The Silver Horde. Rex Beach

some powerful effect upon their informant, Chakawana advanced to the table, and, leaning over it, said:

      "You know Willis Marsh?" Her pretty wooden face held a mingled expression of fear, malice, and curiosity.

      "Ouch!" said Fraser, shoving back from his plate. "Don't look at me like that before I've had my coffee."

      "Maybe you know him in San Flancisco, eh?"

      "No, no! We never heard of him until last night."

      "I guess you lie!" She smiled at them wheedlingly, but Boyd reassured her.

      "No! We don't know him at all."

      "Then what for you speak his name?"

      "Miss Malotte told us about him at dinner."

      "Oh!"

      "By-the-way, what kind of a looking feller is he?" asked Fraser.

      "He's fine, han'some man," said Chakawana. "Nice fat man. Him got hair like—like fire."

      "He's fat and red-headed, eh? He must be a picture."

      "Yes," agreed the girl, rather vaguely.

      "Is he married?"

      "I don't know. Maybe he lie. Maybe he got woman."

      "The masculine sex seems to stand like a band of horse-thieves with this dame," Fraser remarked to his companion. "She thinks we're all liars."

      After a moment, Chakawana continued, "Where you go now?"

      "To the States; to the 'outside,'" Boyd answered.

      "Then you see Willis Marsh, sure thing. He lives there. Maybe you speak, eh?"

      "Well, Mr. Marsh may be a big fellow around Kalvik, but I don't think he occupies so much space in the United States that we will meet him," laughed Emerson; but even yet the girl seemed unconvinced, and went on rather fearfully: "Maybe you see him all the same."

      "Perhaps. What then?"

      "You speak my name?"

      "Why, no, certainly not."

      "If I see him, I'll give him your love," offered "Fingerless" Fraser, banteringly; but Chakawana's light-hued cheeks blanched perceptibly, and she cried, quickly:

      "No! No! Willis Marsh bad, bad man. You no speak, please! Chakawana poor Aleut girl. Please?"

      Her alarm was so genuine that they reassured her; and having completed their meal, they rose and left the room. Outside, Fraser said: "This cannery guy has certainly buffaloed these savages. He must be a slave-driver." Then as they filled their pipes, he added: "She was plumb scared to death of him, wasn't she?"

      "Think so?" listlessly.

      "Sure. Didn't she show it?"

      "Um-m, I suppose so."

      They were still talking when they heard the jingle of many bells, then a sharp command from Constantine, and the next instant the door burst open to admit Cherry, who came with a rush of youth and health as fresh as the bracing air that followed her. The cold had reddened her cheeks and quickened her eyes; she was the very embodiment of the day itself, radiantly bright and tinglingly alive.

      "Good-morning, gentlemen!" she cried, removing the white fur hood which gave a setting to her sparkling eyes and teeth. "Oh, but it's a glorious morning! If you want to feel your blood leap and your lungs tingle, just let Constantine take you for a spin behind that team. We did the five miles from the village in seventeen minutes."

      "And how is your measley patient?" asked Fraser.

      "He's doing well, thank you." She stepped to the door to admit Chakawana, who had evidently hurried around from the other house, and now came in, bareheaded and heedless of the cold, bearing a bundle clasped to her breast. "I brought the little fellow home with me. See!"

      The Indian girl bore her burden to the stove, where she knelt to lift the covering from the child's face.

      "Hey there! Look out!" ejaculated Fraser, retreating in alarm. "I never had no measles." But Chakawana went on cuddling the infant in a motherly fashion while Cherry reassured her guests.

      "Is that an Indian child?" asked Emerson, curiously, noting the little fellow's flushed fair skin. The kneeling girl turned upward a pair of tearful, defiant eyes, answering quickly:

      "Yes, him Aleut baby."

      "Him our little broder," came the deep voice of Constantine, who had entered unnoticed; and a moment later, in obedience to an order from Cherry, they bore their charge to their own quarters at the rear.

CHAPTER IV

       Table of Contents

      IN WHICH SHE GIVES HEART TO A HOPELESS MAN

      "I dare say Kalvik is rather lively during the summer season," Emerson remarked to Cherry, later in the day.

      "Yes; the ships arrive in May, and the fish begin to run in July. After that nobody sleeps."

      She had come upon him staring dispiritedly at the fire, and his dejection softened her and drew out her womanly sympathy. She had renewed her efforts to cheer him up, seeking to stir him out of the gloom that imprisoned him. With the healthy optimism and exuberance of her normal youth she could not but deplore the mischance that had changed him into the sullen, silent brute he seemed.

      "It must be rather interesting," he observed, indifferently.

      "It is more than that; it is inspiring. Why, the story of the salmon is an epic in itself. You know they live a cycle of four years, no more, always returning to the waters of their nativity to die; and I have heard it said that during one of those four years they disappear, no one knows where, reappearing out of the mysterious depths of the sea as if at a signal. They come by the legion, in countless scores of thousands; and when once they have tasted the waters of their birth they never touch food again, never cease their onward rush until they become bruised and battered wrecks, drifting down from the spawning-beds. When the call of nature is answered and the spawn is laid they die. They never seek the salt sea again, but carpet the rivers with their bones. When they feel the homing impulse they come from the remotest depths, heading unerringly for the particular parent stream whence they originated. If sand-bars should block their course in dry seasons or obstacles intercept them, they will hurl themselves out of the water in an endeavor to get across. They may disregard a thousand rivers, one by one; but when they finally taste the sweet currents which flow from their birthplaces their whole nature changes, and even their physical features alter: they grow thin, and the head takes on the sinister curve of the preying bird."

      "I had no idea they acted that way," said Boyd. "You paint a vivid picture."

      "That's because they interest me. As a matter of fact, these fisheries are more fascinating than any place I've ever seen. Why, you just ought to witness the 'run.' These empty waters become suddenly crowded, and the fish come in a great silver horde, which races up, up, up toward death and obliteration. They come with the violence of a summer storm; like a prodigious gleaming army they swarm and bend forward, eager, undeviating, one-purposed. It's quite impossible to describe it—this great silver horde. They are entirely defenceless, of course, and almost every living thing preys upon them. The birds congregate in millions, the four-footed beasts come down from the hills, the Apaches of the sea harry them in dense droves, and even man appears from distant coasts to take his toll; but still they press bravely on. The clank of machinery makes the hills rumble, the hiss of steam and the sighs of the soldering-furnaces are like the complaint of some giant overgorging himself. The river swarms with the fleets of fish-boats, which skim outward with the dawn to flit homeward again at twilight and settle like a vast brood of white-winged gulls. Men let the hours go by unheeded, and forget to sleep."

      "What sort of men do they