The Yukon Trail: A Tale of the North. William MacLeod Raine
was trouble afoot. He signaled to the engine room to reverse and blew short, sharp shrieks of warning. Already deckhands and officers, scantily clad, were appearing from fore and aft.
"Men overboard—two of 'em!" explained Elliot in a shout from the boat which he was trying to lower.
The first mate and another man ran to help him. The three of them lowered and manned the boat. Gordon sat in the bow and gave directions while the other two put their backs into the stroke. Quite casually Elliot noticed that the man in the waist had a purple bruise on his left cheek bone. The young man himself had put it there not three minutes since.
Across the water came a call for help. "I'm sinking—hurry!"
The other man in the river was a dozen yards from the one in distress. With strong, swift, overhand strokes he shot through the water.
"All right," he called presently. "I've got him."
The oarsmen drew alongside the swimmer. With one hand Macdonald caught hold of the edge of the boat. The other clutched the rescued man by the hair of his head.
"Look out. You're drowning him," the mate warned.
"Am I?" Macdonald glanced with mild interest at the head that had been until that moment submerged. "Shows how absent-minded a man gets. I was thinking about how he tried to drown me, I expect."
They dragged the miner aboard.
"Go ahead. I'll swim down," Macdonald ordered.
"Better come aboard," advised the mate.
"No. I'm all right."
The Scotchman pushed himself back from the boat and fell into an easy stroke. Nevertheless, there was power in it, for he reached the Hannah before the rescued miner had been helped to the deck.
A dozen passengers, crowded on the lower deck, pushed forward eagerly to see. Among them was Selfridge, his shirt and collar torn loose at the neck and his immaculate checked suit dusty and disheveled. He was wearing a pair of up-to-date Oxford tans.
The Scotch-Canadian shook himself like a Newfoundland dog. He looked around with sardonic amusement, a grin on his swollen and disfigured face.
"Quite a pleasant welcome home," he said ironically, his cold eyes fixed on a face that looked as if it might have been kicked by a healthy mule. "Eh, Trelawney?"
The Cornishman glared at him, and turned away with a low, savage oath.
"Are you hurt, Mr. Macdonald?" asked the captain.
"Hurt! Not at all, Captain. I cut myself while I was shaving this morning—just a scratch," was the ironic answer.
"There's been some dirty work going on. I'll see the men are punished, sir."
"Forget it, Captain. I'll attend to that little matter." His jaunty, almost insolent glance made the half-circle again. "Sorry you were too late for the party, gentlemen—most of you. I see three or four of you who were 'among those present.' It was a strictly exclusive affair. And now, if you don't mind, I'll say good-night."
He turned on his heel, went up the stairway to the deck above, and disappeared into his stateroom.
The rescued miner, propped against the cabin wall where he had been placed, broke into sudden excited protest. "Ach! He tried to drown me. Mein head—he hold it under the water."
"Ain't that just like a Swede?" retorted the mate in disgust. "Mac saves his life. Then the roughneck kicks because he got a belly full of Yukon. Sure Mac soused him some. Why shouldn't he?"
"I ain't no Swede," explained the big miner sullenly.
The mate did not think it worth his while to explain that "Swede" was merely his generic term of contempt for all foreigners.
CHAPTER III
THE GIRL FROM DROGHEDA
Gordon Elliot was too much of a night owl to be an early riser, but next morning he was awakened by the tramp of hurried feet along the deck to the accompaniment of brusque orders, together with frequent angry puffing and snorting of the boat. From the quiver of the walls he guessed that the Hannah was stuck on a sandbar. The mate's language gave backing to this surmise. Divided in mind between his obligation to the sleeping passengers and his duty to get the boat on her way, that officer spilled a good deal of subdued sulphurous language upon the situation.
"All together now. Get your back into it. Why are you running around like a chicken without a head, Reeves?" he snapped.
Evidently the deck hands were working to get the Hannah off by poling.
Elliot tried to settle back to sleep, but after two or three ineffectual efforts gave it up. He rose and did one or two setting-up exercises to limber his joints. The first of these flashed the signal to his brain that he was stiff and sore. This brought to mind the fight on the hurricane deck, and he smiled. His face was about as mobile as if it were in a plaster cast. It hurt every time he twitched a muscle.
The young man stepped to the looking-glass. Both eyes were blacked, his lip had been cut, and there was a purple weal well up on his left cheek. He stopped himself from grinning only just in time to save another twinge of pain.
"Some party while it lasted. I never saw more willing mixers. Everybody seemed anxious to sit in except Mr. Wally Selfridge," he explained to his reflection. "But Macdonald is the class. He's there with both right and left. That uppercut of his is vicious. Don't ever get in the way of it, Gordon Elliot." He examined his injuries more closely in the glass. "Some one landed a peach on my right lamp and the other is in mourning out of sympathy. Oh, well, I ain't the only prize beauty on board this morning." The young man forgot and smiled. "Ouch! Don't do that, Gordon. Yes, son. 'There's many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine.' Now isn't that the truth?"
He bathed, dressed, and went out on the deck.
Early though he was, one passenger at least was up before him. The young woman he had noticed last evening with the magazine was doing a constitutional. A slight breeze was stirring, and as she moved against it the white skirt clung first to one knee and then the other, moulding itself to the long lines of her limbs with exquisite grace of motion. It was as though her walk were the expression of a gallant and buoyant personality.
Irish he guessed her when the deep-blue eyes rested on his for an instant as she passed, and fortified his conjecture by the coloring of the clear-skinned face and the marks of the Celtic race delicately stamped upon it.
The purser came out of his room and joined Elliot. He smiled at sight of the young man's face.
"Your map's a little out of plumb this morning, sir," he ventured.
"But you ought to see the other fellow," came back Gordon boyishly.
"I've seen him—several of him. We've got the best collection of bruises on board I ever clapped eyes on. I've got to give it to you and Mr. Macdonald. You know how to hit."
"Oh, I'm not in his class."
Gordon Elliot meant what he said. He was himself an athlete, had played for three years left tackle on his college eleven. More than one critic had picked him for the All-America team. He could do his hundred in just a little worse than ten seconds. But after all he was a product of training and of the gymnasiums. Macdonald was what nature and a long line of fighting Highland ancestors had made him. His sinewy, knotted strength, his massive build, the breadth of shoulder and depth of chest—mushing on long snow trails was the gymnasium that had contributed to these.