Adventure stories, American; Fiction; Short stories; Western stories
"What can I say? I do not want the woman, yet have I given my word that
for one thousand dollars she can come. I am surprised. Maybe she make
fun, too, so I say, 'Let me see thousand dollars.' And that woman, that
young woman, all alone on the trail, there in the snow, she take out
one thousand dollars, in greenbacks, and she put them in my hand. I
look at money, I look at her. What can I say? I say, 'No, my canoe very
small. There is no room for outfit.' She laugh. She says, 'I am great
traveller. This is my outfit.' She kick one small pack in the snow. It
is two fur robes, canvas outside, some woman's clothes inside. I pick
it up. Maybe thirty-five pounds. I am surprised. She take it away from
me. She says, 'Come, let us start.' She carries pack into canoe. What
can I say? I put my blankets into canoe. We start.
"And that is the way I saw the woman first time. The wind was fair. I
put up small sail. The canoe went very fast, it flew like a bird over
the high waves. The woman was much afraid. 'What for you come Klondike
much afraid?' I ask. She laugh at me, a hard laugh, but she is still
much afraid. Also is she very tired. I run canoe through rapids to Lake
Bennett. Water very bad, and woman cry out because she is afraid. We go
down Lake Bennett, snow, ice, wind like a gale, but woman is very tired
and go to sleep.
"That night we make camp at Windy Arm. Woman sit by fire and eat
supper. I look at her. She is pretty. She fix hair. There is much hair,
and it is brown, also sometimes it is like gold in the firelight, when
she turn her head, so, and flashes come from it like golden fire.
The eyes are large and brown, sometimes warm like a candle behind a
curtain, sometimes very hard and bright like broken ice when sun shines
upon it. When she smile--how can I say?--when she smile I know white
man like to kiss her, just like that, when she smile. She never do
hard work. Her hands are soft, like baby's hand. She is soft all over,
like baby. She is not thin, but round like baby; her arm, her leg, her
muscles, all soft and round like baby. Her waist is small, and when she
stand up, when she walk, or move her head or arm, it is--I do not know
the word--but it is nice to look at, like--maybe I say she is built on
lines like the lines of a good canoe, just like that, and when she move
she is like the movement of the good canoe sliding through still water
or leaping through water when it is white and fast and angry. It is
very good to see.
"Why does she come into Klondike, all alone, with plenty of money? I do
not know. Next day I ask her. She laugh and says: 'Sitka Charley, that
is none of your business. I give you one thousand dollars take me to
Dawson. That only is your business.' Next day after that I ask her what
is her name. She laugh, then she says, 'Mary Jones, that is my name.'
I do not know her name, but I know all the time that Mary Jones is not
her name.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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