E came up from the coast with the rush that started when gold was found on Ragged Creek, one hundred and eighty miles inland, a whale of a man with a gigantic body and calm, blue eyes. Then, half-way to Eldorado, he stayed on the portage that leads from Black Lake to the Yukon River, and let the rush surge by.
To hundreds of excited men, and to the few hysterical women in that breathless procession, the figure of Big John—for thus he was known—stood out as the strangest thing in all that frost-smitten land. He was within eighty miles of treasure, but let others sweep past and take it. The strongest of them all was the most ineffectual, or, at least, had lost the final spark of ambition. Ragged Creek yielded stuff that ran two ounces to the pan, but that did not move him: and when more gold was found further on, Big John put a new roof on his shack, and stuck tighter than ever.
At the end of the first month he had earned six hundred dollars by packing loads across the portage. Like the Mormons who settled on the overland trail to California, he took tribute from the stream of treasure-seekers, who cared not what it cost to save an hour. Every foot of that rugged mile was imprinted on his brain. He traversed it methodically beneath a mountain of other men's goods, the tump line drawn tight over his forehead, his sinews taut like steel, his vast lungs sending out vaporous exhalations like those of some prehistoric animal. Five dollars for all, he could carry was the tariff, and he carried four hundred-weight every trip.
That was for those who were making the journey in to Ragged Creek. It was different for those who came out—if they came empty-handed. Big John could tell at a glance how fortune fared, and took no tribute from the defeated. His back and shoulders were at their service without price. More than that, no man left the portage hungry, and many there were who passed that way and went on with the bitterness of failure strangely assuaged, and memories of a soft, deep voice and a pair of quiet, blue eyes.
So it came that in six months Big John was known throughout this wind-whipped district as something different from his fellows. Greed had not touched him, nor avarice, nor envy of his kind. The women who crossed the portage stared at him admiringly, wondered what mystery lay behind his calm gaze, then drifted down the Yukon with a feeling that they had left behind something very like a haven of refuge. The original shack disappeared, and was replaced by a workman-like cabin of heavy timber with neatly notched corners, and a big fireplace where the flames leaped at night, and John sat smoking while he pored over a month-old number of The Seattle Tribune. Then one day a man and woman came out from Ragged Creek.
He knew, the minute he looked at them, what the story was, but the quiet eyes changed not at all. The woman, he decided, was the finest he had ever seen, tall and straight, with full red lips and hair like night. She moved with an easy strength that curiously resembled the way he went about things himself, and if she was defeated, there was no sign of it in her proud, smooth face.
The man was otherwise, and John had an odd impression that he had seen him before—small, with sloping shoulders, a thin face and evasive eyes that seemed not to look straight at anything. He coughed incessantly with a sharp, dry, barking sound, and staggered a little as he stepped out of the canoe. Then he sat down and stared helplessly at his dunnage. The woman felt in her pocket and looked Big John full in the face.
"You help people over, don't you?"
He nodded.
"What do you ask to move this load to Black Lake?"
"Nothing," he said slowly. Then, with a glance at the man: "But it's too late to start now."
Her eyes travelled over the much-used camping ground, from which all available firewood had been cut long since.
"We can't stay here."
John smiled. The little man had not spoken, nor did his companion seem to expect it.
"You needn't. I've got plenty of room."
She made an uncertain gesture, and he waited with a queer sense of unreality. Of all who had crossed Black Lake portage, there had been no woman like this, and he became suddenly aware that here was the one he had looked for ever since he was a boy. Slowly the thought possessed him. It explained so much he did not understand before. The little man gave vent to a strangling noise.
"Good business. We'll stay."
"We can't afford it," she said, the colour climbing to her cheek. "We've got to push on to outside."