The God of His Fathers: Tales of the KlondykeLondon, Jack
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The God of His Fathers: Tales of the Klondyke
London, Jack
Klondike River Valley (Yukon) -- Fiction; Short stories, American
"I am very sorry, but I'm going to bed."
"You'll pack if you know what's good for you. Go to bed, or not, when I
get my dogs outside, so help me, onto the sled you go. Mebbe you fooled
with me, but I'll just see your bluff and take you in earnest. Hear me?"
He closed on her wrist till it hurt, but on her lips a smile was growing,
and she seemed to listen intently to some outside sound. There was a
jingle of dog bells, and a man's voice crying "Haw!" as a sled took the
turning and drew up at the cabin.
"_Now_ will you let me go to bed?"
As Freda spoke she threw open the door. Into the warm room rushed the
frost, and on the threshold, garbed in trail-worn furs, knee-deep in the
swirling vapor, against a background of flaming borealis, a woman
hesitated. She removed her nose-trap and stood blinking blindly in the
white candlelight. Floyd Vanderlip stumbled forward.
"Floyd!" she cried, relieved and glad, and met him with a tired bound.
What could he but kiss the armful of furs? And a pretty armful it was,
nestling against him wearily, but happy.
"It was good of you," spoke the armful, "to send Mr. Devereaux with fresh
dogs after me, else I would not have been in till to-morrow."
The man looked blankly across at Freda, then the light breaking in upon
him, "And wasn't it good of Devereaux to go?"
"Couldn't wait a bit longer, could you, dear?" Flossie snuggled closer.
"Well, I was getting sort of impatient," he confessed glibly, at the same
time drawing her up till her feet left the floor, and getting outside the
door.
That same night an inexplicable thing happened to the Reverend James
Brown, missionary, who lived among the natives several miles down the
Yukon and saw to it that the trails they trod led to the white man's
paradise. He was roused from his sleep by a strange Indian, who gave
into his charge not only the soul but the body of a woman, and having
done this drove quickly away. This woman was heavy, and handsome, and
angry, and in her wrath unclean words fell from her mouth. This shocked
the worthy man, but he was yet young and her presence would have been
pernicious (in the simple eyes of his flock), had she not struck out on
foot for Dawson with the first gray of dawn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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