Ridgwell Cullum

“ Bell River lay far behind. Leagues beyond the shadowy hills serrating the purple horizon, it was lost like a bad dream yielding to the light of day.
For Kars the lure of it all was broken, broken beyond repair. The wide expanses of the northland had become a desert in which life was no longer endurable. The wind-swept crests, the undulating, barren plains no longer spoke of a boundless freedom and the elemental battle. These things had become something to forget in the absorbing claim of a life to come, wherein the harshness of battle had no place. ”

“ A haunting silence prevails in the land beyond the barrier of the Yukon watershed. It is a world apart, beyond, and the other land, the land where the battle of civilization still fluctuates, still sways under the violent passions of men, remains outside.
Its fascination is beyond all explanation. Yet it is as great as its conditions are merciless. Murray McTavish had sought the explanation, and found it in the fact that it was a land in which man could make his own laws and break them at his pleasure. ”

“ A moment later the voice of Murray McTavish challenged her.
"Why?"
The brief demand was gentle enough, yet it contained a sort of playful irony, which, at the moment, Jessie Mowbray resented. She turned. There was impatience in the eyes which confronted him. She regarded him steadily.
"Why? It's always why—with you, when feelings get the better of me. Maybe you never feel dread, or doubt, or worry. Maybe you never feel anything—human. Say, you're a man and strong. I'm just a woman, and—and he's my father. ”

“ For all that has been told of the sufferings of the Yukon rush they were incomparable with those which John Kars had been called upon to endure at an age when the terror of it all might well have overwhelmed him.
But he had done more than survive. Good fortune and sanity had been his greatest assets. The first seemed to have been his all through. Sanity only came to him at the cost of other men's experience. For all his hardihood he was deeply human. The early temptations of Leaping Horse had appealed to the virile youth in him. ”

“ Many of the defenders were Indian, like the attacking horde, though of superior race. Some were bastard whites, that most evil thing in human production in the outlands. A few were white, other than the leaders. Men belonging to that desperate crew always clinging to the fringe of human effort, where wealth is won by the lucky turn of the spade. Reckless creatures who live sunk in the deeps of indulgence of the senses, and without a shred of the conscience with which they were born. It was a collection of humanity such as only a man of Kars' characteristics could have controlled. ”

“ It was a trail of mud and washout. It was a trail of landslide and flood. It was a dripping land, dank with melting mists, and awash with the slush of the thaw. The skies were pouring out their flood of summer promise, those warming rains which must always be endured before the hordes of flies and mosquitoes swarm to announce the real open season.
But these men were hard beyond all complaint at physical discomfort. If they cursed the land they haunted, it was because it was their habit so to curse. ”

“ The loose buckskin coat, which reached to her knees, and had been fashioned and beaded by the Mission squaws, had picturesqueness. But she gained nothing from these things as a setting for her beauty.
But for Kars, at least, her beauty was undeniable. Her soft crown of chestnut hair, hatless, at the mercy of the mood of the breeze, to him seemed like a ruddy halo crowning a face of a childlike purity. Her gentle gray eyes were to him unfathomable wells of innocence, while her lips had all the ripeness of a delicious womanhood. ”

“ The vast incline of ancient glacier, rolling backwards and upwards in discolored waves from the precipitate opposite bank of Snake River. The woods, so darkly overpowering as the year progressed towards its old age. The shaking tundra, treacherous and hideous with rank growths of the summer. The river facets of broken crags awaiting the cloak of winter to conceal their crude nakedness. Then the trail, so slight, so faint. The work of sleds and moccasined feet through centuries of native traffic, with the occasional variation of the hard shod feet of the white adventurer. ”

“ Y'see, Jessie, I want to tell you things. I want to tell you I love you so that nothing else counts. I want to tell you I've been traipsing up and down this long trail hunting around all the while for something, and I guessed that something was—gold. So it was. I know that now. But it wasn't the gold we men-folk start out to buy our pleasures with. It was the sort of gold that don't lie around in 'placers.' It don't lie anywhere around in the earth. It's on top. It walks around, and it's in a good woman's heart. ”

“ Each rifle was pressed tight into the shoulder, while the hot barrel hurled its billet of death deep into the dusky bodies.
For Kars those moments were filled to the brim with the intoxicating elixir demanded by his elemental nature. He fought with a disregard of self that left its mark upon all those who were near by. He spared nothing, and his "automatic" drove terror, as well as death, into the hearts of those with whom he was confronted. It was good to fight for life in any form. ”

“ Those infinite depths, which the human mind can never regard unmoved.
The long, toilsome journey lay behind them. The goal lay awaiting the final desperate assault, with all its traps and hidden dangers. What a goal to have sought. It was like the dragon-guarded storehouse of the crudest folk-lore.
The white men stood apart from their Indian supporters. Kars knew the scene. He was observing the faces of the men who were gazing upon the gorge for the first time. They were full of interest. But it was left to Bill to interpret the general feeling in concrete form. ”

“ For Bill it was the great desire of his life fulfilled. His friend, the one man above all others he regarded, had finally stepped upon the path he had always craved for him. For himself? His years were passing. There was still work to be done in the unsavory purlieus of Leaping Horse.
For John Kars it was a moment of the profoundest, unalloyed joy. No searching of his emotions could have revealed anything but the wholesome feelings of a man who has achieved his destiny in those things which the God of All has set out for human desire. The world lay all before him. ”

“ Allan's the hardest man in the north—not even excepting John Kars, who's got you women-folk mesmerized. Allan's been traipsing this land since two years before you were born, and that is more than twenty years ago. There's not a hill, or valley, or river he don't know like a school kid knows its alphabet. Not an inch of this devil's playground for nigh a range of three hundred miles. There isn't a trouble on the trail he's not been up against, and beat every time. And now—why, now he's got a right outfit with him, same as always, you're worrying. ”

“ It was he who had led the faithful remnant of his outfit, in a desperate night sortie, from his indefensible camp on the river, and, by a reckless dash, had succeeded in reaching this temporary haven.
But he had been supported by his half civilized handful of creatures who well enough knew what mercy to expect from the enemy. And, anyway, they had been bred of a stock with a fighting history second to no race in the world. To a man, the defenders were prepared to sell their lives at a heavy price. And they would die rifle in hand and facing the enemy. ”

“ Then, before all, and above all, he counted the northland his home. So, when everything the world could yield him lay at his feet, the drear, silent north trail only knew him. His interests in the golden world of Leaping Horse were left behind him, while he satisfied his passion in the far hidden back countries where man is a mere incident in the world's unbroken silences. ”

“ With Abe Dodds emotion held small place. A cold fury rose under the lash of motive. It was the motive of a man ready at all times to spurn obstruction from his path. His heart was without mercy where his interests were threatened. These creatures were a wolf pack, from his view-point, and he yearned to shoot them down as such. Like Peigan Charley his desire was that every shot should sink deeply into the bowels of the enemy.
In a moment of lull Bill dragged a wounded man off the embankment at Kars' side. Kars withdrew his searching gaze from the dark beyond. ”

“ Say, you think I can influence our daddy. You think I can persuade him to quit getting around Bell River." She shook her head. "I can't. No, child. I can't, nor could you, nor could anybody. Your father's the best husband in the world. And I needn't tell you his kindness and generosity. He's all you've ever believed him, and more—much more. He's a big man, so big, you and I'll never even guess. But just as he's all we'd have him in our lives, so he's all he needs to be on the bitter northern trail. The secrets of that trail are his. Nothing'll drag them out of him. ”

“ Such is the fate of the Northland wanton, bending to the will of Nature supreme. Her hold is only upon superb youth, which must find outlet for its abounding life. She has no power beyond. The ripening purpose of the Great Creator thrusts her back upon herself, beaten, desolate.
The elemental in Kars was still a great living force. That could never change. Just now it was submerging in an ocean of new emotion he was powerless to deny. ”

“ It was the moment when each man realized that a thousand chances were crowding. When the uncertainties of the future were so many and so deeply hidden. Resolve alone was definite. Life and purpose were theirs to-day. To-morrow? Who could say of tomorrow? So it was that the mind groped back amongst memories which had the greatest appeal. For Kars all his memories were now centred round the home of the girl who had taught him the real meaning of life.
Bill Brudenell was sitting on a rough log, within a yard or two. ”