The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure
the divide, then had turned and slunk away, cursing them for intruding
upon his privacy. The other was when a herd of caribou had crossed. At
that time he had given brief rein to his desire to kill, seeing ahead of
his sights the face of the man who had sent him into the wilderness. He
could have bagged half the herd, but checked himself in time, realizing
that it was not Barclay at whom he leveled his rifle, but defenseless
animals, the carcasses of which were useless.
Barclay! The name maddened McGill. He wondered dully why he continued to
work so steadily when Barclay had robbed him of the need for gold. The
answer to this, he supposed, was easier than the answer to those other
questions that forever troubled him--he had to do something or die of
his thoughts, and he knew no other work than this. Even in his busiest
hours memories of Barclay and the woman obtruded themselves.
It was after dark when he had fired the hole a second time and returned
to his cabin. He had not reached bed-rock and this fact irritated
him--he was growing very irritable, it seemed. Lighting his pipe of rank
"sheep-dip" tobacco when the supper-dishes were finally cleaned and the
dogs fed, he once more prepared for the profitless process of panning.
But he noticed that this sample of gravel was different to any he had
yet found, being of a peculiar ashen color. He felt it with practised
fingers and discovered it to be gritty and full of sediment.
"Feels good," he said, aloud, "but I'll bet it's barren."
He had panned so many samples that all eagerness, all curiosity as to
the outcome, had long since disappeared, therefore his movements were
purely perfunctory as he dissolved the clay lumps and washed the gravels
down. He paused half-way through the operation to dry his hands and
relight his pipe, then fell to thinking of Barclay and the woman once
more, and remained so for a long time. When he resumed his task it was
with glazed, unseeing eyes. He was about to dump the last dregs
carelessly when something just slipping over the edge of the pan caught
his eye and caused him to tilt the receptacle abruptly.
The breath whistling in his throat roused the dogs. McGill closed his
eyes for an instant, then reached unsteadily for the candle. A movement
of his wrist ran the water across the pan bottom and spread the black
sand thinly. Instantly there leaped out against the black metal a heap
of bright, clean, yellow particles which lay as if glued together.
"Coarse gold! Coarse gold!" he whispered, then cursed in the weak,
meaningless manner of men under great excitement. Not trusting himself
to hold the pan, he set it upon the table, but without removing his eyes
from it. When his nerves had steadied he ran the prospect down, all the
time muttering in his beard. He dried it over the fire, blew the iron
sand free with his breath, then pushed the particles into a heap,
striving to estimate their value.
"There's half an ounce," he said, finally. "Eight dollars a pan! God!
that's big! Big! It's another Klondike." He rose and ran bareheaded out
into the night, followed by the dogs, then stood staring at the smoke as
it ascended vertically above his shaft, like a giant night-growing plant
of some kind. He was tempted to descend the ladder and tear the
crackling logs apart, but thought better of it. Swinging his eyes along
the valley rim that stood out black against the aurora, he lifted his
long arms. "It's mine, all mine! Understand?" He cried the words loudly,
wildly, as if challenging the silence. "It's no good to me, but it's
mine, and, by God, I'll keep it!"
McGill reached bed-rock the next evening and spent most of the night
panning the pile of scrapings he had collected from the bottom of the
pit. If the top of the streak had been rich, the lower concentration was
amazing. Every seam in the shattered limestone, which stood on end like
sluice riffles, contained little flattened pumpkin-seeds of gold; they
lay embedded in the clay stringers like plums in a pudding or as if some
lavish hand had inserted them there, as coins are slipped into the slot
of a child's savings-bank. He could see them before the dirt was half
washed, but took a supreme pleasure, nevertheless, in watching the
yellow pile grow as the sediment disappeared. A baking-powder can was
half filled when he had finished; it told him unmistakably the magnitude
of his riches. He was a wealthy man, wealthier than he had ever dreamed
of being. There was more where this came from and the gulch lay
unappropriated from end to end. Fortune had come in a day, and he would
never want so long as he lived. His thoughts were wild and chaotic, for
he was half mad from the silence.
But what use to make of his discovery he hardly knew, since he had slunk
away from the world, ablaze with hatred for his fellow-men, intending to
live alone for the rest of his days. His grudge was as bitter now as
then, and he determined, therefore, to keep his find a secret. That
would be a grim, if unsatisfactory, sort of revenge, he reflected. He
would take what he wished, and let other men wear out their lives
searching unsuccessfully. Those strangers to the westward, for instance,
would toil and suffer through the long winter, then leave discouraged.
There was money here for them and for hundreds--thousands--like them,
but he decided to guard his secret and to let it die with him.
McGill pictured the result of this news if he gave it out; the stampede,
the headlong rush that would bring men from every corner of the North.
He saw this silent valley bared of its brooding forest and filled with
people; he saw a log city in the flats down by the river; he heard the
bass blasts of steamboats, the shrilling of saw-mills, the sound of
music from dance-halls, the click of checks and roulette-balls, the
noise of revelry--
"No! No! _No!_" He rose and shouted into the empty silence of his cabin.
"I won't do it! I won't! I won't!"
But the voices called to him all through the night.
He rose early, for they would not let him rest, and during the darkness
a terrible hunger had grown upon him. It was the hunger for
companionship, for speech. His secret was too great for imprisonment, it
threatened to burst the confines of the valley by its own tremendous
force; he knew he could never sleep with it, for it would smother him;
vampire-like, it would suck the life from his veins and the reason from
his brain.
When he had eaten he pocketed the baking-powder tin, slipped into his
snow-shoes and, crossing the gulch, climbed the westward hills that hid
his neighbors. The dogs went with him.
II
News of the John Daniels strike reached Ophir in July, when a ragged,
unkempt man arrived in a poling-boat. He was one of the party that had
camped west of McGill, and he ate a raw potato with the ravenous
appetite of an animal while waiting for his first meal at the Miner's
Rest. Between mouthfuls he gave the word that set the town ablaze.
When he had bought a ton of grub at the A. C. store and weighed out
payment in bright pumpkin-seed gold he went to Hopper's saloon and
handed the proprietor a folded paper.
Hopper read it uncomprehendingly.
"This is a location notice, recorded in my name," the latter said,
turning the document uncomprehendingly as if to see if it contained a
message on the reverse side.
The stranger nodded. "Number Four Above, on John Daniels Creek. John
staked for you, and told me to tell you to come. We've struck it rich."
Hopper's hand shook; he stared at the speaker in bewilderment. "John
Daniels? I don't seem to remember him."
"He's a big slab-sided man with a deep voice and eyes like ice."
The listener started. "Is he--skookum?"
"Stronger 'n any two men--"
"God! It's--McGill!"
"I thought so, but I never saw him only once--that was in Circle. He's
changed now--got a beard. He said you done him a favor once. You're his
friend, ain't you?"
"I am."
"What's the trouble with him?" There was a pause. "You can tell me. He
put me and my five pardners in on his strike. I'm taking grub to him and
the others."
"Oh, it was about a woman, of course. It always is. Everybody here knows
the story. She was no good, except to look at. Feller named Barclay
brought her into the country, but Dan didn't know it, so he up and
marries her. She thought he had money, and when she found he was broke
like the rest of us she and Barclay began cuttin' up again. It was
rotten. I came near putting Barclay away, but figgered Dan wouldn't like
nobody to do his work, so I told him. He went out to clean the slate,
but found his wife was crazy about the skunk and always had been, so he
sent 'em away together. He done it for her sake, but he warned 'em to
stay off his trail, because no camp was big enough to hold all three of
'em. It was blizzardy, and what did the blame' fools do but get caught
ten miles below here. Cochrane brought 'em back that night on his sled.
McGill was here, right where you're standing, when they were lugged in.
When he seen Barclay he went after him again, figgerin', I suppose, that
God was disgusted with his proposition and had sent the feller back to
be finished."
"Good!" said the stranger. "And he got him, eh?"
"No! Barclay wasn't more 'n half dead, and the woman fell to beggin' for
his life again. She appealed to all of us. McGill must have loved her
more 'n we give him credit for, because when he saw that neither one of
'em was able to leave, he left instead. He walked right out of that door
into the wickedest storm we had that season, and we never seen him
again. Everybody thought he froze or the wolves got him. That was a year
ago last winter."
"What become of the woman?"
"Oh, her and Barclay left for Dawson on the first boat. I guess they saw
we didn't enjoy 'em here."
"And Barclay? Didn't nobody offer to bump him off?" The ragged stranger
was incredulous.
"No, we just left him and the woman alone. Most of us was kind of sorry
for her."
"Sorry? Why?"
"Well--" Hopper hesitated. "I don't think she exactly understood what
she was doin'. You know the first winter up here is hard on tenderfeet,
especially women. Most of 'em act mighty queer before they ca'm down.
She'd have come to herself if McGill had given her time."
"Hm-m! It's too late now." Both men nodded. "When 'll you leave for John
Daniels Creek?"
"When? _Now!_ I've got enough of this camp, and I'll have these
bar-fixtures packed in two hours."
* * * * *
McGill--or John Daniels, as he chose to call himself--saw his dream come
true. The first stampeders came in August; gaunt fellows worn by
sleepless days and nights during which they had fought the swift waters
and the fear of pursuit. They were followed by a tiny river boat, then
an A. C. packet, loaded heavy and carrying Hopper with his bar-fixtures
and fifteen barrels of whisky. She had been aground a hundred times and
had passed other stranded craft laden with men who cursed her as she
gained the lead. A city of tents sprang up on the flats; it changed to
one of cabins when the first snow flew. John Daniels Creek was overrun,
at nights its tortuous course was lit by glowing fires, smoke hung above
it constantly, it became pitted with prospect holes. Trails were broken
to adjoining creeks where similar scenes were enacted. But of all who
came, few saw, and almost none spoke to, John Daniels himself, for he
never went to town and there was no welcome at his cabin. Of course his
name was on every tongue, but he toiled underground by day and hid
himself by night. Sometimes Hopper, on his way to or from Number Four