OFF THE RIVER
Before noon the following day all Nolan knew of the disappearance of
Skookum. And all Nolan knew also, that the disappearance of the great
lead dog had happened simultaneously with the disappearance of Dalzene.
And Nolan was neither slow nor loath to establish the relationship
between the two occurrences. With tears in her eyes, Lou Gordon told of
her conversation with Dalzene, and of the man’s angry threats before he
departed. Whereupon another miner’s meeting was hastily called in the
Aurora Borealis, a substantial reward was posted for the return of the
lead dog, and certain resolutions were adopted which had to do with a
more permanent and conclusive disposition of Dalzene than warning him
off the river.
Shortly after adjournment of the meeting two dog teams pulled out of
Nolan and headed southward down the Koyukuk. The men camped that night
in one of the deserted buildings of Coldfoot, and next morning Johnny
Atline and Rim Rock swung off the river and headed eastward across the
South Fork for the Chandalar in hope of overtaking the fugitive at Caro
or Chandalar native village, while Pete Enright and the mail carrier
kept on down the Koyukuk.
At the roadhouse, midway between Coldfoot and Bettles it was reported
that Dalzene had stopped for breakfast the previous morning, but had
pushed on down the river without resting. Inquiry revealed the fact
that the man was driving seven dogs, and that, to the best of the
roadhouse proprietor’s knowledge, there had been no other dog riding
on the sled. He was very sure that had there been another dog he would
have noticed it. After informing the man of the pronouncements of the
miner’s meetings, the two pushed on.
“He’s sure be’n makin’ good time,” opined the mail carrier, when they
were once more upon the trail. “Them dogs of his’n’ll know they be’n
somewheres time he gits to where he’s goin’.”
Enright nodded, “An’ if I was in his place,” he answered “Twic’t as
fast as the best time I could make wouldn’t be no more’n about half as
fast as I’d want to be goin’. Mebbe he’s figgerin’ on restin’ his dogs
at Bettles.”
“Kind of cur’us about him only havin’ seven dogs. You don’t s’pose that
there Skookum dog could of got away hisself?”
“No,” answered Enright, “He wouldn’t never leave Miss Lou. Him an’
her’s like two pardners. He ain’t never kep’ on a chain or in a corral
only except they’re away from home. No, Dalzene’s got him all right,
but he ain’t takin’ no chances with him. He knows damn well that dog
ain’t a-goin’ to let him handle him without a fight, an’ he ain’t in no
shape to waste no time tryin’ him out. He had him all right, prob’ly on
his sled tied up an’ covered with a tarp.”
“Wisht they was some new snow so we could track him,” ventured the mail
carrier. “This trail’s in better shape than I ever seen it, most.”
“Yes, but we kin see if he leaves it. He’s got to leave a trail if he
branches off--an’ where in hell would he branch to?” The mail carrier
shook his head dubiously; “He’s a pretty slick, an’ he knows the
country down this way better’n what we do. Git us off’n the river, an’
we don’t know nothin’, but he’s off’n it half the time tradin’ hooch to
the Siwashes.”
“Slick don’t give him no license to fly. He’s got to leave a trail
wherever he hits off the river.”
Despite their anxiety to reach Bettles they camped that night on the
trail, and it was nearly noon the following day when they drew up
before the trading store to find that Dalzene had left the previous
morning after having laid in some three hundred pounds of supplies on
credit.
“You better figger on losin’ that there bill of goods, then,” grinned
Enright, “But a sled load of grub ain’t goin’ to bust the Company,
nohow.”
“What do you mean, Pete? I don’t like Dalzene no more’n you nor no one
else does, but he makes big money, an’ he’s good.”
“He may be good all right, but he’s goin’ to be a damn sight more good
than what he is, soon as one of us up-river men runs acrost him.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that we held miner’s meetin’ on him Chris’mus night an’ warned
him out of the Koyukuk country, an’ next day we held another an’ sort
of widened the territory, you might say, to include the rest of the
world.”
“What’s he be’n doin’ up river?”
For answer Enright gave a brief, but comprehensive, survey of the
situation to date, at the conclusion of which the trader picked up
his book and opening it, drew a line around the list of Dalzene’s
supplies. Below the entry, and included within the line, he wrote “Lost
in freightin’.” Then, to Enright he said: “I’ll pass the word to the
boys, Peter. Chances is, you up-river fellows won’t git no crack at
him noways, ’count on him havin’ to pass here to git there--if he ever
comes back.”
“Where you headin’ now, Pete?”
“Rampart City.”
“Alone?”
“Yeh, that is, I’ll be alone after Fort Gibbon. Joe, here, he’ll have
to head north with the mail agin.”
“You want to keep yer eyes open down to Rampart. Dalzene, he’s the only
white man livin’ there now. ’Course them Yukon Injuns is plumb gentle
an’ cowardly, but keep an eye on ’em. Dalzene he’s got too many wives
amongst ’em fer to take no chances.”
“Hell! They’d be glad to see him git what’s comin’ to him! I’ve heard
tell how he abuses ’em. Treats ’em worse’n what he treats dogs, an’
then kicks ’em out an’ takes another one.”
“Um-hum,” grunted the trader, “But that don’t give _you_ no license to
horn in on it. Wimmin is all alike--white er red.”
Late that afternoon the mail carrier halted the dogs and he and Enright
stooped to examine a trail that led off the river to the eastward
following the snow-buried course of a small creek.
“Only five dogs an’ a toboggan,” said Enright, after an interval of
careful scrutiny. “Some Siwash trapper, see his tracks. Dalzene had
Yukon shoes. I seen ’em.” The mail carrier agreed and the outfit moved
on down the river, and as they swept out of sight around a bend,
Dalzene arose from the snow behind his screen of scrub bushes on the
rim of a high bluff and removing the cartridge from the chamber of his
rifle returned to his camp in a spruce thicket, and prepared for a two
days’ rest.
And a much needed rest it was, for almost from the moment of pulling
out of Nolan, the man had been forcing the trail. And it was owing
solely to the splendid condition of his seven great malamutes, just in
from the fifty mile race, that he had been able to keep ahead of, and
even to gain on his pursuers.
Dalzene was no fool. Traveling in the night down the Koyukuk from
Nolan, he had resisted the impulse to swing eastward at Coldfoot when
by crossing the South Fork, and a high divide, he could have headed
down through the wind-swept Chandalar Gap, and thus avoided being seen
by any one for upwards of a hundred miles. He knew a better plan, and
in the carrying out of this plan it was within his scheme of things to
be seen at the roadhouse, and later at Bettles. For having ascertained
that he had pulled southward from Bettles, his pursuers would take
it for granted that he would follow the main trail to Fort Gibbon.
And except for the remote possibility of their meeting someone on the
trail, they would be unable to check up on his movements until the
Yukon was reached, for the new mail trail to Fort Gibbon leaves the
river and swings southward before the native village of Arctic City is
reached.
At the roadhouse he had stopped to feed his dogs and eat breakfast,
and had immediately pushed on, arriving at Bettles, forty miles down
the river, late that night. In Bettles he hunted up one, Andrew, a
worthless half-breed who had occasionally helped him to dispose of
hooch among the Indians. Andrew’s cabin was well on the edge of the
camp, and there Dalzene spent the remainder of the night, and there he
fed his dogs liberally, all except the unfortunate Skookum, who, still
wound in the blanket, he carried into the cabin and deposited upon the
floor without even so much as loosening a turn of the babiche line that
had held him in his cramped position on the sled without food or water
for nearly thirty hours.
It was Dalzene’s intention to strike away from the river a few miles
below Bettles, and hit for the cabin at the head of Dall River, but the
thing that had been worrying him all the way was how to leave the river
without leaving a trail for his pursuers to follow. This difficulty
solved itself quite by accident, as he was devouring the meal Andrew
prepared for him. Standing against the wall in a corner of the cabin
was a toboggan. Now, the toboggan is rarely used on the Koyukuk, the
river trails being without exception sled trails. Only those Indians
whose hunting grounds lay in the soft snow country to the eastward of
the river traveled with toboggans, and it was from one of these Indians
that Andrew had got it in trade. The moment his eyes fell upon it,
Dalzene knew that his problem was solved. He would pull out of Bettles
in the morning with a sled, but he would leave the river with the
toboggan, and instead of his own Yukon snowshoes, he would be wearing
Andrew’s Siwash shoes.
A trade was easily effected and early in the morning Andrew pulled out
with Skookum on his toboggan, and with orders to wait some eight or ten
miles down river until Dalzene came up with him. Dalzene lost no time
in transferring his load to the toboggan, and when Andrew pulled back
up river with the sled, the hooch-runner pulled two dogs out of his
team and toggling them, threw them onto the sled for, although it was a
serious tax on the strength of the remaining dogs, he would leave the
sign of a five dog team, whereas his pursuers knew that he was driving
seven. This accomplished he struck into the hills with the toboggan,
after following the windings of the creek some three miles, swung into
a spruce thicket and made camp.
That at least one dog outfit would start on his trail as soon as the
men of Nolan discovered the loss of the girl’s lead dog, Dalzene had
no doubt, and he calculated with remarkable accuracy that the pursuers
would not pass the point where his trail swung from the river before
noon of the following day. Therefore he went about the preparation of
his camp deliberately. He even pitched his small A tent, cut boughs
for a bed, and set up his stove. Come what may, he knew that this camp
must be of several days’ duration. His dogs needed a thorough rest, for
no man could afford to take chances in the wind-swept, almost treeless
stretch of country between the South Fork of the Koyukuk and the head
of Dall River, with played-out dogs.
Having fed his team, Dalzene turned his attention to Skookum, and after
locating the dog’s collar ring with his fingers, he carefully worked
back the edge of the blanket and snapped on a strong chain. This done,
he dragged the dog to a nearby tree to which he affixed the chain
and unwound the babiche line. The moment the last turn of the line
loosened, the great dog struggled to his feet, threw off the blanket
and with a low growl of fury tried to leap at Dalzene’s throat. But
weak from hunger and thirst, and with the muscles of his legs cramped
and stiffened and lamed by upwards of forty hours in the tightly
bound blanket, his effort was but a pitiful lunge that landed him
head foremost in the snow at the man’s feet. For Dalzene had taken no
chances, and stood just beyond reach of the chain.
The man laughed aloud as the dog staggered to his feet and with lowered
tail, wolfed down great mouthfuls of snow. Walking to the tent, he
picked up a dried fish and securing a stout club, again approached the
dog which ceased eating snow to glare at him with his smouldering amber
eyes, and emit low, menacing growls. Marking well the limit of the
chain, Dalzene held out the fish. He noticed that the dog’s nostrils
quivered as the scent of the food reached him, but instead of taking
it from the outstretched hand, Skookum leaped again, straight at the
man’s face. Dalzene’s right arm swung and with a vicious crack, the
inch-thick club of green wood met the dog’s skull in mid-air. Skookum
collapsed in the snow, lay still for a moment, and dizzily regaining
his feet, stood swaying weakly.
“You will, will you?” sneered the man, “You damned devil, you! I’ll
tame you! When I git through with you you’ll know who’s boss! I’ll
tame you, or By God, I’ll kill you!”
Once more he tendered the fish, but the dog made no move to take it,
his half-closed, smouldering eyes glaring at his tormenter sullenly.
After a few moments of fruitless trying, Dalzene gave it up for the
time being. “If you wasn’t so damn valuable I’d let you starve before
I’d give you anything to eat without you took it out of my hand,” he
grumbled, “But I don’t dast to take a chanst of losin’ you; I need
you in my business. It’s me fer Nome, an’ if I kin pick up a couple
more good dogs, with you fer a leader, I’ll git in on them Alaska
Sweepstakes. Here’s yer fish, but mind you it’s the last one you git,
without you take it out of my hand.” He tossed the fish at the dog’s
feet, but the yellow eyes never lowered their gaze, and with an oath,
Dalzene stuck the club into the snow, and returning to the tent wrapped
himself in his blankets and slept.
So utterly body weary was he that it was nearly noon next day before
he awoke and lighted the fire in his stove. Tossing a fish apiece
to the dogs, he took another and advancing upon Skookum, pulled the
club from the snow and approached to the end of the chain. Only for
an instant did the yellow eyes rest upon the club, then their gaze
centered on the face of the man. Dalzene stretched out his hand, and
mincingly grudgingly, with back hair a-quiver with hate, the great dog
came forward and took the proffered fish. Dalzene laughed: “Learn some
sense did you? Oh, I’ve handled mean dogs before. You better not try
any monkey business with me, or I’ll cave in yer ribs.” Returning to
the tent, the man bolted a hasty meal, and picking up his rifle, threw
a cartridge into the chamber, fastened on his snowshoes, and started
for the river.
Now, the last thing in the world Dalzene wanted to do was to kill
a man. Yet, he well knew that unless his dogs got a good rest they
would never make Dall River through the deep snow. And he knew, also,
that should the pursuers swing onto the toboggan trail that left the
river, and come upon him in his camp, they would without the slightest
hesitation make short shrift of him. “It’s them ’er me if they take my
trail, no matter which way you look at it,” he muttered. “An’ if they
ain’t more’n four or five of ’em it’s goin’ to be them.”
A half-hour’s tramp brought him to the rim of a high bluff which
he followed to a point that gave an uninterrupted view of the
Bettles trail, of the point of departure of his own toboggan trail,
and of the narrow creek valley that the toboggan trail traversed.
Concealing himself behind a screen of scrub bushes, the man noted with
satisfaction that anyone traversing the valley must pass within easy
range of his rifle, with absolutely no chance to seek cover, or to
scale the bluff and come to close quarters. “An’ they can’t work no
sled up through that deep snow, neither,” he grinned. “If they tackle
that trail it’ll be back-packin’--an’ they won’t git far. The way
things lays, I’m good fer a dozen of ’em. But--at that--I don’t want to
have to do it. Someone would git me--some time--an’ when they did--”
his voice trailed into silence, and he shuddered.
The sky was cloudless, and far to the southward, from his vantage
point, he could see the red disk of the sun, visible for a few minutes
above the horizon. He watched it till it disappeared. “Hell of a
country, this here, north of the circle,” he growled, “Daylight all
summer, an’ night all winter. Nome’s better’n what this is, anyway.
I’ll lay up in the cabin fer a couple weeks, an’ then I’ll hit fer the
Kobuk, an’ on to Nome. I got plenty grub an’ dog feed to last.” For
some minutes after the sun went down the man scrutinized the up-river
trail. He shivered. “Gittin’ colder,” he muttered, “Damn ’em! They
chased me off the river, an’ now the strong cold’s comin’ on, an’ me
in the God fersakenest strip of country they is anywheres. I bet she’s
fifty below down there on the river, right now.” He rose to his feet
and took a turn up and down the snow, taking care to keep well back
from the rim of the bluff. This performance he repeated at intervals,
pausing behind his screen to peer into the deepening twilight of the
up-river trail. After a couple of hours his vigil was rewarded. A dark
spot appeared on the snow, and concentrating his gaze the man saw
that the spot was moving. It was a dog outfit coming down the trail.
Grasping his rifle, Dalzene threw himself upon his belly and peered
over the edge. He made out two men and a dog team. At the parting of
the trails they stopped to examine the fresh toboggan track. After some
moments they walked back to the sled. They were--yes--they were moving
on down the river. Breathing an oath of relief as they passed out of
sight around a bend, the man rose to his feet, threw the cartridge from
the chamber of his rifle, and walked back to camp.
That evening he tossed Skookum a ball of rice and tallow, and next
morning he proffered another fish which the great dog took from his
hand in the sullen manner of the previous day with his eyes on the
inch-thick club.
Despite the fact of the strong cold, Dalzene decided to attempt the
twenty mile stretch of treeless waste that lay between him and the
South Fork of the Koyukuk which must be crossed in order to reach the
head of Dall River. “I’ll rest easier when I’m a little further off the
Koyukuk,” he grumbled, “There’s timber where the Jim River runs into
the South Fork, an’ I kin rest up fer the forty mile pull to the cabin.”
What to do with Skookum was a problem. He hated to add the dog’s
weight to his load in the deep snow, and yet he knew that the great
brute was not sufficiently cowed to allow him to harness him into the
team. “Guess I’ve got to tackle it. Might’s well git it over with now
as any time. My own leader’ll foller along.” In the tent, he made a
muzzle out of babiche. It was a cruel muzzle, known as a “persuader,”
or twitch, and used only by the more brutal of the dog-mushers of the
North. It consisted of two loops about the jaws, one a fixed loop,
held in place by lines running to the collar, and the other a running
loop at the end of a long twitch line playing through a small fixed
loop, or eyelet in one of the lines to the collar. Thus a jerk on the
twitch line in the hand of the driver would cause the running loop to
bite cruelly into the dog’s jaws. The refined deviltry of the twitch
consists in administering the jerk at a moment when the laboring
animal’s sweat-dripping tongue lolls from between his teeth. And
Dalzene was a past master in the refinement of cruelty, as witness the
devilish cunning with which he affixed the muzzle. Approaching close to
the end of the chain he tossed a running noose about the dog’s neck and
by main force dragged the struggling, choking brute in a circle that
narrowed as the chain wound about the tree. With the dog’s body hard
against the tree a few tightly drawn turns of the babiche line held
the animal helpless until the muzzle was in place. Cutting the noose,
he released the babiche line, and unwound the chain by dragging the
dog around the tree by the twitch. After which he picked up his club
and approached the muzzled Skookum, who when he saw the man was well
within reach of the chain, launched himself at his face. The thick club
descended with a muffled thud along the dog’s ribs. A single whimper
of pain escaped him as he fell into the snow to be viciously jerked to
his feet by the twitch. Eyes glaring, Skookum crouched at the end of
the twitch line and Dalzene laughed as a drop of blood from the dog’s
mouth reddened the snow. “Guess that’ll learn you they ain’t no pretty
faced gal a-handlin’ you now! I’ve got you an’--I’ll git her, too! Some
of these fine times I’ll be slippin’ back to Myrtle Crick. They’s only
her an’ the old man left over there--an’ with Coldfoot dead, it’s a
hell of a ways from the neighbors.”
It took a good half-hour and much clubbing to get Skookum into the
lead dog’s harness, but at last it was accomplished, and with the
outfit ready for the trail, Dalzene took his place beside the leader,
club in one hand, twitch line in the other, and gave the command to
mush. Skookum made no move to obey, and the club fell upon his back.
Instantly he whirled and hurled himself upon the team, vainly trying
to sink his fangs into their thick coats. But the muzzle rendered him
harmless, and a moment later, with the harness in hopeless tangle, the
dogs piled onto the new leader, ripping and tearing at their helpless
victim. Dropping the twitch line, Dalzene sprang among them, raining
blows and furious curses as he beat them to the ground. When some
semblance of order was restored, he released the dogs and set himself
to the task of untangling the harness. As he removed the lead harness
he kicked the bleeding Skookum to his feet.
“You will, will you? I’d ort to let ’em et you up! But I didn’t resk
stealin’ you fer nothin’. I need you, or I’d kill you, an’ kill you
slow, with a club. I ain’t got time now to work you in the lead, but
you wait till we git to Dall River! I’ll tame you! An’ you’ll work till
you git there, too! I won’t haul you, an’ I don’t dast to turn you
loose, so you’ll work behind, an’ Mick, kin run loose.
“Mush on, there!” cried the infuriated man, when he finally succeeded
in stringing the team out. And with their own leader in his accustomed
place, the dogs pulled. Sore and bleeding, Skookum moved along with
the rest, his head hanging and his plume held low. And so the traverse
of the desolate barren to the South Fork was accomplished, Dalzene
breaking trail and urging on his dogs with whip and voice. It took
thirteen hours for the twenty miles, but as he crawled between his
blankets that night the man breathed easier.
The forty miles to the head of Dall River was made in two days, after
one day of rest. Skookum traveled between the traces and gave very
little of his strength to the pull, a fact that brought him much abuse
by whip and twitch, whenever Dalzene could spare time from trail
breaking.
On reaching the head waters of Dall River, the man ensconced himself
in the cabin. Skookum, his muzzle removed, was left on the end of his
chain, tethered to a tree, where each day for a week, Dalzene took
fiendish delight in provoking an attack and then knocking the great
dog down with his club. The procedure never varied. Each morning
Skookum took a fish from the hand that Dalzene extended to the extreme
limit of the chain, and always his yellow eyes were fixed on the club
the man held in his right hand. Later in the day Dalzene would approach
with the hated muzzle in his left hand instead of the fish, and then
it was that the yellow eyes would blaze, the hair bristle along the
dog’s back, and the low growl rumble continuously from the mighty
throat. “I’ll tame you, damn you! One of these days yer goin’ to stand
while I muzzle you without windin’ you up, an’ I’ll keep on knockin’
you down till I do!” The man would approach to just within the limit
of the chain, the dog, lips drawn back to expose the gleaming white
fangs, would crouch in the snow, his yellow eyes blazing hate, and
with muscles taut, would launch his eighty-five pounds straight at the
man’s face. A quick backward spring, and the heavy club would crash
against the great body in mid-air, and Skookum would fall in the snow
to stagger to his feet and glare his abysmal hate.
At length came a day when the strong cold gave way before heavy clouds.
The temperature rose to near zero, and early in the morning snow began
to fall. Skookum took his fish as usual, and withdrew to the tree to
eat it, and Dalzene stood for a moment and watched him.
“We’ll be pullin’ fer Nome, soon, you hellion! An’ we might’s well
finish this thing one way er another, today. Yer goin’ to work fer
me--an’ yer goin’ to work in the lead! An’ yer goin’ to begin now!” For
some moments the man studied the superb lines of the great dog. He had
been wiser had he studied the chain, and still wiser had he noted that
upon several occasions during the week of torture, before the body of
the huge brute had fallen into the snow, it had described a half turn
which had caused the chain to kink close against the collar. But of
this Dalzene knew nothing and an hour later he approached through the
driving snow storm, muzzle in one hand, club in the other. Instantly
the great dog crouched. The yellow eyes glared, the throaty growl
rumbled savagely and beneath his body the mighty muscles of his legs
tensed. With outstretched hand the man drew just within the limit of
the chain, his fingers tightening upon the club. It was the first warm
day, and he had thrown off his heavy mittens. Like a flash the great
dog hurtled out of the snow straight for his face. He leaped backward,
club arm raised to strike at the instant the chain checked the dog
in mid-air. A shriek of mortal terror froze on Dalzene’s lips as the
chain parted. Instinctively the hand that held the muzzle was thrown up
to guard his face, and in that instant the hand was seized in a grip
of iron, as he was hurled backward into the snow. A single agonizing
flash of pain shot to the man’s shoulder as the gleaming fangs ripped
through the flesh to the bone. The next moment he realized that the
hand was free, and that the great dog had disappeared in the storm.
Struggling to his feet, Dalzene rushed for his rifle, but by the time
he reached the cabin, Skookum had vanished, and staring into the void
of whirling snow, the man burst into an insane tirade of shrill curses.
The dripping of warm blood from his finger tips gave him pause, and he
gazed in horror at his mangled hand. Then stepping into the cabin, he
proceeded to bandage it as best he could with strips torn from an extra
shirt.
That night he could not sleep for pain, and next morning, with much
difficulty, he harnessed his dogs, and headed southward down Dall
River. “Might’s well hit fer the Yukon,” he muttered savagely. “They
won’t have nothin’ on me down there, now that I ain’t got the dog. An’
there’s an army doctor at Fort Gibbon.”