CHAPTER XXI
"Yes; what does it all mean?" Corliss stretched lazily, and cocked uphis feet on the table. He was not especially interested, but ColonelTrethaway persisted in talking seriously.
"That's it! The very thing--the old and ever young demand which manslaps into the face of the universe." The colonel searched among thescraps in his note-book. "See," holding up a soiled slip of typedpaper, "I copied this out years ago. Listen. 'What a monstrousspectre is this man, this disease of the agglutinated dust, liftingalternate feet or lying drugged with slumber; killing, feeding,growing, bringing forth small copies of himself; grown up with hairlike grass, fitted with eyes that glitter in his face; a thing to setchildren screaming. Poor soul, here for so little, cast among so manyhardships, filled with desires so incommensurate and so inconsistent;savagely surrounded, savagely descended, irremediably condemned to preyupon his fellow-lives. Infinitely childish, often admirably valiant,often touchingly kind; sitting down to debate of right or wrong and theattributes of the deity; rising up to battle for an egg or die for anidea!'
"And all to what end?" he demanded, hotly, throwing down the paper,"this disease of the agglutinated dust?"
Corliss yawned in reply. He had been on trail all day and was yearningfor between-blankets.
"Here am I, Colonel Trethaway, modestly along in years, fairly wellpreserved, a place in the community, a comfortable bank account, noneed to ever exert myself again, yet enduring life bleakly and workingridiculously with a zest worthy of a man half my years. And to whatend? I can only eat so much, smoke so much, sleep so much, and thistail-dump of earth men call Alaska is the worst of all possible placesin the matter of grub, tobacco, and blankets."
"But it is the living strenuously which holds you," Corliss interjected.
"Frona's philosophy," the colonel sneered.
"And my philosophy, and yours."
"And of the agglutinated dust--"
"Which is quickened with a passion you do not take into account,--thepassion of duty, of race, of God!"
"And the compensation?" Trethaway demanded.
"Each breath you draw. The Mayfly lives an hour."
"I don't see it."
"Blood and sweat! Blood and sweat! You cried that after the rough andtumble in the Opera House, and every word of it was receipt in full."
"Frona's philosophy."
"And yours and mine."
The colonel threw up his shoulders, and after a pause confessed. "Yousee, try as I will, I can't make a pessimist out of myself. We are allcompensated, and I more fully than most men. What end? I asked, andthe answer forthcame: Since the ultimate end is beyond us, then theimmediate. More compensation, here and now!"
"Quite hedonistic."
"And rational. I shall look to it at once. I can buy grub andblankets for a score; I can eat and sleep for only one; ergo, why notfor two?"
Corliss took his feet down and sat up. "In other words?"
"I shall get married, and--give the community a shock. Communitieslike shocks. That's one of their compensations for beingagglutinative."
"I can't think of but one woman," Corliss essayed tentatively, puttingout his hand.
Trethaway shook it slowly. "It is she."
Corliss let go, and misgiving shot into his face. "But St. Vincent?"
"Is your problem, not mine."
"Then Lucile--?"
"Certainly not. She played a quixotic little game of her own andbotched it beautifully."
"I--I do not understand." Corliss brushed his brows in a dazed sort ofway.
Trethaway parted his lips in a superior smile. "It is not necessarythat you should. The question is, Will you stand up with me?"
"Surely. But what a confoundedly long way around you took. It is notyour usual method."
"Nor was it with her," the colonel declared, twisting his moustacheproudly.
A captain of the North-West Mounted Police, by virtue of hismagisterial office, may perform marriages in time of stress as well asexecute exemplary justice. So Captain Alexander received a call fromColonel Trethaway, and after he left jotted down an engagement for thenext morning. Then the impending groom went to see Frona. Lucile didnot make the request, he hastened to explain, but--well, the fact wasshe did not know any women, and, furthermore, he (the colonel) knewwhom Lucile would like to ask, did she dare. So he did it upon his ownresponsibility. And coming as a surprise, he knew it would be a greatjoy to her.
Frona was taken aback by the suddenness of it. Only the other day, itwas, that Lucile had made a plea to her for St. Vincent, and now it wasColonel Trethaway! True, there had been a false quantity somewhere,but now it seemed doubly false. Could it be, after all, that Lucilewas mercenary? These thoughts crowded upon her swiftly, with thecolonel anxiously watching her face the while. She knew she mustanswer quickly, yet was distracted by an involuntary admiration for hisbravery. So she followed, perforce, the lead of her heart, andconsented.
Yet the whole thing was rather strained when the four of them cametogether, next day, in Captain Alexander's private office. There was agloomy chill about it. Lucile seemed ready to cry, and showed arepressed perturbation quite unexpected of her; while, try as shewould, Frona could not call upon her usual sympathy to drive away thecoldness which obtruded intangibly between them. This, in turn, had aconsequent effect on Vance, and gave a certain distance to his mannerwhich forced him out of touch even with the colonel.
Colonel Trethaway seemed to have thrown twenty years off his erectshoulders, and the discrepancy in the match which Frona had feltvanished as she looked at him. "He has lived the years well," shethought, and prompted mysteriously, almost with vague apprehension sheturned her eyes to Corliss. But if the groom had thrown off twentyyears, Vance was not a whit behind. Since their last meeting he hadsacrificed his brown moustache to the frost, and his smooth face,smitten with health and vigor, looked uncommonly boyish; and yet,withal, the naked upper lip advertised a stiffness and resolutionhitherto concealed. Furthermore, his features portrayed a growth, andhis eyes, which had been softly firm, were now firm with the addedharshness or hardness which is bred of coping with things and copingquickly,--the stamp of executiveness which is pressed upon men who do,and upon all men who do, whether they drive dogs, buck the sea, ordictate the policies of empires.
When the simple ceremony was over, Frona kissed Lucile; but Lucile feltthat there was a subtle something wanting, and her eyes filled withunshed tears. Trethaway, who had felt the aloofness from the start,caught an opportunity with Frona while Captain Alexander and Corlisswere being pleasant to Mrs. Trethaway.
"What's the matter, Frona?" the colonel demanded, bluntly. "I hope youdid not come under protest. I am sorry, not for you, because lack offrankness deserves nothing, but for Lucile. It is not fair to her."
"There has been a lack of frankness throughout." Her voice trembled."I tried my best,--I thought I could do better,--but I cannot feignwhat I do not feel. I am sorry, but I . . . I am disappointed. No, Icannot explain, and to you least of all."
"Let's be above-board, Frona. St. Vincent's concerned?"
She nodded.
"And I can put my hand right on the spot. First place," he looked tothe side and saw Lucile stealing an anxious glance to him,--"firstplace, only the other day she gave you a song about St. Vincent.Second place, and therefore, you think her heart's not in this presentproposition; that she doesn't care a rap for me; in short, that she'smarrying me for reinstatement and spoils. Isn't that it?"
"And isn't it enough? Oh, I am disappointed, Colonel Trethaway,grievously, in her, in you, in myself."
"Don't be a fool! I like you too well to see you make yourself one.The play's been too quick, that is all. Your eye lost it. Listen.We've kept it quiet, but she's in with the elect on French Hill. Herclaim's prospected the richest of the outfit. Present indication halfa million at least. In her own name, no strings attached. Couldn'tshe take that and go anywh
ere in the world and reinstate herself? Andfor that matter, you might presume that I am marrying her for spoils.Frona, she cares for me, and in your ear, she's too good for me. Myhope is that the future will make up. But never mind that--haven't gotthe time now.
"You consider her affection sudden, eh? Let me tell you we've beengrowing into each other from the time I came into the country, and withour eyes open. St. Vincent? Pshaw! I knew it all the time. She gotit into her head that the whole of him wasn't worth a little finger ofyou, and she tried to break things up. You'll never know how sheworked with him. I told her she didn't know the Welse, and she saidso, too, after. So there it is; take it or leave it."
"But what do you think about St. Vincent?"
"What I think is neither here nor there; but I'll tell you honestlythat I back her judgment. But that's not the point. What are yougoing to do about it? about her? now?"
She did not answer, but went back to the waiting group. Lucile saw hercoming and watched her face.
"He's been telling you--?"
"That I am a fool," Frona answered. "And I think I am." And with asmile, "I take it on faith that I am, anyway. I--I can't reason it outjust now, but. . ."
Captain Alexander discovered a prenuptial joke just about then, and ledthe way over to the stove to crack it upon the colonel, and Vance wentalong to see fair play.
"It's the first time," Lucile was saying, "and it means more to me, somuch more, than to . . . most women. I am afraid. It is a terriblething for me to do. But I do love him, I do!" And when the joke hadbeen duly digested and they came back, she was sobbing, "Dear, dearFrona."
It was just the moment, better than he could have chosen; and cappedand mittened, without knocking, Jacob Welse came in.
"The uninvited guest," was his greeting. "Is it all over? So?" Andhe swallowed Lucile up in his huge bearskin. "Colonel, your hand, andyour pardon for my intruding, and your regrets for not giving me theword. Come, out with them! Hello, Corliss! Captain Alexander, a goodday."
"What have I done?" Frona wailed, received the bear-hug, and managed topress his hand till it almost hurt.
"Had to back the game," he whispered; and this time his hand did hurt.
"Now, colonel, I don't know what your plans are, and I don't care.Call them off. I've got a little spread down to the house, and theonly honest case of champagne this side of Circle. Of course, you'recoming, Corliss, and--" His eye roved past Captain Alexander withhardly a pause.
"Of course," came the answer like a flash, though the Chief Magistrateof the Northwest had had time to canvass the possible results of suchunofficial action. "Got a hack?"
Jacob Welse laughed and held up a moccasined foot. "Walkingbe--chucked!" The captain started impulsively towards the door. "I'llhave the sleds up before you're ready. Three of them, and bellsgalore!"
So Trethaway's forecast was correct, and Dawson vindicated itsagglutinativeness by rubbing its eyes when three sleds, with threescarlet-tuniced policemen swinging the whips, tore down its mainstreet; and it rubbed its eyes again when it saw the occupants thereof.
"We shall live quietly," Lucile told Frona. "The Klondike is not allthe world, and the best is yet to come."
But Jacob Welse said otherwise. "We've got to make this thing go," hesaid to Captain Alexander, and Captain Alexander said that he wasunaccustomed to backing out.
Mrs. Schoville emitted preliminary thunders, marshalled the otherwomen, and became chronically seismic and unsafe.
Lucile went nowhere save to Frona's. But Jacob Welse, who rarely wentanywhere, was often to be found by Colonel Trethaway's fireside, andnot only was he to be found there, but he usually brought somebodyalong. "Anything on hand this evening?" he was wont to say on casualmeeting. "No? Then come along with me." Sometimes he said it withlamb-like innocence, sometimes with a challenge brooding under hisbushy brows, and rarely did he fail to get his man. These men hadwives, and thus were the germs of dissolution sown in the ranks of theopposition.
Then, again, at Colonel Trethaway's there was something to be foundbesides weak tea and small talk; and the correspondents, engineers, andgentlemen rovers kept the trail well packed in that direction, thoughit was the Kings, to a man, who first broke the way. So the Trethawaycabin became the centre of things, and, backed commercially,financially, and officially, it could not fail to succeed socially.
The only bad effect of all this was to make the lives of Mrs. Schovilleand divers others of her sex more monotonous, and to cause them to losefaith in certain hoary and inconsequent maxims. Furthermore, CaptainAlexander, as highest official, was a power in the land, and JacobWelse was the Company, and there was a superstition extant concerningthe unwisdom of being on indifferent terms with the Company. And thetime was not long till probably a bare half-dozen remained in outercold, and they were considered a warped lot, anyway.