The Silver Horde. Rex Beach
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being a woman, they couldn't very well attack me personally, but they tried everything except physical violence, and I don't know how long they will refrain from that. These plants are owned separately, but they operate under an agreement, with one man at the head. His name is Marsh—Willis Marsh, and, of course, he's not my friend."
"Sort of 'United we stand, divided we fall.'"
"Exactly. That spreads the responsibility, and seems to leave nobody guilty for their evil deeds. The first thing they did was to sink my schooner—in the morning you will see her spars sticking up through the ice out in front there. One of their tugs 'accidentally' ran her down, although she was at anchor fully three hundred feet inside the channel line. Then Marsh actually had the effrontery to come here personally and demand damages for the injury to his towboat, claiming there were no lights on the schooner."
Cherry Malotte's eyes grew dark with indignation as she continued: "Nobody thinks of hanging lanterns to little crafts like her at anchor under such conditions. Having allowed me to taste his power, that man first threatened me covertly, and then proceeded to persecute me in a more open manner. When I still remained obdurate, he—he"—she paused. "You may have heard of it. He killed one of my men."
"Impossible!" ejaculated Boyd.
"Oh, but it isn't impossible. Anything is possible with unscrupulous men where there is no law; they halt at nothing when in chase of money. They are different from women in that. I never heard of a woman doing murder for money."
"Was it really murder?"
"Judge for yourself. My man came down for supplies, and they got him drunk—he was a drinking man—then they stabbed him. They said a Chinaman did it in a brawl, but Willis Marsh was to blame. They brought the poor fellow here, and laid him on my steps, as if I had been the cause of it. Oh, it was horrible, horrible!" Her eyes suddenly dimmed over and her white hands clenched.
"And you still stuck to your post?" said Emerson, curiously.
"Certainly! This adventure means a great deal to me, and, besides, I will not be beaten"—the stem of the glass with which she had been toying snapped suddenly—"at anything."
She appeared, all in a breath, to have become prematurely hard and worldly, after the fashion of those who have subsisted by their wits. To Emerson she seemed to have grown at least ten years older. Yet it was unbelievable that this slip of a woman should be possessed of the determination, the courage, and the administrative ability to conduct so desperate an enterprise. He could understand the feminine rashness that might have led her to embark upon it in the first place, but to continue in the face of such opposition—why, that was a man's work and required a man's powers, and yet she was utterly unmasculine. Indeed, it seemed to him that he had never met a more womanly woman. Everything about her was distinctly feminine.
"Fortunately, the fishing season is short," she added, while a pucker of perplexity came between her dainty brows; "but I don't know what will happen next summer."
"I'd like to meet this Marsh-hen party," observed Fraser, his usually colorless eyes a bright sea-green.
"Do you fear further—er—violence?" asked Emerson.
Cherry shrugged her rounded shoulders. "I anticipate it, but I don't fear it. I have Constantine to protect me, and you will admit he is a capable bodyguard." She smiled slightly, recalling the scene she had interrupted before dinner. "Then, too, Chakawana, his sister, is just as devoted. Rather a musical name, don't you think so, Chakawana? It means 'The Snowbird' in Aleut, but when she's aroused she's more like a hawk. It's the Russian in her, I dare say."
The girl became conscious that her guests were studying her with undisguised amazement now, and therefore arose, saying, "You may smoke in the other room if you wish."
Lost in wonder at this unconventional creature, and dazed by the strangeness of the whole affair, Emerson gained his feet and followed her, with "Fingerless" Fraser at his heels.
CHAPTER III
IN WHICH CHERRY MALOTTE DISPLAYS A TEMPER
The unsuspected luxury of the dining-room, and the excellence of the dinner itself had in a measure prepared Emerson for what he found in the living-room. One thing only staggered him—a piano. The bear-skins on the floor, the big, sleepy chairs, the reading-table littered with magazines, the shelves of books, even the basket of fancy-work—all these he could accept without further parleying; but a piano! in Kalvik! Observing his look, the girl said:
"I am dreadfully extravagant, am I not? But I love it, and I have so little to do. I read and play and drive my dog-team—that's about all."
"And rescue drowning men in time for dinner," added Boyd Emerson, not knowing whether he liked this young woman or not. He knew this north country from bitter experience, knew that none but the strong can survive, and recognizing himself as a failure, her calm assurance and self-certainty offended him vaguely. It seemed as if she were succeeding where he had failed, which rather jarred his sense of the fitness of things. Then, too, conventionality is a very agreeable social bond, the true value of which is not often recognized until it is found missing, and this girl was anything but conventional.
Again he withdrew into that silent mood from which no effort on the part of his hostess could arouse him, and it soon became apparent from the listless hang of his hands and the distant light in his eyes that he had even become unconscious of her presence in the room. Observing the cause of her impatience, Fraser interrupted his interminable monologue to say, without change of intonation:
"Don't get sore on him; he's that way half the time. I rode herd one night on a feller that was going to hang for murder at dawn, and he set just like that for hours." She raised her brows inquiringly, at which he continued: "But you can't always tell; when my brother got married he acted the same way."
After an hour, during which Emerson barely spoke, she tired of the other man's anecdotes, which had long ceased to be amusing, and, going to the piano, shuffled the sheet music idly, inquiring:
"Do you care for music?" Her remark was aimed at Emerson, but the other answered:
"I'm a nut on it."
She ignored the speaker, and cast another question over her shoulder:
"What kind do you prefer?" Again the adventurer outran his companion to the reply:
"My favorite hymn is the Maple Leaf Rag. Let her go, professor."
Cherry settled herself obligingly and played ragtime, although she fancied that Emerson stirred uneasily as if the musical interruption disturbed him; but when she swung about on her seat at the conclusion, he was still lax and indifferent.
"That certainly has some class to it," "Fingerless" Fraser said, admiringly. "Just go through the reperchure from soda to hock, will you? I'm certainly fond of that coon clatter." And realizing that his pleasure was genuine, she played on and on for him, to the muffled thump of his feet, now and then feeding her curiosity with a stolen glance at the other. She was in the midst of some syncopated measure when Boyd spoke abruptly: "Please play something."
She understood what he meant and began really to play, realizing very soon that at least one of her guests knew and loved music. Under her deft fingers the instrument became a medium for musical speech. Gay roundelays, swift, passionate Hungarian dances, bold Wagnerian strains followed in quick succession, and the more utter her abandon the more certainly she felt the younger man respond.
Strange to say, the warped soul of "Fingerless" Fraser likewise felt the spell of real music, and he stilled his loose-hinged tongue. By-and-by she began to sing, more for her own amusement than for theirs, and after awhile her fingers strayed upon the sweet chords of Bartlett's A Dream, a half-forgotten thing, the tenderness of which had lived with her from girlhood. She heard Emerson rise, then