The Silver Horde Part 53

Why, you have merely used me--and George, and all the rest of us, for that matter--" She laughed harshly.

"You don't understand," said Boyd. "Miss Wayland--"

"Oh yes, I do. I dare say it will gratify her to straighten out your troubles. A word from her lips and your worries will vanish like a mist.

Let us acknowledge ourselves beaten and beg her to save us."

Boyd shook his head in negation, but she gave him no time for speech.

"It seems that you wanted to pose as a hero before her, and employed us to build up your triumph. Well, I am glad we failed. I'm glad Willis Marsh showed you how very helpless you are. Let her come to your rescue now. I'm through. Do you understand? I'm through!"

Emerson gazed at her in astonishment, the outburst had been so unexpected, but he realized that he owed her too much to take offence.

"Miss Wayland will take no hand in my affairs. I doubt if she will even realize what this trouble is all about," he said, a trifle stiffly. "I suppose I did want to play the hero, and I dare say I did use you and the others, but you knew that all the time."

"Why won't she help you?" queried Cherry. "Doesn't she care enough about you? Doesn't she know enough to understand your plight?"

"Yes, but this is my fight, and I've got to make good without her a.s.sistance. She isn't the sort to marry a failure, and she has left me to make my own way. Besides, she would not dare go contrary to her father's wishes, even if she desired--that is part of her education. Oh, Wayne Wayland's opposition isn't all I have had to overcome. I have had to show his daughter that I am one of her own kind, for she hates weakness."

"And you think that woman loves you! Why, she isn't a woman at all--she doesn't know what love means. When a woman loves, do you imagine she cares for money or fame or success? If I cared for a man, do you think I'd stop to ask my father if I might marry him or wait for my lover to prove himself worthy of me? Do you think I'd send him through the h.e.l.l you have suffered to try his metal?" She laughed outright. "Why, I'd become what he was, and I'd fight with him. I'd give him. all I had--money, position, friends, influence; if my people objected, I'd tell them to go hang, I'd give them up and join him! I'd use every dollar, every wile and feminine device that I possessed in his service. When a woman loves, she doesn't care what the world says; the man may be a weakling, or worse, but he is still her lover, and she will go to him."

The words had come tumbling forth until Cherry was forced to pause for breath.

"You don't understand," said Boyd. "You are primitive; you have lived in the open; she is exactly your opposite. Conservatism is bred in her, and she can't help her nature. It was hard even for me to understand at first; but when I saw her life, when I saw how she had been reared from childhood, I understood perfectly. I would not have her other than she is; it is enough for me to know that in her own way she cares for me."

Cherry tossed her head in derision. "For my part, I prefer red blood to sap, and when I love I want to know it--I don't want to have it proved to me like a problem in geometry. I want to love and hate, and do wild, impulsive things against my own judgment."

"Have you ever loved in that way?" he inquired, abruptly.

"Yes," she answered, without hesitation, looking him squarely in the eye with an expression he could not fathom. "Thank Heaven, I'm not the artificial kind! As you say, I'm primitive. I have lived!" Her crimson lips curled scornfully.

"I didn't expect you to understand her," he said. "But she loves me. And I--well, she is my religion. A man must have some G.o.d; he can't wors.h.i.+p his own image."

Cherry Malotte turned slowly to the landing-place and made her way into the launch. All the way back she kept silence, and Boyd, confused by her attack upon the citadel of his faith and strangely sore at heart, made no effort at speech.

"Fingerless" Fraser met him at the water's edge.

"Where in the devil have you been?" he cried, breathlessly.

"At the Indian village after help. Why?"

"Big George is in more trouble; he sent for help two hours ago. I was just going to 'beat it' down there."

"What's up?"

"There's six of your men in the bunk-house all beat up; they don't look like they'd fish any more for a while. Marsh's men threw their salmon overboard, and they had another fight. Things are getting warm."

"We can't allow ourselves to be driven from the banks," said Boyd, quickly. "I'll get the sh.o.r.emen together right away. Find Alton, and bring him along; we'll need every man we can get."

"Nothing doing with that party; he's quit like a house cat, and gone to bed."

"Very well; he's no good, anyhow; he's better out of the way."

He hurried through the building, now silent and half deserted, gathering a crew; then, leaving only the Orientals and the watchman to guard the plant, he loaded his men into the boats and set out.

All that afternoon and on through the long, murky hours of the night the battle raged on the lower reaches of the Kalvik. Boat crews clashed; half- clad men cursed each other and fought with naked fists, with oars and clubs; and when these failed, they drove at one another with wicked one- tined fish "pues." All night the hordes of salmon swarmed upward toward the fatal waters of their birth, through sagging nets that were torn and slit; beneath keels that rocked to the impact of struggling, heedless bodies.

CHAPTER XXIV

WHEREIN "THE GRANDE DAME" ARRIVES, LADEN WITH DISAPPOINTMENTS

As the sun slanted up between the southward hills, out from the gossamer haze that lay like filmy forest smoke above the ocean came a snow-white yacht. She stole inward past the headlands, as silent as a wraith, leaving a long, black streamer penciled against the sky; so still was the dawn that the breath from her funnel lay like a trail behind her, slowly fading and blending with the colors of the morning.

The waters were gleaming nickel beneath her prow, and she clove them like a blade; against the dove-gray sky her slender rigging was traced as by some finely pointed instrument; her sides were as clean as the stainless b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the gulls that floated near the sh.o.r.e.

As she came proudly up through the fleets of fis.h.i.+ng-boats, perfect in every line and gliding with stately dignity, the grimy little crafts drew aside as if in awe, while tired-eyed men stared silently at her as if at a vision.

To Boyd Emerson she seemed like an angel of mercy, and he stood forth upon the deck of his launch searching her hungrily for the sight of a woman's figure. When he had first seen the s.h.i.+p rounding the point he had uttered a cry, then fallen silent watching her as she drew near, heedless of his surroundings. His heart was leaping, his breath was choking him. It seemed as if he must shout Mildred's name aloud and stretch his arms out to her.

Of course, she would see him as _The Grande Dame_ pa.s.sed--she would be looking for him, he knew. She would be standing there, wet with the dew, searching with all her eyes. Doubtless she had waited patiently at her post from the instant land came into sight. Seized by a sudden panic lest she pa.s.s him unnoticed, he ordered his launch near the yacht's course, where he could command a view of her cabin doors and the wicker chairs upon her deck. His eyes roved over the craft, but all he saw was a uniformed officer upon the bridge and the bronzed faces of the watch staring over the rail. By now _The Grande Dame_ was so close that he might have flung a line to her, and above the m.u.f.fled throbbing of her engines he heard the captain give some low-spoken command. Yet nowhere could he catch a glimpse of Mildred. He saw close-drawn curtains over the cabin windows, indicating that the pa.s.sengers were still asleep. Then, as he stood there, heavy-hearted, drooping with fatigue, his wet body chilled by the morning's breath, _The Grande Dame_ glided past, and he found the sh.e.l.l beneath his feet rocking in her wake.

As he turned sh.o.r.eward George Balt hailed him, and brought his own launch alongside.

"What craft is that?" he inquired.

"She is the Company's yacht with the N. A. P. A. officers aboard."

The big fellow stared curiously after the retreating s.h.i.+p.

"Some of our boys is hurt pretty bad," he observed. "I've told them to take in their nets and go back to the plant."

"We all need breakfast."

"I don't want nothing. I'm going over to the trap."

Emerson shrugged his shoulders listlessly; he was very tired. "What is the use? It won't pay us to lift it."

"I've watched that point of land for five years, and I never seen fish act this way before," Balt growled, stubbornly. "If they don't strike in to- day, we better close down. Marsh's men cut half our nets and crippled more than half our crew last night." He began to rumble curses. "Say! We made a mistake the other day, didn't we? We'd ought to have put that feller away.

It ain't too late yet."

"Wait! Wayne Wayland is aboard that yacht; I know him. He's a hard man, and I've heard strange stories about him, but I don't believe he knows all that Marsh has been doing. I'm going to see him and tell him everything."

"S'pose he turns you down?"