Flower of the North

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FLOWER OF THE NORTH

A MODERN ROMANCE

BY JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD

AUTHOR OF THE DANGER TRAIL, PHILIP STEELS, ETC.

TO MY COMRADES OF THE GREAT NORTHERN WILDERNESS, THOSE FAITHFUL
COMPANIONS WITH WHOM I HAVE SHARED THE JOYS AND HARDSHIPS OF THE
"LONG SILENT TRAIL," AND ESPECIALLY TO THAT "JEANNE D'ARCAMBAL."
WHO WILL FIND IN HERSELF THE HEROINE OF THIS STORY, THE WRITER
GRATEFULLY DEDICATES THIS VOLUME.

DETROIT. MICHIGAN

JANUARY, 1912

FLOWER OF THE NORTH

I

"Such hair! Such eyes! Such color! Laugh if you will, Whittemore,
but I swear that she was the handsomest girl I've ever laid my
eyes upon!"

There was an artist's enthusiasm in Gregson's girlishly sensitive
face as he looked across the table at Whittemore and lighted a
cigarette.

"She wouldn't so much as give me a look when I stared," he added.
"I couldn't help it. Gad, I'm going to make a full-page 'cover' of
her to-morrow for Burke's. Burke dotes on pretty women for the
cover of his magazine. Why, demmit, man, what the deuce are you
laughing at?"

"Not at this particular case, Tom," apologized Whittemore. "But--
I'm wondering--"

His eyes wandered ruminatively about the rough interior of the
little cabin, lighted by a single oil-lamp hanging from a cross-
beam in the ceiling, and he whistled softly.

"I'm wondering," he went on, "if you'll ever strike a place where
you won't see 'one of the most beautiful things on earth.' The
last one was at Rio Piedras, wasn't it, Tom? A Spanish girl, or
was she a Creole? I believe I've got your letter yet, and I'll
read it to you to-morrow. I wasn't surprised. There are pretty
women down in Porto Rico. But I didn't think you'd have the nerve
to discover one up here--in the wilderness."

"She's got them all beat," retorted the artist, flecking the ash
from the tip of his cigarette.

"Even the Valencia girl, eh?"

There was a chuckling note of pleasure in Philip Whittemore's
voice as he leaned half across the table, his handsome face,
bronzed by snow and wind, illumined in the lamp-glow. Gregson, in
strong contrast, with his round, smooth cheeks, slim hands, and
build that was almost womanish, leaned over his side to meet him.
For the twentieth time that evening the two men shook hands.

"Haven't forgotten Valencia, eh?" chuckled the artist, gloatingly.
"Lord, but I'm glad to see you again, Phil. Seems like a century
since we were out raising the Old Ned together, and yet it's less
than three years since we came back from South America. Valencia!
Will we ever forget it? When Burke handed me his first turn-down a
month ago and said, 'Tom, your work begins to show you want a
rest,' I thought of Valencia, and was so confoundedly homesick for
those old days when you and I pretty nearly started a revolution,
and came within an ace of getting our scalps lifted, that I moped
for a week. Gad, do I remember it? You got out by fighting, and I
through a pretty girl."

"And your nerve," chuckled Whittemore, crushing the other's hand.
"That was when I made up my mind you were the nerviest man alive,
Greggy. Did you ever learn what became of Donna Isobel?"

"She appeared twice in Burke's, once as the 'Goddess of the
Southern Republics' and again as 'The Girl of Valencia.' She
married that reprobate of a Carabobo planter, and I believe
they're happy."

"It seems to me there were others," continued Whittemore,
pondering for a moment in mock seriousness. "There was one at Rio
whom you swore would make your fortune if you could get her to sit
for you, and whose husband was on the point of putting six inches
of steel into you for telling her so, when I explained that you
were young and harmless, and a little out of your head--"

"With your fist," cried Gregson, joyously. "Gad, but that was a
mighty blow! I can see that knife now. I was just beginning my
paternoster when--chug!--and down he went! And he deserved it. I
said nothing wrong. In my very best Spanish I asked her if she
would sit for me, and why the devil did he take that as an insult?
And she was beautiful."

"Of course," agreed Whittemore. "If I remember, she was 'the
loveliest creature you had ever seen.' And after that there were
others--a score of them at least, each lovelier than the one
before."

"They make up my life," said Gregson, more seriously than he had
yet spoken. "They're the only thing I can draw and do well. I'd
think an editor was mad if he asked me to do something without a
pretty woman in it. God bless 'em, I hope I'll go on seeing them
forever. When I can't see beauty in woman I want to die."

"And you always want to see it in the superlative degree."

"I insist upon it. If she lacks something, as Donna Isobel wanted
color, I imagine that it is there, and she is perfect! But this
one that I saw to-night is perfect! Now what I want to know is
this, Who the deuce is she!"

--"where can she be found, and will she sit for a 'Burke,' two or
three miscellaneous, and a 'study' for the annual sale," struck in
Whittemore. "Is that it?"

"Exactly. You've a natural ability for hitting the nail on the
head, Phil."

"And Burke told you to take a rest."

Gregson offered his cigarettes.

"Yes, Burke is a good-natured, poetic old soul who has a horror of
spiders, snakes, and sky-scrapers. He said to me: 'Greggy, go and
seek nature in some quiet, secluded place, and forget everything
for a fortnight or two except your clothes and half a dozen cases
of beer.' Rest! Nature! Beer! Think of those cheerful suggestions,
Phil, while I was dreaming of Valencia, of Donna Isobels, and
places where Nature cuts up as though she had been taking
champagne all her life. Gad, your letter came just in time!"

"And I told you little enough in that," said Philip, quickly,
rising and pacing uneasily back and forth across the cabin floor.
"I gave you promise of excitement, and urged you to join me if you
could. And why? Because--"

He turned sharply, and faced Gregson across the table.

"I wanted you to come because the thing that happened down in
Valencia, and that other at Rio, isn't a circumstance to the hell
that's going to cut loose pretty soon up here--and I'm in need of
help. Understand? It's not fun--this time. I'm playing a single
hand in what looks like a losing game. If I ever needed a fighter
in my life I need one now. That's why I sent for you."

Gregson shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. He was a head
shorter than his companion, of almost delicate physique. Yet there
was something in the cold gray-blue of his eyes, a peculiar
hardness of his chin, that compelled one to look at him twice and
rendered first judgment unsafe. His slim fingers closed like steel
about Philip's.

"Now you're coming down to business, Phil," he exclaimed. "I've
been waiting with the patience of Job--or of little Bobby Tuckett,
if you remember him, who began courting Minnie Sheldon seven years
ago--and married her the day after I got your letter. I was too
busy figuring out what you hadn't written to go to the wedding. I
tried to read between the lines, and fell down completely. I've
been thinking all the way up from Le Pas, and I'm still at sea.
You called. I came. What's up?"

"It's going to sound a little mad--at first, Greggy," chuckled
Whittemore, lighting his pipe. "It's going to give your esthetic
tastes a jar. Look here!"

He seized Gregson by the arm and led him to the door.

The cold northern sky was brilliant with stars. The cabin, its
logs half smothered in dying masses of verdure which had climbed
about it during the summer, was built on the summit of one of the
wind-cropped ridges which are called mountains in the far north.
Into that north swept infinite wilderness, white and gray where
the starlit tops of the spruce rose up at their feet, black in the
distance. From somewhere out of it there came the low, weeping
monotone of surf beating on a shore. Philip, with one hand on
Gregson's shoulder, pointed with the other into the lonely
desolation which they were facing.

"There isn't much between us and the Arctic Ocean, Greggy," he
said. "See that light off there, like a great fire that has half a
mind to die out one minute and flares up the next? Doesn't it
remind you of the night we got away from Carabobo, when Donna
Isobel pointed out our way to us, with the moon coming up over the
mountains as a guide? That isn't the moon. It's the aurora
borealis. You can hear the wash of the Bay down there, and if
you're keen you can catch the smell of icebergs. There's Fort
Churchill--a rifle-shot beyond the ridge, asleep. There's nothing
but Hudson's Bay Company's posts, Indian camps, and trappers
between here and civilization, which is four hundred miles down
there. Seems like a quiet and peaceful country, doesn't it?
There's something about it that makes you thrill and wonder if
this isn't the biggest part of the universe after all. Listen!
Hear the Indian dogs wailing down at Churchill! That's the primal
voice in this world, the voice of the wild. Even that beating of
the surf is filled with the same thing, for it's rolling up
mystery instead of history. It is telling what man doesn't know,
and in a language which he cannot understand. You're a beauty
scientist, Greggy. This must sink deep."

"It does," said Gregson. "What the deuce are you getting at,
Phil?"

"I'm arriving gradually and without undue haste to the point,
Greggy. I'm about to tell you why I induced you to join me up
here. I hesitate at the last word. It seems almost brutal, taking
into consideration your philosophy of beauty, to drop from all
this--from that blackness and mystery out there, from Donna
Isobels and pretty eyes, down to--fish."

"Fish!"

"Yes, fish."

Gregson, lighting a fresh cigarette, held the match so that the
tiny flame lighted up his companion's face for a moment.

"Look here," he expostulated, "you haven't got me up here to go--
fishing?"

"Yes--and no," said Philip. "But even if I have--"

He caught Gregson by the arm again, and there was a tightness in
the grip of his fingers which convinced the other that he was
speaking seriously now.

"Do you remember what started the revolution down in Honduras the
second week after we struck Puerto Barrios, Greggy? It was a girl,
wasn't it?"

"Yes, and she wasn't half pretty at that."

"It was less than a girl," went on Philip. "Scene: the palm plaza
at Ceiba. President Belize is drinking wine with his cousin, the
fiancee of General O'Kelly Bonilla, the half Irish, half Latin-
American leader of his forces, and his warmest friend. At a moment
when their corner of the plaza is empty Belize helps himself to a
cousinly kiss. O'Kelly, unperceived, arrives in time to witness
the act. From that moment his friendship for Belize turns to
hatred and jealousy. Within three weeks he has started a
revolution, beats the government forces at Ceiba, chases Belize
from the capital, gets Nicaragua mixed up in the trouble, and
draws three French, two German, and two American war-ships to the
scene. Six weeks after the wine-drinking he is President of the
Republic, en facto. And all of this, Greggy, because of a kiss.
Now, if a kiss can start a revolution, unseat a President, send a
government to smash, what must be the possibilities of a fish?"

"I'm getting interested," said Gregson. "If there's a climax, come
to it, Phil. I admit that there must be enormous possibilities in
--a fish. Go on!"

II

For a moment the two men stood in silence, listening to the sullen
beat of surf beyond the black edge of forest. Then Philip led the
way back into the cabin.

Gregson followed. In the light of the big oil-lamp which hung
suspended from the ceiling he noticed something in Whittemore's
face he had not observed before, a tenseness about the muscles of
his mouth, a restlessness in his eyes, rigidity of jaw, an air of
suppressed emotion which puzzled him. He was keenly observant of
details, and knew that these things had been missing a short time
before. The pleasure of their meeting that afternoon, after a
separation of nearly two years, had dispelled for a time the
trouble which he now saw revealing itself in his companion's face
and attitude, and the lightness of Whittemore's manner in
beginning his explanation for inducing him to come into the north
had helped to complete the mask. There occurred to him, for an
instant, a picture which he had once drawn of Whittemore as he had
known him in certain stirring times still fresh in the memory of
each--a picture of the old, cool, irresistible Whittemore, smiling
in the face of danger, laughing outright at perplexities, always
ready to fight with a good-natured word on his lips. He had drawn
that picture for Burke's, and had called it "The Fighter." Burke
himself had criticized it because of the smile. But Gregson knew
his man. It was Whittemore.

There was a change now. He had grown older, surprisingly older.
There were deeper lines about his eyes. His face was thinner. He
saw, now, that Philip's lightness had been but a passing flash of
his old buoyancy, that the old life and sparkle had gone from him.
Two years, he judged, had woven things into Philip's life which he
could not understand, and he wondered if this was why in all that
time he had received no word from his old college chum.

They had seated themselves at opposite sides of the table, and
from an inside pocket Philip produced a small bundle of papers.
From these he drew forth a map, which he smoothed out under his
hands.

"Yes, there are possibilities--and more, Greggy," he said. "I
didn't ask you up here to help me fight air and moonshine. And
I've promised you a fight. Have you ever seen a rat in a trap with
a blood-thirsty terrier guarding the little door that is about to
be opened? Thrilling sport for the prisoner, isn't it? But when
the rat happens to be human--"

"I thought it was a fish," protested Gregson, mildly. "Pretty soon
you'll be having it a girl in a trap--or at the end of a fish-
line--"

"And if I should?" interrupted Philip, looking steadily at him.
"What if I should say there is a girl--a woman--in this trap--not
only one, but a score, a hundred of them? What then, Greggy?"

"I'd say there was going to be a glorious scrap."

"And so there is, the biggest and most unusual scrap of its kind
you ever heard of, Greggy. It's going to be a queer kind of fight
--and queer fighting. And it's possible--very probable--that you
and I will get lost in the shuffle somewhere. We're two, no more.
And we're going up against forces which would make a dozen South
American revolutions look like thirty cents. More than that, it's
likely we'll be in the wrong locality when certain people rise in
a wrath which a Helen of Troy aroused in another people some
centuries ago. See here--"

He turned the map to Gregson, pointing with his finger.

"See that red line? That's the new railroad to Hudson's Bay. It is
well above Le Pas now, and its builders plan to complete it by
next spring. It is the most wonderful piece of railroad building
on the American continent, Greggy--wonderful because it has been
neglected so long. Something like a hundred million people have
been asleep to its enormous value, and they're just waking up now.
That road, cutting across four hundred miles of wilderness, is
opening up a country half as big as the United States, in which
more mineral wealth will be dug during the next fifty years than
will ever be taken from Yukon or Alaska. It is shortening the
route from Montreal, Duluth, Chicago, and the Middle West to
Liverpool and other European ports by a thousand miles. It means
the making of a navigable sea out of Hudson's Bay, cities on its
shores, and great steel-foundries close to the Arctic Circle--
where there is coal and iron enough to supply the world for
hundreds of years. That's only a small part of what this road
means, Greggy. Two years ago--you remember I asked you to join me
in the adventure--I came up seeking opportunity. I didn't dream
then--"

Whittemore paused, and a flash of his old smile passed over his
face.

"I didn't dream that fate had decreed me to stir up what I'm going
to tell you about, Greggy. I followed the line of the proposed
railroad, looking for chances. All Canada was asleep, or too much
interested in its west, and gave me no competition. I was alone
west of the surveyed line; east of it steel-corporation men had
optioned mountains of iron and another interest had a grip on
coal-fields. Six months I spent among the Indians, French, and
half-breeds. I lived with them, trapped and hunted with them, and
picked up a little Cree and French. The life suited me. I became a
northerner in heart and soul, if not quite yet in full experience.
Clubs and balls and cities grew to be only memories. You know how
I have always hated that hothouse sort of existence, and you know
that same world of clubs and balls and cities has gripped at my
throat, downing me again and again, as though it returned my
sentiment with interest. Up here I learned to hate it more than
ever. I was completely happy. And then--"

He had refolded the map, and drew another from the bundle of
papers. It was drawn in pencil.

"And then, Greggy," he went on, smoothing out this map where the
other had been, "I struck my chance. It fairly clubbed me into
recognizing it. It came in the middle of the night, and I sat up
with a camp-fire laughing at me through the flap in my tent,
stunned by the knockout it had given me. It seemed, at first, as
though a gold-mine had walked up and laid itself down at my feet,
and I wondered how there could be so many silly fools in this
world of ours. Take a look at that map, Greggy. What do you see?"

Gregson had listened like one under a spell. It was one of his
careless boasts that situations could not faze him, that he was
immune to outward betrayals of sensation. This seeming
indifference--his light-toned attitude in the face of most serious
affairs would have made a failure of him in many things. But his
tense interest did not hide itself now. A cigarette remained
unlighted between his fingers. His eyes never took themselves for
an instant from his companion's face. Something that Whittemore
had not yet said thrilled him. He looked at the map.

"There's not much to see," he said, "but lakes and rivers."

"You're right," exclaimed Philip, jumping suddenly from his chair
and beginning to walk back and forth across the cabin. "Lakes and
rivers--hundreds of them--thousands of them! Greggy, there are
more than three thousand lakes between here and civilization and
within forty miles of the new railroad. And nine out of ten of
those lakes are so full of fish that the bears along 'em smell
fishy. Whitefish, Gregson--whitefish and trout. There is a fresh-
water area represented on that map three times as large as the
whole of the five Great Lakes, and yet the Canadians and the
government have never wakened up to what it means. There's a fish
supply in this northland large enough to feed the world, and that
little rim of lakes that I've mapped out along the edge of the
coming railroad represents a money value of millions. That was the
idea that came to me in the middle of the night, and then I
thought--if I could get a corner on a few of these lakes, secure
fishing privileges before the road came--"

"You'd be a millionaire," said Gregson.

"Not only that," replied Philip, pausing for a moment in his
restless pacing. "I didn't think of money, at first; at least, it
was a secondary consideration after that night beside the camp-
fire. I saw how this big vacant north could be made to strike a
mighty blow at those interests which make a profession of
cornering meatstuffs on the other side, how it could be made to
fight the fight of the people by sending down an unlimited supply
of fish that could be sold at a profit in New York, Boston, or
Chicago for a half of what the trust demands. My scheme wasn't
aroused entirely by philanthropy, mind you. I saw in it a chance
to get back at the very people who brought about my father's ruin,
and who kept pounding him after he was in a corner until he broke
down and died. They killed him. They robbed me a few years later.
They made me hate what I was once, a moving, joyous part of--life
down there. I went from the north, first to Ottawa, then to
Toronto and Winnipeg. After that I went to Brokaw, my father's old
partner, with the scheme. I've told you of Brokaw--one of the
deepest, shrewdest old fighters in the Middle West. It was only a
year after my father's death that he was on his feet again, as
strong as ever. Brokaw drew in two or three others as strong as
himself, and we went after the privileges. It was a fight from the
beginning. Hardly were our plans made public before we were met by
powerful opposition. A combination of Canadian capital quickly
organized and petitioned for the same privileges. Old Brokaw knew
what it meant. It was the hand of the trust--disguised under a
veneer of Canadian promoters. They called us 'aliens'--American
'money-grabbers' robbing Canadians of what justly belonged to
them. They aroused two-thirds of the press against us, and yet--"

The lines in Whittemore's face softened. He chuckled as he pulled
out his pipe and began filling it.

"They had to go some to beat the old man, Greggy. I don't know
just how Brokaw pulled the thing off, but I do know that when we
won out three members of parliament and half a dozen other
politicians were honorary members of our organization, and that it
cost Brokaw a hundred thousand dollars! Our opponents had raised
such a howl, calling upon the patriotism of the country and
pointing out that the people of the north would resent this
invasion of foreigners, that we succeeded in getting only a
provisional license, subject to withdrawal by the government at
any time conditions seemed to warrant it. I saw in this no blow to
my scheme, for I was certain that we could carry the thing along
on such a square basis that within a year the whole country would
be in sympathy with us. I expressed my views with enthusiasm at
our final meeting, when the seven of us met to complete our plans.
Brokaw and the other five were to direct matters in the south; I
was to have full command of affairs in the north. A month later I
was at work. Over here"--he leaned over Gregson's shoulder and
placed a forefinger on the map--"I established our headquarters,
with MacDougall, a Scotch engineer, to help me. Within six months
we had a hundred and fifty men at Blind Indian Lake, fifty
canoemen bringing in supplies, and another gang putting in
stations over a stretch of more than a hundred miles of lake
country. Everything was working smoothly, better than I had
expected. At Blind Indian Lake we had a shipyard, two warehouses,
ice-houses, a company store, and a population of three hundred,
and had nearly completed a ten-mile roadbed for narrow-gauge
steel, which would connect us with the main line when it came up
to us. I was completely lost in my work. At times I almost forgot
Brokaw and the others. I was particularly careful of the funds
sent up to me, and had accomplished my work at a cost of a little
under a hundred thousand. At the end of the six months, when I was
about to make a visit into the south, one of our warehouses and
ten thousand dollars' worth of supplies went up in smoke. It was
our first misfortune, and it was a big one. It was about the first
matter that I brought up after I had shaken hands with Brokaw."

Philip's face was set and white as he stood in the middle of the
room looking at Gregson.

"And what do you think was his reply, Greggy? He looked at me for
a moment, a peculiar twitching around the corners of his mouth,
and then said, 'Don't allow a trivial matter like that to worry
you, Philip. Why--we've already cleaned up a million on this
little fish deal!'"

Gregson sat up with a jerk.

"A million! Great Scott--"

"Yes, a million, Greggy," said Philip, softly, with his old
fighting smile. "There was a hundred thousand dollars to my credit
in a First National Bank. Pleasant surprise, eh?"

Gregson had dropped his cigarette. His slim hands gripped the
edges of the table. He made no reply as he waited for Whittemore
to continue.

III

For a full minute Philip paced back and forth without speaking.
Then he stopped, and faced Gregson, who was staring at him.

"A million, Greggy," he repeated, in the same soft voice. "A
hundred thousand dollars to my credit--in a First National Bank!
While I was up here hustling to get affairs on a working basis,
eager to show the government and the people what we could do and
would do, triumphing in our victory over the trust, and figuring
each day on my scheme of making this big, rich north deal a
staggering blow to those accursed combinations down there, they
were at work, too. While I was dreaming and doing these things,
Brokaw and the others had formed the Great Northern Fish and
Development Company, had incorporated it under the laws of New
Jersey, and had already sold over a million dollars' worth of
stock! The thing was in full swing when I reached headquarters. I
had authorized Brokaw to act for me, and I found that I was vice-
president of one of the biggest legalized robbery combinations of
recent years. More money had been spent in advertising than in
development work. Hundreds of thousands of copies of my letters
from the north, filled to the brim with the enthusiasm I had felt
for my work and projects, had been sent out broadcast, luring
buyers of stock. In one of these letters I had said that if a half
of the lakes I had mapped out were fished the north could be made
to produce a million tons of fish a year. Two hundred thousand
copies of this letter were sent out, but Brokaw and his associates
had omitted the words, 'If a half of the lakes mapped out were
fished.' It would take fifteen thousand men, a thousand
refrigerator cars, and a capital of five million to bring this
about. I was stunned by the enormity of their fraud, and yet when
I threatened to bring the whole thing to smash Brokaw only laughed
and pointed out that not a single caution had been omitted. In all
of the advertising it was frankly stated that our license was
provisional, subject to withdrawal if the company did not keep
within laws. That very frankness was an advertisement. It was
something different. It struck home where it was meant to strike--
among small and unfledged investors. It roped them in by
thousands. The shares were ten dollars each, and non-assessable.
Five out of six orders were from one to five shares; ninety-nine
out of every hundred were not above ten shares. It was damnable.
The very people for whom I wanted the north to fight had been
humbugged to the tune of a million and a quarter dollars. Within a
year Brokaw and the others had floated a scheme which was worse
than any trust, for the trusts pay back a part of their steals in
dividends. And _I_ was responsible! Do you realize that, Greggy?
It was I who started the project. It was my reports from the north
which chiefly induced people to buy. And this company--a company
of robbers licensed under the law--I am its founder and its vice-
president!"

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