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THE HOUND FROM THE NORTH
[Illustration: "AND EVERY NOW AND THEN IT WOULD CEASE ITS HEALING
OPERATION TO THROW UP ITS LONG MUZZLE AND EMIT ONE OF THOSE DRAWN-OUT
HOWLS."]
THE HOUND FROM THE NORTH
By RIDGWELL CULLUM
Author of
"In the Brooding Wild," "The Story of the Foss River Ranch,"
"The Law Breakers," "The Way of the Strong," Etc.
With Frontispiece
By CHARLES LIVINGSTON BULL
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by Arrangement with The Page Company
Copyright, 1904
By L. C. Page & Company
(INCORPORATED)
All rights reserved
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. IN THE MOUNTAINS 1
II. MR. ZACHARY SMITH 15
III. MR. ZACHARY SMITH SMOKES 29
IV. 'YELLOW BOOMING--SLUMP IN GREY' 46
V. THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL 65
VI. THE PROGRESSIVE EUCHRE PARTY 81
VII. LESLIE GREY FULFILS HIS DESTINY 98
VIII. GREY'S LAST WORDS 115
IX. LONELY RANCH AT OWL HOOT 133
X. THE GRAVEYARD AT OWL HOOT 157
XI. CANINE VAGARIES 181
XII. THE BREAKING OF THE STORM 202
XIII. BLACKMAIL 226
XIV. A STAB IN THE DARK 240
XV. THE MAGGOT AT THE CORE 257
XVI. AN ECHO FROM THE ALASKAN MOUNTAINS 273
XVII. THE LAST OF LONELY RANCH 286
XVIII. THE FOREST DEMON PURSUES 306
XIX. THE AVENGER 321
IN CONCLUSION 341
THE HOUND FROM THE NORTH
CHAPTER I
IN THE MOUNTAINS
A pallid sun, low, gleaming just over a rampart of mountain-tops.
Sundogs--heralds of stormy weather--fiercely staring, like sentries,
upon either hand of the mighty sphere of light. Vast glaciers
shimmering jewel-like in the steely light of the semi-Arctic evening.
Black belts of gloomy pinewoods on the lower slopes of the mountains;
the trees snow-burdened, but black with the darkness of night in their
melancholy depths. The earth white; snow to the thickness of many feet
on all. Life none; not a beast of the earth, nor a fowl of the air,
nor the hum of an insect. Solitude. Cold--grey, pitiless cold. Night
is approaching.
The hill ranges which backbone the American continent--the northern
extremity of the Rocky Mountains. The barrier which confronts the
traveller as he journeys from the Yukon Valley to the Alaskan
seaboard. Land where the foot of man but rarely treads. And
mid-winter.
But now, in the dying light of day, a man comes slowly, painfully into
the picture. What an atom in that infinity of awful grandeur. One
little life in all that desert of snow and ice. And what a life. The
poor wretch was swathed in furs; snow-shoes on his feet, and a long
staff lent his drooping figure support. His whole attitude told its
own tale of exhaustion. But a closer inspection, one glance into the
fierce-burning eyes, which glowered from the depths of two cavernous
sockets, would have added a sequel of starvation. The eyes had a
frenzied look in them, the look of a man without hope, but with still
that instinct of life burning in his brain. Every now and again he
raised one mitted hand and pressed it to nose and cheeks. He knew his
face was frozen, but he had no desire to stop to thaw it out. He was
beyond such trifles. His upturned storm-collar had become massed with
icicles about his mouth, and the fur was frozen solidly to his chin
whisker, but he gave the matter no heed.
The man tottered on, still onward with the dogged persistence which
the inborn love of life inspires. He longed to rest, to seat himself
upon the snow just where he happened to be, to indulge that craving
for sleep which was upon him. His state of exhaustion fostered these
feelings, and only his brain fought for him and clung to life. He knew
what that drowsy sensation meant. He was slowly freezing. To rest
meant sleep--to sleep meant death.
Slowly he dragged himself up the inclining ledge he was traversing.
The path was low at the base of one of the loftiest crags. It wound
its way upwards in such a fashion that he could see little more than
fifty yards ahead of him ere it turned away to the left as it skirted
the hill. He was using his last reserve of strength, and he knew it.
At the top he stood half dazed. The mountain rose sheer up to dizzy
heights on one side, and a precipice was on the other. He turned his
dreadful eyes this way and that. Then he scanned the prospect before
him--a haze of dimly-outlined mountains. He glanced back, tracing his
uneven tracks until they disappeared in the grey evening light. Then
he turned back again to a contemplation of what lay before him.
Suddenly his staff slipped from his hand as though he no longer had
the strength to grip it. Then, raising his arms aloft, he gave vent to
one despairing cry in which was expressed all the pent-up agony of his
soul. It was the cry of one from whom all hope had gone.
"God! God have mercy on me! I am lost--lost!"
The despairing note echoed and re-echoed among the hills. And as each
echo came back to his dulled ears it was as though some invisible
being mocked him. Suddenly he braced himself, and his mind obtained a
momentary triumph over his physical weakness. He stooped to recover
his staff. His limbs refused to obey his will. He stumbled. Then he
crumpled and fell in a heap upon the snow.
All was silent, and he lay quite still. Death was gripping him, and he
knew it. Presently he wearily raised his head. He gazed about him with
eyelids more than half closed. "Is it worth the struggle?" he seemed
to ask; "is there any hope?" He felt so warm, so comfortable out there
in the bitter winter air. Where had been the use of his efforts? Where
the use of the gold he had so laboriously collected at the new
Eldorado? At the thought of his gold his spirit tried to rouse him
from the sleep with which he was threatened. His eyelids opened wide,
and his eyes, from which intelligence was fast disappearing, rolled in
their gaunt sockets. His body heaved as though he were about to rise,
but beyond that he did not move.
As he lay there a sound reached his numbed ears. Clear through the
crisp night air it came with the keenness and piercing incision which
is only obtained in the still air of such latitudes. It was a human
cry: a long-drawn "whoop." Like his own cry, it echoed amongst the
hills. It only needed such as this to support the inclinations of the
sufferer's will. His head was again raised. And in his wild eyes was a
look of alertness--hope. He listened. He counted the echoes as they
came. Then, with an almost superhuman effort, he struggled to his
feet. New life had come to him born of hope. His weakened frame
answered to his great effort. His heart was throbbing wildly.
As he stood up the cry came to him again, nearer this time. He moved
forward and rounded the bend in the path. Again the cry. Now just
ahead of him. He answered it with joy in his tone and shambled on. Now
two dark figures loomed up in the grey twilight. They were moving
swiftly along the ledge towards him. They cried out something in a
foreign tongue. He did not understand, but his joy was no less. They
came up, and he saw before him the short, stout figures of two
fur-clad Eskimos. He was saved.
* * * * *
Inside a small dugout a dingy oil lamp shed its murky rays upon
squalid surroundings. The place was reeking with the offensive odours
exhaled from the burning oil. The atmosphere was stifling.
There were four occupants of this abode, and, stretched in various
attitudes on dusty blankets spread upon the ground, they presented a
strange picture. Two of these were Eskimos. The broad, flat faces,
sharp noses, and heavy lips were unmistakable, as were their dusky,
greasy skins and squat figures. A third man was something between the
white-man and the redskin. He was in the nature of a half-breed, and,
though not exactly pleasant to look upon, he was certainly interesting
as a study. He was lying with limbs outstretched and his head propped
upon one hand, while his gaze was directed with thoughtful intensity
towards a small, fierce-burning camp-stove, which, at that moment, was
rendering the hut so unbearably hot.
His face was sallow, and indented with smallpox scars. He had no hair
upon it, except a tuft or two of eyebrows, which the ravages of
disease had condescended to leave to him. His nose, which was his best
feature, was beaky, but beautifully aquiline; but his mouth was wide,
with a lower lip that sagged loosely from its fellow above. His head
was small, and was burdened with a crown of lank black hair which had
been allowed to grow Indian-like until it hung upon his shoulders. He
was of medium height, and his arms were of undue length.
The other occupant of the dugout was our traveller. He was stretched
upon a blanket, on which was spread his fur coat; and he was
alternating between the disposal of a bowl of steaming soup and
groaning with the racking pains caused by his recently thawed-out
frost-bites.
The soup warmed his starving body, and his pain increased proportionately.
In spite of the latter, however, he felt very much alive. Occasionally
he glanced round upon his silent companions. Whenever he did so one or
the other, or both of the Eskimos were gazing stolidly at him.
He was rather a good-looking man, notwithstanding his now unkempt
appearance. His eyes were large--very large in their hollow sockets.
His nose and cheeks were, at present, a mass of blisters from the
thawing frost-bites, and his mouth and chin were hidden behind a
curtain of whisker of about three weeks' growth. There was no
mistaking him for anything but an Anglo-Saxon, and a man of
considerable and very fine proportions.
When his soup was finished he set the bowl down and leaned back with a
sigh. The pock-marked man glanced over at him.
"More?" he said, in a deep, not unmusical, tone.
The half-starved traveller nodded, and his eyes sparkled. One of the
Eskimos rose and re-filled the bowl from a tin camp-kettle which stood
on the stove. The famished man took it and at once began to sup the
invigorating liquid. The agonies of his frost-bites were terrible, but
the pangs of hunger were greater. By and by the bowl was set down
empty.
The half-breed sat up and crossed his legs, and leant his body against
two sacks which contained something that crackled slightly under his
weight.
"Give you something more solid in an hour or so. Best not have it too
soon," he said, speaking slowly, but with good enunciation.
"Not now?" said the traveller, in a disappointed tone.
The other shook his head.
"We're all going to have supper then. Best wait." Then, after a pause:
"Where from?"
"Forty Mile Creek," said the other.
"You don't say! Alone?"
There was a curious saving of words in this man's mode of speech.
Possibly he had learned this method from his Indian associates.
The traveller nodded.
"Yes."
"Where to?"
"The sea-coast."
The half-breed laughed gutturally.
"Forty Mile Creek. Sea-coast. On foot. Alone. Winter. You must be
mad."
The traveller shook his head.
"Not mad. I could have done it, only I lost my way. I had all my
stages thought out carefully. I tramped from the sea-coast originally.
Where am I now?"
The half-breed eyed the speaker curiously. He seemed to think well
before he answered. Then--
"Within a few miles of the Pass. To the north."
An impressive silence followed. The half-breed continued to eye the
sick man, and, to judge from the expression of his face, his thoughts
were not altogether unpleasant. He watched the weary face before him
until the eyes gradually closed, and, in spite of the burning pains
of the frost-bites, exhaustion did its work, and the man slept. He
waited for some moments listening to the heavy, regular breathing,
then he turned to his companions and spoke long and earnestly in a
curious tongue. One of the Eskimos rose and removed a piece of bacon
from a nail in the wall. This he placed in the camp-kettle on the
stove. Then he took a tin billy and dipped it full from a bucket
containing beans that had been set to soak. These also went into the
camp-kettle. Then the fellow threw himself down again upon his
blankets, and, for some time, the three men continued to converse in
low tones. They glanced frequently at the sleeper, and occasionally
gurgled out a curious throaty chuckle. Their whole attitude was
furtive, and the man slept on.
An hour passed--two. The third was more than half gone. The hut reeked
with the smell of cooking victuals. The Eskimo, who seemed to act as
cook, occasionally looked into the camp-kettle. The other two were
lying on their blankets, sometimes conversing, but more often silent,
gazing stolidly before them. At length the cook uttered a sharp
ejaculation and lifted the steaming kettle from its place on the
stove. Then he produced four deep pannikins from a sack, and four
greasy-looking spoons. From another he produced a pile of biscuits.
"Hard tack," well known on the northern trails.
Supper was ready, and the pock-marked man leant over and roused the
traveller.
"Food," he said laconically, as the startled sleeper rubbed his eyes.
The man sat up and gazed hungrily at the iron pot. The Indian served
out the pork with ruthless hands. A knife divided the piece into four,
and he placed one in each pannikin. Then he poured the beans and soup
over each portion. The biscuits were placed within reach, and the
supper was served.
The sick man devoured his uncouth food with great relish. The soup
which had been first given him had done him much good, and now the
"solid" completed the restoration so opportunely begun. He was a
vigorous man, and his exhaustion had chiefly been brought about by
lack of food. Now, as he sat with his empty pannikin in front of him,
he looked gratefully over at his rescuers, and slowly munched some dry
biscuit, and sipped occasionally from a great beaker of black coffee.
Life was very sweet to him at that moment, and he thought joyfully of
the belt inside his clothes laden with the golden result of his
labours on Forty Mile Creek.
Now the half-breed turned to him.
"Feeling pretty good?" he observed, conversationally.
"Yes, thanks to you and your friends. You must let me pay you for
this." The suggestion was coarsely put. Returning strength was
restoring the stranger to his usual condition of mind. There was
little refinement about this man from the Yukon.
The other waived the suggestion.
"Sour-belly's pretty good tack when y' can't get any better. Been many
days on the road?"
"Three weeks." The traveller was conscious of three pairs of eyes
fixed upon his face.
"Hoofing right along?"
"Yes. I missed the trail nearly a week back. Followed the track of a
dog-train. It came some distance this way. Then I lost it."
"Ah! Food ran out, maybe."
The half-breed had now turned away, and was gazing at the stove as
though it had a great fascination for him.
"Yes, I meant to make the Pass where I could lay in a fresh store.
Instead of that I wandered on till I found the empty pack got too
heavy, then I left it."
"Left it?" The half-breed raised his two little tufts of eyebrows, but
his eyes remained staring at the stove.
"Oh, it was empty--clean empty. You see, I didn't trust anything but
food in my pack."
"No. That's so. Maybe gold isn't safe in a pack?"
The pock-marked face remained turned towards the glowing stove. The
man's manner was quite indifferent. It suggested that he merely wished
to talk.
The traveller seemed to draw back into his shell at the mention of
gold. A slight pause followed.
"Maybe you ain't been digging up there?" the half-breed went on
presently.
"It's rotten bad digging on the Creek," the traveller said, clumsily
endeavouring to evade the question.
"So I've heard," said the half-breed.
He had produced a pipe, and was leisurely filling it from a pouch of
antelope hide. His two companions did the same. The stranger took his
pipe from his fur coat pocket and cut some tobacco from a plug. This
he offered to his companions, but it was rejected in favour of their
own.
"The only thing I've had--that and my fur coat--to keep me from
freezing to death for more than four days. Haven't so much as seen a
sign of life since I lost the dog track."
"This country's a terror," observed the half-breed emphatically.
All four men lit their pipes. The sick man only drew once or twice at
his, then he laid it aside. The process of smoking caused the blisters
on his face to smart terribly.
"Gives your face gyp," said the half-breed, sympathetically. "Best not
bother to smoke to-night."
He pulled vigorously at his own pipe, and the two Indians followed
suit. And gradually a pleasant odour, not of tobacco but some strange
perfume, disguised the reek of the atmosphere. It was pungent but
delightful, and the stranger remarked upon it.
"What's that you are smoking?" he asked.
For one instant the half-breed's eyes were turned upon him with a
curious look. Then he turned back to the contemplation of the stove.
"Kind o' weed that grows around these wilds," he answered. "Only stuff
we get hereabouts. It's good when you're used to it." He laughed
quietly.
The stranger looked from one to the other of his three companions. He
was struck by a sudden thought.
"What do you do here? I mean for a living?"
"Trap," replied the Breed shortly.
"Many furs about?"
"Fair."
"Slow work," said the stranger, indifferently.
Then a silence fell. The wayfarer was getting very drowsy. The pungent
odour from his companions' pipes seemed to have a strangely soothing
effect upon him. Before he was aware of it he caught himself nodding,
and, try as he would, he could not keep his heavy eyelids open. The
men smoked on in silence. Three pairs of eyes watched the stranger's
efforts to keep awake, and a malicious gleam was in the look with
which they surveyed him. He was too sleepy to observe. Besides, had he
been in condition to do so, the expression of their eyes would
probably have been different. Slowly his head drooped forward. He was
dreaming pleasantly already, although, as yet, he was not quite
asleep. Now he no longer attempted to keep his eyes open. Further his
head drooped forward. The three men were still as mice. Then suddenly
he rolled over on one side, and his stertorous breathing indicated a
deep, unnatural slumber.
* * * * *
The hut was in darkness but for a beam of light which made its way in
through a narrow slit over the door. The sunlight shone down upon the
huddled figure of the traveller, who still slept in the attitude in
which he had rolled over on his fur coat when sleep had first overcome
him. Otherwise the hut was empty. The half-breed and his companions
had disappeared. The fire was out. The lamp had burned itself out. The
place was intensely cold.
Suddenly the sleeper stirred. He straightened himself out and turned
over. Then, without further warning, he sat up and found himself
staring up at the dazzling streak of light.
"Daylight," he murmured; "and they've let the stove go out. Gee! but I
feel queer about the head."
Moving his head so that his eyes should miss the glare of light, he
gazed about him. He was alone, and as he realized this he scrambled to
his feet, and, for the moment, the room--everything about him--seemed
to be turning topsy-turvy. He placed his hand against the post which
supported the roof and steadied himself.
"I wonder where they are?" he muttered. "Ah! of course," as an
afterthought, "they are out at their traps. They might have stoked the
fire. It's perishing in here. I feel beastly queer; must be the
effects of starvation."
Then he moved a step forward. He brought up suddenly to a standstill.
His two hands went to his waist. They moved, groping round it
spasmodically. Undoing his clothes he passed his hand into his shirt.
Then one word escaped him. One word--almost a whisper--but conveying
such a world of fierce, horror-stricken intensity--
"Robbed!"
And the look which accompanied his exclamation was the look of a man
whose mind is distracted.
So he stood for some seconds. His lips moved, but no words escaped
them. His hand remained within his shirt, and his fingers continued to
grope about mechanically. And all the time the dazed, strained look
burned in his great, roving eyes.
It was gone. That broad belt, weighted down with the result of one
year's toil, gold dust and nuggets, was gone. Presently he seated
himself on the cold iron of the stove. Thus he sat for an hour,
looking straight before him with eyes that seemed to draw closer
together, so intense was their gaze. And who shall say what thoughts
he thought; what wild schemes of revenge he planned? There was no
outward sign. Just those silent moving lips.