"You might come to love me in time, but we must wait a while, little girl. Surely that is reasonable? I care for you a great, great deal, but I don't know if I love you in the great way people should love. Can't we wait a little, Berna? I'll look after you, dear; won't that do?"

She disengaged herself from me, sighing woefully.

"Yes, I suppose that'll do. Oh, I'll never forgive myself for saying that to you. I shouldn't, but I was so desperate. You don't know what it meant to me. Please forget it, won't you?"

"No, Berna, I'll never forget it, and I'll always bless you for having said it. Believe me, dear, it will all come right. Things aren't so bad.

You're just scared, little one. I'll watch no one harms you, and love will come to both of us in good time, that love that means life and death, hate and adoration, rapture and pain, the greatest thing in the world. Oh, my dear, my dear, trust me! We have known each other such a brief space. Let us wait a little longer, just a little longer."

"Yes, that's right, a little longer."

Her voice was faint and toneless. She disengaged herself.

"Now, good-night; they may have missed me."

Almost before I could realise it she had disappeared amid the tents, leaving me there in the gloom with my heart full of doubt, self-reproach and pain.

Oh, despicable, paltering coward!

CHAPTER XII

Spring in the Yukon! Majestic mountains crowned with immemorial snow!

The mad midnight melodies of birds! From the kindly stars to the leaves of grass that glimmer in the wind, a world pregnant with joy, a land jewel-bright and virgin-sweet!

After the obsession of the long, long night, Spring leaps into being with a sudden sun-thrilled joy, a radiant uplift. The shy emerald mantles the valleys and fledges the heights; the pussy-willows tremble by lake and stream; the wild crocus brims the hollows with a haze of violet; trailing his last ragged pennants of snow on the hills, winter makes his sullen retreat.

Perhaps I am over-sensitive, but I have ecstasied moments when to me it seems the grass is greener, the sky bluer than they are to most; I surrender my heart to wonder and joy; I am in tune with the triumphant cadence of Things; I am an atom of praise; I live, therefore I exult.

Only in hyperbole could I express that golden Spring, as we set sail on the sunlit waters of Lake Bennett. Never had I felt so glad. And indeed it was a vastly merry mob that sailed with us, straining their eyes once more to the Eldorado of their dreams. Bottled-up spirits effervesced wildly; hearts beat bravely; hopes were high. The bitter landtrail was forgotten. The clear, bright water leaped laughingly at the bow; the gallant breeze was blowing behind. The strong men bared their breasts and drank of it deeply.

Yes, they were the strong, the fit, suffered by the North to survive, stiffened and braced and seasoned, the Chosen of the Test, the Proven of the Trail. Songs of jubilation rang in the night air; men, eager-eyed and watchful, roared snatches of melody as they toiled at sweep and oar; banjos, mandolins, fiddles, flutes, mingled in maddest confusion. Once more the great invading army of the Cheechakos moved forward tumultuously, but now with mirth and rejoicing.

The great calm night was never dark, the great deep lakes infinitely serene, the great mountains majestically solemn. In the lighted sky the pale ghost-moon seemed ever apologising for itself. The world was a grand harmonious symphony that even the advancing tide of the Argonauts could not mar.

Yet, under all the mirth and gaiety, you could feel, tense, ruthless and dominant, the spirit of the trail. In that invincible onrush of human effort, as the oars bent with their strokes of might, as the sail bellied before the breeze, as the eager wave leapt at the bow, you could feel the passion that quickened their hearts and steeled their arms.

Klondike or bust! Once more the slogan rang on bearded lips; once more the gold-lust smouldered in their eyes. The old primal lust resurged: to win at any cost, to thrust down those in the way, to fight fiercely, brutally, even as wolf-dogs fight, this was the code, the terrible code of the Gold-trail. The basic passions up-leapt, envy and hate and fear triumphed, and with ever increasing excitement the great fleet of the gold-hunters strained onward to the valley of the treasure.

Of all who had started out with us but a few had got this far. Of these Mervin and Hewson were far in front, victors of the trail, qualified to rank with the Men of the High North, the Sourdoughs of the Yukon Valley.

Somewhere in the fleet were the Bank clerk, the Halfbreed and Bullhammer, while three days' start ahead were the Winklesteins.

"These Jews have the only system," commented the Prodigal; "they ran the 'Elight' Restaurant in Bennett and got action on their beans and flour and bacon. The Madam cooked, the old man did the chores and the girl waited on table. They've roped in a bunch of money, and now they've lit out for Dawson in a nice, tight little scow with their outfits turned into wads of the long green."

I kept a keen lookout for them and every day I hoped we would overtake their scow, for constantly I thought of Berna. Her little face, so wistfully tender, haunted me, and over and over in my mind I kept recalling our last meeting.

At times I blamed myself for letting her go so easily, and then again I was thankful that I had not allowed my heart to run away with my head.

For I was beginning to wonder if I had not given her my heart, given it easily, willingly and without reserve. And in truth at the idea I felt a strange thrill of joy. The girl seemed to me all that was fair, lovable and sweet.

We were now skimming over Tagish Lake. With grey head bared to the breeze and a hymn stave on his lips, Salvation Jim steered in the strong sunlight. His face was full of cheer, his eyes alight with kindly hope.

Leaning over the side, the Prodigal was dragging a spoon-bait to catch the monster trout that lived in those depths. The Jam-wagon, as if disgusted at our enforced idleness, slumbered at the bow. As he slept I noticed his fine nostrils, his thin, bitter lips, his bare brawny arms, tattooed with strange devices. How clean he kept his teeth and nails!

There was the stamp of the thoroughbred all over him. In what strange parts of the world had he run amuck? What fair, gracious women mourned for him in far-away England?

Ah, those enchanted days, the sky spaces abrim with light, the gargantuan mountains, the eager army of adventurers, undismayed at the gloomy vastness!

We came to Windy Arm, rugged, desolate and despairful. Down it, with menace and terror on its wings, rushes the furious wind, driving boats and scows crashing on an iron shore. In the night we heard shouts; we saw wreckage piled up on the beach, but we pulled away. For twelve weary hours we pulled at the oars, and in the end our danger was past.

We came to Lake Tagish; a dead calm, a blazing sun, a seething mist of mosquitoes. We sweltered in the heat; we strained, with blistered hands, at the oars; we cursed and toiled like a thousand others of that grotesque fleet. There were boats of every shape, square, oblong, circular, three-cornered, flat, round--anything that would float. They were made mostly of boards, laboriously hand-sawn in the woods, and from a half-inch to four inches thick. Black pitch smeared the seams of the raw lumber. They travelled sideways as well as in any other fashion. And in such crazy craft were thousands of amateur boatmen, sailing serenely along, taking danger with sang-froid, and at night, over their camp-fires, hilariously telling of their hairbreadth escapes.

We entered the Fifty-mile River; we were in a giant valley; tier after tier of benchland rose to sentinel mountains of austerest grandeur.

There at the bottom the little river twisted like a silver wire, and down it rowed the eager army. They shattered the silence into wildest echo, they roused the bears out of their frozen sleep; the forest flamed from their careless fires.

The river was our beast of burden now, a tireless, gentle beast.

Serenely and smoothly it bore us onward, yet there was a note of menace in its song. They had told us of the canyon and of the rapids, and as we pulled at the oars and battled with the mosquitoes, we wondered when the danger was coming, how we would fare through it when it came.

Then one evening as we were sweeping down the placid river, the current suddenly quickened. The banks were sliding past at a strange speed.

Swiftly we whirled around a bend, and there we were right on top of the dreadful canyon. Straight ahead was what seemed to be a solid wall of rock. The river looked to have no outlet; but as we drew nearer we saw that there was a narrow chasm in the stony face, and at this the water was rearing and charging with an angry roar.

The current was gripping us angrily now; there was no chance to draw back. At his post stood the Jam-wagon with the keen, alert look of the man who loves danger. A thrill of excitement ran through us all. With set faces we prepared for the fight.

I was in the bow. All at once I saw directly in front a scow struggling to make the shore. In her there were three people, two women and a man.

I saw the man jump out with a rope and try to snub the scow to a tree.

Three times he failed, running along the bank and shouting frantically.

I saw one of the women jump for the shore. Then at the same instant the rope parted, and the scow, with the remaining woman, went swirling on into the canyon.

CHAPTER XIII

All this I saw, and so fascinated was I that I forgot our own peril. I heard a shrill scream of fear; I saw the solitary woman crouch down in the bottom of the scow, burying her face in her hands; I saw the scow rise, hover, and then plunge downward into the angry maw of the canyon.

The river hurried us on helplessly. We were in the canyon now. The air grew dark. On each side, so close it seemed we could almost touch them with our oars, were black, ancient walls, towering up dizzily. The river seemed to leap and buck, its middle arching four feet higher than its sides, a veritable hog-back of water. It bounded on in great billows, green, hillocky and terribly swift, like a liquid toboggan slide. We plunged forward, heaved aloft, and the black, moss-stained walls brindled past us.

About midway in the canyon is a huge basin, like the old crater of a volcano, sloping upwards to the pine-fringed skyline. Here was a giant eddy, and here, circling round and round, was the runaway scow. The forsaken woman was still crouching on it. The light was quite wan, and we were half blinded by the flying spray, but I clung to my place at the bow and watched intently.

"Keep clear of that scow," I heard some one shout. "Avoid the eddy."

It was almost too late. The ill-fated scow spun round and swooped down on us. In a moment we would have been struck and overturned, but I saw Jim and the Jam-wagon give a desperate strain at the oars. I saw the scow swirling past, just two feet from us. I looked again--then with a wild panic of horror I saw that the crouching figure was that of Berna.

I remember jumping--it must have been five feet--and I landed half in, half out of the water. I remember clinging a moment, then pulling myself aboard. I heard shouts from the others as the current swept them into the canyon. I remember looking round and cursing because both sweeps had been lost overboard, and lastly I remember bending over Berna and shouting in her ear:

"All right, I'm with you!"

If an angel had dropped from high heaven to her rescue I don't believe the girl could have been more impressed. For a moment she stared at me unbelievingly. I was kneeling by her and she put her hands on my shoulders as if to prove to herself that I was real. Then, with a half-sob, half-cry of joy, she clasped her arms tightly around me.

Something in her look, something in the touch of her slender, clinging form made my heart exult. Once again I shouted in her ear.