I saw that flitting tiger-look appear on his face and vanish immediately. He told me of his wild days.

"I was always a fighter, an' I never knew what fear meant. I never saw the man that could beat me in a rough-an'-tumble scrap. I was uncommon husky an' as quick as a cat, but it was my fierceness that won out for me. Get a man down an' give him the leather. I've kicked a man's face to a jelly. It was kick, bite an' gouge in them days—anything went.

"Yes, I never knew fear. I've gone up unarmed to a man I knew was heeled to shoot me on sight, an' I've dared him to do it. Just by the power of the eye I've made him take water. He thought I had a gun an' could draw quicker'n him. Then, as the drink got hold of me, I got worse and worse. Time was when I would have robbed a bank an' shot the man that tried to stop me. Glory to God! I've seen the evil of my ways."

"Are you sure you'll never backslide?" I asked.

"Never! I'm born again. I don't smoke, drink or gamble, an' I'm as happy as the day's long. There was the drink. I would go on the water-wagon for three months at a stretch, but day and night, wherever I went, the glass of whisky was there right between my eyes. Sooner or later it got the better of me. Then one night I went half-sober into a Gospel Hall. The glass was there, an' I was in agony tryin' to resist it. The speaker was callin' sinners to come forward. I thought I'd try the thing anyway, so I went to the penitents' bench. When I got up the glass was gone. Of course it came back, but I got rid of it again in the same way. Well, I had many a struggle an' many a defeat, but in the end I won. It's a divine miracle."

I wish I could paint or act the man for you. Words cannot express his curious character. I came to have a great fondness for him, and certainly owed him a huge debt of gratitude.

One day I was paying my usual visit to the Post Office, when some one gripped me by the arm.

"Hullo, Scotty! By all that's wonderful. I was just going to mail you a letter."

It was the Prodigal, very well dressed and spruce-looking.

"Say, I'm so tickled I got you; we're going to start in two days."

"Start! Where?" I asked.

"Why, for the Golden North, for the land of the Midnight Sun, for the treasure-troves of the Klondike Valley."

"You maybe," I said soberly; "but I can't."

"Yes you can, and you are, old sport. I fixed all that. Come on, I want to talk to you. I went home and did the returned prodigal stunt. The old man was mighty decent when I told him it was no good, I couldn't go into the glue factory yet awhile. Told him I had the gold-bug awful bad and nothing but a trip up there would cure me. He was rather tickled with the idea. Staked me handsomely, and gave me a year to make good. So here I am, and you're in with me. I'm going to grubstake you. Mind, it's a business proposition. I've got to have some one, and when you make the big strike you've got to divvy up."

I said something about having secured employment as an under-gardener.

"Pshaw! you'll soon be digging gold-nuggets instead of potatoes. Why, man, it's the chance of a lifetime, and anybody else would jump at it. Of course, if you're afraid of the hardships and so on——"

"No," I said quickly, "I'll go."

"Ha!" he laughed, "you're too much of a coward to be afraid. Well, we're going to be blighted Argonauts, but we've got to get busy over our outfits. We haven't got any too much time."

So we hustled around. It seemed as if half of San Francisco was Klondike-crazy. On every hand was there speculation and excitement. All the merchants had their outfitting departments, and wild and vague were their notions as to what was required. We did not do so badly, though like every one else we bought much that was worthless and foolish. Suddenly I bethought me of Salvation Jim, and I told the Prodigal of my new friend.

"He's an awfully good sort," I said; "white all through; all kinds of experience, and he's going alone."

"Why," said the Prodigal, "that's just the man we want. We'll ask him to join us."

I brought the two together, and it was arranged. So it came about that we three left San Francisco on the fourth day of March to seek our fortunes in the Frozen North.

BOOK II

"Say! you're looking mighty blue. Cheer up, darn you! What's the matter?" said the Prodigal affectionately.

And indeed there was matter enough, for had I not just received letters from home, one from Garry and one from Mother? Garry's was gravely censorious, almost remonstrant. Mother, he said, was poorly, and greatly put out over my escapade. He pointed out that I was in a fair way of being a rolling stone, and hoped that I would at once give up my mad notion of the South Seas and soberly proceed to the Northwest.

Mother's letter was reproachful, in parts almost distressful. She was failing, she said, and she begged me to be a good son, give up my wanderings and join my cousin at once. Also she enclosed post-office orders for forty pounds. Her letter, written in a fine faltering hand and so full of gentle affection, brought the tears to my eyes; so that it was very bleakly I leaned against the ship's rail and watched the bustle of departure. Poor Mother! Dear old Garry! With what tender longing I thought of those two in far-away Glengyle, the Scotch mist silvering the heather and the wind blowing caller from the sea. Oh, for the clean, keen breath of it! Yet alas, every day was the memory fading, and every day was I fitting more snugly into the new life.

"I've just heard from the folks," I said, "and I feel like going back on you."

"Oh, beat it," he cried; "you can't renig now. You've got to see the thing through. Mothers are all like that when you cut loose from their apron-strings. Ma's scared stiff about me, thinks the devil's got an option on my future sure. They get wised up pretty soon. What you want to do is to get busy and make yourself acquainted. Here I've been snooping round for the last two hours, and got a line on nearly every one on board. Say! Of all the locoed outfits this here aggregation has got everything else skinned to a hard-boiled finish. Most of them are indoor men, ink-slingers and calico snippers; haven't done a day's hard work in their lives, and don't know a pick from a mattock. They've got a notion they've just got to get up there and pick big nuggets out of the water like cherries out of a cocktail. It's the limit."

"Tell me about them," I said.

"Well, see that young fellow standing near us?"

I looked. He was slim, with gentle, refined features and an unnaturally fresh complexion.

"That fellow was a pen-pusher in a mazuma emporium—I mean a bank clerk. Pinklove's his name. He wanted to get hitched to some girl, but the directors wouldn't stand for it. Now he's chucked his job and staked his savings on this trip. There's his girl in the crowd."

Bedded in that mosaic of human faces I saw one that was all sweetness, yet shamelessly tear-stained.

"Lucky beggar," I said, "to have some one who cares so much about his going."

"Unlucky, you mean, lad. You don't want to have any strings on you when you play this game."

He pointed to a long-haired young man in a flowing-end tie.

"See that pale-faced, artistic-looking guy alongside him. That's his partner. Ineffectual, moony sort of a mut. He's a wood-carver; they call him Globstock; told me his knowledge of wood-carving would come in handy when we came to make boats at Lake Bennett. Then there's a third. See that little fellow shooting off his face?"

I saw a weazened, narrow-chested mannikin, with an aggressive certainty of feature.

"He's a professor, plumb-full of book dope on the Yukon. He's Mister Wise Mike. He knows it all. Hear his monologue on 'How It Should Be Done.' He's going to live on deck to inure himself to the rigours of the Arctic climate. Works with a pair of spring dumb-bells to get up his muscle so's he can shovel out the nuggets."

Our eyes roved round from group to group, picking out characteristic figures.

"See that big bleached-blond Englishman? Came over with me on the Pullman from New York. 'Awfully bored, don't you know.' When we got to 'Frisco, he says to me: 'Thank God, old chappie, the worst part of the journey's over.' Then there's Romulus and Remus, the twins, strapping young fellows. Only way I know them apart is one laces his boots tight, the other slack. They think the world of each other."

He swung around to where Salvation Jim was talking to two men.

"There's a pair of winners. I put my money on them. Nothing on earth can stop those fellows, native-born Americans, all grit and get-up. See that tall one smoking a cigar and looking at the women? He's an athlete. Name's Mervin; all whipcord and whalebone; springy as a bent bow. He's a type of the Swift. He's bound to get there. See the other. Hewson's his name; solid as a tower; muscled like a bear; built from the ground up. He represents the Strong. Look at the grim, determined face of him. You can't down a man like that."

He indicated another group.

"Now there's three birds of prey. Bullhammer, Marks and Mosher. The big, pig-eyed heavy-jowled one is Bullhammer. He's in the saloon business. The middle-sized one in the plug hat is Marks. See his oily, yellow face dotted with pimples. He's a phoney piece of work; calls himself a mining broker. The third's Jake Mosher. He's an out-and-out gambler, a sure-thing man, once was a parson."

I looked again. Mosher had just taken off his hat. His high-domed head was of monumental baldness, his eyes close-set and crafty, his nose negligible. The rest of his face was mostly beard. It grew black as the Pit to near the bulge of his stomach, and seemed to have drained his scalp in its rank luxuriance. Across the deck came the rich, oily tones of his voice.

"A bad-looking bunch," I said.

"Yes, there's heaps like them on board. There's a crowd of dance-hall girls going up, and the usual following of parasites. Look at that Halfbreed. There's a man for the country now, part Scotch, part Indian; the quietest man on the boat; light, but tough as wire nails."

I saw a lean, bright-eyed brown man with flat features, smoking a cigarette.

"Say! Just get next to those two Jews, Mike and Rebecca Winklestein. They're going to open up a sporty restaurant."

The man was a small bandy-legged creature, with eyes that squinted, a complexion like ham fat and waxed moustaches. But it was the woman who seized my attention. Never did I see such a strapping Amazon, six foot if an inch, and massive in proportion. She was handsome too, in a swarthy way, though near at hand her face was sensuous and bold. Yet she had a suave, flattering manner and a coarse wit that captured the crowd. Dangerous, unscrupulous and cruel, I thought; a man-woman, a shrew, a termagant!

But I was growing weary of the crowd and longed to go below. I was no longer interested, yet the voice of the Prodigal droned in my ear.

"There's an old man and his granddaughter, relatives of the Winklesteins, I believe. I think the old fellow's got a screw loose. Handsome old boy, though; looks like a Hebrew prophet out of a job. Comes from Poland. Speaks Yiddish or some such jargon; Only English he knows is 'Klondike, Klondike.' The girl looks heartbroken, poor little beggar."

"Poor little beggar!" I heard the words indeed, but my mind was far away. To the devil with Polish Jews and their granddaughters. I wished the Prodigal would leave me to my own thoughts, thoughts of my Highland home and my dear ones. But no! he persisted:

"You're not listening to what I'm saying. Look, why don't you!"

So, to please him, I turned full round and looked. An old man, patriarchal in aspect, crouched on the deck. Erect by his side, with her hand on his shoulder, stood a slim figure in black, the figure of a girl. Indifferently my eyes travelled from her feet to her face. There they rested. I drew a deep breath. I forgot everything else. Then for the first time I saw—Berna.

I will not try to depict the girl. Pen descriptions are so futile. I will only say that her face was very pale, and that she had large pathetic grey eyes. For the rest, her cheeks were woefully pinched and her lips drooped wistfully. 'Twas the face, I thought, of a virgin martyr with a fear-haunted look hard to forget. All this I saw, but most of all I saw those great, grey eyes gazing unseeingly over the crowd, ever so sadly fixed on that far-away East of her dreams and memories.

"Poor little beggar!"

Then I cursed myself for a sentimental impressionist and I went below. Stateroom forty-seven was mine. We three had been separated in the shuffle, and I knew not who was to be my room-mate. Feeling very downhearted, I stretched myself on the upper berth, and yielded to a mood of penitential sadness. I heard the last gang-plank thrown off, the great crowd cheer, the measured throb of the engines, yet still I sounded the depths of reverie. There was a bustle outside and growing darkness. Then, as I lay, there came voices to my door, guttural tones blended with liquid ones; lastly a timid knock. Quickly I answered it.

"Is this room number forty-seven?" a soft voice asked.

Even ere she spoke I divined it was the Jewish girl of the grey eyes, and now I saw her hair was like a fair cloud, and her face fragile as a flower.

"Yes," I answered her.

She led forward the old man.

"This is my grandfather. The Steward told us this was his room."

"Oh, all right; he'd better take the lower berth."

"Thank you, indeed; he's an old man and not very strong."

Her voice was clear and sweet, and there was an infinite tenderness in the tone.

"You must come in," I said. "I'll leave you with him for a while so that you can make him comfortable."

"Thank you again," she responded gratefully.

So I withdrew, and when I returned she was gone; but the old man slept peacefully.

It was late before I turned in. I went on deck for a time. We were cleaving through blue-black night, and on our right I could dimly discern the coast festooned by twinkling lights. Every one had gone below, I thought, and the loneliness pleased me. I was very quiet, thinking how good it all was, the balmy wind, the velvet vault of the night frescoed with wistful stars, the freedom-song of the sea; how restful, how sane, how loving!

Suddenly I heard a sound of sobbing, the merciless sobbing of a woman's breast. Distinct above the hollow breathing of the sea it assailed me, poignant and insistent. Wonderingly I looked around. Then, in a shadow of the upper deck, I made out a slight girl-figure, crouching all alone. It was Grey Eyes, crying fit to break her heart.

"Poor little beggar!" I muttered.

"Gr-r-r—you little brat! If you open your face to him I'll kill you, kill you, see!"

The voice was Madam Winklestein's, and the words, hissed in a whisper of incredible malignity, arrested me as if I had been struck by a live wire. I listened. Behind the stateroom door there followed a silence, grimly intense; then a dull pounding; then the same savage undertone.

"See here, Berna, we're next to you two—we're onto your curves. We know the old man's got the stuff in his gold-belt, two thousand in bills. Now, my dear, my sweet little angel what thinks she's too good to mix with the likes o' us, we need the mon, see!" (Knock, knock.) "And we're goin' to have it, see!" (Knock, knock.) "That's where you come in, honey, you're goin' to get it for us. Ain't you now, darlin'!" (Knock, knock, knock.)

Faintly, very faintly, I heard a voice:

"No."

If it be possible to scream in a whisper, the woman did it.

"You will! you will! Oh! oh! oh! There's the cursed mule spirit of your mother in you. She'd never tell us the name of the man that was the ruin of 'er, blast 'er."

"Don't speak of my mother, you vile woman!"

The voice of the virago contracted to an intensity of venom I have never heard the equal of.

"Vile woman! Vile woman! You, you to call me a vile woman, me that's been three times jined in holy wedlock.... Oh, you bastard brat! You whelp of sin! You misbegotten scum! Oh, I'll fix you for that, if I've got to swing for it."

Her scalding words were capped with an oath too foul to repeat, and once more came the horrible pounding, like a head striking the woodwork. Unable to bear it any longer, I rapped sharply on the door.

Silence, a long, panting silence; then the sound of a falling body; then the door opened a little and the twitching face of Madam appeared.

"Is there somebody sick?" I asked. "I'm sorry to trouble you, but I was thinking I heard groans and—I might be able to do something."

Piercingly she looked at me. Her eyes narrowed to slits and stabbed me with their spite. Her dark face grew turgid with impotent anger. As I stood there she was like to have killed me. Then like a flash her expression changed. With a dirty bejewelled hand she smoothed her tousled hair. Her coarse white teeth gleamed in a gold-capped smile. There was honey in her tone.

"Why, no! my niece in here's got a toothache, but I guess we can fix it between us. We don't need no help, thanks, young feller."

"Oh, that's all right," I said. "If you should, you know, I'll be nearby."

Then I moved away, conscious that her eyes followed me malevolently.

The business worried me sorely. The poor girl was being woefully abused, that was plain. I felt indignant, angry and, last of all, anxious. Mingled with my feelings was a sense of irritation that I should have been elected to overhear the affair. I had no desire just then to champion distressed damsels, least of all to get mixed up in the family brawls of unknown Jewesses. Confound her, anyway! I almost hated her. Yet I felt constrained to watch and wait, and even at the cost of my own ease and comfort to prevent further violence.

For that matter there were all kinds of strange doings on board, drinking, gambling, nightly orgies and hourly brawls. It seemed as if we had shipped all the human dregs of the San Francisco deadline. Never, I believe, in those times when almost daily the Argonaut-laden boats were sailing for the Golden North, was there one in which the sporting element was so dominant. The social hall reeked with patchouli and stale whiskey. From the staterooms came shrill outbursts of popular melody, punctuated with the popping of champagne corks. Dance-hall girls, babbling incoherently, reeled in the passageways, danced on the cabin table, and were only held back from licentiousness by the restraint of their bullies. The day was one long round of revelry, and the night was pregnant with sinister sound.

Already among the better element a moral secession was apparent. Convention they had left behind with their boiled shirts and their store clothes, and crazed with the idea of speedy fortune, they were even now straining at the leash of decency. It was a howling mob, elately riotous, and already infected by the virus of the goldophobia.

Oh, it was good to get on deck of a night, away from this saturnalia, to watch the beacon stars strewn vastly in the skyey uplift, to listen to the ancient threnody of the outcast sea. Blue and silver the nights were, and crystal clear, with a keen wind that painted the cheek and kindled the eye. And as I sat in silent thought there came to me Salvation Jim. His face was grim, his eyes brooding. From the brilliantly lit social hall came a blare of music-hall melody.

"I don't like the way of things a bit," he said; "I don't like it. Look here now, lad, I've lived round mining camps for twenty years, I've followed the roughest callings on earth, I've tramped the States all over, yet never have I seen the beat of this. Mind you, I ain't prejudiced, though I've seen the error of my ways, glory to God! I can make allowance once in a while for the boys gettin' on a jamboree, but by Christmas! Say! There's enough evil on this boat to stake a sub-section in Hell. There's men should be at home with their dinky little mothers an' their lovin' wives an' children, down there right now in that cabin buyin' wine for them painted Jezebels.

"There's doctors an' lawyers an' deacons in the church back in old Ohio, that never made a bad break in their lives, an' now they're rowin' like barroom bullies for the kisses of a baggage. In the bay-window of their souls the devil lolls an' grins an' God is freezin' in the attic. You mark my words, boy; there's a curse on this northern gold. The Yukon's a-goin' to take its toll. You mark my words."

"Oh, Jim," I said, "you're superstitious."

"No, I ain't. I've just got a hunch. Here we are a bit of floatin' iniquity glidin' through the mystery of them strange seas, an' the very officers on dooty sashed to the neck an' reekin' from the arms of the scented hussies below. It'll be God's mercy if we don't crash on a rock, an' go down good an' all to the bitter bottom. But it don't matter. Sooner or later there's goin' to be a reckonin'. There's many a one shoutin' an' singin' to-night'll leave his bones to bleach up in that bleak wild land."

"No, Jim," I protested, "they will be all right once they get ashore."

"Right nothin'! They're a pack of fools. They think they've got a bulge on fortune. Hear them a-howlin' now. They're all millionaires in their minds. There's no doubt with them. It's a cinch. They're spendin' it right now. You mark my words, young feller, for I'll never live to see them fulfilled—there's ninety in a hundred of all them fellers that's goin' to this here Klondike will never make good, an' of the other ten, nine won't do no good."

"One per cent. that will keep their stakes—that's absurd, Jim."

"Well, you'll see. An' as for me, I feel as sure as God's above us guidin' us through the mazes of the night, I'll never live to make the trip back. I've got a hunch. Old Jim's on his last stampede."

He sighed, then said sharply:

"Did you see that feller that passed us?"

It was Mosher, the gambler and ex-preacher.

"That man's a skunk, a renegade sky-pilot. I'm keepin' tabs on that man. Maybe him an' me's got a score to settle one of them days. Maybe."

He went off abruptly, leaving me to ponder long over his gloomy words.

We were now three days out. The weather was fine, and nearly every one was on deck in the sunshine. Even Bullhammer, Marks and Mosher had deserted the card-room for a time. The Bank clerk and the Wood-carver talked earnestly, planned and dreamed. The Professor was busy expounding a theory of the gold origin to a party of young men from Minnesota. Silent and watchful the athletic Mervin smoked his big cigar, while, patient and imperturbable, the iron Hewson chewed stolidly. The twins were playing checkers. The Winklesteins were making themselves solid with the music-hall clique. In and out among the different groups darted the Prodigal, as volatile as a society reporter at a church bazaar. And besides these, always alone, austerely aloof as if framed in a picture by themselves, a picture of dignity and sweetness, were the Jewish maid and her aged grandfather.

Although he was my room-mate I had seen but little of him. He was abed before I retired and I was up and out ere he awoke. For the rest I avoided the two because of their obvious connection with the Winklesteins. Surely, thought I, she cannot be mixed up with those two and be everything that's all right. Yet there was something in the girl's clear eyes, and in the old man's fine face, that reproached me for my doubt.

It was while I was thus debating, and covertly studying the pair, that something occurred.

Bullhammer and Marks were standing by me, and across the deck came the acridly nasal tones of the dance-hall girls. I saw the libertine eyes of Bullhammer rove incontinently from one unlovely demirep to another, till at last they rested on the slender girl standing by the side of her white-haired grandfather. Appreciatively he licked his lips.

"Say, Monkey, who's the kid with old Whiskers there?"

"Search me, Pete," said Marks; "want a knockdown?"

"Betcher! Seems kind-a standoffish, though, don't she?"

"Standoffish be darned! Never yet saw the little bit of all right that could stand off Sam Marks. I'm a winner, I am, an' don' you forget it. Just watch my splash."

I must say the man was expensively dressed in a flashy way. His oily, pimple-garnished face wreathed itself in a smirk of patronising familiarity, and with the bow of a dancing master he advanced. I saw her give a quick start, bite her lip and shrink back. "Good for you, little girl," I thought. But the man was in no way put out.

"Say, Sis, it's all right. Just want to interdooce you to a gentleman fren' o' mine."

The girl gazed at him, and her dilated eyes were eloquent of fear and distrust. It minded me of the panic of a fawn run down by the hunter, so that I found myself trembling in sympathy. A startled moment she gazed; then swiftly she turned her back.

This was too much for Marks. He flushed angrily.

"Say! what's the matter with you? Come off the perch there. Ain't we good enough to associate with you? Who the devil are you, anyhow?"

His face was growing red and aggressive. He closed in on her. He laid a rough hand on her shoulder. Thinking the thing had gone far enough I stepped forward to interfere, when the unexpected happened.

Suddenly the old man had risen to his feet, and it was a surprise to me how tall he was. Into his face there had come the ghost of ancient power and command. His eyes blazed with wrath, and his clenched fist was raised high in anathema. Then it came swiftly down on the head of Marks, crushing his stiff hat tightly over his eyes.

The climax was ludicrous in a way. There was a roar of laughter, and hearing it Marks spluttered as he freed himself. With a curse of rage he would have rushed the old man, but a great hand seized him by the shoulder. It was the grim, taciturn Hewson, and judging by the way his captive squirmed, his grip must have been peculiarly vise-like. The old man was pale as death, the girl crying, the passengers crowding round. Every one was gabbling and curious, so feeling I could do no good, I went below.

What was there about this slip of a girl that interested me so? Ever and anon I found myself thinking of her. Was it the conversation I had overheard? Was it the mystery that seemed to surround her? Was it the irrepressible instinct of my heart for the romance of life? With the old man, despite our stateroom propinquity, I had made no advances. With the girl I had passed no further words.

But the Gods of destiny act in whimsical ways. Doubtless the voyage would have finished without the betterment of our acquaintance; doubtless our paths would have parted, nevermore to cross; doubtless our lives would have been lived out to their fulness and this story never have been told—had it not been for the luckless fatality of the Box of Grapes.