break before you get half-way, and then what good’ll your message be?”
But the stranger doggedly went on undressing, muttering in an undertone,
“I want Charley Drake! Don’t you understand? It’s his partner, dying.”
“Um sick man. Bimeby—” The Indian boy put a finger to his forehead and
whirled his hand in quick circles, thus indicating the approach of brain
fever. “Um work too hard, and um think too much, all the time think about
sick man at Dawson. Very quick um head go round—so.” And he feigned the
bodily dizziness which is caused by a disordered brain.
By this time, undressed as if for a swim, Muso rose to his feet and
started for the bank. Walt stepped in front, barring the way. He shot a
glance at his comrade. Jim nodded that he understood and would stand by.
“Get out of my way, boy!” Muso commanded, roughly, trying to thrust him
aside.
But Walt closed in, and with the aid of Jim succeeded in tripping him
upon his back. He struggled weakly for a few moments, but was too wearied
by his long journey to cope successfully with the two boys whose muscles
were healthy and trail-hardened.
“Pack um into camp, roll um in plenty blanket, and I fix um good,” Jim
advised.
This was quickly accomplished, and the sufferer made as comfortable as
possible. After he had been attended to, and Jim had utilized the medical
lore picked up in the camps of his own people, they fed the stranger’s
dogs and cooked dinner. They said very little to each other, but each boy
was thinking hard, and when they went out into the sunshine a few minutes
later, their minds were intent on the same project.
The river had now risen twenty feet, the ice rubbing softly against the
top of the bank. All noise had ceased. Countless millions of tons of ice
and water were silently waiting the supreme moment, when all bonds would
be broken and the mad rush to the sea would begin. Suddenly, without the
slightest apparent effort, everything began to move down-stream. The jam
had broken.
Slowly at first but faster and faster the frozen sea dashed past. The
noise returned again, and the air trembled to a mighty churning and
grinding. Huge blocks of ice were shot into the air by the pressure;
others butted wildly into the bank; still others, swinging and pivoting,
reached inshore and swept rows of pines away as easily as if they were so
many matches.
In awe-stricken silence the boys watched the magnificent spectacle, and
it was not until the ice had slackened its speed and fallen to its old
level that Walt cried, “Look, Jim! Look at the trail going by!”
And in truth it was the trail going by—the trail upon which they had
camped and traveled during all the preceding winter. Next winter they
would journey with dogs and sleds over the same ground, but not on the
same trail. That trail, the old trail, was passing away before their eyes.
Looking up-stream, they saw open water. No more ice was coming down,
although vast quantities of it still remained on the upper reaches,
jammed somewhere amid the maze of islands which covered the Yukon’s
breast. As a matter of fact, there were several jams yet to break, one
after another, and to send down as many ice-runs. The next might come
along in a few minutes; it might delay for hours. Perhaps there would be
time to paddle across. Walt looked questioningly at his comrade.
“Sure!” Jim remarked, and without another word they carried the canoe
down the bank. Each knew the danger of what they were about to attempt,
but they wasted no speech over it. Wild life had taught them both that
the need of things demanded effort and action, and that the tongue found
its fit vocation at the camp-fire when the day’s work was done.
With dexterity born of long practice they launched the canoe, and were
soon making it spring to each stroke of the paddles as they stemmed the
muddy current. A steady procession of lagging ice-cakes, each thoroughly
capable of crushing the _Peterborough_ like an egg-shell, was drifting on
the surface, and it required of the boys the utmost vigilance and skill
to thread them safely.
Anxiously they watched the great bend above, down which at any moment
might rush another ice-run. And as anxiously they watched the ice
stranded against the bank and towering a score of feet above them. Cake
was poised upon cake and piled in precarious confusion, while the boys
had to hug the shore closely to avoid the swifter current of mid-stream.
Now and again great heaps of this ice tottered and fell into the river,
rolling and rumbling like distant thunder, and lashing the water into
fair-sized tidal waves.
Several times they were nearly swamped, but saved themselves by quick
work with the paddles. And all the time Charley Drake’s pillard camp
smoke grew nearer and clearer. But it was still on the opposite shore,
and they knew they must get higher up before they attempted to shoot
across.
Entering the Stewart River, they paddled up a few hundred yards, shot
across, and then continued up the right hank of the Yukon. Before
long they came to the Bald-Face Bluffs—huge walls of rock which rose
perpendicularly from the river. Here the current was swiftest inshore,
forming the first serious obstacle encountered by the boys. Below the
bluffs they rested from their exertions in a favorable eddy, and then,
paddling their strongest, strove to dash past.
At first they gained, but in the swiftest place the current overpowered
them. For a full sixty seconds they remained stationary, neither
advancing nor receding, the grim cliff base within reach of their arms,
their paddles dipping and lifting like clockwork, and the rough water
dashing by in muddy haste. For a full sixty seconds, and then the canoe
sheered in to the shore. To prevent instant destruction, they pressed
their paddles against the rocks, sheered back into the stream, and
were swept away. Regaining the eddy, they stopped for breath. A second
time they attempted the passage; but just as they were almost past, a
threatening ice-cake whirled down upon them on the angry tide, and they
were forced to flee before it.
“Um stiff, I think yes,” Chilkoot Jim said, mopping the sweat from his
face as they again rested in the eddy. “Next time um make um, sure.”
“We’ve got to. That’s all there is about it,” Walt answered, his teeth
set and lips tight-drawn, for Pete Muso had set a bad example, and he was
almost ready to cry from exhaustion and failure. A third time they darted
out of the head of the eddy, plunged into the swirling waters, and worked
a snail-like course ahead. Often they stood still for the space of many
strokes, but whatever they gained they held, and they at last drew out
into easier water far above. But every moment was precious. There was
no telling when the Yukon would again become a scene of wild anarchy in
which neither man nor any of his works could hope to endure. So they held
steadily to their course till they had passed above Charley Drake’s camp
by a quarter of a mile. The river was fully a mile wide at this point,
and they had to reckon on being carried down by the swift current in
crossing it.
Walt turned his head from his place in the bow. Jim nodded. Without
further parley they headed the canoe out from the shore, at an angle of
forty-five degrees against the current. They were on the last stretch
now; the goal was in fair sight. Indeed, as they looked up from the
toil to mark their progress, they could see Charley Drake and his two
comrades come down to the edge of the river to watch them.
Five hundred yards; four hundred yards; the _Peterborough_ cut the water
like a blade of steel; the paddles were dipping, dipping, dipping in
rapid rhythm—and then a warning shout from the bank sent a chill to
their hearts. Round the great bend just above rolled a mighty wall of
glistening white. Behind it, urging it on to lightning speed, were a
million tons of long-pent water.
The right flank of the ice-run, unable to get cleanly round the bend,
collided with the opposite shore, and even as they looked they saw the
ice mountains rear toward the sky, rise, collapse, and rise again in
glittering convulsions. The advancing roar filled the air so that Walt
could not make himself heard; but he paused long enough to wave his
paddle significantly in the direction of Dawson. Perhaps Charley Drake,
seeing, might understand.
With two swift strokes they whirled the _Peterborough_ down-stream. They
must keep ahead of the rushing flood. It was impossible to make either
bank at that moment. Every ounce of their strength went into the paddles,
and the frail canoe fairly rose and leaped ahead at every stroke. They
said nothing. Each knew and had faith in the other, and they were too
wise to waste their breath. The shore-line—trees, islands and the Stewart
River—flew by at a bewildering rate, but they barely looked at it.
Occasionally Chilkoot Jim stole a glance behind him at the pursuing
trail, and marked the fact that they held their own. Once he shaped a
sharper course toward the bank, but found the trail was overtaking them,
and gave it up.
Gradually they worked in to land, their failing strength warning them
that it was soon or never. And at last, when they did draw up to the
bank, they were confronted by the inhospitable barrier of the stranded
shore-ice. Not a place could be found to land, and with safety virtually
within arm’s reach, they were forced to flee on down the stream. They
passed a score of places, at each of which, had they had plenty of time,
they could have clambered out; but behind pressed on the inexorable
trail, and would not let them pause.
Half a mile of this work drew heavily upon their strength; and the trail
came upon them nearer and nearer. Its sullen grind was in their ears,
and its collisions against the bank made one continuous succession of
terrifying crashes. Walt felt his heart thumping against his ribs and
caught each breath in painful gasps. But worst of all was the constant
demand upon his arms.
If he could only rest for the space of one stroke, he felt that the
torture would be relieved; but no, it was dip and lift, dip and lift,
till it seemed as if at each stroke he would surely die. But he knew that
Chilkoot Jim was suffering likewise; that their lives depended each upon
the other; and that it would be a blot upon his manhood should he fail or
even miss a stroke.
They were very weary, but their faith was large, and if either felt
afraid, it was not of the other, but of himself.
Flashing round a sharp point, they came upon their last chance for
escape. An island lay close inshore, upon the nose of which the ice lay
piled in a long slope. They drove the _Peterborough_ half out of water
upon a shelving cake and leaped out. Then, dragging the canoe along,
slipping and tripping and falling, but always getting nearer the top,
they made their last mad scramble.
As they cleared the crest and fell within the shelter of the pines, a
tremendous crash announced the arrival of the trail. One huge cake,
shoved to the top of the rim-ice, balanced threateningly above them and
then toppled forward.
With one jerk they flung themselves and the canoe from beneath, and again
fell, breathless and panting for air. The thunder of the ice-run came
dimly to their ears; but they did not care. It held no interest for them
whatsoever. All they wished was simply to lie there, just as they had
fallen, and enjoy the inaction of repose.
Two hours later, when the river once more ran open, they carried the
_Peterborough_ down to the water. But just before they launched it,
Charley Drake and a comrade paddled up in another canoe.
“Well, you boys hardly deserve to have good folks out looking for you,
the way you’ve behaved,” was his greeting. “What under the sun made you
leave your tent and get chased by the trail? Eh? That’s what I’d like to
know.”
It took but a minute to explain the real state of affairs, and but
another to see Charley Drake hurrying along on his way to his sick
partner at Dawson.
“Pretty close shave, that,” Walt Masters said, as they prepared to get
aboard and paddle back to camp.
“Sure!” Chilkoot Jim replied, rubbing his stiffened biceps in a
meditative fashion.
BIG TIMBER BEACON
By John L. Mathews
There were three government beacon-lights in Big Timber Bend, and the
uppermost of them was Barney Layton’s. It was nothing more than a lantern
set in a frame against a white target on the top of a post, fifty feet
from the edge of the deep bank of the Mississippi River. It was at the
very head of the bend, at the foot of the “crossing” by which the channel
came from the lower end of Silverplate Bend over into Big Timber. It
stood there so that the pilots on river steamers, coming down, could
set the bows of their boats toward it, and run straight and true in the
channel between the lower end of McAlpin’s Bar and the head of Nodaway
Towhead.
When the river was low, this channel was both shoal and narrow, and the
white target by day and the bright lantern by night had been gladly
welcomed by pilots who had figured their way over the crossing in old
days by sounding-pole and luck.
Every night at sunset Barney climbed the levee in front of his mother’s
cabin, walked the half-mile down to the head of Big Timber, and out by
a path he had made through the big timber itself to his light-post,
carrying the lantern, which he set in place and lighted. Every morning he
came early to put it out and carry it home for cleaning and filling. For
this the government paid his mother seventy-five dollars a year, besides
furnishing the oil and other supplies; and seventy-five dollars a year is
a considerable amount behind a levee in lower Arkansas.
The work was not always as easy as it sounds. Some years the Mississippi
never rises out of its banks—and some years it does. When it did, it
filled all the big timber in front of the levee with a rushing current,
and Barney Layton had to use main strength as well as his wits getting
out in his skiff to tend his light. Sometimes he would be carried by,
and washed a mile down-stream before he could get out of the current and
start home again; and with the river out of its banks, he was always
rather glad when the post, too, was submerged, and the support for his
light was either nailed on a tree in the front of the big timber or
abandoned altogether for a week or two.
Big Timber Bend had been stable for several years. The swift current of
the river sweeping by its front had apparently taken not a foot of soil
from it. The light-post had been shifted hardly a rod in two seasons. The
crossing seemed to hold its place.
But at last came a big water out of the Ohio, which found the river
already full and the lower tributaries high. For weeks it stood over the
banks and against the levees, and when at last it went down, it left the
earthen banks saturated with water, so that they could with difficulty
sustain their own weight without collapsing.
Then Silverplate Bend began to cave. As the pressure of the water on its
front was withdrawn, the bank began to topple over and settle into the
river in great slices, eating back farther and farther, changing the
shape of the bend, and altering the set of the current over the crossing.
The deflected swift water ate up into McAlpin’s Bar, and struck Big
Timber Bend a hundred yards above the light; and one night the _Rupert
Lee_, coming up, and steering by Barney’s beacon, as it turned where
the crossing used to be, ran hard on a new bar at the head of Nodaway
Towhead. She got off before morning, and lay up at the light till the
crossing could be sounded, and Barney had a chat about it with pilot Ned
Hinckley.
“Better get your light shifted,” said the pilot, banteringly. “If we’d
been coming down and struck that bar with the current, the _Rupert_ would
have left her bones in it. What good’s a false beacon, youngster?”
“A false beacon?” Barney took that very much to heart. He told his mother
about it, and she forthwith wrote to the lighthouse inspector; but the
letter was forestalled the next day, when the tender _Lily_ herself
arrived with the inspector on board, sounded out a new channel, and moved
Barney’s light up the bank to mark it.
“Now, Barney,” said the inspector, “you’ve got to be on watch. That bank
in Silverplate is going to make trouble below. Big Timber Bend will begin
caving before many days. It can’t stand this. The water is seventy feet
deep right in front of this bank, and it must be cutting pretty steep
now. The snag boat will be along pretty soon and cut the timber off quite
away back, and then we’ll set the light farther inland. But till then
you must watch, and if the bank where the light is starts to go, get the
target and nail it to the front of that big gum-tree right behind it. If
that goes, keep on working straight back till we get here. The crossing
is moving up so you’ll be about right.”
Barney promised faithfully—and he kept his word. He was only a boy
of fifteen, and it was a good deal of responsibility to have on his
shoulders; but Barney was used to all kinds of responsibility, from
taking care of his mother to hauling his cotton to the gin. He would keep
this beacon true.
The inspector’s prophecy was promptly verified. Within a week Big Timber
Bend was caving, and caving badly. When Barney came to put the light out
one morning, he heard the roar of it—a roar that made him run, for it was
more than the noise of earthen banks going in; it was the sound of trees
crashing into the river.
He hurried through the woods and found his light still standing, but so
close to the edge that it seemed saved by a miracle. The bank before it
had given and slipped into the water, leaving not over a foot of earth
before the post, and the ladder by which he usually mounted stuck out
over empty air.
Barney approached cautiously, knowing that the whole section on which
he stood might at any moment sink into the deep water. As he neared the
edge, there was a roar, and a big section ten rods down-stream went
under. Barney felt chills run up and down his spine, but he stayed to get
his light. Foot by foot he advanced, waiting to see if anything would
happen after each step, and reached at last the six-foot post, “shinned”
cautiously up it, grasped the lantern, and retired to safer ground.
Then he thought of the target. To get it was a task, for he might shake
the post free and precipitate himself into the eddying water thirty feet
below. But he must have the target. So cautiously he went back, and
cautiously he tugged and wrenched until he had the white board loose.
Then he went back to the house for nails and a hammer; and later in the
day he came back to fix a new mounting, and brought the lantern with him.
Meanwhile the river had not been idle. Barney had left the white target
at the foot of the big gum-tree on which it was to be nailed; but the
river had evidently desired the piece of bank on which that gum-tree
stood, and had undermined it. It had cracked off fifty feet back of the
tree, and an acre at more had slumped down about four feet. There it had
stopped, but Barney knew that the slightest jar might be enough to start
the whole piece settling again beneath the river. Did he dare jump down
on it, run out, get his target, and scramble back? Did he dare?
Barney thought about false beacons, and scarcely hesitated. The bank on
which he stood had cut away as sharply as if chiseled, and the soil that
formed the edge was still wet and smooth. Over it slipped Barney to the
lower part, and hastened toward the gum.
He had just reached it when he felt a peculiar trembling of the earth,
and heard a series of loud splashes at the waterside. A quick glance
told him what was happening. The whole loose segment on which he stood
had started slipping again. It went slowly down, while Barney raced for
the firm bank; but when he reached the edge of the slipping piece he was
already confronted by a precipice at least fifteen feet in height, to
scale which was impossible.
Badly frightened, but not panic-stricken, he made two or three futile
attempts, only to bring the earth crashing down with him; and realizing
that this was to invite immediate sinking of the part he stood on, he
looked for another plan. Up- and down-stream ran the precipice which
balked him. All round the other sides the land gave sharply down into the
river, and at its feet washed that swift current, which, within a short
distance of the edge, was seventy feet deep.
Barney went carefully back to the big gum-tree, wondering how he would
get off. As he stood by it the earth slipped five or six feet lower, and
Barney realized that another six feet would put him under water. Then he
had an idea. There was one route to possible safety—up the big gum-tree!
Sometimes when the bank goes in, such trees roll over and drift away,
their roots free of earth. Sometimes they turn their roots up, embed
their branches in the bottom, and form dangerous snags. But sometimes
they stand upright for days, even weeks, their tops out of water, their
main trunk and roots hidden deep beneath the flood. This was going down
so straight that Barney hoped it might take that course.
It was a big tree and the nearest fork was at least twenty feet up. But
Barney had brought his hammer and a pocketful of four-inch nails for the
target. He picked the target up, and with two of them nailed it firmly
to the tree five feet above the ground. He took a cord from his pocket
and hung his lantern over his shoulder, drove a spike two feet from the
ground for a step, mounted on it and threw a knee over the target, and
drove another two feet above that.
Sitting on the target, he drove another still higher, and then standing,
drove another above that. They were not directly in line, but formed a
sort of ladder for him, although a ladder difficult to cling to.
He was still standing on the target when the earth slipped again, and
this time tilted, so that the shore edge was below water-line; but the
outer edge was a foot or two above the eddies, and the tree tilted
shoreward slightly. That made climbing easier. He was on the upper side,
and could lean somewhat against the tree. Nail after nail he drove,
and climbed steadily upward until, as he reached the crotch and found
branches on which he could mount more easily, the land in which the tree
was rooted caved easily down into the turbulent water!
Had a mad dog suddenly learned how to climb a tree, and scrambled up
after him, Barney could not have climbed faster than he now went up the
rest of the big gum. He fairly jumped from branch to branch, warned of
the need of haste by the gurgle of water below.
The bank went down steadily as he went up, but at last it came to rest
again, leaving Barney ten feet above the water, and on the highest branch
on which he dared to risk his weight.
Looking about him, he discovered himself in a dreadful plight. All round
rushed the swift water of the channel current, bending and swaying his
treetop till he feared it would be torn away. Fifty feet of angry water
lay between him and the shore, and the shore itself was a frowning cliff
almost perpendicular and thirty feet high. It was three miles down to the
foot of Big Timber Bend, and Barney could see no prospect of being able
to swim out.
He cogitated until dusk came, and could not imagine how any one would
come to rescue him.
He had kept his hammer, thrust into his outside pocket, when he sprang
into the branches, and with his last nail he made a hook for his lantern
on the swaying tree. Then he lighted and hung the beacon.
“Must keep that true,” he said aloud, as he did so.
Then settling himself in the most nearly comfortable position he could
find, he prepared to wait until some solution of his difficulty was
thrust upon him, either by the final collapse of the tree or by the
arrival of rescue. As it was a warm summer night, even the cool of the
river could not make his position impossible, and there was nothing for
him to do but wait.
When the big steamboat _Rupert Lee_, bound down, swung into the head of
Silverplate Bend long after midnight, pilot Ned Hinckley prepared for
trouble.