THE WORTH OF GOLD
Way down North, where the ice-locked Colville winds its way to the
frozen sea, Burr MacShane sat upon the floor of his igloo and stared at
the pile of red gold he had heaped onto a square of canvas. Beside him
were many empty caribou-skin sacks. Slowly he thrust his fingers into
the yellow-red pile, working them into the heavy metal until his hand
was buried to the wrist.
Very deliberately he blew a cloud of blue smoke ceilingward. “‘Is
it worth it?’ she asked, that day on the trail, ‘Up here we are
missing--life.’ An’ I said I didn’t know, an’ that if I found out I
would tell her the answer.” He withdrew his hand from the golden pile
and meticulously tamped the ashes into the bowl of his pipe.
The petrol lamp sputtered and its flame grew dull. MacShane rose,
filled the lamp, and stepping to the door stared out into the Arctic
gloom. Then he returned to his seat on the floor. “Nothin’ but cold,
an’ darkness, an’ snow, an’ ice, an’ damned bare peaks--an’ gold.
Twenty-five years at it--twenty-five years fillin’ stinkin’ lamps, an’
cookin’ dog feed, an’ gougin’ gravel, an’ fightin’ the cold, an’ what
have I got to show for it? Gold! Yellow dirt! The chips in the game!
You can’t eat it. You can’t wear it. It ain’t worth a damn until it’s
traded for somethin’ else. An’ what have I ever traded it for--grub,
an’ petrol, an’ clothing, an’ dogs, an’ powder--so I could go an’ get
more gold! I’ve played the game for twenty-five years, an’ I’ve got a
lot of chips stacked up. I’ve hit the trail when other men holed up,
an’ I’ve lived when they died like flies. I’ve beat the damned North!
It’s played all its cards, an’ it’s through. It’s tried to freeze me
with its strong cold--an’ it couldn’t. It’s tried to starve me in its
barrens, an’ drown me in its rivers, an’ drive me mad with its silence,
an’ its darkness, an’ its flashin’ aurora. It’s done its damndest--an’
I’ve laughed at the worst it could do! It fought for its gold, but I
beat it--an’ ripped the gold from the guts of its creeks. Twenty-five
years--livin’ like an Eskimo--like a dog--an’ all for little sacks of
yellow dirt hid away in iron safes!
“‘Is it worth it?’ she asked. I didn’t know, then. But, I know--now. I
promised to tell her the answer. It took me quite a while to learn it.
A man can beat the North. But he can’t beat--love. Yes--that’s what
it is--_love_. There ain’t no use of a man’s chasin’ the devil around
the stump tryin’ to fool himself. He might as well come right out with
it. Bill Ames was right. I wonder how the hell he knew? I didn’t know,
myself--then. Bill’s smarter than he looks to be. What I’d ought to
done the minute I saw her there on the trail, was to swing my dogs
around an’ head ’em hell-bent back into the North--then I could have
gone on for twenty-five more years pilin’ up my foolish gold. But--God,
I’m glad I didn’t!”
Very deliberately Burr MacShane refilled the caribou-skin sacks from
the yellow-red pile on the canvas. When he had finished, he put a huge
batch of dog feed to cook, and then, methodically, he moved about the
little igloo selecting various articles which he made up into a trail
pack. “You’re a fool!” warned an inner voice, “She thinks you poisoned
her. She hates you.”
MacShane argued aloud: “She knows better, by now.”
“But, she don’t love you.”
“Maybe not--but, she will. Sometimes, in her eyes, I could see--they
glowed sort of soft, an’ dark, an’ dreamy. Damn it! Bill Ames said she
would--an’ he ought to know!”
“But, there’s red gold in the gravel. You haven’t scratched it yet.”
“To hell with the red gold! I found it, didn’t I? It is there--just as
I figured it.”
“You haven’t taken out your thousand dollars to the pan, yet.”
“If I get her--she’ll weigh up a million to the pan.”
The inner voice was persistent: “You’ll be tied down. What’ll you do
when the long trail calls? There will be times when you will want to
roam.”
“God, ain’t I roamed enough? But, if the long trail calls, we’ll
harness the dogs an’ roam double.”
“It’s only February. The snow is deep. Wait till spring.”
“I’ve waited too long, now. It seems like--I can hear her callin’ me.
An’ I ain’t seen the snow in twenty-five years that could stop me--with
a toboggan.”
His trail pack made up, MacShane sat beside the stove and smoked until
his dog food had cooked, and when it was done he lashed it onto his
toboggan and harnessed his dogs.
“Wait till tomorrow,” urged the inner voice, “It’s nearly midnight.”
“Midnight, or noon, what’s the difference in this God-forsaken land?
It’s all dark, anyhow. You might as well shut up. You lose. My hunch
says ‘go now!’ An’ I’m ridin’ my hunch.”
At Shungnak where MacShane arrived four days later, he entered the
saloon where a dozen men were assembled. “If you want to go where you
can shovel more gold out of the gravel in a day than you can here in a
year, just follow my back trail,” he announced. “It’s red gold--under
the big rock slide west of the igloo. There’s a stove an’ considerable
grub an’ some robes left in the igloo, an’ a good sled, an’ a half a
ton of powder. You’re welcome to ’em if you want ’em. But you better
hit out before my trail snows under or you’ll never find it.”
The men looked at each other, and grinned. “No, thanks, Stranger, we
don’t like gravel as rich as all that. It’s too heavy to shovel.”
The witticism of the miner produced its roar of laughter, and MacShane
shrugged, indifferently: “All right, boys, don’t hurt your backs none.
So long.”
“Who is he?” asked someone, when the door had closed behind MacShane.
The proprietor answered: “Oh, he’s be’n up on the Colville fer years,
proddin’ around in the gravel. He’s be’n there too long. They git that
way after a while. He wouldn’t even come after his own grub. Used to
send the Kobuks for it. The only times I ever see him was when he went
down to Nome last spring, an’ when he come back. He was batty then. Bet
agin John Johnson’s dogs, even money, an’ then bet on them Gordon dogs.
I give him ten-to-one, an’ he took two hundred of it. When he came
back through, he stopped in for to get his dust. I guess it was more
gold than he ever seen before or heard tell of, an’ now he thinks he’s
shovelled it out of the gravel.”
“Don’t know as he was so _damn_ batty--bettin’ on them Gordon dogs,”
opined the man who objected to heavy gravel, “They win, didn’t they?”
“Sure they win, all right. But, it was a fool bet, at that. Who the
hell ever heard of them dogs?”
“Maybe he had.”
“Hell! He didn’t even know they was a race! An’ way up where he hung
out he couldn’t hear nothin’ about nothin’.”
“Maybe it was a hunch. A man ought to ride a hunch. I’ve got a kind of
a hunch I’d maybe ought to hit out on his back trail. He might not be
so damn batty. An’ I never seen no red gold.”
The proprietor grinned: “That’s what folks always does when they make a
big strike--go off an’ leave it, an’ tell the first bunch of strangers
right where to go an’ locate it. This here specimen made his real good
by colorin’ it red. I guess your hunch ain’t workin’ very strong, an’
I got one that beats it all to hell. It says we ort to start a game of
stud.”
The miner laughed: “You win,” he agreed, “Your hunch is strongest.
Let’s ride it!”
Out on the trail MacShane grinned as he mushed up the Kobuk. “The only
stampede I ever tried to start--an’ she fizzled. Men are fools!”
Instead of following down the Alatna to its mouth and up the Koyukuk,
he cut northeastward across the heads of John River, Wild Creek, and
North Fork, and two weeks later struck Myrtle Creek almost at its
headwaters, and swung his dogs down stream. One after another he passed
the deserted cabins that told the story of the creek’s abandonment.
What if the Gordons had gone, too? It was slow trailing, and he was
very tired. The short noonday twilight had faded into night, and
overhead the stars twinkled in cold brilliance. He knew he ought to
camp, but doggedly pushed on. An hour later as he rounded a bend a dull
square of light showed through the frosted pane of a cabin. MacShane’s
heart was pounding wildly as he urged on his dogs. It was the Gordon
claim! There, rearing its black bulk out of the snow, was a boiler.
But--it was cold! The door of the cabin opened, and MacShane paused
as his eyes drank in the figure of the girl who stood framed in the
doorway. It was she--the one woman in all the world--his woman! She was
peering at him through the gloom. The next instant the door closed with
a bang. The figure was gone.
MacShane frowned. Why was the boiler cold? Where was Gordon? And why
had the girl slammed the door? The hospitality of the people of the
Koyukuk was proverbial throughout all the North.
Slowly he advanced to the door. Should he call to her? Should he tell
her who he was? And why he had come? He paused before the closed door.
No, not yet, he decided. Then, purposely gruffening his voice, he
called, loudly.
* * * * *
With the coming of February Lou Gordon completed her plan for the
future. As soon as the spring thaws hardened the surface of the snow
she would hit the trail--the long trail to the unknown Colville, and
there, somewhere in those Arctic wastes she would find _Huloimee
Tilakum_. Oh, why had she not interpreted the look she had often
surprised in his eyes? Why had she remained blind to its meaning? She
knew, now. There, in the night it had come to her--the night she had
reached for her rifle--to be rid, forever, of the eyes that glowed
in the dark. And there, in the high North, they two should find
life--life, and love, and happiness.
She would sell her dogs in Bettles--all but the twelve great race dogs
which she would keep for a trail team. And then she would hit straight
up the Alatna, and cross to the Kobuk, and there she would find the
Eskimos who had carried the supplies to _Huloimee Tilakum_ through the
long years of his exile in the land of red gold.
If only Dalzene had forgotten her. Maybe he would not dare to risk a
trip to Myrtle even for the purpose of carrying out his threat, when he
knew that the hand of every man upon the Koyukuk was against him. But,
she dismissed this hope, as she recalled the terrible gleam of his eyes
as the threat was uttered. No, Dalzene would come--sometime. She prayed
that his coming should be delayed until after the snow hardened in the
spring. But, Dalzene had a toboggan!
One evening soon after she had returned from feeding her dogs the sound
of a voice startled her. It was a man urging on tired dogs. Stepping to
the doorway she peered into the gloom. There he stood upon the creek,
looking at her. For a long moment she scrutinized him as well as the
starlight would permit. He was a bearded man. His shoulders drooped
slightly. He was tired. He had come from the direction of Nolan, but
he was no man of Nolan, that she knew. Nor was it Dalzene. She would
instantly have recognized the burly form of the hooch-runner. Who was
he? And why did he stand and stare at her without speaking. Possibly,
some confederate of Dalzene, who had been sent ahead to see if the
coast were clear. Dalzene would not risk his life lightly. With terror
in her heart she slammed the door, and shot the heavy bar that she had
contrived after the death of her father. Then, rifle in hand she seated
herself on the edge of her bunk, and waited.
The man was approaching the door. She could hear his footsteps
crunching the packed snow. The footsteps ceased and a moment later a
voice called from the darkness:
“Hello, in there! Can I stop for the night?”
For a moment the girl hesitated, but only for a moment. Here was a
trail-weary man, stumbling in the night upon the only cabin on the
whole creek that afforded warmth and comfort, and she must refuse him!
Outside, the man awaited his reply, and with an effort the girl steeled
herself to violate tradition and deny him the comfort he asked.
“No. I’m sorry, but--I’m all alone. My father--isn’t here.” Instantly
she regretted the words. What if the man were a confederate of Dalzene,
and Dalzene should find that she was alone? “I--I expect him back
anytime,” she added, as an after-thought. “You can camp in the wood
house. It is dry in there, and sheltered from the wind.”
“Thanks,” answered the voice, “I will.”
She heard his footsteps recede from the cabin, a few moments elapsed
and she heard his voice urging the dogs up the slope from the creek.
Later she breathed against a frost-coated pane of the window, and
when a tiny spot had cleared, she peeped out. The man was carrying an
armful of spruce boughs into the wood house. He returned for another
huge armful which he spread on top of the snow upon the sheltered side
of the building for his dogs. “No friend of Dalzene would do that!”
exclaimed the girl, under her breath, and turning to the stove, she
slipped a caribou steak into the frying pan, and brewed a pot of
strong tea. When the steak was done, she took the pan and the teapot
and opening the door called to the man: “Here is some tea, and steak.
Better get them while they’re hot!” And, as his figure emerged from the
wood house, she once more slammed the door. She heard him come for the
food, and return to the wood house. Then she blew out her lamp and went
to bed, with her rifle within reach of her hand.
When she awoke next morning and once more cleared a space on the pane
and looked out the man had gone. She could see his trail where it led
off down the creek.
After breakfast she fed her dogs and as she returned from the corral
was attracted by the peculiar actions of Skookum, who was rushing into
the wood house and out again, with short dashes down the trail of the
departed traveler, evincing evidences of excitement and delight. He
bounded to her side, looked into her face, and again raced off to the
wood house. What did it mean? Skookum was no fool puppy to caper about
in this manner. He was the most sedate and indifferent of dogs. Half
in wonder the girl followed him to the wood house, where she found him
sniffing about the pile of boughs upon which the man had made his bed.
A little square of white paper attracted her attention. It was a page
torn from a small note book and pinned to the wood house door by means
of a sliver. There was pencil writing upon the paper, and carrying it
into the cabin she held it close to the lamp, and began to read the
awkwardly scribbled words. But, at the first sentence a cry escaped her
lips, as with trembling fingers she turned the scrap of paper over and
stared at the signature. For a moment she stood motionless her face
paling and flushing as the hot blood surged from her wildly pounding
heart. Turning the paper her eyes devoured the words in feverish haste:
“You asked me on Death Valley Hill if the gold was worth what it cost
to get it. And if we wasn’t missing life up here. I know the answer
now, and I’ve come to tell you. I don’t aim to stay around while your
father is away. When he comes home I’ll come back. Maybe both of us
are tired missing _life_.”
The last word was heavily underscored, and at the bottom of the paper
were the words “_Huloimee Tilakum_.”
With a wild, sobbing cry, the girl crushed the paper in her palm
and thrust it into the bosom of her shirt. The next moment she was
fastening on her snowshoes, and shutting Skookum in the cabin, she
struck off down the creek, following the toboggan trail that was but a
few hours old.
“He came to me! He came to me!” over and over she repeated the words as
her feet fairly flew over the snow. “He came to me--and I didn’t know
him! It was his beard! He does love me. We neither of us knew it, then.
We were like little children groping in the dark. He will camp at the
cabin eight miles down--waiting for dad to come home. Poor old dad,
he’s home, now--and happy. And I will be happy, oh, so happy--with him!
We will both be happy, and together we can laugh at the long night, and
the strong cold.” She paused abruptly and glanced back. “What if he
should go on to Bettles? A hundred miles, and I haven’t a bite to eat
nor a blanket!” She smiled, and resumed her pace. “I can overtake him.
He has got to break trail for his dogs.”
Rounding a sharp bend of the creek she came face to face with a dog
outfit, mushing up stream. The outfit halted and two men stood
staring at her. And in that instant the blood froze in her veins.
The larger of the two was Jake Dalzene! And he was eyeing her with a
fatuous, grinning leer. The eyes of his companion were harder--frankly
appraising.