Hulbert Footner

“ One must try to be fair, even to one's murderer. He loved her with the better part of him, and the gold with the baser part. The pull of the gold was stronger; he had given himself to the gold. Therefore the mere existence of Ann had become a reproach to him. He was going to kill her, not because the gold was hers, but because he could not give himself wholly to it while Ann lived.
Her rival, thought Ann, with the hint of a twisted smile in the direction of the thick bag squatting there, toadlike and obscene, half covered with their spare clothes. Ann might break her heart to win him. ”

“ Ann whispered sharply. “I'll be all right in a moment.”
“What do you think I am?” Chako cried in his rage. “Do you think I'm going to tie myself up to a woman who holds the purse, and makes me jump through hoops to get a dollar? Not on your life! I'm not getting married for nothing! Marriage is a sacrifice, to a man like me. If I've got to shut myself up in a house, I'm going to be the boss of that house. No woman is going to tell me how much I can spend for my own good!” ”

“ To Ann, sitting there with her breast made tender by pain, it seemed as if the very trees turned into stone. In all created things the stubborn will to live seemed to faint. It was difficult to breathe such an air.
By and by Ann was greatly startled to hear a sound in the stillness—that is, a sound other than the drumming of the falls, which was always there, like an accompaniment to the stillness. It was the sound of dropping stones, and Chako must be making it. ”

“ During the tedious business of baking the biscuit, he took himself off out of sight.
When they had eaten, Chako remained sitting glumly. He had no appetite for his pipe to-day. Ann cleaned up without any help from him.
Glancing at him covertly, the realization suddenly came to her that a man might make himself hard and brutal, yet suffer the torments of the damned, too—that, in fact, such men were the damned. Behind Chako's cruel, savage mask she perceived an unspeakable wretchedness, and her heart melted. She began to feel again, but the warm tide had a healing effect. ”

“ Better for her to be thinking how she could save herself. Surely there must be a right thing for her to say—a thing that would turn Chako from his purpose! If she could but find it! Surely, if she showed him how well she understood him and sympathized with him, even in his murderous promptings, he could not kill her!
But at that thought she smiled in self-scorn. When a man did not understand himself, how could she begin to explain that she understood him? ”

“ She glanced at Chako again. He was looking over her head at his course downstream. A slight change of expression when Ann looked at. him showed that he was aware of her glance, but his gaze never deviated. His eyes were narrowed, and hard as a wolf's. In his hate and hardness, he was still splendid to look at; yet beauty was truth, and truth beauty!
How strange that a man should be so bent on killing that which loved him best! ”

“ XXIII As long as they stayed in Joe Maury's winter camp, Ann occupied the shack at night, and Chako slept outside. There was nothing in the way of a bed or a hammock for her, but the earth floor was no harder than the earth outside, on which she had slept for many a night now, and it was a comfort to sleep within walls, rude as they were. They shut out the presence of the vast stillness.
She awakened with a painful foreboding in her breast. Her love was not destined to be a happy one. ”

“ Ann could not bear it. It was foul and unnatural that gold should so bewitch a young man. She abruptly got up, and walked away along the river bank.
Walking up and down out of his sight, she tormented herself. How insane it was to be jealous of a thing! She must get the better of it. Ah, but how unspeakably humiliating it was to be cast aside for a bag of earthy stuff!
She, Ann, was the fit mate for Chako; her heart told her so. She could have helped him find himself. She knew she was not the sort of woman that got her hooks into a man, to use Chako's own phrase. ”

“ With a nervous gesture, Ann pushed the paddle away. Chako retrieved the fluttering piece of silk. Ann got to her feet, and essayed to walk away with firmness, but her legs gave way under her, and down she went without a sound.
She lay still, with her head between her arms. She had not fainted. No such mercy was vouchsafed her. She was fully conscious of her pain. No cries, no tears, came to ease her breast.
Chako, a little alarmed by her stillness, cried harshly:
“What's the matter with you? This is only play acting! Can't you act like a reasonable woman?” ”

“ He kept at work the greater part of the day, carefully carrying the earth outside on a square of canvas. In the afternoon he went off to search the two paths—one climbing the broken rocks to the cliffs, the other running down the shore to the diggings.
Next morning Chako climbed to the top of the shack, and commenced jabbing his knife into the sods, going over it foot by foot. The consciousness of the futility of his occupation did not tend to make his temper better. From time to time he cast furious glances at Ann, as if daring her to ridicule him. ”

“ A dreadful silence fell between them. Ann, with held breath, listened for the click of the reloading. She dared not turn back at once. To have looked at him would have revealed her fatal knowledge. She had to say something that would give him no clew.
“How long is it going to take us to get out?” she murmured carelessly.
Chako did not answer immediately, and this gave Ann time to look at him in a natural way. He was talking up the paddle again. The blood had rushed to his pale face, giving it a swollen look. His eyes were terrible with rage and pain and frustration. ”

“ Ann sat silently calling on all her strength to meet the test.
“Yes, and you needn't think you can sit there so quiet, and pit your will against mine!” cried Chako. “What do I care about your will power? What good is will power to you, when I could break your back across my knee like a dry twig?” ”

“ Chako softly drawled. “Looks so comical to see my little man sewing for dear life! I won't know you when you put on skirts again. I'll be sorry—you're such a cocky little chap in your breeches and boots!”
Ann gave no sign. He was piqued by his failure to draw her.
“Haven't you got a word to throw me?” he grumbled.
“What is there to say?” murmured Ann, very low.
“Just like a woman!” he replied sorely. “Bound to hold things against a man until kingdom come. Got to store up every little thing until it spoils! Can't you let what's past be past? Can't we make a fresh start?” ”

“ Chako abandoned himself to rage.
“Oh, I know the kind of woman you are!” he shouted. “I've seen it from the first! It's rule or ruin with you! You want a man well broke, don't you? You want to keep your hands on your money, and your foot on my neck! Well, not for me! Not for me! No, thanks!”
There was much more of this.
Under the storm of Chako's rage, Ann came out of her daze. She finally sat up, oddly composed. She had recovered her human dignity. ”

“ Chako said nothing at the moment, though his face was black with rage. When he rose, he observed:
“If you gorge yourself now, you'll only have to go hungry later. I'm not going to leave here until I find what I'm looking for.”
“You're mad!” said Ann.
“Sure,” he said. “It's great to be crazy!”
“What good will it do you if you haven't strength enough to carry it out?”
“Oh, finding it will give me plenty of strength,” said Chako, with the smile of one possessed. “I'm going to take to-morrow off to hunt. There are ptarmigan on the mountain, and I might get a shot at a goat.” ”

“ This question threw Ann into confusion. Either answer was charged with danger. She needed time to think. She hesitated fatally.
“No!” she said at last.
“Ha!” cried Chako. “Why, that's not human!”
“Well, you've accused me often enough of not being human,” retorted Ann.
“Don't bandy words with me!” he cried roughly. “Nobody, man nor woman, would willingly turn their backs on all that gold. You're lying!”
Ann sat still as a stone. He leaned forward on hands and knees, sticking his face toward her across the fire.
“Do you know where the gold is?” he asked her. ”

“ His eyes had the same look of balked fury that they had shown while he was engaged on his fruitless hunt for the gold—with this difference, that now he had an object to vent his fury on, and that was Ann.
Ann had expected nothing else. In order to keep the peace as far as possible, she remained away from the fire until he had cooked and eaten his breakfast. Then she ate what was left. She did not require much.
They did not speak. Another man would have taken pains to veil the baleful fires in his eyes; but not so Chako. His rage and hatred blazed out nakedly. ”

“ Ann could not imagine what was brewing. A nature so wild and unreasoning as Chako's gave you no line to go on.
“Different kinds of wood are like different natures of men,” he went on, kneeling to his task. “Poplar burns slow and sulky, with a spicy smell and plenty of smoke. Not much good, except to keep off mosquitoes. Pine burns quick and hot; burns down to a fine ash. Hard wood—only there isn't any in this country—hard wood catches slow, and burns steady and clear. A hardwood log will burn up by itself, while pine needs two or three sticks for company.” ”

“ She pictured all the terrible, laborious years during which the gold had been stored up pinch by pinch, and it seemed wicked that it should be wasted without anybody being the better. Being the better! On the contrary, there was gold enough in that bag to feed the evil in Chako till it consumed him body and soul. ”

“ Joe Grouser kept a tally on the back of the door. He shaved the poles down to give himself a clean place to write on. So many ounces a day—sometimes four, sometimes six, sometimes ten. It totals more than two hundred pounds. Now I know it's here!”
Ann's breast experienced a sort of jaded thrill. Two hundred pounds of gold was a fortune. She had a momentary glimpse of what it would buy; but she could not get excited over it. She looked at Chako's changed face, and hated the gold.
“You take it pretty cool,” Chako said, with a hard glance of suspicion. ”

“ Ann said to herself, and tried to meet him on his own matter-of-fact level. “You must not overexert yourself again,” she told him.
“Oh, the portage around the cañon's on an easy grade,” said Chako confidently. “Besides, it's not so far.”
After a hasty breakfast he loaded the canoe. The bag of gold was his main concern, of course. As the landing in front of their camp was shelving, he was obliged to wade into the water in order to place the heavy weight in the center of the canoe. ”

“ His head was full of nothing in the world but the details of their forthcoming trip.
“What bothers me,” he said, surveying their baggage, “is that we've got just a little too much for two trips around the cañon, and not enough for three.”
“You are a fool!” ”

“ Makes you feel fine, doesn't it, to give it away so grandly? You're always trying to make out that I'm a sort of low hound, a poor worm that it's scarcely worth your while to step on. Well, I'm sick of it! ”