The God of His Fathers

J >> Jack London >> The God of His Fathers


"Floyd," she looked him steadily in the eyes, "I am tired of the whole
business. I want to go away. I can't live it out here till the river
breaks. If I try, I'll die. I am sure of it. I want to quit it all and
go away, and I want to do it at once."

She laid her hand in mute appeal upon the back of his, which turned over
and became a prison. Another one, he thought, just throwing herself at
him. Guess it wouldn't hurt Loraine to cool her feet by the water-hole a
little longer.

"Well?" This time from Freda, but softly and anxiously.

"I don't know what to say," he hastened to answer, adding to himself that
it was coming along quicker than he had expected. "Nothing I'd like
better, Freda. You know that well enough." He pressed her hand, palm to
palm. She nodded. Could she wonder that she despised the breed?

"But you see, I--I'm engaged. Of course you know that. And the girl's
coming into the country to marry me. Don't know what was up with me when
I asked her, but it was a long while back, and I was all-fired young--"

"I want to go away, out of the land, anywhere," she went on, disregarding
the obstacle he had reared up and apologized for. "I have been running
over the men I know and reached the conclusion that--that--"

"I was the likeliest of the lot?"

She smiled her gratitude for his having saved her the embarrassment of
confession. He drew her head against his shoulder with the free hand,
and somehow the scent of her hair got into his nostrils. Then he
discovered that a common pulse throbbed, throbbed, throbbed, where their
palms were in contact. This phenomenon is easily comprehensible from a
physiological standpoint, but to the man who makes the discovery for the
first time, it is a most wonderful thing. Floyd Vanderlip had caressed
more shovel-handles than women's hands in his time, so this was an
experience quite new and delightfully strange. And when Freda turned her
head against his shoulder, her hair brushing his cheek till his eyes met
hers, full and at close range, luminously soft, ay, and tender--why,
whose fault was it that he lost his grip utterly? False to Flossie, why
not to Loraine? Even if the women did keep bothering him, that was no
reason he should make up his mind in a hurry. Why, he had slathers of
money, and Freda was just the girl to grace it. A wife she'd make him
for other men to envy. But go slow. He must be cautious.

"You don't happen to care for palaces, do you?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Well, I had a hankering after them myself, till I got to thinking, a
while back, and I've about sized it up that one'd get fat living in
palaces, and soft and lazy."

"Yes, it's nice for a time, but you soon grow tired of it, I imagine,"
she hastened to reassure him. "The world is good, but life should be
many-sided. Rough and knock about for a while, and then rest up
somewhere. Off to the South Seas on a yacht, then a nibble of Paris; a
winter in South America and a summer in Norway; a few months in England--"

"Good society?"

"Most certainly--the best; and then, heigho! for the dogs and sleds and
the Hudson Bay Country. Change, you know. A strong man like you, full
of vitality and go, could not possibly stand a palace for a year. It is
all very well for effeminate men, but you weren't made for such a life.
You are masculine, intensely masculine."

"Think so?"

"It does not require thinking. I know. Have you ever noticed that it
was easy to make women care for you?"

His dubious innocence was superb.

"It is very easy. And why? Because you are masculine. You strike the
deepest chords of a woman's heart. You are something to cling to,--big-
muscled, strong, and brave. In short, because you _are_ a man."

She shot a glance at the clock. It was half after the hour. She had
given a margin of thirty minutes to Sitka Charley; and it did not matter,
now, when Devereaux arrived. Her work was done. She lifted her head,
laughed her genuine mirth, slipped her hand clear, and rising to her feet
called the maid.

"Alice, help Mr. Vanderlip on with his _parka_. His mittens are on the
sill by the stove."

The man could not understand.

"Let me thank you for your kindness, Floyd. Your time was invaluable to
me, and it was indeed good of you. The turning to the left, as you leave
the cabin, leads the quickest to the water-hole. Good-night. I am going
to bed."

Floyd Vanderlip employed strong words to express his perplexity and
disappointment. Alice did not like to hear men swear, so dropped his
_parka_ on the floor and tossed his mittens on top of it. Then he made a
break for Freda, and she ruined her retreat to the inner room by tripping
over the _parka_. He brought her up standing with a rude grip on the
wrist. But she only laughed. She was not afraid of men. Had they not
wrought their worst with her, and did she not still endure?

"Don't be rough," she said finally. "On second thought," here she looked
at his detaining hand, "I've decided not to go to bed yet a while. Do
sit down and be comfortable instead of ridiculous. Any questions?"

"Yes, my lady, and reckoning, too." He still kept his hold. "What do
you know about the water-hole? What did you mean by--no, never mind. One
question at a time."

"Oh, nothing much. Sitka Charley had an appointment there with somebody
you may know, and not being anxious for a man of your known charm to be
present, fell back upon me to kindly help him. That's all. They're off
now, and a good half hour ago."

"Where? Down river and without me? And he an Indian!"

"There's no accounting for taste, you know, especially in a woman."

"But how do I stand in this deal? I've lost four thousand dollars' worth
of dogs and a tidy bit of a woman, and nothing to show for it. Except
you," he added as an afterthought, "and cheap you are at the price."

Freda shrugged her shoulders.

"You might as well get ready. I'm going out to borrow a couple of teams
of dogs, and we'll start in as many hours."

"I am very sorry, but I'm going to bed."

"You'll pack if you know what's good for you. Go to bed, or not, when I
get my dogs outside, so help me, onto the sled you go. Mebbe you fooled
with me, but I'll just see your bluff and take you in earnest. Hear me?"

He closed on her wrist till it hurt, but on her lips a smile was growing,
and she seemed to listen intently to some outside sound. There was a
jingle of dog bells, and a man's voice crying "Haw!" as a sled took the
turning and drew up at the cabin.

"_Now_ will you let me go to bed?"

As Freda spoke she threw open the door. Into the warm room rushed the
frost, and on the threshold, garbed in trail-worn furs, knee-deep in the
swirling vapor, against a background of flaming borealis, a woman
hesitated. She removed her nose-trap and stood blinking blindly in the
white candlelight. Floyd Vanderlip stumbled forward.

"Floyd!" she cried, relieved and glad, and met him with a tired bound.

What could he but kiss the armful of furs? And a pretty armful it was,
nestling against him wearily, but happy.

"It was good of you," spoke the armful, "to send Mr. Devereaux with fresh
dogs after me, else I would not have been in till to-morrow."

The man looked blankly across at Freda, then the light breaking in upon
him, "And wasn't it good of Devereaux to go?"

"Couldn't wait a bit longer, could you, dear?" Flossie snuggled closer.

"Well, I was getting sort of impatient," he confessed glibly, at the same
time drawing her up till her feet left the floor, and getting outside the
door.

That same night an inexplicable thing happened to the Reverend James
Brown, missionary, who lived among the natives several miles down the
Yukon and saw to it that the trails they trod led to the white man's
paradise. He was roused from his sleep by a strange Indian, who gave
into his charge not only the soul but the body of a woman, and having
done this drove quickly away. This woman was heavy, and handsome, and
angry, and in her wrath unclean words fell from her mouth. This shocked
the worthy man, but he was yet young and her presence would have been
pernicious (in the simple eyes of his flock), had she not struck out on
foot for Dawson with the first gray of dawn.

The shock to Dawson came many days later, when the summer had come and
the population honored a certain royal lady at Windsor by lining the
Yukon's bank and watching Sitka Charley rise up with flashing paddle and
drive the first canoe across the line. On this day of the races, Mrs.
Eppingwell, who had learned and unlearned numerous things, saw Freda for
the first time since the night of the ball. "Publicly, mind you," as
Mrs. McFee expressed it, "without regard or respect for the morals of the
community," she went up to the dancer and held out her hand. At first,
it is remembered by those who saw, the girl shrank back, then words
passed between the two, and Freda, great Freda, broke down and wept on
the shoulder of the captain's wife. It was not given to Dawson to know
why Mrs. Eppingwell should crave forgiveness of a Greek dancing girl, but
she did it publicly, and it was unseemly.

It were well not to forget Mrs. McFee. She took a cabin passage on the
first steamer going out. She also took with her a theory which she had
achieved in the silent watches of the long dark nights; and it is her
conviction that the Northland is unregenerate because it is so cold
there. Fear of hell-fire cannot be bred in an ice-box. This may appear
dogmatic, but it is Mrs. McFee's theory.