Argosy, Vol. 112, No. 2 — page 114: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

280 tle thrill through Jane in spite.ef-her late resentment. “Don’t let any one frighten you, Miss Peddar. I don’t think they’ll attempt any open rough stuff, and if they should you will not be in it.” ‘If I had been afraid I wouldn’t have come up here,” Miss Peddar asserted stout- ly. ‘‘ They have only done just sneaking, underhand things so far, haven’t they?” ‘“We don’t actually know who is at the bottom of the mischief yet.’’ He spoke with a note of reserve. “ We'll turn down this lane here. You'll find it rather muddy, I expect, but you will get used to that if you stay.” “T’ll stay if I can do the work at the store all right,” Jane retorted. ‘I’m not a fine society lady, you know, to be afraid of mud and roughing it, and—and soiling my hands. I’m a working girl.’’ She added the last slyly, and averted her face that he might not read the lurking mischief in her eyes. If he recognized her he must speak now. At least, he did not know the name of the girl he had encoun- tered on that far-off night. ‘Of course, but Katalak mud is differ- ent from that in the East, and you are not accustomed to the life up here,” he re- marked. ‘ You'll find a lot of things very different, but you'll be fairly comfortable when you and your father get settled.” It was Jane’s turn for a surreptitious glance, but his expression was inscrutable. “Oh, father and I aren’t a bit alike,” she said carelessly. ‘‘ He thinks he is ad- venturous, but he isn’t, at all: he has been dreaming of getting to Alaska for years, and now that he is here, I think it all rather frightens him. Is this where the road is to be?” , They had passed the last of the hud- died shacks on the side road which had ended in a vast stretch of mud, in which here and there patches of moss and coarse, stunted grass formed.dank oases of green. Almost at their feet were the stakes left by the surveyors, and these marched off, two and two, in a narrowing vista straight into the foothills to the north. Beyond them the faint, lofty line of the St. Elias range lifted snowy peaks against the sky. 4) SHE ARGOSY. Jane drew a deep breath. Somewhere there back of those foothills lay the North- ern Star mine, the fortune which was to. await Ollie on his return if only the man beside her were able to finish his task. . Where those stakes led would lie an un- broken double line of gleaming rails, and down them would come the ore cars bring- ing the copper to the wharf, the first stage of the trip to the smelters at Tacoma. Could the miracle be wrought? It seemed a mere trackless waste of desola- tion about her now. In a few short months, at most, could that magic path of steel be built which would lead to the mine? Jane lifted a glowing face to the young engineer’s to find him gazing quizzically at her, and she lowered her eyes hastily in unwonted confusion. “It—it seems like a tremendous job, doesn’t it?” she asked. ‘“Not here. Of course, it’s only a little single-track jitney road, anyway, but back up there we'll have to trestle over a narrow glacier bed, and if the other gang succeed in hampering us until they get their own equipment assembled, there will be a real race for it.” He turned. ‘ We’d better be starting back now; there isn’t much to look at yet, but I thought you would like to see where the actual work will com- mence.”’ “T’m glad I did,” Jane replied. ‘“ I’m glad to feel that I am a part of it all as you said, Mr. Hoyt. Part of the work, I mean. It must bring a real sense of achievement to complete a job of that sort, even if you only help it along by selling things to the men who are doing it.” ‘““{ wish you would tell me where you sold things before,” Hoyt said suddenly. ‘““The reason for asking which I gave you back at Ma Heaney’s wasn’t all the truth, Miss Peddar. You remind me of some one I saw in the East not so very long ago, and yet you are unlike her, after all.” “Who was she?” Jane asked auda- ciously. Hoyt laughed and shook his head. ‘The last sort of girl you would find roughing it up here! But you don’t be- long either, you know. Storekeeping for a mining company is the last thing in the EOPMICLOOKS Col