The Spoilers. Rex Beach
Chester,” he repeated, musingly. “What a pretty name! It seems almost a pity to change it—to marry, as you will.”
“I am not going to Nome to get married.”
He glanced at her quickly.
“Then you won’t like this country. You are two years too early; you ought to wait till there are railroads and telephones, and tables d’hôte, and chaperons. It’s a man’s country yet.”
“I don’t see why it isn’t a woman’s country, too. Surely we can take a part in taming it. Yonder on the Oregon is a complete railroad, which will be running from the coast to the mines in a few weeks. Another ship back there has the wire and poles and fixings for a telephone system, which will go up in a night. As to tables d’hôte, I saw a real French count in Seattle with a monocle. He’s bringing in a restaurant outfit, imported snails, and pâté de foies gras. All that’s wanting is the chaperon. In my flight from the Ohio I left mine. The sailors caught her. You see I am not far ahead of schedule.”
“What part are you going to take in this taming process?” he asked.
She paused long before replying, and when she did her answer sounded like a jest.
“I herald the coming of the law,” she said.
“The law! Bah! Red tape, a dead language, and a horde of shysters! I’m afraid of law in this land; we’re too new and too far away from things. It puts too much power in too few hands. Heretofore we men up here have had recourse to our courage and our Colt’s, but we’ll have to unbuckle them both when the law comes. I like the court that hasn’t any appeal.” He laid hand upon his hip.
“The Colt’s may go, but the courage never will,” she broke in.
“Perhaps. But I’ve heard rumors already of a plot to prostitute the law. In Unalaska a man warned Dextry, with terror in his eye, to beware of it; that beneath the cloak of Justice was a drawn dagger whetted for us fellows who own the rich diggings. I don’t think there’s any truth in it, but you can’t tell.”
“The law is the foundation—there can’t be any progress without it. There is nothing here now but disorder.”
“There isn’t half the disorder you think there is. There weren’t any crimes in this country till the tender-feet arrived. We didn’t know what a thief was. If you came to a cabin you walked in without knocking. The owner filled up the coffee-pot and sliced into the bacon; then when he’d started your meal, he shook hands and asked your name. It was just the same whether his cache was full or whether he’d packed his few pounds of food two hundred miles on his back. That was hospitality to make your Southern article look pretty small. If there was no one at home, you ate what you needed. There was but one unpardonable breach of etiquette—to fail to leave dry kindlings. I’m afraid of the transitory stage we’re coming to—that epoch of chaos between the death of the old and the birth of the new. Frankly, I like the old way best. I love the license of it. I love to wrestle with nature; to snatch, and guard, and fight for what I have. I’ve been beyond the law for years and I want to stay there, where life is just what it was intended to be—a survival of the fittest.”
His large hands, as he gripped the bulwark, were tense and corded, while his rich voice issued softly from his chest with the hint of power unlimited behind it. He stood over her, tall, virile, and magnetic. She saw now why he had so joyously hailed the fight of the previous night; to one of his kind it was as salt air to the nostrils. Unconsciously she approached him, drawn by the spell of his strength.
“My pleasures are violent and my hate is mighty bitter in my mouth. What I want, I take. That’s been my way in the old life, and I’m too selfish to give it up.”
He was gazing out upon the dimly lucent miles of ice; but now he turned towards her, and, doing so, touched her warm hand next his on the rail.
She was staring up at him unaffectedly, so close that the faint odor from her hair reached him. Her expression was simply one of wonder and curiosity at this type, so different from any she had known. But the man’s eyes were hot and blinded with the sight of her, and he felt only her beauty heightened in the dim light, the brush of her garments, and the small, soft hand beneath his. The thrill from the touch of it surged over him—mastered him.
“What I want—I take,” he repeated, and then suddenly he reached forth and, taking her in his arms, crushed her to him, kissing her softly, fiercely, full upon the lips. For an instant she lay gasping and stunned against his breast, then she tore her fist free and, with all her force, struck him full in the face.
It was as though she beat upon a stone. With one movement he forced her arm to her side, smiling into her terrified eyes; then, holding her like iron, he kissed her again and again upon the mouth, the eyes, the hair—and released her.
“I am going to love you—Helen,” said he.
“And may God strike me dead if I ever stop hating you!” she cried, her voice coming thick and hoarse with passion.
Turning, she walked proudly forward towards her cabin, a trim, straight, haughty figure; and he did not know that her knees were shaking and weak.
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