The Trail of a Sourdough Part 22

A hot supper, a pipe full of tobacco and a restful evening, however, restored him, especially as s.h.i.+smakoff made his appearance all spick and span after his day's work on the water. The recital of his adventures with a school of whale in mid-ocean, and the capture of one of them, occupied a good share of the evening. Eyllen's father asked many questions relative to the subject. To these were supplemented the queries of the youngster, whose large dark eyes fairly stood out upon his cheeks with wonder at the tale. To say that the boy's admiration for s.h.i.+smakoff was thereafter greatly augmented would be speaking much too mildly. From that day, the young man was looked upon by him as a hero who needed only a following of soldiers to make him a real general.

In this way the evening pa.s.sed with slight reference to the tramp of Eyllen and her father in the mountains, much to the girl's satisfaction.

Her mind was now relieved. Work upon her baskets was again taken up, and perseveringly done. Michaelovitz, with walking stick in hand, tramped among the hills alone often, considering it the affair of no one that a pick and shovel did honest duty in his hands during the day, and lay secreted beneath the rocks near the little spring when he returned to his cabin at night-fall. If his capacious coat pockets contained bread slices in the morning, it was empty by evening, and his hands full of blossoms then quickly pacified the children he met in the village.

At times Eyllen accompanied her father. Then, at his direction, by the use of her mysterious instinct for minerals, she could trace still further the treasure-filled ledges from the spring or ore shute where her initial discovery had been made. By this means, several hundred feet of gold-bearing ledges were located and staked by the girl and her father, whose active labor in the open air, along with a brightened future and more encouraging life prospects, soon caused the man to grow strong and well again. s.h.i.+smakoff and Eyllen became more fond of each other day by day, until at last it was beyond his patience to endure uncertainty longer, and he told her of his great love, begging for a response in the form of a promise of marriage. To this the girl replied as he desired, taking no note of his reference to a lack of exchequer, and that he must go away from the islands in order to make money more rapidly.

A few days afterwards, Michaelovitz invited the young man to join himself and daughter in a ramble to the hills. Eyllen thought it was no harm to give the whales and fishes one day more of freedom, she said, and his boat needed caulking. She insisted that the boat must be made entirely seaworthy, now that it must carry her future husband; and she could not endure the thought of his life being in danger.

Upon reaching the vicinity of the spring in the ledges, Michaelovitz proposed that they rest for a little and listen to a story which Eyllen had to relate to them, but (with a woman's usual perverseness) when they were comfortably seated upon the gra.s.s she refused to begin it. Would she finish if her father began it? they asked.

No, she would not even promise to finish. If her father wished the story to be told, then he must tell it, she declared between laughing and blus.h.i.+ng.

The old man needed no urging. He proceeded to relate the story of the discovery of her gold ledges. Of her patiently locating the ledges in the face of the fact that her strange electric instinct for minerals gave her real suffering; and of her taking him into her secret; not omitting to tell of the water witch, the talisman, and the dream, as well as her wish that s.h.i.+smakoff be kept in ignorance to the last moment. It was now that Michaelovitz forced his daughter to regret that she had not herself told the tale.

He did not spare her blushes. On the contrary he bore down upon the finale of the narrative with all the vigor of a surgeon performing a serious duty, adding that she had had her wishes in the matter gratified, and she ought to be satisfied that their listener was a genuine lover, and not one seeking a wife for her possessions.

At this juncture Eyllen's poor cheeks could blush no longer. Her eyes were wet, but her lips were smiling; and Michaelovitz betook himself to the path which led to the spring, thus giving the lovers an opportunity to be alone.

s.h.i.+smakoff was the first to speak.

"So this is the little one who wears the talisman," he laughed. "But it has no power to protect you from witchcraft, as I can honestly testify.

See! Here in me is the proof of my story. Have you not bewitched _me_?"

his strong arms moving tenderly around the girl's little jacket, while he covered her lips with kisses.

"Give the talisman to me, darling, that I may wear it until your love shall be as strong for me as is my own for Eyllen!"

Then the girl, thinking him in earnest, handed it to her lover who hung it about his neck beneath his waistcoat next to his heart. So the lovers had forgotten the ledges and the man among them, and thought only of their love and each other; the rocks, gold-laden though they were, as well as everything else, being then of secondary importance.

[Ill.u.s.tration]