Lost Face

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El-Soo adapted herself to the large house and its ways as readily as she
had adapted herself to Holy Cross Mission and its ways. She did not try
to reform her father and direct his footsteps toward God. It is true,
she reproved him when he drank overmuch and profoundly, but that was for
the sake of his health and the direction of his footsteps on solid earth.

The latchstring to the large house was always out. What with the coming
and the going, it was never still. The rafters of the great living-room
shook with the roar of wassail and of song. At table sat men from all
the world and chiefs from distant tribes--Englishmen and Colonials, lean
Yankee traders and rotund officials of the great companies, cowboys from
the Western ranges, sailors from the sea, hunters and dog-mushers of a
score of nationalities.

El-Soo drew breath in a cosmopolitan atmosphere. She could speak English
as well as she could her native tongue, and she sang English songs and
ballads. The passing Indian ceremonials she knew, and the perishing
traditions. The tribal dress of the daughter of a chief she knew how to
wear upon occasion. But for the most part she dressed as white women
dress. Not for nothing was her needlework at the Mission and her innate
artistry. She carried her clothes like a white woman, and she made
clothes that could be so carried.

In her way she was as unusual as her father, and the position she
occupied was as unique as his. She was the one Indian woman who was the
social equal with the several white women at Tana-naw Station. She was
the one Indian woman to whom white men honourably made proposals of
marriage. And she was the one Indian woman whom no white man ever
insulted.

For El-Soo was beautiful--not as white women are beautiful, not as Indian
women are beautiful. It was the flame of her, that did not depend upon
feature, that was her beauty. So far as mere line and feature went, she
was the classic Indian type. The black hair and the fine bronze were
hers, and the black eyes, brilliant and bold, keen as sword-light, proud;
and hers the delicate eagle nose with the thin, quivering nostrils, the
high cheek-bones that were not broad apart, and the thin lips that were
not too thin. But over all and through all poured the flame of her--the
unanalysable something that was fire and that was the soul of her, that
lay mellow-warm or blazed in her eyes, that sprayed the cheeks of her,
that distended the nostrils, that curled the lips, or, when the lip was
in repose, that was still there in the lip, the lip palpitant with its
presence.

And El-Soo had wit--rarely sharp to hurt, yet quick to search out
forgivable weakness. The laughter of her mind played like lambent flame
over all about her, and from all about her arose answering laughter. Yet
she was never the centre of things. This she would not permit. The
large house, and all of which it was significant, was her father's; and
through it, to the last, moved his heroic figure--host, master of the
revels, and giver of the law. It is true, as the strength oozed from
him, that she caught up responsibilities from his failing hands. But in
appearance he still ruled, dozing, ofttimes at the board, a bacchanalian
ruin, yet in all seeming the ruler of the feast.

And through the large house moved the figure of Porportuk, ominous, with
shaking head, coldly disapproving, paying for it all. Not that he really
paid, for he compounded interest in weird ways, and year by year absorbed
the properties of Klakee-Nah. Porportuk once took it upon himself to
chide El-Soo upon the wasteful way of life in the large house--it was
when he had about absorbed the last of Klakee-Nah's wealth--but he never
ventured so to chide again. El-Soo, like her father, was an aristocrat,
as disdainful of money as he, and with an equal sense of honour as finely
strung.

Porportuk continued grudgingly to advance money, and ever the money
flowed in golden foam away. Upon one thing El-Soo was resolved--her
father should die as he had lived. There should be for him no passing
from high to low, no diminution of the revels, no lessening of the lavish
hospitality. When there was famine, as of old, the Indians came groaning
to the large house and went away content. When there was famine and no
money, money was borrowed from Porportuk, and the Indians still went away
content. El-Soo might well have repeated, after the aristocrats of
another time and place, that after her came the deluge. In her case the
deluge was old Porportuk. With every advance of money, he looked upon
her with a more possessive eye, and felt bourgeoning within him ancient
fires.

But El-Soo had no eyes for him. Nor had she eyes for the white men who
wanted to marry her at the Mission with ring and priest and book. For at
Tana-naw Station was a young man, Akoon, of her own blood, and tribe, and
village. He was strong and beautiful to her eyes, a great hunter, and,
in that he had wandered far and much, very poor; he had been to all the
unknown wastes and places; he had journeyed to Sitka and to the United
States; he had crossed the continent to Hudson Bay and back again, and as
seal-hunter on a ship he had sailed to Siberia and for Japan.

When he returned from the gold-strike in Klondike he came, as was his
wont, to the large house to make report to old Klakee-Nah of all the
world that he had seen; and there he first saw El-Soo, three years back
from the Mission. Thereat, Akoon wandered no more. He refused a wage of
twenty dollars a day as pilot on the big steamboats. He hunted some and
fished some, but never far from Tana-naw Station, and he was at the large
house often and long. And El-Soo measured him against many men and found
him good. He sang songs to her, and was ardent and glowed until all Tana-
naw Station knew he loved her. And Porportuk but grinned and advanced
more money for the upkeep of the large house.

Then came the death table of Klakee-Nah.

He sat at feast, with death in his throat, that he could not drown with
wine. And laughter and joke and song went around, and Akoon told a story
that made the rafters echo. There were no tears or sighs at that table.
It was no more than fit that Klakee-Nah should die as he had lived, and
none knew this better than El-Soo, with her artist sympathy. The old
roystering crowd was there, and, as of old, three frost-bitten sailors
were there, fresh from the long traverse from the Arctic, survivors of a
ship's company of seventy-four. At Klakee-Nah's back were four old men,
all that were left him of the slaves of his youth. With rheumy eyes they
saw to his needs, with palsied hands filling his glass or striking him on
the back between the shoulders when death stirred and he coughed and
gasped.

It was a wild night, and as the hours passed and the fun laughed and
roared along, death stirred more restlessly in Klakee-Nah's throat. Then
it was that he sent for Porportuk. And Porportuk came in from the
outside frost to look with disapproving eyes upon the meat and wine on
the table for which he had paid. But as he looked down the length of
flushed faces to the far end and saw the face of El-Soo, the light in his
eyes flared up, and for a moment the disapproval vanished.

Place was made for him at Klakee-Nah's side, and a glass placed before
him. Klakee-Nah, with his own hands, filled the glass with fervent
spirits. "Drink!" he cried. "Is it not good?"

And Porportuk's eyes watered as he nodded his head and smacked his lips.

"When, in your own house, have you had such drink?" Klakee-Nah demanded.

"I will not deny that the drink is good to this old throat of mine,"
Porportuk made answer, and hesitated for the speech to complete the
thought.

"But it costs overmuch," Klakee-Nah roared, completing it for him.

Porportuk winced at the laughter that went down the table. His eyes
burned malevolently. "We were boys together, of the same age," he said.
"In your throat is death. I am still alive and strong."

An ominous murmur arose from the company. Klakee-Nah coughed and
strangled, and the old slaves smote him between the shoulders. He
emerged gasping, and waved his hand to still the threatening rumble.

"You have grudged the very fire in your house because the wood cost
overmuch!" he cried. "You have grudged life. To live cost overmuch, and
you have refused to pay the price. Your life has been like a cabin where
the fire is out and there are no blankets on the floor." He signalled to
a slave to fill his glass, which he held aloft. "But I have lived. And
I have been warm with life as you have never been warm. It is true, you
shall live long. But the longest nights are the cold nights when a man
shivers and lies awake. My nights have been short, but I have slept
warm."

He drained the glass. The shaking hand of a slave failed to catch it as
it crashed to the floor. Klakee-Nah sank back, panting, watching the
upturned glasses at the lips of the drinkers, his own lips slightly
smiling to the applause. At a sign, two slaves attempted to help him sit
upright again. But they were weak, his frame was mighty, and the four
old men tottered and shook as they helped him forward.

"But manner of life is neither here nor there," he went on. "We have
other business, Porportuk, you and I, to-night. Debts are mischances,
and I am in mischance with you. What of my debt, and how great is it?"

Porportuk searched in his pouch and brought forth a memorandum. He
sipped at his glass and began. "There is the note of August, 1889, for
three hundred dollars. The interest has never been paid. And the note
of the next year for five hundred dollars. This note was included in the
note of two months later for a thousand dollars. Then there is the
note--"

"Never mind the many notes!" Klakee-Nah cried out impatiently. "They
make my head go around and all the things inside my head. The whole! The
round whole! How much is it?"

Porportuk referred to his memorandum. "Fifteen thousand nine hundred and
sixty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents," he read with careful
precision.

"Make it sixteen thousand, make it sixteen thousand," Klakee-Nah said
grandly. "Odd numbers were ever a worry. And now--and it is for this
that I have sent for you--make me out a new note for sixteen thousand,
which I shall sign. I have no thought of the interest. Make it as large
as you will, and make it payable in the next world, when I shall meet you
by the fire of the Great Father of all Indians. Then the note will be
paid. This I promise you. It is the word of Klakee-Nah."

Porportuk looked perplexed, and loudly the laughter arose and shook the
room. Klakee-Nah raised his hands. "Nay," he cried. "It is not a joke.
I but speak in fairness. It was for this I sent for you, Porportuk. Make
out the note."

"I have no dealings with the next world," Porportuk made answer slowly.

"Have you no thought to meet me before the Great Father!" Klakee-Nah
demanded. Then he added, "I shall surely be there."

"I have no dealings with the next world," Porportuk repeated sourly.

The dying man regarded him with frank amazement.

"I know naught of the next world," Porportuk explained. "I do business
in this world."

Klakee-Nah's face cleared. "This comes of sleeping cold of nights," he
laughed. He pondered for a space, then said, "It is in this world that
you must be paid. There remains to me this house. Take it, and burn the
debt in the candle there."

"It is an old house and not worth the money," Porportuk made answer.

"There are my mines on the Twisted Salmon."

"They have never paid to work," was the reply.

"There is my share in the steamer _Koyokuk_. I am half owner."

"She is at the bottom of the Yukon."

Klakee-Nah started. "True, I forgot. It was last spring when the ice
went out." He mused for a time while the glasses remained untasted, and
all the company waited upon his utterance.

"Then it would seem I owe you a sum of money which I cannot pay . . . in
this world?" Porportuk nodded and glanced down the table.

"Then it would seem that you, Porportuk, are a poor business man," Klakee-
Nah said slyly. And boldly Porportuk made answer, "No; there is security
yet untouched."

"What!" cried Klakee-Nah. "Have I still property? Name it, and it is
yours, and the debt is no more."

"There it is." Porportuk pointed at El-Soo.

Klakee-Nah could not understand. He peered down the table, brushed his
eyes, and peered again.

"Your daughter, El-Soo--her will I take and the debt be no more. I will
burn the debt there in the candle."

Klakee-Nah's great chest began to heave. "Ho! ho!--a joke. Ho! ho! ho!"
he laughed Homerically. "And with your cold bed and daughters old enough
to be the mother of El-Soo! Ho! ho! ho!" He began to cough and
strangle, and the old slaves smote him on the back. "Ho! ho!" he began
again, and went off into another paroxysm.

Porportuk waited patiently, sipping from his glass and studying the
double row of faces down the board. "It is no joke," he said finally.
"My speech is well meant."

Klakee-Nah sobered and looked at him, then reached for his glass, but
could not touch it. A slave passed it to him, and glass and liquor he
flung into the face of Porportuk.

"Turn him out!" Klakee-Nah thundered to the waiting table that strained
like a pack of hounds in leash. "And roll him in the snow!"

As the mad riot swept past him and out of doors, he signalled to the
slaves, and the four tottering old men supported him on his feet as he
met the returning revellers, upright, glass in hand, pledging them a
toast to the short night when a man sleeps warm.

It did not take long to settle the estate of Klakee-Nah. Tommy, the
little Englishman, clerk at the trading post, was called in by El-Soo to
help. There was nothing but debts, notes overdue, mortgaged properties,
and properties mortgaged but worthless. Notes and mortgages were held by
Porportuk. Tommy called him a robber many times as he pondered the
compounding of the interest.

"Is it a debt, Tommy?" El-Soo asked.

"It is a robbery," Tommy answered.

"Nevertheless, it is a debt," she persisted.

The winter wore away, and the early spring, and still the claims of
Porportuk remained unpaid. He saw El-Soo often and explained to her at
length, as he had explained to her father, the way the debt could be
cancelled. Also, he brought with him old medicine-men, who elaborated to
her the everlasting damnation of her father if the debt were not paid.
One day, after such an elaboration, El-Soo made final announcement to
Porportuk.

"I shall tell you two things," she said. "First I shall not be your
wife. Will you remember that? Second, you shall be paid the last cent
of the sixteen thousand dollars--"

"Fifteen thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven dollars and seventy-five
cents," Porportuk corrected.

"My father said sixteen thousand," was her reply. "You shall be paid."

"How?"

"I know not how, but I shall find out how. Now go, and bother me no
more. If you do"--she hesitated to find fitting penalty--"if you do, I
shall have you rolled in the snow again as soon as the first snow flies."

This was still in the early spring, and a little later El-Soo surprised
the country. Word went up and down the Yukon from Chilcoot to the Delta,
and was carried from camp to camp to the farthermost camps, that in June,
when the first salmon ran, El-Soo, daughter of Klakee-Nah, would sell
herself at public auction to satisfy the claims of Porportuk. Vain were
the attempts to dissuade her. The missionary at St. George wrestled with
her, but she replied--

"Only the debts to God are settled in the next world. The debts of men
are of this world, and in this world are they settled."

Akoon wrestled with her, but she replied, "I do love thee, Akoon; but
honour is greater than love, and who am I that I should blacken my
father?" Sister Alberta journeyed all the way up from Holy Cross on the
first steamer, and to no better end.

"My father wanders in the thick and endless forests," said El-Soo. "And
there will he wander, with the lost souls crying, till the debt be paid.
Then, and not until then, may he go on to the house of the Great Father."

"And you believe this?" Sister Alberta asked.

"I do not know," El-Soo made answer. "It was my father's belief."

Sister Alberta shrugged her shoulders incredulously.

"Who knows but that the things we believe come true?" El-Soo went on.
"Why not? The next world to you may be heaven and harps . . . because
you have believed heaven and harps; to my father the next world may be a
large house where he will sit always at table feasting with God."

"And you?" Sister Alberta asked. "What is your next world?"

El-Soo hesitated but for a moment. "I should like a little of both," she
said. "I should like to see your face as well as the face of my father."

The day of the auction came. Tana-naw Station was populous. As was
their custom, the tribes had gathered to await the salmon-run, and in the
meantime spent the time in dancing and frolicking, trading and gossiping.
Then there was the ordinary sprinkling of white adventurers, traders, and
prospectors, and, in addition, a large number of white men who had come
because of curiosity or interest in the affair.

It had been a backward spring, and the salmon were late in running. This
delay but keyed up the interest. Then, on the day of the auction, the
situation was made tense by Akoon. He arose and made public and solemn
announcement that whosoever bought El-Soo would forthwith and immediately
die. He flourished the Winchester in his hand to indicate the manner of
the taking-off. El-Soo was angered thereat; but he refused to speak with
her, and went to the trading post to lay in extra ammunition.

The first salmon was caught at ten o'clock in the evening, and at
midnight the auction began. It took place on top of the high bank
alongside the Yukon. The sun was due north just below the horizon, and
the sky was lurid red. A great crowd gathered about the table and the
two chairs that stood near the edge of the bank. To the fore were many
white men and several chiefs. And most prominently to the fore, rifle in
hand, stood Akoon. Tommy, at El-Soo's request, served as auctioneer, but
she made the opening speech and described the goods about to be sold. She
was in native costume, in the dress of a chief's daughter, splendid and
barbaric, and she stood on a chair, that she might be seen to advantage.

"Who will buy a wife?" she asked. "Look at me. I am twenty years old
and a maid. I will be a good wife to the man who buys me. If he is a
white man, I shall dress in the fashion of white women; if he is an
Indian, I shall dress as"--she hesitated a moment--"a squaw. I can make
my own clothes, and sew, and wash, and mend. I was taught for eight
years to do these things at Holy Cross Mission. I can read and write
English, and I know how to play the organ. Also I can do arithmetic and
some algebra--a little. I shall be sold to the highest bidder, and to
him I will make out a bill of sale of myself. I forgot to say that I can
sing very well, and that I have never been sick in my life. I weigh one
hundred and thirty-two pounds; my father is dead and I have no relatives.
Who wants me?"

She looked over the crowd with flaming audacity and stepped down. At
Tommy's request she stood upon the chair again, while he mounted the
second chair and started the bidding.

Surrounding El-Soo stood the four old slaves of her father. They were
age-twisted and palsied, faithful to their meat, a generation out of the
past that watched unmoved the antics of younger life. In the front of
the crowd were several Eldorado and Bonanza kings from the Upper Yukon,
and beside them, on crutches, swollen with scurvy, were two broken
prospectors. From the midst of the crowd, thrust out by its own
vividness, appeared the face of a wild-eyed squaw from the remote regions
of the Upper Tana-naw; a strayed Sitkan from the coast stood side by side
with a Stick from Lake Le Barge, and, beyond, a half-dozen
French-Canadian voyageurs, grouped by themselves. From afar came the
faint cries of myriads of wild-fowl on the nesting-grounds. Swallows
were skimming up overhead from the placid surface of the Yukon, and
robins were singing. The oblique rays of the hidden sun shot through the
smoke, high-dissipated from forest fires a thousand miles away, and
turned the heavens to sombre red, while the earth shone red in the
reflected glow. This red glow shone in the faces of all, and made
everything seem unearthly and unreal.

The bidding began slowly. The Sitkan, who was a stranger in the land and
who had arrived only half an hour before, offered one hundred dollars in
a confident voice, and was surprised when Akoon turned threateningly upon
him with the rifle. The bidding dragged. An Indian from the Tozikakat,
a pilot, bid one hundred and fifty, and after some time a gambler, who
had been ordered out of the Upper Country, raised the bid to two hundred.
El-Soo was saddened; her pride was hurt; but the only effect was that she
flamed more audaciously upon the crowd.

There was a disturbance among the onlookers as Porportuk forced his way
to the front. "Five hundred dollars!" he bid in a loud voice, then
looked about him proudly to note the effect.

He was minded to use his great wealth as a bludgeon with which to stun
all competition at the start. But one of the voyageurs, looking on El-
Soo with sparkling eyes, raised the bid a hundred.

"Seven hundred!" Porportuk returned promptly.

And with equal promptness came the "Eight hundred" of the voyageur.

Then Porportuk swung his club again.

"Twelve hundred!" he shouted.

With a look of poignant disappointment, the voyageur succumbed. There
was no further bidding. Tommy worked hard, but could not elicit a bid.

El-Soo spoke to Porportuk. "It were good, Porportuk, for you to weigh
well your bid. Have you forgotten the thing I told you--that I would
never marry you!"

"It is a public auction," he retorted. "I shall buy you with a bill of
sale. I have offered twelve hundred dollars. You come cheap."

"Too damned cheap!" Tommy cried. "What if I am auctioneer? That does
not prevent me from bidding. I'll make it thirteen hundred."

"Fourteen hundred," from Porportuk.

"I'll buy you in to be my--my sister," Tommy whispered to El-Soo, then
called aloud, "Fifteen hundred!"

At two thousand one of the Eldorado kings took a hand, and Tommy dropped
out.

A third time Porportuk swung the club of his wealth, making a clean raise
of five hundred dollars. But the Eldorado king's pride was touched. No
man could club him. And he swung back another five hundred.

El-Soo stood at three thousand. Porportuk made it thirty-five hundred,
and gasped when the Eldorado king raised it a thousand dollars. Porportuk
again raised it five hundred, and again gasped when the king raised a
thousand more.

Porportuk became angry. His pride was touched; his strength was
challenged, and with him strength took the form of wealth. He would not
be ashamed for weakness before the world. El-Soo became incidental. The
savings and scrimpings from the cold nights of all his years were ripe to
be squandered. El-Soo stood at six thousand. He made it seven thousand.
And then, in thousand-dollar bids, as fast as they could be uttered, her
price went up. At fourteen thousand the two men stopped for breath.

Then the unexpected happened. A still heavier club was swung. In the
pause that ensued, the gambler, who had scented a speculation and formed
a syndicate with several of his fellows, bid sixteen thousand dollars.

"Seventeen thousand," Porportuk said weakly.

"Eighteen thousand," said the king.

Porportuk gathered his strength. "Twenty thousand."

The syndicate dropped out. The Eldorado king raised a thousand, and
Porportuk raised back; and as they bid, Akoon turned from one to the
other, half menacingly, half curiously, as though to see what manner of
man it was that he would have to kill. When the king prepared to make
his next bid, Akoon having pressed closer, the king first loosed the
revolver at his hip, then said:

"Twenty-three thousand."

"Twenty-four thousand," said Porportuk. He grinned viciously, for the
certitude of his bidding had at last shaken the king. The latter moved
over close to El-Soo. He studied her carefully for a long while.

"And five hundred," he said at last.

"Twenty-five thousand," came Porportuk's raise.

The king looked for a long space, and shook his head. He looked again,
and said reluctantly, "And five hundred."

"Twenty-six thousand," Porportuk snapped.

The king shook his head and refused to meet Tommy's pleading eye. In the
meantime Akoon had edged close to Porportuk. El-Soo's quick eye noted
this, and, while Tommy wrestled with the Eldorado king for another bid,
she bent, and spoke in a low voice in the ear of a slave. And while
Tommy's "Going--going--going--" dominated the air, the slave went up to
Akoon and spoke in a low voice in his ear. Akoon made no sign that he
had heard, though El-Soo watched him anxiously.