The Triumph of John Kars Part 10

Jessie nodded. Her gaze was turned upon the far reach of the river.

"Yes. She's medium height--like you. She's a woman of sort of practical motherly instinct. Her eyes are blue, and clear, and fine, revealing the wholesome mind behind. She'll be slim, I guess, and her gown's just swell--real swell. She'll----"

The man broke in on an impulse which he was powerless to deny.

"She won't be tall?" he demanded, his eyes s.h.i.+ning into hers with an intensity which made Jessie shrink before them. "She won't move with the grace of--of a Juno, straight limbed, erect? She won't have dandy gray eyes that look through and beyond all the time? She won't have lovely brown hair which sort of reflects the old sun every time it s.h.i.+nes on it? She won't have a face so beautiful it sets a feller just crazy to look at it? Say, if it was like that," he cried, in a voice thrilling with pa.s.sion, "I'd feel I didn't owe Providence the kick I've----"

How far his feelings would have carried him it was impossible to say.

He had been caught off his guard, and had flung caution to the winds.

But he was spared the possible consequences by an interruption which would not be denied. It was an interruption which had claimed them both at the same instant.

A sound came out of the distance on the still evening air. It came from the bend of the river where it swung away to the northwest. It was the sound of the dipping of many paddles, a sound which was of paramount importance to these people at all times.

The girl was on her feet first. Nor was Murray a second behind her.

Both were gazing intently out in the growing dusk. Simultaneously an exclamation broke from them. Then the girl spoke while the man remained silent.

"Canoes," she said. "One, two, three, four--five. Five canoes. I know whose they are."

Murray was standing close beside her, the roundness of his ungainly figure aggravated by the contrast. He, too, was gazing hard at the flotilla. He, too, had counted the canoes as they came into view. He, too, had recognized them, just as he had recognized the thrill of delighted antic.i.p.ation in the girl's voice as she announced her recognition of them.

He knew, no one better, all that lay behind the s.h.i.+ning gray of the girl's eyes as she beheld the canoes approach. He needed no words to tell him. And he thanked his stars for the interruption which had saved him carrying his moment of folly further.

His eyes expressed no antic.i.p.ation. Their glowing fires seemed to have become extinguished. There was no warmth in them. There was little life in their darkly brooding watchfulness. Never was a contrast so deeply marked between two watchers of the same object. The man was cold, his expression hard. It was an expression before which even his habitual smile had been forced to flee. Jessie was radiant.

Excitement surged till she wanted to cry out. To call the name that was on her lips.

Instead, however, she turned swiftly upon the man at her side, who instantly read the truth in the radiant gray eyes gazing into his.

"It's--John Kars," she said soberly. Then in a moment came a repet.i.tion. "Fancy. John Kars!"

CHAPTER VIII

TWO MEN OF THE NORTH

North, south, east, west. There was, perhaps, no better known name in the wide northern wilderness than that of John Kars. In his buoyant way he claimed for himself, at thirty-two, that he was the "oldest inhabitant" of the northland.

Nor was he without some justification. For, at the age of thirteen, accompanying his father, he had formed one of the small band of gold seekers who fought their way to the "placers" of Forty-mile Creek years before the great Yukon rush.

He was one of those who helped to open the gates of the country. His child's muscles and courage had done their duty beside those of far older men. They had taken their share in forcing the icy portals of a land unknown, and terror-ridden. He had endured the agony of the first great battle against the overwhelming legions of Nature. He had survived, all unprepared and without experience. It was a struggle such as none of those who came later were called upon to endure. For all that has been told of the sufferings of the Yukon rush they were incomparable with those which John Kars had been called upon to endure at an age when the terror of it all might well have overwhelmed him.

But he had done more than survive. Good fortune and sanity had been his greatest a.s.sets. The first seemed to have been his all through.

Sanity only came to him at the cost of other men's experience. For all his hardihood he was deeply human. The early temptations of Leaping Horse had appealed to the virile youth in him. He had had his falls.

But there was something in the blood of the youth which quickly convinced him of the folly of the life about him. So he, to use his own expression, "quit the poultry ranch" and "hit the bank roll trail,"

and good fortune followed hard behind him like a faithful spouse.

He became rich. His wealth became a byword. And later, when, out of disorder and vice, the city of Leaping Horse grew to capital importance, he became surfeited with the acc.u.mulations of wealth which rolled in upon him from his manifold interests.

Then it was that the man which the Yukon world now knew suddenly developed. He could have retired to the pleasant avenues of civilization. He could have entered public life in any of the great capitals of the world. But these things had no appeal for him.

The battle of the trail had left a fever in his blood. He was smitten with the disease of Ishmael. Then, before all, and above all, he counted the northland his home. So, when everything the world could yield him lay at his feet, the drear, silent north trail only knew him.

His interests in the golden world of Leaping Horse were left behind him, while he satisfied his pa.s.sion in the far hidden back countries where man is a mere incident in the world's unbroken silences.

Oh, yes, his quest was gold, frankly gold. But not in relation to values. He sought gold for the joy of search, to provide excuse. He sought gold for the romance of it, he sought it because adventure lay in the track of virgin gold as it lies nowhere else. Besides, the battle of it suited the man's hardihood.

Once, to his philosopher friend, Dr. Bill Brudenell of Leaping Horse, he said, "Life's just a shanty most every feller starts right in to set up for himself. And I guess more than half of 'em couldn't set two bricks right. It seems to me if you're going to make life a reasonable proposition you need to start in from the beginning of things, and act the way you see clearest. It's no use groping around in a fog just because folks reckon it's up to you to act that way. If you can't set two bricks right, then set one. Anyway, do the things you can do, and don't kick because you can't do more. The trail I know. Gold I know.

The Yukon I know. Then what's the use in quittin' it fer something I don't know, and don't care a cuss for anyway?"

This was the man, simple, direct. Wealth meant nothing to him. It was there. It sometimes seemed like snowing him under. He couldn't help it. Life was all he wanted. The life he loved, the life which gave him room in which to stretch his great body. The life which demanded the play of his muscles of steel. The life which absorbed every mental faculty in its simple preservation. He was, as Bill once said: "A primitive, an elemental creature, a man destined for the altar of the G.o.ds of the wilderness when the sands of his time ran out."

What wonder then that Jessie Mowbray's eyes should s.h.i.+ne with a light such as only one man can inspire.

Her delight was unrestrained as the flotilla drew near, and she descried the familiar figure of its leader. Then came the ringing greeting across the water. Nor could the manner of her response be mistaken. Murray saw, he heard and understood. And so the fixity of his smiling greeting which completely masked his feelings.

John Kars' manner owed nothing to convention. But it was governed by a sureness of touch, a perfect tact, and a great understanding of those with whom he came into contact. To him man was simply man. Woman was just woman. The latter claimed the last atom of his chivalrous regard at all times. The former possessed only the distinction which his qualities ent.i.tled him to.

He grasped the warm, soft hand outheld to him as he leaped out of his canoe. The girl's s.h.i.+ning eyes looked up into his bronzed, clean-cut features with the confidence of one who understands the big spirit stirring behind them. She listened responsively to the simple greeting which fell so naturally from his firm lips.

"Say, it's good to see you all again. Home?" He glanced swiftly round at the scene about them. "This is home, I guess." Then he laughed.

"The other," he went on, with a backward jerk of the head to indicate Leaping Horse, whence he had just come, "why, the other's just a sort of dumping ground for the waste left over--after home's finished with things. Bill, here, don't feel that way. He guesses we're on an unholy vacation with home at the other end. You can't get the same sense out of different heads."

He turned to Murray with a cordiality which was only less by reason of the s.e.x of its object. "And Murray, too. Well, say, it's worth while.

It surely is."

The trader's response was all sufficient. But his smile contained no added warmth, and his hand-shake lacked the grip it received.

In five minutes John Kars had made his explanations. But they were made to Jessie. Murray was left on the fringe of their talk.

He told her in his rapid, easy fas.h.i.+on that he was out for the whole open season. That he'd practically had to kidnap Bill from his beloved Leaping Horse. That his old friend was just recovering from his consequent grouch, and, anyway, folks mustn't expect anything more than common civility from him as yet. He said that he hoped to make Fort Wrigley on the Mackenzie River some time in the summer, and maybe even Fort Simpson. But that would be the limit. By that time, he guessed Bill would have mutinied and probably murdered him. He said he hoped to appease the said Doctor with a good bag of game. But even that was problematical, as Bill had never been known to hit anything smaller than a haystack in his life.

So he talked with the daughter of his old friend Allan Mowbray, knowing of the man's murder by the Indians, but never by word or sign reminding the girl of her loss.

Meantime Bill Brudenell deliberately completed the work of superintending the "snugging" of the canoes for the night. He heard his friend's charges, and smiled his retorts with pointed sarcasm. And Jessie understood, for she knew these two, and their great friends.h.i.+p.

And Dr. Bill--well, she regarded him as a sort of delightful uncle who never told her of her faults, or recommended his own methods of performing the difficult task of getting through life successfully.

When all was ready they moved off the landing towards the Mission clearing.

Ailsa Mowbray was preparing supper. The scones were nearly ready in the oven, and she watched them with a skilful eye.

She looked still older in her moments of solitude. The change in her wrought by the last seven months must have been heart-breaking to those who had not seen her since that dreadful night of tragedy. But her spirit was unimpaired. There were her two children left, and a merciful Providence had bestowed upon her a world of maternal devotion.

For all her grief, she had not been entirely robbed of that which made life possible. Her husband lived again in the children he had blessed her with.

Had she so chosen she might have severed herself forever from the life which had so deeply wounded her. Her fortune made it possible to seek comfort in the heart of the world's great civilization. But the thought of it never entered her simple head. She was a born housewife.

The love of her home, and its care, was part of her. That home which had yielded her her greatest joys and her greatest trial.

Sometimes the thought would obtrude that Jessie deserved something more than the drear life of the northland. But the girl herself dispelled these thoughts. Like her mother, she had no desire beyond the home she had always known.