Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [146]
Jack and Sam were revived by the hot tea, and taking the lantern went off to start a search for their goods.
‘How is your wound?’ Beth asked Theo as they huddled together on the sledge with a blanket around them.
‘I don’t think it’s broken open,’ he said. ‘But even if it had, I deserve it for bringing you here. This is no place for a lady.’
‘I’m far from the only one,’ she said. ‘And one day we’ll look back on this and laugh about it.’
‘I hope so.’ He sighed. ‘My wish is that I can make it all up to you by being the perfect husband and giving you the kind of home you deserve.’
‘Is that a proposal?’ she teased him.
He took his hand out of his glove and stroked her cheeks tenderly. ‘It is if you want it to be, but I had intended to ask you somewhere a great deal more romantic than this.’
Beth glanced to her side at the narrow passage between the piled goods. It was still snowing, and other people had come along to share the passage with them; they too were fixing up tarpaulins for a roof. She laughed. ‘I don’t think we’re going to find a romantic setting for some time yet.’
They had thought the climb up the Golden Stairs would be the absolutely worst part of the trail, but the next two days, as they tried to find their goods, were a long, drawn-out torture. It was impossible to sleep; they were filthy, cold and desperate for a hot meal, and the noise from so many people packed all around them and the ceaseless high wind and flurries of snow took them to the very edge of insanity.
They all dug snow off piles of goods, only to be disappointed, and despaired of ever finding their supplies. Digging warmed them a little, but their muscles ached unbearably, and when they stopped digging the cold seemed to freeze up every joint in their bodies.
Beth dreaded needing to relieve herself. Men went anywhere, regardless of who was nearby, but she couldn’t do that, and the more she worried about it, the more often she seemed to need to go.
On the third day up there, with even heavier snow coming down, Beth really thought she couldn’t survive another day. Tears froze on her cheeks and her lips were so cracked she could barely speak. Even Jack was showing signs of flagging. She watched him climbing up a snow-covered pile of goods and noticed how slow he had become. Theo looked deathly pale and staggered when he tried to walk, and although Sam was doing his best to keep up with Jack in the search, it was clear he was on the point of collapse.
Yet it was Sam who finally found their goods. He had taken himself off to try to get his circulation going again, and just happened to walk past another man who’d found his stuff. As he pulled out his last sack, Sam spotted their ribbon-trimmed pole sticking out beneath it. If he hadn’t been there, within an hour the snow would have covered it again.
Packing it all on to the sledges warmed them and lifted their spirits a little, even though snow was coming down thick and fast. Finally they hauled the sledges to the snow-covered hut with a tattered Union Jack flying on it, where the North West Mounted Police, armed with their Maxim guns, stood guard over the border into Canada.
Beth was reassured to see the familiar red jackets and navy blue trousers, and heartened to know the police officers would allow no hand guns into Canada. They were determined that the violence and lawlessness of Skagway should not move across their border.
Duty had to be paid on the goods they had brought from the Alaskan side of the mountain. But Theo turned up trumps by producing a sheath of receipts for goods bought back in Vancouver, and argued that he shouldn’t have to pay tax on them, only on the items bought in Skagway.
Beth wondered how the Mounties could be so pleasant and cheerful, stuck on top of a mountain for months on end in such appalling weather. They might have buffalo coats, but their shack was little warmer than a tent, and in one night the snowfall could be six feet. Yet they seemed amused at Theo’s argument and nodded agreement, charging them only two dollars’ tax in all, without