The Danger Trail | Page 4

complimented
himself on this fact, and he laughed a little nervously as he went back
to his seat near the window. He was conscious that a flush of unusual
excitement had leaped into his cheeks and already the practical side of
him was ashamed of that to which the romantic side had surrendered.
"The deuce, but she was pretty!" he excused himself. "And those
eyes--"
Suddenly he checked himself. There had been more than the eyes; more
than the pretty face! Why had the girl paused in front of the window?
Why had she looked at him so intently, as though on the point of
speech? The smile and the flush left his face as these questions came to
him and he wondered if he had failed to comprehend something which
she had meant him to understand. After all, might it not have been a
case of mistaken identity? For a moment she had believed that she
recognized him--then, seeing her mistake, had passed swiftly down the
street. Under ordinary circumstances Howland would have accepted
this solution of the incident. But to-night he was in an unusual mood,
and it quickly occurred to him that even if his supposition were true it
did not explain the pallor in the girl's face and the strange entreaty
which had glowed for an instant in her eyes.
Anyway it was none of his business, and he walked casually to the door.
At the end of the street, a quarter of a mile distant, a red light burned
feebly over the front of a Chinese restaurant, and in a mechanical
fashion his footsteps led him in that direction.
"I'll drop in and have a cup of tea," he assured himself, throwing away
the stub of his cigar and filling his lungs with great breaths of the cold,
dry air. "Lord, but it's a glorious night! I wish Van Horn could see it."
He stopped and turned his eyes again into the North. Its myriad stars,
white and unshivering, the elusive play of the mysterious lights
hovering over the pole, and the black edge of the wilderness beyond the
river were holding a greater and greater fascination for him. Since
morning, when he had looked on that wilderness for the first time in his
life, new blood had entered into him, and he rejoiced that it was this

wonderful world which was to hold for him success and fortune. Never
had he dreamed that the mere joy of living would appeal to him as it
did now; that the act of breathing, of seeing, of looking on wonders in
which his hands had taken no part in the making, would fill him with
the indefinable pleasure which had suddenly become his experience.
He wondered, as he still stood gazing into the infinity of that other
world beyond the Saskatchewan, if romance was really quite dead in
him. Always he had laughed at romance. Work--the grim reality of
action, of brain fighting brain, of cleverness pitted against other men's
cleverness--had almost brought him to the point of regarding romance
in life as a peculiar illusion of fools--and women. But he was fair in his
concessions, and to-night he acknowledged that he had enjoyed the
romance of what he had seen and heard. And most of all, his blood had
been stirred by the beautiful face that had looked at him from out of the
night.
The tuneless thrumming of a piano sounded behind him. As he passed
through the low door of the restaurant a man and woman lurched past
him and in their irresolute faces and leering stare he read the
verification of his suspicions of the place. Through a second door he
entered a large room filled with tables and chairs, and pregnant with
strange odors. At one of the farther tables sat a long-queued Chinaman
with his head bowed in his arms. Behind a counter stood a second, as
motionless as an obelisk in the half gloom of the dimly illuminated
room, his evil face challenging Howland as he entered. The sound of a
piano came from above and with a bold and friendly nod the young
engineer mounted a pair of stairs.
"Tough joint," he muttered, falling into his old habit of communing
with himself. "Hope they make good tea."
At the sound of his footsteps on the stair the playing of the piano
ceased. He was surprised at what greeted him above. In startling
contrast to the loathsome environment below he entered a luxuriously
appointed room, heavily hung with oriental tapestries, and with half a
dozen onyx tables partially concealed behind screens and gorgeously
embroidered silk curtains. At one of these he seated himself and

signaled for service with the tiny bell near his hand. In response there
appeared a young Chinaman with