The Spoilers (6 page)

“My God! Don't move! We're in line!”

He crouched over her, his cheek against her hair, his weight forcing her down into the smallest compass, his arms about her, his body forming a living shield against the flying bullets. Over them the big man stood, and the sustained roar of his gun was deafening. In an instant they heard the thud and felt the jar of lead in the thin boards against which they huddled. Again the report echoed above their heads, and they saw the slender man in the street drop his weapon and spin half round as though hit with some heavy hand. He uttered a cry and, stooping for his gun, plunged forward, burying his face in the sand.

The man by Glenister's side shouted curses thickly, and walked towards his prostrate enemy, firing at every step. The wounded man rolled to his side, and, raising himself on his elbow, shot twice, so rapidly that the reports blended—but without checking his antagonist's approach. Four more times the relentless assailant fired deliberately, his last missile sent as he stood over the body which twitched and shuddered at his feet, its garments muddy and smeared. Then he turned and retraced his steps. Back within arm's-length of the two who pressed against the building he came, and as he went by they saw his coarse and sullen features drawn and working pallidly, while the breath whistled through his teeth. He held his course to the door they had just quitted, then as he turned he coughed bestially, spitting out a mouthful of blood. His knees wavered. He vanished within the portals and, in the sickly silence that fell, they heard his hob-nailed boots clumping slowly up the stairs.

Noise awoke and rioted down the thoroughfare. Men rushed forth from every quarter, and the ghastly object in the dirt was hidden by a seething mass of miners.

Glenister raised the girl, but her head rolled limply, and she would have slipped to her knees again had he not placed his arm about her waist. Her eyes were staring and horror-filled.

“Don't be frightened,” said he, smiling at her reassuringly ; but his own lips shook and the sweat stood out like dew on him; for they had both been close to death. There came a surge and swirl through the crowd, and Dextry swooped upon them like a hawk.

“Be ye hurt? Holy Mackinaw! When I see 'em blaze away I yells at ye fit to bust my throat. I shore thought you was gone. Although I can't say but this killin' was a sight for sore eyes—so neat an' genteel—still, as a rule, in these street brawls it's the innocuous bystander that has flowers sent around to his house afterwards.”

“Look at this,” said Glenister. Breast-high in the wall against which they had crouched, not three feet apart, were bullet holes.

“Them's the first two he unhitched,” Dextry remarked, jerking his head towards the object in the street. “Must have been a new gun an' pulled hard—throwed him to the right. See!”

Even to the girl it was patent that, had she not been snatched as she was, the bullet would have found her.

“Come away quick,” she panted, and they led her into a near-by store, where she sank upon a seat and trembled until Dextry brought her a glass of whiskey.

“Here, Miss,” he said. “Pretty tough go for a ‘cheechako.' I'm afraid you ain't gettin' enamoured of this here country a whole lot.”

For half an hour he talked to her, in his whimsical way, of foreign things, till she was quieted. Then the partners arose to go. Although Glenister had arranged for her to stop with the wife of the merchant for the rest of the night, she would not.

“I can't go to bed. Please don't leave me! I'm too nervous. I'll go
mad
if you do. The strain of the last week has been too much for me. If I sleep I'll see the faces of those men again.”

Dextry talked with his companion, then made a purchase which he laid at the lady's feet.

“Here's a pair of half-grown gum boots. You put 'em on an' come with us. We'll take your mind off of things complete. An' as fer sweet dreams, when you get back you'll make the slumbers of the just seem as restless as a riot, or the antics of a mountain-goat which nimbly leaps from crag to crag, and—well, that's restless enough. Come on!”

As the sun slanted up out of Behring Sea, they marched back towards the hills, their feet ankle-deep in the soft fresh moss, while the air tasted like a cool draught and a myriad of earthy odors rose up and en' circled them. Snipe and reed birds were noisy in the hollows and from the misty tundra lakes came the honking of brant. After their weary weeks on ship-board, the dewy freshness livened them magically, cleansing from their memories the recent tragedy, so that the girl became herself again.

“Where are we going?” she asked, at the end of an hour, pausing for breath.

“Why, to the Midas, of course,” they said; and one of them vowed recklessly, as he drank in the beauty of her clear eyes and the grace of her slender, panting form, that he would gladly give his share of all its riches to undo what he had done one night on the
Santa Maria.

I
N the lives of countries there are crises where, for a breath, destinies lie in the laps of the gods and are jumbled, heads or tails. Thus are marked distinctive cycles like the seven ages of a man, and though, perhaps, they are too subtle to be perceived at the time, yet, having swung past the shadowy milestones, the epochs disclose themselves.

Such a period in the progress of the Far Northwest was the nineteenth day of July, although to those concerned in the building of this new empire the day appealed only as the date of the coming of the law. All Nome gathered on the sands as lighters brought ashore Judge Stillman and his following. It was held fitting that the
Senator
should be the ship to safeguard the dignity of the first court and to introduce Justice into this land of the wild.

The interest awakened by His Honor was augmented by the fact that he was met on the beach by a charming girl, who flung herself upon him with evident delight.

“That's his niece,” said some one. “She came up on the first boat—name's Chester—swell looker, eh?”

Another new-comer attracted even more notice than the limb of the law; a gigantic, well-groomed man, with keen, close-set eyes, and that indefinable easy movement and polished bearing that come from confidence, health, and travel. Unlike the others, he did not dally on the beach nor display much interest in his surroundings; but, with purposeful frown strode through the press, up into the heart of the city. His companion was Struve's partner, Dunham, a middle-aged, pompous man. They went directly to the offices of Dunham & Struve, where they found the white-haired junior partner.

“Mighty glad to meet you, Mr. McNamara,” said Struve. “Your name is a household word in my part of the country. My people were mixed up in Dakota politics somewhat, so I've always had a great admiration for you and I'm glad you've come to Alaska. This is a big country and we need big men.”

“Did you have any trouble?” Dunham inquired when the three had adjourned to a private room.

“Trouble,” said Struve, ruefully; “well, I wonder if I did. Miss Chester brought me your instructions O. K. and I got busy right off. But, tell me this—how did you get the girl to act as messenger?”

“There was no one else to send,” answered McNamara. “Dunham intended sailing on the first boat, but he was detained in Washington with me, and the Judge had to wait for us at Seattle. We were afraid to trust a stranger for fear he might get curious and examine the papers. That would have meant—” He moved his hand eloquently.

Struve nodded. “I see. Does she know what was in the documents?”

“Decidedly not. Women and business don't mix. I hope you didn't tell her anything.”

“No; I haven't had a chance. She seemed to take a dislike to me for some reason. I haven't seen her since the day after she got here.”

“The Judge told her it had something to do with preparing the way for his court,” said Dunham, “and that if the papers were not delivered before he arrived it might cause a lot of trouble—litigation, riots, bloodshed, and all that. He filled her up on generalities till the girl was frightened to death and thought the safety of her uncle and the whole country depended on her.”

“Well,” continued Struve, “it's dead easy to hire men to jump claims and it's dead easy to buy their rights afterwards, particularly when they know they haven't got any—but what course do you follow when owners go gunning for you?”

McNamara laughed.

“Who did that?”

“A benevolent, silver-haired old Texan pirate by the name of Dextry. He's one half owner in the Midas and the other half mountain-lion; as peaceable, you'd imagine, as a benediction, but with the temperament of a Geronimo. I sent Galloway out to relocate the claim, and he got his notices up in the night when they were asleep, but at 6
A.M
. He came flying back to my room and nearly hammered the door down. I've seen fright in varied forms and phases, but he had them all, with some added starters.

“‘Hide me out, quick!' he panted.

“‘What's up?' I asked.

“‘I've stirred up a breakfast of grizzly bear, smallpox, and sudden death and it don't set well on my stummick. Let me in.'

“I had to keep him hidden three days, for this gentle-mannered old cannibal roamed the streets with a cannon in his hand, breathing fire and pestilence.”

“Anybody else act up?” queried Dunham.

“No; all the rest are Swedes and they haven't got the nerve to fight. They couldn't lick a spoon if they tried. These other men are different, though. There are two of them, the old one and a young fellow. I'm a little afraid to mix it up with them, and if their claim wasn't the best in the district, I'd say let it alone.”

“I'll attend to that,” said McNamara.

Struve resumed:

“Yes, gentlemen, I've been working pretty hard and also pretty much in the dark so far. I'm groping for light. When Miss Chester brought in the papers I got busy instanter. I clouded the title to the richest placers in the region, but I'm blamed if I quite see the use of it. We'd be thrown out of any court in the land if we took them to law. What's the game—blackmail?”

“Humph!” ejaculated McNamara. “What do you take me for?”

“Well, it does seem small for Alec McNamara, but I can't see what else you're up to.”

“Within a week I'll be running every good mine in the Nome district.”

McNamara's voice was calm but decisive, his glance keen and alert, while about him clung such a breath of power and confidence that it compelled belief even in the face of this astounding speech.

In spite of himself, Wilton Struve, lawyer, rake, and gentlemanly adventurer, felt his heart leap at what the other's daring implied. The proposition was utterly past belief, and yet, looking into the man's purposeful eyes, he believed.

“That's big—awful big—
too
big,” the younger man murmured. “Why, man, it means you'll handle fifty thousand dollars a day!”

Dunham shifted his feet in the silence and licked his dry lips.

“Of course it's big, but Mr. McNamara's the biggest man that ever came to Alaska,” he said.

“And I've got the biggest scheme that ever came north, backed by the biggest men in Washington,” continued the politician. “Look here!” He displayed a type-written sheet bearing parallel lists of names and figures. Struve gasped incredulously.

“Those are my stockholders and that is their share in the venture. Oh, yes; we're incorporated—under the laws of Arizona—secret, of course; it would never do for the names to get out. I'm showing you this only because I want you to be satisfied who's behind me.”

“Lord! I'm satisfied,” said Struve, laughing nervously. “Dunham was with you when you figured the scheme out and he met some of your friends in Washington and New York. If he says it's all right, that settles it. But say, suppose anything went wrong with the company and it leaked out who those stockholders are?”

“There's no danger. I have the books where they will be burned at the first sign. We'd have had our own land laws passed but for Sturtevant of Nevada, damn him. He blocked us in the Senate. However, my plan is this.” He rapidly outlined his proposition to the listeners, while a light of admiration grew and shone in the reckless face of Struve.

“By heavens! you're a wonder!” he cried, at the close, “and I'm with you body and soul. It's dangerous—that's why I like it.”

“Dangerous?” McNamara shrugged his shoulders. “Bah! Where is the danger? We've got the law—or rather, we
are
the law. Now, let's get to work.”

It seemed that the Boss of North Dakota was no sluggard. He discarded coat and waistcoat and tackled the documents which Struve laid before him, going through them like a whirlwind. Gradually he infected the others with his energy, and soon behind the locked doors of Dunham & Struve there were only haste and fever and plot and intrigue.

As Helen Chester led the Judge towards the flamboyant, three-storied hotel she prattled to him light-heartedly. The fascination of a new land already held her fast, and now she felt, in addition, security and relief. Glenister saw them from a distance and strode forward to greet them.

He beheld a man of perhaps threescore years, benign of aspect save for the eyes, which were neither clear nor steady, but had the trick of looking past one. Glenister thought the mouth, too, rather weak and vacillating; but the clean-shaven face was dignified by learning and acumen and was wrinkled in pleasant fashion.

“My niece has just told me of your service to her,” the old gentleman began. “I am happy to know you, sir.

“Besides being a brave knight and assisting ladies in distress, Mr. Glenister is a very great and wonderful man,” Helen explained, lightly. “He owns the Midas.” “Indeed!” said the old man, his shifting eyes now resting full on the other with a flash of unmistakable interest. “I hear that is a wonderful mine. Have you begun work yet?”