Chapter 3. The Girl From Drogheda

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_ CHAPTER III. THE GIRL FROM DROGHEDA

Gordon Elliot was too much of a night owl to be an early riser, but next morning he was awakened by the tramp of hurried feet along the deck to the accompaniment of brusque orders, together with frequent angry puffing and snorting of the boat. From the quiver of the walls he guessed that the Hannah was stuck on a sandbar. The mate's language gave backing to this surmise. Divided in mind between his obligation to the sleeping passengers and his duty to get the boat on her way, that officer spilled a good deal of subdued sulphurous language upon the situation.

"All together now. Get your back into it. Why are you running around like a chicken without a head, Reeves?" he snapped.

Evidently the deck hands were working to get the Hannah off by poling.

Elliot tried to settle back to sleep, but after two or three ineffectual efforts gave it up. He rose and did one or two setting-up exercises to limber his joints. The first of these flashed the signal to his brain that he was stiff and sore. This brought to mind the fight on the hurricane deck, and he smiled. His face was about as mobile as if it were in a plaster cast. It hurt every time he twitched a muscle.

The young man stepped to the looking-glass. Both eyes were blacked, his lip had been cut, and there was a purple weal well up on his left cheek. He stopped himself from grinning only just in time to save another twinge of pain.

"Some party while it lasted. I never saw more willing mixers. Everybody seemed anxious to sit in except Mr. Wally Selfridge," he explained to his reflection. "But Macdonald is the class. He's there with both right and left. That uppercut of his is vicious. Don't ever get in the way of it, Gordon Elliot." He examined his injuries more closely in the glass. "Some one landed a peach on my right lamp and the other is in mourning out of sympathy. Oh, well, I ain't the only prize beauty on board this morning." The young man forgot and smiled. "Ouch! Don't do that, Gordon. Yes, son. 'There's many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine.' Now isn't that the truth?"

He bathed, dressed, and went out on the deck.

Early though he was, one passenger at least was up before him. The young woman he had noticed last evening with the magazine was doing a constitutional. A slight breeze was stirring, and as she moved against it the white skirt clung first to one knee and then the other, moulding itself to the long lines of her limbs with exquisite grace of motion. It was as though her walk were the expression of a gallant and buoyant personality.

Irish he guessed her when the deep-blue eyes rested on his for an instant as she passed, and fortified his conjecture by the coloring of the clear-skinned face and the marks of the Celtic race delicately stamped upon it.

The purser came out of his room and joined Elliot. He smiled at sight of the young man's face.

"Your map's a little out of plumb this morning, sir," he ventured.

"But you ought to see the other fellow," came back Gordon boyishly.

"I've seen him--several of him. We've got the best collection of bruises on board I ever clapped eyes on. I've got to give it to you and Mr. Macdonald. You know how to hit."

"Oh, I'm not in his class."

Gordon Elliot meant what he said. He was himself an athlete, had played for three years left tackle on his college eleven. More than one critic had picked him for the All-America team. He could do his hundred in just a little worse than ten seconds. But after all he was a product of training and of the gymnasiums. Macdonald was what nature and a long line of fighting Highland ancestors had made him. His sinewy, knotted strength, his massive build, the breadth of shoulder and depth of chest--mushing on long snow trails was the gymnasium that had contributed to these.

The purser chuckled. "He's a good un, Mac is. They say he liked to have drowned Northrup after he had saved him."

Elliot was again following with his eyes the lilt of the girl's movements. Apparently he had not heard what the officer said. At least he gave no answer.

With a grin the purser opened another attack. "Don't blame you a bit, Mr. Elliot. She's the prettiest colleen that ever sailed from Dublin Bay."

The young man brought his eyes home. They answered engagingly the smile of the purser.

"Who is she?"

"The name on the books is Sheba O'Neill."

"From Dublin, you say."

"Oh, if you want to be literal, her baggage says Drogheda. Ireland is Ireland to me."

"Where is she bound for?"

"Kusiak."

The young woman passed them with a little nod of morning greeting to the purser. Fine and dainty though she was, Miss O'Neill gave an impression of radiant strength.

"Been with you all the way up the river?" asked Elliot after she had passed.

"Yep. She came up on the Skagit from Seattle."

"What is she going to do at Kusiak?"

Again the purser grinned. "What do they all do--the good-looking ones?"

"Get married, you mean?"

"Surest thing you know. Girls coming up ask me what to bring by way of outfit. I used to make out a long list. Now I tell them to bring clothes enough for six weeks and their favorite wedding march."

"Is this girl engaged?"

"Can't prove it by me," said the officer lightly. "But she'll never get out of Alaska a spinster--not that girl. She may be going in to teach, or to run a millinery store, or to keep books for a trading company. She'll stay to bring up kiddies of her own. They all do."

Three children came up the stairway, caught sight of Miss O'Neill, and raced pell-mell across the deck to her.

The young woman's face was transformed. It was bubbling with tenderness, with gay and happy laughter. Flinging her arms wide, she waited for them. With incoherent cries of delight they flung themselves upon her. Her arms enveloped all three as she stooped for their hugs and kisses.

The two oldest were girls. The youngest was a fat, cuddly little boy with dimples in his soft cheeks.

"I dwessed myself, Aunt Sheba. Didn't I, Gwen?"

"Not all by yourself, Billie?" inquired the Irish girl, registering a proper amazement.

He nodded his head slowly and solemnly up and down. "Honeth to goodness."

Sheba stooped and held him off to admire. "All by yourself--just think of that."

"We helped just the teeniest bit on the buttons," confessed Janet, the oldest of the small family.

"And I tied his shoes," added Gwendolen, "after he had laced them."

"Billie will be such a big man Daddie won't know him." And Sheba gave him another hug.

Gwendolen snuggled close to Miss O'Neill. "You always smell so sweet and clean and violety, Aunt Sheba," she whispered in confidence.

"You're spoiling me, Gwen," laughed the young woman. "You've kissed the blarney stone. It's a good thing you're leaving the boat to-day."

Miss Gwen had one more confidence to make in the ear of her friend. "I wish you'd come too and be our new mamma," she begged.

A shell-pink tinge crept into the milky skin of the Irish girl. She was less sure of herself, more easily embarrassed, than the average American of her age and sex. Occasionally in her manner was that effect of shyness one finds in the British even after they have escaped from provincialism.

"Are all your things gathered ready for packing, Janet?" she asked quietly.

The purser gave information to Elliot. "They call her Aunt Sheba, but she's no relative of theirs. The kids are on their way in to their father, who is an engineer on one of the creeks back of Katma. Their mother died two months ago. Miss O'Neill met them first aboard the Skagit on the way up and she has mothered them ever since. Some women are that way, bless 'em. I know because I've been married to one myself six months. She's back there at St. Michael's, and she just grabs at every baby in the block."

The eyes of Elliot rested on Miss O'Neill. "She loves children."

"She sure does--no bluff about that." An imp of mischief sparkled in the eye of the supercargo. "Not married yourself, are you, Mr. Elliot?"

"No."

"Hmp!"

That was all he said, but Gordon felt the blood creep into his face. This annoyed him, so he added brusquely,--

"And not likely to be."

When the call for breakfast came Miss O'Neill took her retinue of youngsters with her to the dining-room. Looking across from his seat at an adjoining table, Elliot could see her waiting upon them with a fine absorption in their needs. She prepared an orange for Billie and offered to the little girls suggestions as to ordering that were accepted by them as a matter of course. Unconsciously the children recognized in her the eternal Mother.

Before they had been long in the dining-room Macdonald came in carrying a sheaf of business papers. He glanced around, recognized Elliot, and made instantly for the seat across the table from him. On his face and head were many marks of the recent battle.

"Trade you a cauliflower ear for a pair of black eyes, Mr. Elliot," he laughed as he shook hands with the man whose name he had just learned from the purser.

The grip of his brown, muscular hand was strong. It was in character with the steady, cool eyes set deep beneath the jutting forehead, with the confident carriage of the deep, broad shoulders. He looked a dynamic American, who trod the way of the forceful and fought for his share of the spoils.

"You might throw in several other little souvenirs to boot and not miss them," suggested Elliot with a smile.

Macdonald nodded indifferently. "I gave and I took, which was as it should be. But it's different with you, Mr. Elliot. This wasn't your row."

"I hadn't been in a good mix-up since I left college. It did me a lot of good."

"Much obliged, anyhow." He turned his attention to a lady entering the dining-room. "'Mornin', Mrs. Selfridge. How's Wally?"

She threw up her hands in despair. "He's on his second bottle of liniment already. I expect those ruffians have ruined his singing voice. It's a mercy they didn't murder both him and you, Mr. Macdonald. When I think of how close you both came to death last night--"

"I don't know about Wally, but I had no notion of dying, Mrs. Selfridge. They mussed us up a bit. That was all."

"But they _meant_ to kill you, the cowards. And they almost did it too. Look at Wally--confined to his bed and speaking in a whisper. Look at you--a wreck, horribly beaten up, almost drowned. We must drive the villains out of the country or send them to prison."

Mrs. Selfridge always talked in superlatives. She had an enthusiasm for the dramatics of conversation. Her supple hands, her shrill, eager voice, the snapping black eyes, all had the effect of startling headlines to the story she might be telling.

"Am I a wreck?" the big Scotchman wanted to know. "I feel as husky as a well-fed malamute."

"Oh, you _talk_. But we all know you--how brave and strong you are. That's why this outrage ought to be punished. What would Alaska do if anything happened to you?"

"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Macdonald. "The North would have to go out of business, I suppose. But you're right about one thing, Mrs. Selfridge. I'm brave and strong enough at the breakfast table. Steward, will you bring me a double order of these shirred eggs--and a small steak?"

"Well, I'm glad you can still joke, Mr. Macdonald, after such a terrible experience. All I can say is that I hope Wally isn't permanently injured. He hasn't your fine constitution, and one never can tell about internal injuries." Mrs. Selfridge sighed and passed to her place.

The eyes of the big man twinkled. "Our little fracas has been a godsend to Mrs. Selfridge. Wally and I will both emerge as heroes of a desperate struggle. You won't even get a mention. But it's a pity about Wally's injuries--and his singing voice."

The younger man agreed with a gravity back of which his amusement was apparent. The share of Selfridge in the battle had been limited to leg work only, but this had not been good enough to keep him from being overhauled and having his throat squeezed.

Elliot finished breakfast first and left Macdonald looking over a long typewritten document. He had it propped against a water-bottle and was reading as he ate. The paper was a report Selfridge had brought in to him from a clerk in the General Land Office. The big Canadian and the men he represented were dealing directly with the heads of the Government departments, but they thought it the part of wisdom to keep in their employ subordinates in the capacity of secret service agents to spy upon the higher-ups. _

Read next: Chapter 4. The Crevasse

Read previous: Chapter 2. Enter A Man

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