The Spoilers | Page 8

a time, and I made a mistake. These men will help you
through; I can't. Then when you get to Nome, make your sweetheart
marry you the day you land. You are too far north to be alone."
He stepped out into the passage and closed the door carefully.
CHAPTER III
IN WHICH GLENISTER ERRS
"Well, bein' as me an' Glenister is gougin' into the bowels of Anvil
Creek all last summer, we don't really get the fresh-grub habit fastened
on us none. You see, the gamblers down-town cop out the few aigs an'
green vegetables that stray off the ships, so they never get out as far as
the Creek none; except, maybe, in the shape of anecdotes.
"We don't get intimate with no nutriments except hog-boosum an'
brown beans, of which luxuries we have unstinted measure, an' bein' as
this is our third year in the country we hanker for bony fido grub,
somethin' scan'lous. Yes, ma'am--three years without a taste of fresh
fruit nor meat nor nuthin'--except pork an' beans. Why, I've et bacon till

my immortal soul has growed a rind.
"When it comes time to close down the claim, the boy is sick with the
fever an' the only ship in port is a Point Barrow whaler, bound for
Seattle. After I book our passage, I find they have nothin' aboard to eat
except canned salmon, it bein' the end of a two years' cruise, so when I
land in the States after seventeen days of a fish diet, I am what you
might call sated with canned grub, and have added salmon to the list of
things concernin' which I am goin' to economize.
"Soon's ever I get the boy into a hospital, I gallop up to the best
restarawnt in town an' prepare for the huge pot-latch. This here, I
determine, is to be a gormandizin' jag which shall live in hist'ry, an'
wharof in later years the natives of Puget Sound shall speak with bated
breath.
"First, I call for five dollars' worth of pork an' beans an' then a
full-grown platter of canned salmon. When the waiter lays 'em out in
front of me, I look them vittles coldly in their disgustin' visages, an' say
in sarcastic accents:
"'Set there, damn you! an' watch me eat REAL grub,' which I proceed
to do, cleanin' the menu from soda to hock. When I have done my
worst, I pile bones an' olive seeds an' peelin's all over them articles of
nourishment, stick toothpicks into 'em, an' havin' offered 'em what
other indignities occur to me, I leave the place."
Dextry and the girl were leaning over the stern-rail, chatting idly in the
darkness. It was the second night out and the ship lay dead in the
ice-pack. All about them was a flat, floe-clogged sea, leprous and
mottled in the deep twilight that midnight brought in this latitude. They
had threaded into the ice-field as long as the light lasted, following the
lanes of blue water till they closed, then drifting idly till others
appeared; worming out into leagues of open sea, again creeping into the
shifting labyrinth till darkness rendered progress perilous.
Occasionally they had passed herds of walrus huddled sociably upon
ice-pans, their wet hides glistening in the sunlight. The air had been

clear and pleasant, while away on all quarters they had seen the smoke
of other ships toiling through the barrier. The spring fleet was knocking
at the door of the Golden North.
Chafing at her imprisonment, the girl had asked the old man to take her
out on deck under the shelter of darkness; then she had led him to speak
of his own past experiences, and of Glenister's; which he had done
freely. She was frankly curious about them, and she wondered at their
apparent lack of interest in her own identity and her secret mission. She
even construed their silence as indifference, not realizing that these
Northmen were offering her the truest evidence of camaraderie.
The frontier is capable of no finer compliment than this utter disregard
of one's folded pages. It betokens that highest faith in one's fellow-man,
the belief that he should be measured by his present deeds, not by his
past. It says, translated: "This is God's free country where a man is a
man, nothing more. Our land is new and pure, our faces are to the front.
If you have been square, so much the better; if not, leave behind the
taints of artificial things and start again on the level--that's all."
It had happened, therefore, that since the men had asked her no
questions, she had allowed the hours to pass and still hesitated to
explain further than she had explained to Captain Stephens. It was
much easier to let things