ND the gold was red—red as blood—like as if the blood of them that had died for it on the long, long trail had stained it clean down into the frozen mud! And I had some of it in my hands—so! In these hands! And it ran between my fingers like little frozen drops of blood! And then I lost it, and I'll never find it again! Never!”
I heard a thin, cracked voice above me, and, leaning on my shovel, looked up to where sat an old man with hands held out, lifting them up and down, clawlike, with the palms upward, and fingers opened as if still scooping up and letting fall through them the streams of gold, red and hard, like frozen blood.
I had not seen him before. I did not know when he had come. His hair hung in long gray strands from under his mink cap, and the cap was so old that the fur was worn away to show the black, greasy skin beneath. His hair dropped to his shoulders, and covered his ears, and joined the straggling, white, unkempt beard that covered his face. His parka was too large for him, and had apparently been worn to the verge of uselessness. Now the sleeves were rolled up, to expose the skinny old arms, which were more like the scaly, attenuated legs of a bird than the members of a human body. His trousers were patched with anything that had come to hand until the original color was lost. His mukluks, the skin boots of the old Alaska, were patched, also, and frayed until they no longer protected his feet.
He did not notice me, but reached his withered hands downward, made an imaginary scoop between his feet, held them up again, and repeated:
“Gold! Red gold! Red as blood!”
He did not look at me until my curt “Hello!” aroused him, and then his hands; held themselves poised, and he shifted his bleached blue eyes toward me, and appeared to be trying to recall me to his recollection.
“I don't know you,” he said soberly.
“I don't suppose you do,” I answered. “I just came in. I'm from Cassiar.”
Some remnant of sanity seemed to control the faded eyes, and the withered hands dropped again to their normal position of rest.
“Cassiar? I used to work there. So you're no chechahco, eh? And I've been to Killisnu. Know Killisnu and old Bill Joyce, him they called Killisnuish? And Bevins, and Sinclair, and Chapman, and” his voice trailed off into a list of inarticulate names, as his mind reverted to the past.
“That's old Bill Wilton. Touched he is, poor old cuss!” said a soft, growling voice behind me, and I turned to the man working with me, through whom I had come from Circle City, far up on the lazy stretches of the Yukon River.
He put a finger on his lips, and added: “Don't pay any attention to him. Get Cavanaugh to tell you about it when old Bill isn't around. Bill's got ears like a burro, and he's—well, he's sensitive.”
He resumed his shovel again, and I did likewise, knowing that the day was waning, and that we must try to get the last of the pay dump we had bought shoveled in before our scant supply of water, impounded in the dam above, had exhausted itself; but I thought of the little information my partner, Dan Hillyer, had vouchsafed me, and wondered at the strange old man who still sat above us on the bank, and still reached his hands down now and then, scooped up the dried gravel, and let it run through his fingers with that monotonous singsong of gold—“Red gold! Red as blood!”
I looked up in time to see a girl come behind him, and lay a gentle hand on his shoulder. My work was forgotten in the instant. My partner called to her, and lifted his hat, and she smiled at him gravely, and with friendliness. Then she leaped down the bank with nimble grace, and met him as, still holding his hat, he advanced.
“Why, Bessie,” he said, with his slow drawl, smiling at her, “you've grown to be a woman—all in a couple of years! And prettier'n ever. How are you, anyway?”
She laughed, and I noted that her lips were red, her teeth white and even, and that I was enchained by her eyes. They were like those one dreams of sometimes—eyes that are not quite plain in their message, but deep, and soft, and intelligent. Hers were tempered by some suggestion of lasting sadness, and I wondered if it had anything to do with the wreck of a man on the bank above; still sifting pebbles. I was to have this answered by Hillyer's introduction.
“Tom,” he said, turning to me, “this is Bessie Wilton. That's her daddy up there on the bank. Bess and me's been friends since the day she was born, and that's pretty close to twenty year ago, ain't it, Bess?”