Free Forget-Me-Not Bride by Margaret Pemberton

perturbed.
    â€˜Is that why there’s such a demand for mail-order brides?’ she asked, wondering if it might have been better if Susan had left them all in happy ignorance.
    Susan nodded. ‘I guess so. The dance-hall girls rarely marry. They’re too busy having a good time, pocketing gold nuggets from men who’ve struck it rich.’
    â€˜There’s a dance-hall girl aboard the boat,’ Edie said in awestruck tones. ‘Miss Nettlesham told me. And she’s with a man born to be hanged. Miss Nettlesham says he’s a professional gambler and as handsome as the devil.’
    â€˜Then I’ll look out for him,’ Marietta said with great feeling. She grinned suddenly, ‘I wonder how it is Miss High and Mighty Nettlesham knows so much about him? Do you think she’s a dance-hall girl herself?’
    The rather sombre mood Susan had occasioned was immediately dispelled. Amid gales of laughter they put forward ridiculous theories as to why Miss Nettlesham should be so well informed about a dance-hall girl and a gambler and by the time they all filed from the dining-saloon it was as if they had known each other for months, not hours.
    â€˜I’m actually a sourdough,’ Susan said proudly as they surged from the top of the companionway and set about finding somewhere comfortable to sit in the breezy sunshine.
    There were more helpless giggles and even Lettie’s sulky mouth twitched into a grin of amusement.
    â€˜A sourdough?’ Kate’s grey-green eyes danced with laughter. ‘What on earth is a sourdough?’
    Scores of male eyes swivelled in their direction as they appropriated seats on the starboard side of the boat. Marietta’s upswept and tightly curled fox-red hair would have drawn attention anywhere and Lilli’s height and slenderness and natural grace was an automatic head-turner. By contrast, Susan’s heavy features and clumsy gait were even more noticeable and there were many cruel male remarks; remarks Susan fortunately did not hear.
    â€˜You’ll hear the term ‘a sourdough’a lot in the Klondike,’ she said in her school-marmish manner, hardly able to believe her good fortune in making so many new friends so quickly. ‘It’s a term used to describe someone who has sat out a Klondike winter. If you’ve watched the Yukon freeze up in the fall and then break to pieces with a roar in the spring, you’re a sourdough.’
    â€˜I’ve heard another definition,’ Marietta said, a chuckle in her husky voice, ‘It’s that no man can be a sourdough until he’s shot a bear and slept with a squaw …’
    â€˜And that after he’s achieved that, he’d wish he’d shot the squaw and slept with the bear!’ Susan finished for her daringly, the spots of colour in her cheeks deepening to crimson.
    Helpless laughter convulsed them all. Edie, who hadn’t understood the joke but who had laughed all the same said, when their laughter had subsided to giggles, ‘This is the nicest morning I can ever remember. It’s so nice, I don’t ever want it to end.’
    â€˜All things come to an end, Edie,’ Kate said gently, concern in her eyes.
    Lilli was well aware of its cause. Edie’s mental age was that of a nine or a ten-year-old and it was possible she would be taken terrible advantage of when they reached Dawson City. Lilli tried to remember exactly what Mrs Peabody had told her about the arrangements they would meet with there. Hadn’t it been that introductions between Peabody brides-to-be and men looking for brides would be made by Mr Josh Nelson, a Peabody Marriage Bureau representative? She knew that at the time it had all seemed quite civilised.
    At the thought of the faceless, nameless men awaiting them in Dawson City, it suddenly seemed civilised no longer. Her anxiety began to deepen. What was it Susan Bumby had said to her when she, Lilli, had