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both looked at me for a moment and shrugged their shoulders. Time went on and the cabin was quietly nearing completion. The roof of poles was in place. It only remained to cover it with moss and thawed-out earth to make it our future home. I think these were the happiest days I spent in the North. We were such
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a united trio. Each was eager to do more than the other, and we vied in little acts of mutual consideration. Once again I congratulated myself on my partners. Jim, though sometimes bellicosely evangelical, was the soul of kindly goodness, cheerfulness and patience. It was refreshing to know among so many sin-calloused men one who always rang true, true as
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the gold in the pan. As for the Prodigal, he was a Prince. I often thought that God at the birth of him must have reached out to the sunshine and crammed a mighty handful of it into the boy. Surely it is better than all the riches in the world to have a temperament of eternal cheer. As for
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me, I have ever been at the mercy of my moods, easily elated, quickly cast down. I have always been abnormally sensitive, affected by sunshine and by shadows, vacillating, intense in my feelings. I was truly happy in those days, finding time in the long evenings to think of the scenes of stress and sorrow I had witnessed, reconstructing the
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past, and having importune me again and again the many characters in my life drama. Always and always I saw the Girl, elusively sweet, almost unreal, a thing to enshrine in that ideal alcove of our hearts we keep for our saints. (And God help us always to keep shining there a great light.) Many others importuned me: Pinklove, Globstock,
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Pondersby, Marks, old Wilovich, all dead; Bullhammer, the Jam-wagon, Mosher, the Winklesteins, plunged in the vortex of the gold-born city; and lastly, looming over all, dark and ominous, the handsome, bold, sinister face of Locasto. Well, maybe I would never see any of them again. Yet more and more my dream hours were jealously consecrated to Berna. How ineffably sweet
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were they! How full of delicious imaginings! How pregnant of high hope! O, I was born to love, I think, and I never loved but one. This story of my life is the story of Berna. It is a thing of words and words and words, yet every word is Berna, Berna. Feel the heartache behind it all. Read between
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the lines, Berna, Berna. Often in the evenings we went to the Forks, which was a lively place indeed. Here was all the recklessness and revel of Dawson on a smaller scale, and infinitely more gross. Here were the dance-hall girls, not the dazzling creatures in diamonds and Paris gowns, the belles of the Monte Carlo and the Tivoli, but
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drabs self-convicted by their coarse, puffy faces. Here the men, fresh from their day's work, the mud of the claim hardly dry on their boot-tops, were buying wine with nuggets they had filched from sluice-box, dump and drift. There was wholesale robbery going on in the gold-camp. On many claims where the owners were known to be unsuspicious, men would
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work for small wages because of the gold they were able to filch. On the other hand, many of the operators were paying their men in trade-dust valued at sixteen dollars an ounce, yet so adulterated with black sand as to be really worth about fourteen. All these things contributed to the low morale of the camp. Easy come, easy
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go with money, a wild intoxication of success in the air; gold gouged in glittering heaps from the ground during the day, and at night squandered in a carnival of lust and sin. The Prodigal was always "snooping" around and gleaning information from most mysterious sources. One evening he came to us. "Boys, get ready, quick. There's a rumour of
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a stampede for a new creek, Ophir Creek they call it, away on the other side of the divide somewhere. A prospector went down ten feet and got fifty-cent dirt. We've got to get in on this. There's a mob coming from Dawson, but we'll get there before the rush." Quickly we got together blankets and a little grub, and,
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keeping out of sight, we crawled up the hill under cover of the brush. Soon we came to a place from which we could command a full view of the valley. Here we lay down, awaiting developments. It was at the hour of dusk. Scarfs of smoke wavered over the cabins down in the valley. On the far slope of
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Eldorado I saw a hawk soar upwards. Surely a man was moving amid the brush, two men, a dozen men, moving in single file very stealthily. I pointed them out. "It's the stampede," whispered Jim. "We've got to get on to the trail of that crowd. Travel like blazes. We can cut them off at the head of the valley."
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So we struck into the stampede gait, a wild, jolting, desperate pace, that made the wind pant in our lungs like bellows, and jarred our bones in their sockets. Through brush and scrub timber we burst. Thorny vines tore at us detainingly, swampy niggerheads impeded us; but the excitement of the stampede was in our blood, and we plunged down
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gulches, floundered over marshes, climbed steep ridges and crashed through dense masses of underwood. "Throw away your blankets, boys," said the Prodigal. "Just keep a little grub. Eldorado was staked on a stampede. Maybe we're in on another Eldorado. We must connect with that bunch if we break our necks." It was hours after when we overtook them, about a
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dozen men, all in the maddest hurry, and casting behind them glances of furtive apprehension. When they saw us they were hugely surprised. Ribwood was one of the party. "Hello," he says roughly; "any more coming after you boys?" "Don't see them," said the Prodigal breathlessly. "We spied you and cottoned on to what was up, so we made a
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fierce hike to get in on it. Gee, I'm all tuckered out." "All right, get in line. I guess there's lots for us all. You're in on a good thing, all right. Come along." So off we started again. The leader was going like one possessed. We blundered on behind. We were on the other side of the divide looking
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into another vast valley. What a magnificent country it was! What a great manoeuvring-ground it would make for an army! What splendid open spaces, and round smooth hills, and dimly blue valleys, and silvery winding creeks! It was veritably a park of the Gods, and enclosing it was the monstrous, corrugated palisade of the Rockies. But there was small time
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to look around. On we went in the same mad, heart-breaking hurry, mile after mile, hour after hour. "This is going to be a banner creek, boys," the whisper ran down the line. "We're in luck. We'll all be Klondike Kings yet." Cheering, wasn't it? So on we went, hotter than ever, content to follow the man of iron who
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was guiding us to the virgin treasure. We had been pounding along all night, up hill and down dale. The sun rose, the dawn blossomed, the dew dried on the blueberry; it was morning. Still we kept up our fierce gait. Would our leader never come to his destination? By what roundabout route was he guiding us? The sun climbed
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up in the blue sky, the heat quivered; it was noon. We panted as we pelted on, parched and weary, faint and footsore. The excitement of the stampede had sustained us, and we scarcely had noted the flight of time. We had been walking for fourteen hours, yet not a man faltered. I was ready to drop with fatigue; my
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feet were a mass of blisters, and every step was intolerable pain to me. But still our leader kept on. "I guess we'll fool those trying to follow us," snapped Ribwood grimly. Suddenly the Prodigal said to me: "Say, you boys will have to go on without me. I'm all in. Go ahead, I'll follow after I'm rested up." He
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dropped in a limp heap on the ground and instantly fell asleep. Several of the others had dropped out too. They fell asleep where they gave up, utterly exhausted. We had now been going sixteen hours, and still our leader kept on. "You're pretty tough for a youngster," growled one of them to me. "Keep it up, we're almost there."
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So I hobbled along painfully, though the desire to throw myself down was becoming imperative. Just ahead was Jim, sturdily holding his own. The others were reduced to a bare half-dozen. It was about four in the afternoon when we reached the creek. Up it our leader plunged, till he came to a place where a rude shaft had been
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dug. We gathered around him. He was a typical prospector, a child of hope, lean, swarthy, clear-eyed. "Here it is, boys," he said. "Here's my discovery stake. Now you fellows go up or down, anywhere you've a notion to, and put in your stakes. You all know what a lottery it is. Maybe you'll stake a million-dollar claim, maybe a
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blank. Mining's all a gamble. But go ahead, boys. I wish you luck." So we strung out, and, coming in rotation, Jim and I staked seven and eight below discovery. "Seven's a lucky number for me," said Jim; "I've a notion this claim's a good one." "I don't care," I said, "for all the gold in the world. What I
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want is sleep, sleep, rest and sleep." So I threw myself down on a bit of moss, and, covering my head with my coat to ward off the mosquitoes, in a few minutes I was dead to the world. I was awakened by the Prodigal. "Rouse up," he was saying; "you've slept right round the clock. We've got to get
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back to town and record those claims. Jim's gone three hours ago." It was five o'clock of a crystal Yukon morning, with the world clear-cut and fresh as at the dawn of Things. I was sleep-stupid, sore, stiff in every joint. Racking pains made me groan at every movement, and the chill night air had brought on twinges of rheumatism.
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I looked at my location stake, beside which I had fallen. "I can't do it," I said; "my feet are out of business." "You must," he insisted. "Come, buck up, old man. Bathe your feet in the creek, and then you'll feel as fit as a fighting-cock. We've got to get into town hot-foot. They've got a bunch of crooks
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at the gold office, and we're liable to lose our claims if we are late." "Have you staked, too?" "You bet. I've got thirteen below. Hurry up. There's a wild bunch coming from town." I groaned grievously, yet felt mighty refreshed by a dip in the creek. Then we started off once more. Every few moments we would meet parties
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coming post-haste from town. They looked worn and jaded, but spread eagerly up and down. There must have been several hundred of them, all sustained by the mad excitement of the stampede. We did not take the circuitous route of the day before, but one that shortened the distance by some ten miles. We travelled a wild country, crossing unknown
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creeks that have since proved gold-bearing, and climbing again the high ridge of the divide. Then once more we dropped down into the Bonanza basin, and by nightfall we had reached our own cabin. We lay down for a few hours. It seemed my weary head had just touched the pillow when once more the inexorable Prodigal awakened me. "Come
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on, kid, we've got to get to Dawson when the recording office opens." So once more we pelted down Bonanza. Fast as we had come, we found many of those who had followed us were ahead. The North is the land of the musher. In that pure, buoyant air a man can walk away from himself. Any one of us
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thought nothing of a fifty-mile tramp, and one of eighty was scarcely considered notable. It was about nine in the morning when we got to the gold office. Already a crowd of stampeders were waiting. Foremost in the crowd I saw Jim. The Prodigal looked thoughtful. "Look here," he said, "I guess it's all right to push in with that
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bunch, but there's a slicker way of doing it for those that are 'next.' Of course, it's not according to Hoyle. There's a little side-door where you can get in ahead of the gang. See that fellow, Ten-Dollar Jim they call him; well, they say he can work the oracle for us." "No," I said, "you can pay him ten
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dollars if you like. I'll take my chance in the regulation way." So the Prodigal slipped away from me, and presently I saw him admitted at the side entrance. Surely, thought I, there must be some mistake. The public would not "stand for" such things. There was quite a number ahead of me, and I knew I was in for
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a long wait. I will never forget it. For three days, with the exception of two brief sleep-spells, I had been in a fierce helter-skelter of excitement, and I had eaten no very satisfying food. As I stood in that sullen crowd I swayed with weariness, and my legs were doubling under me. Invisible hands were dragging me down, throwing
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dust in my eyes, hypnotising me with soporific gestures. I staggered forward and straightened up suddenly. On the outskirts of the crowd I saw the Prodigal trying to locate me. When he saw me he waved a paper. "Come on, you goat," he shouted; "have a little sense. I'm all fixed up." I shook my head. An odd sense of
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fair play in me made me want to win the game squarely. I would wait my turn. Noon came. I saw Jim coming out, tired but triumphant. "All right," he megaphoned to me; "I'm through. Now I'll go and sleep my head off." How I envied him. I felt I, too, had a "big bunch" of sleep coming to me.
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I was moving forward slowly. Bit by bit I was wedging nearer the door. I watched man after man push past the coveted threshold. They were all miners, brawny, stubble-chinned fellows with grim, determined faces. I was certainly the youngest there. "What have you got?" asked a thick-set man on my right. "Eight below," I answered. "Gee! you're lucky." "What'll
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you take for it?" asked a tall, keen-looking fellow on my left. "Five thousand." "Give you two." "No." "Well, come round and see me to-morrow at the Dominion, and we'll talk it over. My name's Gunson. Bring your papers." "All right." Something like dizziness seized me. Five thousand! The crowd seemed to be composed of angels and the sunshine to
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have a new and brilliant quality of light and warmth. Five thousand! Would I take it? If the claim was worth a cent it ought to be worth fifty thousand. I soared on rosy wings of optimism. I revelled in dreams. My claim! Mine! Eight below! Other men had bounded into affluence. Why not I? No longer did I notice
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the flight of time. I was ready to wait till doomsday. A new lease of strength came to me. I was near the wicket now. Only two were ahead of me. A clerk was recording their claims. One had thirty-four above, the other fifty-two below. The clerk looked flustered, fatigued. His dull eyes were pursy with midnight debauches; his flesh
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sagged. In contrast with the clean, hard, hawk-eyed miners, he looked blotched and unwholesome. Crossly he snatched from the other two their miner's certificates, made the entries in his book, and gave them their receipts. It was my turn now. I dashed forward eagerly. Then I stopped, for the man with the bleary eyes had shut the wicket in my
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face. "Three o'clock," he snapped. "Couldn't you take mine?" I faltered; "I've been waiting now these seven hours." "Closing time," he ripped out still more tartly; "come again to-morrow." There was a growling thunder from the crowd behind, and the weary, disappointed stampeders slouched away. Body and soul of me craved for sleep. Beyond an overwhelming desire for rest, I
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was conscious of nothing else. My eyelids were weighted with lead. I lagged along dejectedly. At the hotel I saw the Prodigal. "Get fixed up?" "No, too late." "You'd better take advantage of the general corruption and the services of Ten-Dollar Jim." I was disheartened, disgusted, desperate. "I will," I said. Then, throwing myself on the bed, I launched on
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a dreamless sea of sleep. Next morning bright and early found me at the side-door, and the tall man admitted me. I slipped a ten-dollar gold piece into his palm, and presently found myself waiting at the yet unopened wicket. Outside I could see the big crowd gathering for their weary wait. I felt a sneaking sense of meanness, but
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I did not have long to enjoy my despicable sensations. The recording clerk came to the wicket. He was very red-faced and watery-eyed. Involuntarily I turned my head away at the reek of his breath. "I want to record eight below on Ophir," I said. He looked at me curiously. He hesitated. "What name?" he asked. I gave it. He
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turned up his book. "Eight below, you say. Why, that's already recorded." "Can't be," I retorted. "I just got down from there yesterday after planting my stakes." "Can't help it. It's recorded by some one else, recorded early yesterday." "Look here," I exclaimed; "what kind of a game are you putting up on me? I tell you I was the
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first on the ground. I alone staked the claim." "That's strange," he said. "There must be some mistake. Anyway, you'll have to move on and let the others get up to the wicket. You're blocking the way. All I can do is to look into the matter for you, and I've got no time now. Come back to-morrow. Next, please."
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The next man pushed me aside, and there I stood, gaping and gasping. A man in the waiting line looked at me pityingly. "It's no use, young fellow; you'd better make up your mind to lose that claim. They'll flim-flam you out of it somehow. They've sent some one out now to stake over you. If you kick, they'll say
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you didn't stake proper." "But I have witnesses." "It don't matter if you call the Angel Gabriel to witness, they're going to grab your claim. Them government officials is the crookedest bunch that ever made fuel for hell-fire. You won't get a square deal; they're going to get the fat anyhow. They've got the best claims spotted, an' men posted
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to jump them at the first chance. Oh, they're feathering their nests all right. They're like a lot of greedy pike just waiting to gobble down all they can. A man can't buy wine at twenty dollars per, and make dance-hall Flossies presents of diamond tararas on a government salary. That's what a lot of them are doing. Wine and
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women, and their wives an' daughters outside thinkin' they're little tin gods. Somehow they've got to foot the bill. Oh, it's a great country." I was stunned with disappointment. "What you want," he continued, "is to get a pull with some of the officials. Why, there's friends of mine don't need to go out of town to stake a claim.
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Only the other day a certain party known to me, went to--well, I mustn't mention names, anyway, he's high up in the government, and a friend of Quebec Suzanne's,--and says to him,'I want you to get number so and so on Hunker recorded for me. Of course I haven't been able to get out there, but--' "The government bug puts
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his hands to his ears. 'Don't give me any unnecessary information,' he says; 'you want so and so recorded, Sam. Well, that's all right. I'll fix it.' "That was all there was to it, and when next day a man comes in post-haste claiming to have staked it, it was there recorded in Sam's name. Get a stand-in, young fellow."
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"But surely," I said, "somehow, somewhere there must be justice. Surely if these facts were represented at Ottawa and proof forthcoming----" "Ottawa!" He gave a sniffing laugh. "Ottawa! Why, it's some of the big guns at Ottawa that's gettin' the cream of it all. The little fellows are just lapping up the drips. Look at them big concessions they're selling
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for a song, good placer ground that would mean pie to the poor miner, closed tight and everlastingly tied up. How is it done? Why, there's some politician at the bottom of the whole business. Look at the liquor permits--crude alcohol sent into the country by the thousand gallons, diluted to six times its bulk, and sold to the poor
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prospector for whisky at a dollar a drink. An' you can't pour your own drinks at that." "Well," I said, "I'm not going to be cheated out of my claim. If I've got to move Heaven and earth----" "You'll do nothing of the kind. If you get sassy there's the police to put the lid on you. You can talk
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till you're purple round the gills. It won't cut no figure. They've got us all cinched. We've just got to take our medicine. It's no use goin' round bellyaching. You'd better go away and sit down." And I did. I had to see Berna at once. Already I had paid a visit to the Paragon Restaurant, that new and glittering
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place of resort run by the Winklesteins, but she was not on duty. I saw Madam, resplendent in her false jewellery, with her beetle-black hair elaborately coiffured, and her large, bold face handsomely enamelled. She looked the picture of fleshy prosperity, a big handsome Jewess, hawk-eyed and rapacious. In the background hovered Winklestein, his little, squeezed-up, tallowy face beaded with
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perspiration. But he was dressed quite superbly, and his moustache was more wondrously waxed than ever. I mingled with the crowd of miners, and in my rough garb, swarthy and bearded as I was, the Jewish couple did not know me. As I paid her, Madam gave me a sharp glance. But there was no recognisant gleam in her eyes.
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In the evening I returned. I took a seat in one of the curtained boxes. At the long lunch-counter rough-necked fellows perched on tripod stools were guzzling food. The place was brilliantly lit up, many-mirrored and flashily ornate in gilt and white. The bill of fare was elaborate, the prices exalted. In the box before me a white-haired lawyer was
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entertaining a lady of easy virtue; in the box behind, a larrikin quartette from the Pavilion Theatre were holding high revelry. There was no mistaking the character of the place. In the heart of the city's tenderloin it was a haunt of human riff-raff, a palace of gilt and guilt, a first scene in the nightly comedy of "The Lobster."
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I was feeling profoundly depressed, miserable, disgusted with everything. For the first time I began to regret ever leaving home. Out on the creeks I was happy. Here in the town the glaring corruption of things jarred on my nerves. And it was in this place Berna worked. She waited on these wantons; she served those swine. She heard their
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loose talk, their careless oaths. She saw them foully drunk, staggering off to their shameful assignations. She knew everything. O, it was pitiful; it sickened me to the soul. I sat down and buried my face in my hands. "Order, please." I knew that sweet voice. It thrilled me, and I looked up suddenly. There was Berna standing before me.
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She gave a quick start, then recovered herself. A look of delight came into her eyes, eager, vivid delight. "My, how you frightened me, I wasn't expecting you. Oh, I am so glad to see you again." I looked at her. I was conscious of a change in her, and the consciousness came with a sense of shearing pain. "Berna,"
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I said, "what are you doing with that paint on your face?" "Oh, I'm sorry." She was rubbing distressfully at a dab of rouge on her cheek. "I knew you would be cross, but I had to; they made me. They said I looked like a spectre at the feast with my chalk face; I frightened away the customers. It's
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just a little pink,--all the women do it. It makes me look happier, and it doesn't hurt me any." "What I want is to see in your cheeks, dear, the glow of health, not the flush of a cosmetic. However, never mind. How are you?" "Pretty well----" hesitatingly. "Berna," boomed the rough, contumacious voice of Madam, "attend to the customers."
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"All right," I said; "get me anything. I just wanted to see you." She hurried away. I saw her go behind the curtains of one of the closed boxes carrying a tray of dishes. I heard coarse voices chaffing her. I saw her come out, her cheeks flushed, yet not with rouge. A miner had tried to detain her. Somehow
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it all made me writhe, agitated me so that I could hardly keep my seat. Presently she came hurrying round, bringing me some food. "When can I see you, girl?" I asked. "To-night. See me home. I'm off at midnight." "All right. I'll be waiting." She was kept very busy, and, though once or twice a tipsy roysterer ventured on
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some rough pleasantry, I noticed with returning satisfaction that most of the big, bearded miners treated her with chivalrous respect. She was quite friendly with them. They called her by name, and seemed to have a genuine affection for her. There was a protective manliness in the manner of these men that reassured me. So I swallowed my meal and
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left the place. "That's a good little girl," said a grizzled old fellow to me, as he stood picking his teeth energetically outside the restaurant. "Straight as a string, and there ain't many up here you can say that of. If any one was to try any monkey business with that little girl, sir, there's a dozen of the boys
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would make him a first-rate case for the hospital ward. Yes, siree, that's a jim-dandy little girl. I just wish she was my darter." In my heart I blessed him for his words, and pressed on him a fifty-cent cigar. Again I wandered up and down the now familiar street, but the keen edge of my impression had been blunted.
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I no longer took the same interest in its sights. More populous it was, noisier, livelier than ever. In the gambling-annex of the Paystreak Saloon was Mr. Mosher shuffling and dealing methodically. Everywhere I saw flushed and excited miners, each with his substantial poke of dust. It was usually as big as a pork-sausage, yet it was only his spending-poke.
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Safely in the bank he had cached half a dozen of them ten times as big. These were the halcyon days. Success was in the air. Men were drunk with it; carried off their feet, delirious. Money! It had lost its value. Every one you met was "lousy" with it; threw it away with both hands, and fast as they
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emptied one pocket it filled up the others. Little wonder a mad elation, a semi-frenzy of prodigality prevailed, for every day the golden valley was pouring into the city a seemingly exhaustless stream of treasure. I saw big Alec, one of the leading operators, coming down the street with his men. He carried a Winchester, and he had a pack-train
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of burros, each laden down with gold. At the bank flushed and eager mobs were clamouring to have their pokes weighed. In buckets, coal-oil cans, every kind of receptacle, lay the precious dust. Sweating clerks were handling it as carelessly as a grocer handles sugar. Goldsmiths were making it into wonders of barbaric jewellery. There seemed no limit to the
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camp's wealth. Every one was mad, and the demi-mondaine was queen of all. I saw Hewson and Mervin. They had struck it rich on a property they had bought on Hunker. Fortune was theirs. "Come and have a drink," said Hewson. Already he had had many. His face was relaxed, flushed, already showing signs of a flabby degeneration. In this
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man of iron sudden success was insidiously at work, enervating his powers. Mervin, too. I caught a glimpse of him, in the doorway of the Green Bay Tree. The Maccaroni Kid had him in tow, and he was buying wine. I looked in vain for Locasto. He was on a big debauch, they told me. Viola Lennoir had "got him
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going." At midnight, at the door of the Paragon, I was waiting in a fever of impatience when Berna came out. "I'm living up at the cabin," she said; "you can walk with me as far as that. That is, if you want to," she added coquettishly. She was very bright and did most of the talking. She showed a
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vast joy at seeing me. "Tell me what you've been doing, dear--everything. Have you made a stake? So many have. I have prayed you would, too. Then we'll go away somewhere and forget all this. We'll go to Italy, where it's always beautiful. We'll just live for each other. Won't we, honey?" She nestled up to me. She seemed to
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have lost much of her shyness. I don't know why, but I preferred my timid, shrinking Berna. "It will take a whole lot to make me forget this," I said grimly. "Yes, I know. Isn't it frightful? Somehow I don't seem to mind so much now. I'm getting used to it, I suppose. But at first--O, it was terrible! I
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thought I never could stand it. It's wonderful how we get accustomed to things, isn't it?" "Yes," I answered bitterly. "You know, those rough miners are good to me. I'm a queen among them, because they know I'm--all right. I've had several offers of marriage, too, really, really good ones from wealthy claim-owners." "Yes," still more bitterly. "Yes, young man;
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so you want to make a strike and take me away to Italy. Oh, how I plan and plan for us two. I don't care, my dearest, if you haven't got a cent in the world, I'm yours, always yours." "That's all right, Berna," I said. "I'm going to make good. I've just lost a fifty-thousand dollar claim, but there's
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more coming up. By the first of June next I'll come to you with a bank account of six figures. You'll see, my little girl. I'm going to make this thing stick." "You foolish boy," she said; "it doesn't matter if you come to me a beggar in rags. Come to me anyway. Come, and do not fail." "What about
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Locasto?" I asked. "I've scarcely seen anything of him. He leaves me alone. I think he's interested elsewhere." "And are you sure you're all right, dear, down there?" "Quite sure. These men would risk their lives for me. The other kind know enough to leave me alone. Besides, I know better now how to take care of myself. You remember
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the frightened cry-baby I used to be--well, I've learned to hold my own." She was extraordinarily affectionate, full of unexpected little ways of endearment, and clung to me when we parted, making me promise to return very soon. Yes, she was my girl, devoted to me, attached to me by every tendril of her being. Every look, every word, every
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act of her expressed a bright, fine, radiant love. I was satisfied, yet unsatisfied, and once again I entreated her. "Berna, are you sure, quite sure, you're all right in that place among all that folly and drunkenness and vice? Let me take you away, dear." "Oh, no," she said very tenderly; "I'm all right. I would tell you at
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once, my boy, if I had any fear. That's just what a poor girl has to put up with all the time; that's what I've had to put up with all my life. Believe me, boy, I'm wonderfully blind and deaf at times. I don't think I'm very bad, am I?" "You're as good as gold." "For your sake I'll
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always try to be," she answered. As we were kissing good-bye she asked timidly: "What about the rouge, dear? Shall I cease to use it?" "Poor little girl! Oh no, I don't suppose it matters. I've got very old-fashioned ideas. Good-bye, darling." "Good-bye, beloved." I went away treading on sunshine, trembling with joy, thrilled with love for her, blessing her
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anew. Yet still the rouge stuck in my crop as if it were the symbol of some insidious decadence. It was about two months later when I returned from a flying visit to Dawson. "Lots of mail for you two," I cried, exultantly bursting into the cabin. "Mail? Hooray!" Jim and the Prodigal, who were lying on their bunks, leapt
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up eagerly. No one longs for his letters like your Northern exile, and for two whole months we had not heard from the outside. "Yes, I got over fifty letters between us three. Drew about a dozen myself, there's half a dozen for you, Jim, and the balance for you, old sport." I handed the Prodigal about two dozen letters.
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"Ha! now we'll have the whole evening just to browse on them. My, what a stack! How was it you had a time getting them?" "Well, you see, when I got into town the mail had just been sorted, and there was a string of over three hundred men waiting at the general delivery wicket. I took my place at
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the tail-end of the line, and every newcomer fell in behind me. My! but it was such weary waiting, moving up step by step; but I'd just about got there when closing-time came. They wouldn't give out any more mail--after my three hours' wait, too." "What did you do?" "Well, it seems every one gives way to the womenfolk. So
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I happened to see a girl friend of mine, and she said she would go round first thing in the morning and enquire if there were any letters for us. She brought me this bunch." I indicated the pile of letters. "I'm told lots of women in town make a business of getting letters for men, and charge a dollar
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a letter. It's awful how hard it is to get mail. Half of the clerks seem scarcely able to read the addresses on the envelopes. It's positively sad to watch the faces of the poor wretches who get nothing, knowing, too, that the chances are there is really something for them sorted away in a wrong box." "That's pretty tough."
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"Yes, you should have seen them; men just ravenous to hear from their families; a clerk carelessly shuffling through a pile of letters. 'Beachwood, did you say? Nope, nothing for you.' 'Hold on there! what's that in your hand? Surely I know my wife's writing.' 'Beachwood--yep, that's right. Looked like Peachwood to me. All right. Next there.' Then the man
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would go off with his letter, looking half-wrathful, half-radiant. Well, I enjoyed my trip, but I'm glad I'm home." I threw myself on my bunk voluptuously, and began re-reading my letters. There were some from Garry and some from Mother. While still unreconciled to the life I was leading, they were greatly interested in my wildly cheerful accounts of the
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