The case of Morris _versus_ Britton, as developed in the judicial
courts, was one of those neurotic society flurries that never fail to
arouse interest and promote discussion from highland to sea-down.
Complete details of all legal proceedings, together with copious comment
on the demeanor of complainant and defendant, as well as irrelevant
addenda concerning such things as dress and facial expression, can be
found in the back files of a certain aristocratic journal, but nothing
edifying is to be gained by perusal of this voluminous report. The
circulation of the sheet in question was given sudden and tremendous
impetus, yet this proved merely temporary, for the revengeful note
obtruded, the personal animosity broke forth, overstepping all limits of
honor and fair play, so that those who had not heretofore followed
public topics over-closely wondered what was the editor's quarrel with
the defendant. But his quarrel was not with the nephew; although through
the nephew he hoped to reach the uncle, the Honorable Oliver Britton,
who was abroad, representing England in a consular capacity.
The name of Britton, of Britton Hall, was high enough and proud enough
and old enough to afford a splendid target for the batteries of ignominy
which were masked within the publishing offices of the warring journal,
and the fact that the Honorable Oliver Britton had once humbled by
personal opposition the political aspirations of the editor was what
made the reputation-shelling process so destructive. Still, in spite of
the deliberate use of his heaviest artillery, the man behind the fire of
words did not foresee the startling result of such drastic measures.
When, after months of fighting through successive law-courts, the
celebrated action came to an end, the journal's editor had to announce,
much to his chagrin, that the final verdict was dismissal with a
division of costs. This decision, the report intimated, was due
entirely to that matchless legal machine, Ainsworth.
However, the enemy of the Britton name enjoyed the satisfaction of
knowing that his vitriolic pen had done more than he dared to hope, for
he soon had the supreme delight of stating that, owing to the disgrace
involving the family name, the Honorable Oliver Britton had resigned his
post as Consul at a foreign court. Furthermore, the powers that appoint
had placed another in the post in the diplomatic service which, it was
understood, was being reserved for Rex Britton till his return from the
holiday cruise that his honor-graduation at Oxford had earned.
And, later, the journal announced what it had not foreseen, the news
that the Honorable Oliver Britton had returned from the Continent,
violently quarrelled with his nephew and disinherited him. It gloated
over the cruel truth that of all the Brittons, who had for generations
counted thousands of pounds upon their rent-rolls, a Britton now stood
penniless, except for a paltry three hundred guineas left out of his
patrimony, nearly exhausted by the long legal battle; gloated over him
because the gentleman's hand must turn to labor, the ambitious trusts of
educational and diplomatic posts being denied him on account of the
name-smudge.
There the journal's report and comment ends, except for an item telling
that Christopher Morris and his wife had gone to America.
The night Rex Britton quarrelled with his uncle, he went out from
Britton Hall, down white gravel walks between clipped hedges, under the
massed oaks in the familiar grove, and along green Sussex lanes to the
depot. There he telegraphed Ainsworth to get Trascott to meet him at
the former's rooms, as new developments had arisen which occasioned his
departure from what he had considered home since his boyhood days. The
night express took him up and whirled him away to London.
Trascott was with a dying woman in the slums, so it was evening of the
next day before the three friends could get together in Cyril
Ainsworth's rooms. The curate came in, weary and depressed, and with a
gravity of bearing caused by association with the near presence of
death.
"The uncle has cut the nephew out of the will and kicked him off the
estate," Ainsworth plunged, giving Trascott a terse summing-up of Rex
Britton's explanations. "He has left three hundred pounds of money,
three mountains of pride, and the strength of three bulls. He's off to
Canada and the Yukon!"
Trascott stilled his surprise and bent earnestly over the table.
"I'd stay," he advised pointedly. "You can live down the disinheritment
and open the barricaded doors of position. I'd stay in England and live
it down."
Britton was sullen and decided. "No," he returned, "I'm out of England
till I can buy back everything I've lost. Understand? I'm disappearing
from the dearly beloved public which takes such an interest in my
misfortune and in my future. Isn't that what victims of circumstance
try? I'll be welcomed as the prodigal nephew when I return-if I ever
do!"
"Don't be cynical," Trascott warned. "It's dangerous in your case."
"What would you have me do?" Rex exclaimed warmly. "Shall I turn
gamekeeper or valet? And don't think I'm priggish! I dare be menial,
but, by Jove, I won't be a slave! Independency is my obsession. That's
why I'm for this new gold-trail."
And the gold-trail held its persistent lure in spite of any arguments.
Two weeks later he sighted Newfoundland from the decks of an Allan
Liner, passed through the waters of Belle Isle, chafing on Labrador's
iron coast, caught up Heath Point on bleak Anticosti, and won the
river-stretch of four hundred and thirty-eight miles to Quebec. Twelve
hours more and the liner anchored in the port of Montreal.
Rex Britton had hunted for three seasons in the Laurentians, and at
Montreal he hastened to find two comrades of the chase who had always
been members of his party. One was the voyageur, Pierre Giraud, and the
other a plainsman, Jim Laurance, who had drifted up from some place in
the Southern States. Britton inquired for them in their old haunts.
"Pierre?" cried a French riverman, at his question; "Pierre an' Jim
Laurance? Dey bot' gon' on de Yukon. Beeg strik' dere-ver' beeg
strik'."
Further enquiry elicited the information that Jim Laurance was keeping a
road-house at Indian River, on the Dawson Trail, while Pierre Giraud was
some place in the land of gold without his whereabouts being definitely
known.
On hearing this news Britton dallied no further, but crossed the
continent alone, caught a Puget Sound boat and steamed north. All the
way up people talked insane things of a new strike east of Juneau, and,
like a fool, he listened. Like a fool, also, he rushed in hot haste with
the van of the stampede which followed the boat's touching at Juneau.
The lure of gold faded somewhat for him when they reached the
much-touted valley and found that not a hundredth part of what had been
reported was true.
Though hope was lessened in immense proportion, still Britton staked
with his fellows, only to have his ardor dampened still more. The
bedrock of his claim was as clean of yellow grains as a well-swept
floor, and while his neighbors struck pay-gravel of moderate richness, a
curse of bad luck blanked his own efforts.
Twice more he did the same thing, once on Admiralty Island and again at
Glacier Bay below Mount Crillon. Each time he reported his ill-success
to Jim Laurance by letters which he sent with in-going steamers to Dyea,
whence they were borne onward over Chilcoot by the Dawson mail-carriers.
And Laurance, deprived of the satisfaction of replying on account of
Britton's itinerancy, sat in his road-house at Indian River and waited
for the Englishman to come to him. He held as a truism his own saying
that the Dawson Trail knew every leg in the Yukon at some time or other,
and he did not doubt for an instant that Britton's legs would presently
appear, straining through the weary miles like the countless pairs of
limbs he had seen stamping over the route which led to the Mecca of the
gold-lands.
Having wasted the summer months and a great part of his money in three
futile stampedes, Britton found himself upon the Dyea beach at the
approach of winter, with another _ignis fatuus_ luring him on the inward
trail. A tremendous rush was on to Forty Forks, east of Lake Marsh,
where, it was said, a prospector had kicked over glistening nuggets with
the soles of his hobnailed cruisers. The wildest reports of wealth were
circulating, as usual, and men went forward in mad haste to locate on
the creek before the white breath of winter should blot out the face of
the land.
Britton, grown wary through bitter experience, cut the reports down to a
sounder basis of common sense, sifted out apparent exaggerations and
discrepancies, and decided that Forty Forks was at least worth trying
for, although, when he remembered three successive defeats, he
misdoubted the issue.
Dyea was in a ferment. Boat-loads of passengers and baggage crowded the
beach and camp, and this tangled rabble resolved itself into a perpetual
stream of in-going Klondikers heading over the pass to take advantage of
the yet open waterway from Linderman.
The tang of first frost was in the gray morning air as Britton pushed
along the rough, bouldered wagon-road which runs up the Dyea Valley.
Hundreds went, like him, on foot, while those blessed with a full
money-belt procured what teamsters' wagons were to be had and lashed
ahead in frantic haste that soon brought Canyon City in sight. From
there to Sheep Camp the travel was more congested; the weaker men
already began to lag; the first strain of the race told on the
physically unfit.
All the way on to the Scales Britton passed faltering fellows, singly or
in groups of twos and threes. They cursed him in a despairing way for
his stalwart legs and sturdy back, and he came to recognize that here at
last was a country where they measured a man according to his manliness,
uninfluenced by extraneous attributes.
Where the trail ascended Chilcoot, the footing grew worse, and a mighty
climb confronted those who would cross the pass. Britton's strength
here stood him in good stead, for in addition to the arduous toil of the
ascent there arose the handicap of a bitterly cold wind which began to
filter through the mountains, carrying ominous snow-flurries. The icy
blast numbed the climbers' muscles and sapped their energies, and as if
conscious of its power, the northland loosed its lungs and blew a
brawling storm down from the higher plateaus.
Minute by minute the shrieking wind increased in velocity, whirling
sleet and snow in the faces of the toiling men, till their persons were
encrusted, and the mountain path grew white and obscure. A gold-seeker
slipped upon a rock ahead of Britton and rolled back against his legs.
Rex pulled him up and turned him round. "Say, old friend, what do you
call this?" he gasped.
"Holy road to Nome!" blasphemed the other, rubbing his bruised limbs.
"Don't you know a blizzard when you meet one? Keep your mouth shut in
this cold, or you won't make the pass."
It was indeed a blizzard of the roaring, ramping type that only the
Yukon knows, and it increased to diabolical fury as the toilers reached
the steepest pitch of the mountain. Men went down beside the trail in
sheer exhaustion, and the agony of their position appealed more strongly
to Britton on account of his inability to render any lasting aid. This,
of all the northern trails, was the Iron Trail where none but the strong
could survive.
Seeing old-timers and hardened sourdoughs fall behind filled Britton
with a glow of pride in his own capabilities. He understood that he was
one of the fit to whom reward must finally come, and the thought
instilled new hope.
Over towering Chilcoot he climbed, in the teeth of that memorable
blizzard which froze a score of gold-seekers between the Scales and the
divide from Crater Lake. Nothing but his magnificent physique and
indomitable purpose carried him on, and when he staggered across the
little glacier which sloped to Crater Lake he had won his way to the
front, and was once more in the van of a stampede. As Britton thawed
himself in the camp there beside a grizzled Alaskan who had followed
every strike from Nome to Klondike City, the old-timer regarded him
admiringly.
"You're the hot stuff, mate," he averred, "when you can heel old Larry
Marsh over Chilcoot in that there hell-warmer. You're some stampeder,
too! Wasn't you in the front 'long of me at Juneau and Glacier Bay?"
"I believe I remember you," Britton said, "although it did us precious
little good to be in the front."
The old man warmed his hairy paws for the tenth time and shook his gray
locks.
"Don't whine! Never whine, friend," he remarked. "You get experience,
grantin' nothin' else. You're sure some stampeder, and I reckon they'll
be namin' you 'long of Larry Marsh-him that named Marsh Lake!"
And forthwith Britton's name travelled widely in fulfilment of the
old-timer's prophecy; they began to designate him as one of their
stampeders, that much-respected minority of men who have the grit and
the power to stay in the lead of the maddest of all mad races-the
gold-rush.
The halt at Crater Lake Camp was, of necessity, very short. The
stragglers were limping in, frost-bitten and exhausted, telling of some
who would never come in, when Marsh and Britton again hit the trail.
Dead men nor mountains, frosts nor blizzards, sufficed to stay the
stampede.
The lower levels were strangely quiet after the bellowings of the windy
pass, and the cold did not bite so keenly.
The rush passed on by Deep Lake and Long Lake, where fat purses could
buy the assistance of pack-trains of mules as far as Linderman. When
they reached the shore of this lake, they were twenty-eight miles from
Dyea, with the giant bulk of Chilcoot looming between, its rugged head
still wrapped in the swirling white blizzard.
From the head of Lake Linderman the boats, bought or built for different
individuals, plied on the water-route which led by Lake Marsh and the
Forty Forks onward to Dawson. There were small barges, but their
sailings were very uncertain and could not be depended on in a rush.
Each man who dared the waterway before the very maw of winter had to buy
or make his craft at Linderman.
Here on the shore a motley throng congregated, with Marsh and Britton in
the front ranks. Some Nevada capitalists who had lost their horses along
the trail and hired Indian packers to carry their goods over the pass at
sixty cents a pound, clamored for boats to a stocky Dane, who appeared
to be a perfect genius at turning out freshly sawn planks as the
finished product, ready seamed and caulked, with mast stepped, and
altogether seaworthy. However, something else beside clamor and a
profligate show of money was necessary for the securing of the vessels,
and that was time. Work as they might, the boat-builders could not
supply the demand, and any with skill in carpentering fell to toiling of
their own will in order to get boat after boat away and thus hasten
their own turn. They were pitting human celerity and skill against the
unceasing advance of winter. The freeze-up was approaching with chill,
unpitying certainty to snuff out delayed hopes by the close of
navigation, and through superhuman effort the gold-seekers thought to
forestall the frost's advent.
Every day the march of Arctic feet could be defined more clearly; every
night the snow-line slid a little farther down the hills; north-east
squalls blew up at unexpected hours; and the rivers strained their
waters through arrays of icy teeth stuck along the margins.
Amidst the turmoil of Linderman, when others had done with exhortations,
expostulations, and entreaties, through the universal desire for speed,
Larry Marsh drew one Danish boat-builder aside and conferred with him.
Whatever magic he used or whatever service of old needed repayment,
Britton did not know, but he saw the Dane hand over a newly launched
skiff to the gray Alaskan.
"Hey! you," the latter called to him, "come and steer this boat. You're
the man for me!"
Britton threw in his outfit with glad promptitude, and they shoved off
through the seething shore ice, which was ground to fragments as quickly
as it formed.
"Keep her head straight," warned Larry Marsh. "I'll 'tend to this here
sail."
He busied himself with the squaresail, a large sheet that caught the
sweeping wind and whirled them down Lake Linderman like a flash.
A mile portage connected Linderman with the next lake, Bennett. The
swift water was not navigable for large boats in the ordinary way, so
Britton brought the skiff to in a manner which showed he was a skilful
sailor and which Marsh did not fail to note.
"You've held a tiller before now, I'll warrant," he said. "Most
greenies would have piled the boat up on them boulders in the rapid.
Let's pack the outfits across and line her down to Bennett!"
Accordingly, having first portaged their goods, they lined the skiff
carefully through foaming white-water down to Lake Bennett, where they
again embarked. From the Police post at the head of the lake the
sergeant was watching a Government courier struggling in with a
Peterborough through the gale that raged. Britton and Marsh saw him
also as they staggered under their press of sail.
"He's in trouble," Rex cried. "Hadn't I better run closer?"
The courier was paddling mightily, but the squall which had caught him
half way up Bennett proved too strong. It was gradually defeating him
in spite of his desperate efforts.
"It'll swamp him in a minute," Marsh declared, eyeing the helpless man.
"I guess you'd better run past."
The skiff bore in toward the canoe just as a huge, white-capped wave
threatened to bury it. The stout fellow met it bravely with a sweeping
stroke. The spray hid the Peterborough's nose for an instant, and it
seemed as if the craft would never rise.
"She's under!" shouted Britton.
"No, she lifts," cried his companion. "See, on the wave-top! By
heavens, it's mountain-high! Snap!-there goes his paddle."
The blade had broken clean in two under the tremendous strain. The
Peterborough spun round like a cork on the crest of the surf; the
courier grasped for his spare paddle, knotted to the thwarts, but
another wave capsized him before he could dip it.
Britton brought the boat's head round, and the skiff drifted past the
spot. The drenched man clung desperately to the careening, upturned
Peterborough. Britton jammed the tiller hard to windward, and Marsh
cast a rope. It missed.
"Here," said Rex, "keep the helm down, and I'll catch him as we drift."
Old Larry took his place. Britton stretched himself on the gunwale,
like a cat, and grabbed the drowning courier's collar as they rocked
alongside. A powerful jerk, and the soaked fellow lay shivering in the
bottom of the skiff!
He was a Corsican and spoke bad English. While they reeled down the
thirty miles of Bennett before the screaming gale, he patted Britton's
shoulder in gratitude.
"I must ask thanks-much thanks for you," he kept reiterating.
They beached the courier at an Indian camp by Cariboo Crossing and drove
on through Tagish Lake. The wind veered and baffled them, and the seas
gave them hours of icy baling. Britton did not count the tacks they
made, but it must have been a hundred before they reached Tagish Post,
where the boat was put in for good. The Englishman was not at all sorry
to see it permanently tied up and to be free of its cramped quarters,
although the skiff had served them such a good turn.
He stretched his toil-stiffened muscles and stamped about on the
ice-piled beach, the Alaskan following suit. Rex thought the latter's
face had a wan, tired look, and he realized how wearing were these
desperate drives in the teeth of overwhelming hardships.
"I reckon we've got the rest beat by a long shot," Marsh observed.
"Nevada coin-slingers ain't in it with us! I know a short trail to
Forty Forks by skirtin' Lake Marsh, so we can snooze at the Post
to-night and hit it in the mornin'."
They slept in comfort for once, sheltered at Mounted Police
headquarters, but before sunrise they were afoot and circling the first
headland of Lake Marsh. Some hours after, the other boats began to
arrive, and the land-rush was renewed with fresh vigor.
"What do you think of my namesake?" asked the Alaskan, as they turned
east from Lake Marsh's shore.
Britton looked at the sullen sweep of white-crested water with the
rubble of ice rattling on every wave, at the thickening films over the
inlets, and at the ever-descending snow-line on the bleak ridges.
"I think it will be closed before thirty-six hours," he said.
It was a tyro's guess, and for the only time within the knowledge of
Larry Marsh the tyro's guess came true. The next evening he saw the
freeze-up and the death of many a man's hopes. The death of their own
hopes crept round in a different way.
A mile below Forty Forks they met Jack McDonald, or "Scotty," as he was
generally termed, a famous dog-musher of the Yukon, a skilled
prospector, and a friend of Marsh.
"Headin' for the strike?" he asked in his broad Scotch accent. "Then ye
maun turn aroun'. 'Tisna worth a dang."
Britton's eager look faded. Larry Marsh glanced up with sharp disgust.
"'Scotty'," he said, "you're not joking?"
"Joke, mon!" exclaimed McDonald. "I cam' frae Le Barge tae look ower
the groun', an' yon dinna seem like a joke. I tell ye 'tisna worth a
dang."
Marsh believed the announcement because it was uttered by the Scotchman.
He relied on McDonald's judgment as he would on his own, and he turned
about on the trail.
"That's gospel if 'Scotty' says so," he observed to Rex. "It's no use
of us wastin' time. Back-trail's the word!"
Britton was loath to give up so near the goal when his expectations were
so summarily scattered.
"It's only a mile to the new camp," he said. "I think I'll go on and
have a look. One never can tell what may turn up."
Larry Marsh shouldered his pack-sack again.
"All right," he grunted. "Where you goin', McDonald?"
"South o' Le Barge," the Scotchman answered. "I had a trace there before
I cam' awa' on this fool trip."
"I'm with you," cried Marsh, "and we'll follow it to the end." To
Britton he added: "Come with us, and we'll put you in right if anything
goes!"
The idea seemed vague and forlorn, and Rex shook his head.
"I'll glance over the Forks anyway," he decided.
They took the back-trail, and he tramped on. A week at Forty Forks was
convincing enough! He returned to Tagish Post, a very downhearted man,
and the first person he saw was the Government courier, Franco Lessari,
whom he had pulled out of Lake Bennett.
"I ask much thanks-for you, much thanks," the Corsican greeted with a
new show of gratitude. "For your kind heart I repay-so little. Listen!
Far up Samson Creek, I tell you for go on the north branch. Look there
for gold!"
Britton smiled indulgently. It was only another of the five hundred
kindly hints which had been given him by well-disposed people; for
well-disposed people never think that these vague pieces of information,
very often acquired simply by hearsay, waste a man's time, by sending
him off on false and useless scents. Britton had had plenty of such
news, and he thought no more of it till he heard it whispered about the
Post that there was something big on Samson Creek.
He learned, too, that Franco Lessari had quitted the Government service
to go prospecting, and that lent more significance to what the Corsican
had told him. When he went to bed that night, he counted the contents
of his slack money-belt. There remained about enough to purchase a team
of dogs, with some dollars left over for supplies. With his present
means he could go on one more stampede. If he failed to strike
anything, he would be stranded. Success or failure depended upon which
direction he took. There was another rumor in the air, the tale of
riches in the Logan Valley, and he did not know which way to turn. In
his strait he remembered the fatalistic beliefs of the Arabs in Algiers,
and flipped a coin to decide whether he should go on or turn back.
It fell heads-to go on-and Britton accepted the decision. Larry Marsh
and McDonald had gone south of Lake Le Barge, so he purchased his dogs
from another musher and set forth next day. The frost held lakes and
rivers with two-foot ice, and the snow had fallen heavily for a week.
He worked across the frozen lakes; ranged the jammed curves of Thirty
Mile River; and reached the ice bridges of the White Horse. The
travelling was tedious, and he saved his dogs, going into camp every
night at six.
At the Mounted Police post on the Big Salmon, Britton rested half a day,
and then mushed along, undeterred by a filled trail, to the Little
Salmon, Pelly, and Selkirk, making halts where he must.
Between Selkirk and Stewart River, when Britton pulled out at dawn, he
could discern another team travelling behind him at a considerable
distance. He watched it with interest because it was the first company
he had seen on the trail since leaving Big Salmon, but the sled did not
appear to come any nearer no matter how slowly he himself mushed.
"Who's behind?" asked the keeper of the roadhouse at Stewart River, when
Britton passed through.
"Don't know," Rex answered. "He will not come close enough for
examination."
"A shirker!" was the man's judgment on the laggard team, as he watched
the Englishman's sturdy figure breaking the way to Sixty Mile.