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Page 13
His place was high. He was going to be the next governor of California.
But what man would come to him and lie to him out of love? The thought
of all his property seemed to put a dry and gritty taste in his mouth.
Property! Now that he looked at it, one thousand dollars was like any
other thousand dollars; and one day (of his days) was like any other
day. He had never made the pictures in the geography come true. He had
not struck his man, nor lighted his cigar at a match held in a woman's
hand. A man could sleep in only one bed at a time--Tom had said that. He
shuddered as he strove to estimate how many beds he owned, how many
blankets he had bought. And all the beds and blankets would not buy one
man to come from the end of the earth, and grip his hand, and cry, "By
the turtles of Tasman!"
Something of all this he told Polly, an undercurrent of complaint at the
unfairness of things in his tale. And she had answered:
"It couldn't have been otherwise. Father bought it. He never drove
bargains. It was a royal thing, and he paid for it royally. You grudged
the price, don't you see. You saved your arteries and your money and
kept your feet dry."
VI
On an afternoon in the late fall all were gathered about the big chair
and Captain Tom. Though he did not know it, he had drowsed the whole day
through and only just awakened to call for his _ukulele_ and light a
cigarette at Polly's hand. But the _ukulele_ lay idle on his arm, and
though the pine logs crackled in the huge fireplace he shivered and took
note of the cold.
"It's a good sign," he said, unaware that the faintness of his voice
drew the heads of his listeners closer. "The cold weather will be a
tonic. It's a hard job to work the tropics out of one's blood. But I'm
beginning to shape up now for the Kuskokeem. In the spring, Polly, we
start with the dogs, and you'll see the midnight sun. How your mother
would have liked the trip. She was a game one. Forty sleeps with the
dogs, and we'll be shaking out yellow nuggets from the moss-roots.
Larabee has some fine animals. I know the breed. They're timber wolves,
that's what they are, big grey timber wolves, though they sport brown
about one in a litter--isn't that right, Bennington?"
"One in a litter, that's just about the average," Bennington, the
Yukoner, replied promptly, but in a voice hoarsely unrecognisable.
"And you must never travel alone with them," Captain Tom went on. "For
if you fall down they'll jump you. Larabee's brutes only respect a man
when he stands upright on his legs. When he goes down, he's meat. I
remember coming over the divide from Tanana to Circle City. That was
before the Klondike strike. It was in '94 ... no, '95, and the bottom
had dropped out of the thermometer. There was a young Canadian with the
outfit. His name was it was ... a peculiar one ... wait a minute it will
come to me...."
His voice ceased utterly, though his lips still moved. A look of
unbelief and vast surprise dawned on his face. Followed a sharp,
convulsive shudder. And in that moment, without warning, he saw Death.
He looked clear-eyed and steady, as if pondering, then turned to Polly.
His hand moved impotently, as if to reach hers, and when he found it,
his fingers could not close. He gazed at her with a great smile that
slowly faded. The eyes drooped as the life went out, and remained a face
of quietude and repose. The _ukulele_ clattered to the floor. One by one
they went softly from the room, leaving Polly alone.
From the veranda, Frederick watched a man coming up the driveway. By the
roll of the sea in his walk, Frederick could guess for whom the stranger
came. The face was swarthy with sun and wrinkled with age that was given
the lie by the briskness of his movements and the alertness in the keen
black eyes. In the lobe of each ear was a tiny circlet of gold.
"How do you do, sir," the man said, and it was patent that English was
not the tongue he had learned at his mother's knee. "How's Captain Tom?
They told me in the town that he was sick."
"My brother is dead," Frederick answered.
The stranger turned his head and gazed out over the park-like grounds
and up to the distant redwood peaks, and Frederick noted that he
swallowed with an effort.
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