The Triumph of John Kars | Page 2

strong. I'm just a woman,
and--and he's my father. He's overdue by six weeks. He's not back yet,
and we've had no word from him all summer."
Her impatience became swallowed up by her anxiety again. The appeal
of her manner, her beauty were not lost upon the man.
"So you stand around looking at the trail he needs to come over, setting
up a fever of trouble for yourself figgering on the traps and things
nature's laid out for us folk beyond those hills. Guess that's a woman
sure."
Hot, impatient words rose to the girl's lips, but she choked them back.

"I can't argue it," she cried, a little desperately. "Father should have
been back six weeks ago. You know that. He isn't back. Well?"
"Allan and I have run this old post ten years," Murray said soberly. "In
those ten years there's not been a single time that Allan's hit the
northern trail on a trade when he's got back to time by many
weeks--generally more than six. It don't seem to me I've seen his little
girl standing around same as she's doing now--ever before."
The girl drew her collar up about her neck. The gesture was a mere
desire for movement.
"I guess I've never felt as I do now," she said miserably.
"How?"
The girl's words came in a sudden passionate rush.
"Oh, it's no use!" she cried. "You wouldn't understand. You're a good
partner. You're a big man on the trail. Guess there's no bigger men on
the trail than you and father--unless it's John Kars. But you all fight
with hard muscle. You figure out the sums as you see them. You don't
act as women do when they don't know. I've got it all here," she added,
pressing her fur mitted hands over her bosom, her face flushed and her
eyes shining with emotion. "I know, I feel there's something amiss. I've
never felt this way before. Where is he? Where did he go this time? He
never tells us. You never tell us. We don't know. Can't help be sent?
Can't I go with an outfit and search for him?"
The man's smile had died out. His big eyes, strange, big dark eyes,
avoided the girl's. They turned towards the desolate, sunlit horizon. His
reply was delayed as though he were seeking what best to say.
The girl waited with what patience she could summon. She was born
and bred to the life of this fierce northern world, where women look to
their men for guidance, where they are forced to rely upon man's
strength for life itself.

She gazed upon the round profile, awaiting that final word which she
felt must be given. Murray McTavish was part of the life she lived on
the bitter heights of the Yukon territory. In her mind he was a fixture of
the fort which years since had been given her father's name. He was a
young man, a shade on the better side of thirty-five, but he possessed
none of the features associated with the men of the trail. His roundness
was remarkable, and emphasized by his limited stature. His figure was
the figure of a middle-aged merchant who has spent his life in the
armchair of a city office. His neck was short and fat. His face was
round and full. The only feature he possessed which lifted him out of
the ruck of the ordinary was his eyes. These were unusual enough.
There was their great size, and a subtle glowing fire always to be
discovered in the large dark pupils. They gave the man a suggestion of
tremendous passionate impulse. One look at them and the insignificant,
the commonplace bodily form was forgotten. An impression of flaming
energy supervened. The man's capacity for effort, physical or mental,
for emotion, remained undoubted.
But Jessie Mowbray was too accustomed to the man to dwell on these
things, to notice them. His easy, smiling, good-natured manner was the
man known to the inhabitants of Fort Mowbray, and the Mission of St.
Agatha on the Snake River.
The man's reply came at last. It came seriously, earnestly.
"I can't guess how this notion's got into you, Jessie," he said, his eyes
still dwelling on the broken horizon. "Allan's the hardest man in the
north--not even excepting John Kars, who's got you women-folk
mesmerized. Allan's been traipsing this land since two years before you
were born, and that is more than twenty years ago. There's not a hill, or
valley, or river he don't know like a school kid knows its alphabet. Not
an inch of this devil's playground for nigh a range of three hundred
miles. There isn't a trouble on the trail he's not been up against, and
beat every time. And now--why, now