From their vantage on the dump, the red gravel of which ran like a raw
scar down the mountainside, the men looked out across the gulch, above
the western range of hills to the yellow setting sun. Far below them the
creek was dotted with other tiny pay dumps of the same red gravel over
which men crawled, antlike, or upon which they labored at windlass. Thin
wisps of smoke rose from the cabin roofs, bespeaking the supper hour.
They had done a hard day's work, these two, and wearily descended to
their shack, which hugged the hillside beneath.
Ten hours with pick and shovel in a drift where the charcoal-gas
flickers a candle-flame will reduce one's artistic keenness, and
together they slouched along the path, heedless alike of view or color.
As Crowley built the fire Buck scoured himself in the wet snow beside
the door, emerging from his ablutions as cook. The former stretched upon
the bunk with growing luxury. "Gee whiz! I'm tuckered out. Twelve hours
in that air is too much for anybody."
"Sure," growled the other. "Bet I sleep good to-night, all right, all
right. What's the use, anyhow?" he continued, disgustedly. "I'm sore on
the whole works. If the Yukon was open I'd chuck it all."
"What! Go back to the States? Give up?"
"Well, yes, if you want to call it that, though I think I've shown I
ain't a quitter. Lord! I've rustled steady for two years, and what have
I got? Nothing--except my interest in this pauperized hill claim."
"If two years of hard luck gives you cold feet, you ain't worthy of the
dignity of 'prospector.' This here is the only honorable calling there
is. There's no competition and cuttin' throats in our business, nor we
don't rob the widders and orphans. A prospector is defined as a
semi-human being with a low forehead but a high sense of honor, a
stummick that shies at salads, but a heart that's full of grit. They
don't never lay down, and the very beauty of the business is that you
never know when you're due. Some day a guy comes along: 'I hit her over
yonder, bo,' says he, whereupon you insert yourself into a pack-strap,
pound the trail, and the next you know you're a millionaire or two."
"Bah! No more stampedes for me. I've killed myself too often--there's
nothing in 'em. I'm sick of it, I tell you, and I'm going out to God's
country. No more wild scrambles and hardships for Buck."
A step sounded on the chips without, and a slender, sallow man entered.
"Hello, Maynard!" they chorused, and welcomed him to a seat.
"What are you doing out here?"
"D'you bring any chewing with you?"
Evidently he labored under excitement, for his face was flushed and his
eyes danced nervously. He panted from his climb, ignoring their
questions.
"There's been a big strike--over on the Tanana--four bits to the pan."
Forgetting fatigue, Crowley scrambled out of his bunk while the cook
left his steaming skillet.
"When?"
"How d'you know?"
"It's this way. I met a fellow as I came out from town--he'd just come
over--one of the discoverers. He showed me the gold. It's coarse; one
nugget weighed three hundred dollars and there's only six men in the
party. They went up the Tanana last fall, prospecting, and only just
struck it. Three of 'em are down with scurvy, so this one came over the
mountains for fresh grub. It'll be the biggest stampede this camp ever
saw." Maynard became incoherent.
"How long ago did you meet him?" Crowley inquired, excitedly.
"About an hour. I came on the run, because he'll get into camp by
eleven, and midnight will see five hundred men on the trail. Look at
this--he gave me a map." The speaker gloatingly produced a scrap of
writing-paper and continued, "Boys, you've got five hours' start of
them."
"We can't go; we haven't got any dogs," said Buck. "Those people from
town would catch us in twenty miles."
"You don't want dogs," Maynard answered. "It's too soft. You'll have to
make a quick run with packs or the spring break-up will catch you. I
wish I could go. It's big, I tell you. Lord! How I wish I could go!"
They were huddled together, their eyes feverish, their fingers tracing
the pencil-markings. A smell of burning food filled the room, but there
is no obsession more absolute than the gold-lust.
"Get the packs together while me and Buck eats a bite. We'll take the
fox-robe and the Navajo. Glad I've got a new pair of mukluks, 'cause we
need light footgear; but what will you wear, boy? Them hip-boots is too
heavy--you'd never make it."
"Here," said Maynard, "try these." He slipped off his light gossamer
sporting-boots, and Buck succeeded in stamping his feet into them.
"Little tight, but they'll go."
They snatched bites of food, meanwhile collecting their paraphernalia,
Maynard helping as he could.
Each selected a change of socks and mittens. Then the grub was divided
evenly--tea, flour, bacon, baking-powder, salt, sugar. There was nothing
else, for spring on the Yukon finds only the heel of the grub-stake.
Each rolled his portion in his blanket and lashed it with light rope.
Then an end of the bundle was thrust into the waist of a pair of
overalls and the garment closely cinched to it. The legs were brought
forward and fastened, forming two loops, through which they slipped
their arms, balancing the packs, or shifting a knot here and there. A
light ax, a coffee-pot, frying-pan, and pail were tied on the outside,
and they stood ready for the run. They stored carefully wrapped bundles
of matches in pockets, packs, and in the lining of their caps. The
preparations had not taken twenty minutes.
"Too bad we ain't got some cooked grub, like chocolate or dog-biscuits,"
said Crowley, "but seeing as we've got five hours' start over everybody
we won't have to kill ourselves."
Maynard spoke hesitatingly. "Say, I told Sully about it as I came
along."
"What!" Crowley interrupted him sharply.
"Yes! I told him to get ready, and I promised to give him the location
an hour after you left. You see, he did me a good turn once and I had to
get back at him somehow. He and Knute are getting fixed now. Why, what's
up?"
He caught a queer, quick glance between his partners and noted a
hardness settle into the lined face of the elder.
"Nothing much," Buck took up. "I guess you didn't know about the
trouble, eh? Crowley knocked him down day before yesterday and Sully
swears he'll kill him on sight. It came up over that fraction on Buster
Creek."
"Well, well," said Maynard, "that's bad, isn't it? I promised, though,
so I'll have to tell him."
"Sure! That's all right," Crowley agreed, quietly, though his lip
curled, showing the strong, close-shut, ivory teeth. His nostrils
dilated, also, giving his face a passing wolfish hint. "There's neither
white man nor Swede that can gain an hour on us, and if he should happen
to--he wouldn't pass."
Be it known that many great placer fortunes have been won by those who
stepped in the warm tracks of the discoverers, while rarely does the
goddess smile on the tardy; in consequence, no frenzy approaches that of
the gold stampede.
Passing Sully's place, they found him and his partner ready and waiting,
their packs on the saw-buck. Crowley glared at his enemy in silence
while the other sneered wickedly back, and Big Knute laughed in his
yellow beard.
Buck's heart sank. Could he outlast these two? He was a boy; they were
reckless giants with thews and legs of iron. Knute was a gaunt-framed
Viking; Sully a violent, florid man with the quarters of an ox. Through
the quixotism of Maynard this trip bade fair to combine the killing
grind of a long, fierce stampede with the bitter struggle of man and
man, and too well he knew the temper of his red-headed partner to doubt
that before the last stake was driven either he or Sully would be down.
From the glare in their eyes at passing it came over him that either he
or Knute would recross the mountains partnerless. The trail was too
narrow for these other men. He shrank from the toil and agony he felt
was coming to him through this; then, with it, there came the burning
gold-hunger; the lust that drives starving, broken wrecks onward
unremittingly, over misty hills, across the beds of lava and the
forbidden tundra; on, into the new diggings.
It neared eight o'clock, and, although darkness was far distant, the
chill that follows the sun fell sharply.
As they swung out on to the river their fatigue had dropped away and
they moved with the steady, loose gait of the hardened "musher." Buck
looked at his watch. They had been gone an hour.
"The race is on!" said he.
Though unhurried, their progress was likewise unhindered, and the miles
slipped backward as the darkness thickened, hour by hour. Straight up
the fifty-mile stream to its source, over the great backbone and into
the unmapped country their course led. If they hurried they would have
first choice of the good claims close about the discovery; if they
lagged Sully and his ox-eyed partner would overtake them, and beyond
that it was unpleasant to conjecture.
"We'll hit water pretty soon!" Crowley's voice broke hours of silence,
for they were sparing of language. They neither whistled nor sang nor
spoke, for Man is a potential body from which his store of energy wastes
through tiny unheeded ways.
True to prophecy, in the darkness of midnight they walked out upon a
thin skin of newly frozen ice.
"Look out for the overflow! She froze since dark," Crowley cautioned.
"We're liable to go through."
On all sides it cracked alarmingly, while they felt it sag beneath their
feet. It is bad in the dark to ride the ice of an overflow, for one may
crash through ankle-deep to the solid body beneath or plunge to his
armpits.
They skated over the yielding surface toward safety till, without
warning, Crowley smashed in half-way to his hips. He fell forward
bodily, and the ice let him through till he rolled in the water. Buck
skimmed over more lightly, and, when they had reached the solid footing,
helped him wring out his garments. Straightway the cloth whitened under
the frost and crackled when they resumed their march, but there was no
time for fires, and by vigorous action he could keep the cold from
striking in.
They had threaded up into the region where spring was further advanced,
and within half an hour encountered another overflow. Climbing the steep
bank, they wallowed through thickets waist-deep in snow. Beneath the
crust, which cut knifelike, it was wet and soggy, so they emerged
saturated. Then debouching on to the glare ice the boy had a nasty fall,
for he slipped, and his loose-hung pack flung him suddenly. Nothing is
more wicked than a pack on smooth ice. The surface had frozen
glass-smooth, and constant difficulty beset their progress. Their
slick-soled footgear refused to grip it, so that often they fell, always
awkwardly, occasionally crushing through into the icy water beneath.
Without warning Buck found that he was very tired. He also found that
his pack had grown soggy and quadrupled in weight, tugging sullenly at
his aching shoulders.
As daylight showed they slipped harness and, hurriedly gathering twigs,
boiled a pot of tea. They took time to prepare nothing else, yet even
though the kettle sang speedily, as they drank from around the bend
below came voices. Crowley straightened with a curse and, snatching his
pack, fled up the stream, followed by his companion. They ran till
Buck's knees failed him. Thereupon the former removed a portion of the
youngster's burden, adding it to his own, and they hurried on for hours,
till they fell exhausted upon a dry moss hummock. Here they exchanged
footgear, as Buck now found his feet were paining him acutely, owing to
the tightness of his rubber boots. They proved too small for Crowley as
well, and in a few hours his feet were likewise ruined.
Noon found them limping among the bald hills of the river's source. Here
timber was sparse and the snows, too, had thinned; so to avoid the
convolutions of the stream they cut across points, floundering among
"niggerheads"--quaint, wobbly hummocks of grass--being thrown repeatedly
by their packs which had developed a malicious deviltry. This footing
was infinitely worse than the reeking ice, but it saved time, so they
took it.
Now, under their stiff mackinaws they perspired freely as the sun
mounted, until their heavy garments chafed them beneath arms and legs.
Moreover, mosquitoes, which in this latitude breed within arm's-length
of snow-drifts, continually whined in a vicious cloud before their
features.
Human nerves will weather great strains, but wearing, maddening,
unending trivialities will break them down, and so, although their
journey in miles had been inconsiderable, the dragging packs, the
driving panic, the lack of food and firm footing, had trebled it.
Scaling the moss-capped saddle, they labored painfully, a hundred yards
at a time. Back of them the valley unrolled, its stream winding away
like a gleaming ribbon, stretching, through dark banks of fir, down to
the Yukon. After incredible effort they reached the crest and gazed
dully out to the southward over a limitless jangle of peaks, on, on, to
a blue-veiled valley leagues and leagues across. Many square miles lay
under them in the black of unbroken forests. It was their first glimpse
of the Tanana. Far beyond, from a groveling group of foot-hills, a
solitary, giant peak soared grandly, standing aloof, serene, terrible in
its proportions. Even in their fatigue they exclaimed aloud:
"It's Mount McKinley!"
"Yep! Tallest wart on the face of the continent. There's the creek we go
down--see!" Crowley indicated a watercourse which meandered away through
cañons and broad reaches. "We foller it to yonder cross valley; then
east to there."
To Buck's mind, his gesture included a tinted realm as far-reaching as a
state.
Stretched upon the bare schist, commanding the back stretch, they
munched slices of raw bacon.
Directly, out toward the mountain's foot two figures crawled.
"There they come!" and Crowley led, stumbling, sliding, into the strange
valley.
As this was the south and early side of the range, they found the hills
more barren of snow. Water seeped into the gulches till the creek ice
was worn and rotted.
"This 'll be fierce," the Irishman remarked. "If she breaks on us we'll
be hung up in the hills and starve before the creeks lower enough to get
home."
Small streams freeze solidly to the bottom and the spring waters wear
downward from the surface. Thus they found the creek awash, and,
following farther, it became necessary to wade in many places. They came
to a box cañon where the winter snow had packed, forming a dam, and, as
there was no way of avoiding it without retreating a mile and climbing
the ragged bluff, they floundered through, their packs aloft, the slushy
water armpit-deep.
"We'd ought 'a' took the ridges," Buck chattered. Language slips forth
phonetically with fatigue.
"No! Feller's apt to get lost. Drop into the wrong creek--come out fifty
mile away."
"I bet the others do, anyhow," Buck held, stubbornly. "It's lots easier
going."
"Wish Sully would, but he's too wise. No such luck for me." A long
pause. "I reckon I'll have to kill him before he gets back!" Again they
relapsed into miles of silence.
Crowley's fancy fed on vengeance, hatred livening his work-worn
faculties. He nursed carefully the memory of their quarrel, for it
helped him travel and took his mind from the agony of movement and this
aching sleep-hunger.
The feet of both men felt like fearful, shapeless masses; their packs
leaned backward sullenly, chafing raw shoulder sores; and always the
ravenous mosquitoes stung and stung, and whined and whined.
At an exclamation the leader turned. Miles back, silhouetted far above
on the comb of the ridge, they descried two tiny figures.
"That's what we'd ought 'a' done. They'll beat us in."
"No, they won't. They'll have to camp to-night or get lost, while we can
keep goin'. We can't go wrong down here; can't do no more than drownd."
Buck groaned at the thought of the night hours. He couldn't stand it,
that was all! Enough is enough of anything and he had gone the limit.
Just one more mile and he would quit; yet he did not.
All through that endless phantom night they floundered, incased in
freezing garments, numb and heavy with sleep, but morning found them at
the banks of the main stream.
"You look like hell," said Buck, laughing weakly. His mirth relaxed his
nerves suddenly, till he giggled and hiccoughed hysterically. Nor could
he stop for many minutes, the while Crowley stared at him apathetically
from a lined and shrunken countenance, his features standing out
skeleton-like. The younger man evidenced the strain even more severely,
for his flesh was tender, and he had traveled the last hours on pure
nerve. His jaws were locked and corded, however, while his drooping eyes
shone unquenchably.
Eventually they rounded a bluff on to a cabin nestling at the mouth of a
dark valley. Near it men were working with a windlass, so, stumbling to
them, they spoke huskily.
"Sorry we 'ain't got room inside," the stranger replied, "but three of
the boys is down with scurvy, and we're all cramped up. Plenty more
folks coming, I s'pose, eh?"
The two had sunk on to the wet ground and did not answer. Buck fell with
his pack still on, utterly lost, and the miner was forced to drag the
bundle from his shoulders. As he rolled him up he was sleeping heavily.
Crowley awakened while the sun was still golden; his joints aching
excruciatingly. They had slept four hours. He boiled tea on the miners'
stove and fried a pan of salt pork, but was too tired to prepare
anything else, so they drank the warm bacon-grease clear with their tea.
As Buck strove to arise, his limbs gave way weakly, so that he fell, and
it took him many moments to recover their use.
"Where's the best chance, pardner?" they inquired of the men on the
dump.
"Well, there ain't none very close by. We've got things pretty well
covered."
"How's that? There's only six of you; you can't hold but six claims,
besides discovery."
"Oh yes, we can! We've got powers of attorney; got 'em last fall in St.
Michael; got 'em recorded, too."
Crowley's sunken eyes blazed.
"Them's no good. We don't recko'nize 'em in this district. One claim is
enough for any man if it's good, and too much if it's bad."
"What district you alludin' at?" questioned the other, ironically.
"You're in the Skookum District now. It takes six men to organize. Well!
We organized. We made laws. We elected a recorder. I'm it. If you don't
like our rules, yonder is the divide. We've got the U. S. government
back of us. See!"
Crowley's language became purely local, but the other continued
unruffled.
"We knew you-all was coming, so we sort of loaded up. If there's any
ground hereabouts that we ain't got blanketed, it's purely an oversight.
There's plenty left farther out, though," and he swept them a mocking
gesture. "Help yourselves and pass up for more. I'll record 'em."
"What's the fee?"
"Ten dollars apiece."
Crowley swore more savagely.
"You done a fine job of hoggin', didn't you? It's two and a half
everywhere else."
But the recorder of the Skookum District laughed carelessly and resumed
his windlass. "Sorry you ain't pleased. Maybe you'll learn to like it."
As they turned away he continued: "I don't mind giving you a hunch,
though. Tackle that big creek about five miles down yonder. She
prospected good last fall, but you'll have to go clean to her head,
'cause we've got everything below."
Eight hours later, by the guiding glare of the Northern Lights, the two
stumbled back into camp, utterly broken.
They had followed the stream for miles and miles to find it staked by
the powers of attorney of the six. Coming to the gulch's head, to be
sure, they found vacant ground, but refused to claim such unpromising
territory. Then the endless homeward march through the darkness! Out of
thickets and through drifts they burst, while fatigue settled on them
like some horrid vampire from the darkness. Every step being no longer
involuntary became a separate labor, requiring mental concentration.
They were half dead in slumber as they walked, but their stubborn
courage and smoldering rage at the men who had caused this drove them
on. They suffered silently, because it takes effort to groan, and they
hoarded every atom of endurance.
Many, many times Buck repeated a poem, timing his steps to its rhythm,
rendering it over and over till it wore a rut through his brain, his
eyes fixed dully upon the glaring fires above the hilltops. For years a
faintness came over him with the memory of these lines:
Then dark they lie, and stark they lie, rookery, dune, and floe,
And the Northern Lights came down o' nights to dance with the
houseless snow.
Reaching the cabin, they found an army of men sleeping heavily upon the
wet moss. Among them was the great form of Knute, but nowhere did they
spy Sully.
With much effort they tore off the constricting boots and, using them
for pillows, sank into a painful lethargy.
Awakened early by the others, they took their stiffly frozen footgear
beneath the blankets to thaw against their warm bodies, but their feet
were swelled to double size and every joint had ossified rheumatically.
Eventually they hobbled about, preparing the first square meal since the
start--two days and three nights.
Still they saw no Sully, though Crowley's eyes darted careful inquiry
among the horde of stampeders which moved about the cabin. Later, he
seemed bent on some hidden design, so they crawled out of sight of the
camp, then, commencing at the upper stake of Discovery, he stepped off
the claims from post to post.
It is customary to blaze the boundaries of locations on tree trunks, but
from topographical irregularities it is difficult to properly gauge
these distances, hence, many rich fractions have been run over by the
heedless, to fall to him who chained the ground.
Upon pacing the third one, he showed excitement.
"You walk this one again--mebbe I made a mistake."
Buck returned, crashing through the brush.
"I make it seventeen hundred."
The claim above figured likewise, and they trembled with elation as they
blazed their lines.
Returning to camp, they found the recorder in the cabin with the scurvy
patients. Unfolding the location notices, his face went black as he
read, while he snarled, angrily:
"'Fraction between Three and Four' and 'Fraction between Four and Five,'
eh? You're crazy."
"I reckon not," said Crowley, lifting his lips at the corners
characteristically.
"There ain't any fraction there," the other averred, loudly. "We own
them claims. I told you we had everything covered."
"You record them fractions!"
"I won't do it! I'll see you in--"
Crowley reached forth suddenly and strangled him as he sat. He buried
his thumbs in his throat, forcing him roughly back against a bunk.
Farther and farther he crushed him till the man lay pinioned and
writhing on his back. Then he knelt on him, shaking and worrying like a
great terrier.
At the first commotion the cripples scrambled out of bed, shouting
lustily through their livid gums, their bloated features mottled and
sickly with fright. One lifted himself toward the Winchester, and it
fell from his hands full cocked when Buck hurled him into a corner,
where he lay screaming in agony.
Drawn by the uproar, the stampeders outside rushed toward the shack to
be met in the door by the young man.
"Keep back!"
"What's up!"
"Fight!"
"Let me in!"
A man bolted forward, but was met with such a driving blow in the face
that he went thrashing to the slush. Another was hurled back, and then
they heard Crowley's voice, rough and throaty, as he abused the
recorder. Strained to the snapping-point, his restraint had shattered to
bits and now passion ran through him, wild and unbridled.
From his words they grasped the situation, and their sympathies changed.
They crowded the door and gazed curiously through the window to see him
jam the recorder shapelessly into a chair, place pen and ink in his
hand, and force him to execute two receipts. It is not a popular
practice, this blanketing, as the temper of the watchers showed.
"Serves 'em right, the hogs," some one said, and he voiced the universal
sentiment.
That night, as they ravened over their meager meal, Knute came to them,
hesitatingly. He was greatly worried and apprehension wrinkled his
wooden face.
"Saay! W'at you t'ink 'bout Sully?"
"I don't know. Why?"
"By yingo, ay t'ink he's lose!"
"Lost! How's that?"
In his dialect, broken by anxiety, he told how Sully and he had
quarreled on the big divide. Maddened by failure to gain on Crowley, the
former had insisted on following the mountain crests in the hope of
quicker travel. The Swede had yielded reluctantly till, frightened by
the network of radiating gulches which spread out beneath their feet in
a bewildering sameness, he had refused to go farther. They had
quarreled. In a fit of fury Sully had hurled his pack away, and Knute's
last vision of him had been as he went raving and cursing onward like a
madman, traveling fast in his fury. Knute had retreated, dropped into
the valley, and eventually reached his goal.
There is no time for reliefs on a stampede. The gentler emotions are
left in camp with the women. He who would risk life, torture, and
privation for a stranger will trample pitilessly on friend and enemy
blinded by the gold glitter or drunken with the chase of the rainbow.
For five days and nights the army lived on its feet, streaming up
gullies where lay the hint of wealth or swarming over the somber bluffs;
and hourly the madness grew, feeding on itself, till they fought like
beasts. Fabulous values were begotten. Giant sales were bruited about.
Flying rumors of gold at the cross-roots inflamed them to further
frenzy.
A town site was laid out and a terrible scramble for lots ensued.
One man was buried in the plot he claimed, his disputant being adjudged
the owner by virtue of his quicker draw. It was manslaughter, they knew,
but no one spared the time to guard him, so he went free. Nor did he run
away. One cannot, while the craze is on.
Five days of this, and then the stream broke. With it broke the delirium
of the five hundred. The valleys roared and bawled from bluff to bluff,
while the flats became seas of seething ice and rubbish. Thus, cut off
from home, they found their grub was gone, for every one had clung till
his food grew low. As the obsession left them their brotherhood
returned--food was apportioned in community, and they spoke vaguely of
the fate of Sully.
For still another half-fortnight they lay about the cabin while the
streams raged, and then Crowley spoke to his partner. Rolling their
blankets, they started, and, although many were tempted to go, none had
the courage, preferring to starve on quarter rations till the waters
lowered.
Ascending for miles where the torrent narrowed, they felled a tree
across for a bridge and, ascending the ridges, took the direction of
camp. In a new and broken country, not formed of continuous ranges, this
is difficult. So to avoid frequent fordings they followed the high
ground, going devious, confusing miles. The snows were largely gone,
though the nights were cruel, and thus they traveled.
At last, when they had worked through to the Yukon spurs, one morning on
a talus high above Buck spied the flapping forms of a flock of ravens.
They fluttered ceaselessly among the rocks, rising noisily, only to
settle again.
These are the gleaming, baleful vultures of the North, and often they
attain a considerable size and ferocity.
The men gazed at them with apathy. Was it worth while to spend the steps
to see what drew them? By following their course they would pass far to
the right.
"I hate the dam' things," said Crowley, crossly. "I seen 'em, oncet,
hangin' to a caribou calf with a broken leg, tryin' to pick his eyes
out. Let's see what it is."
He veered to the left, scrambling up among the boulders. The birds rose
fretfully, perching near by, but the men saw nothing. As they rested
momentarily the birds again swooped downward, reassured.
Then, partly hidden among the detritus, they spied that which made
Crowley cry out in horror, while the sound of Buck's voice was like the
choking of a woman. As they started, one of the ebony scavengers dipped
fiercely, picking at a ragged object. A human arm slowly arose and
blindly beat it off, but the raven's mate settled also, and, sinking its
beak into the object, tore hungrily.
With a shout they stumbled forward, lacerated by the jagged slide rock,
only to pause aghast and shaking.
Sully lay crouched against a boulder where he had crawled for the sun
heat. Rags of clothing hung upon his gaunt frame, through which the
sharp bones strove to pierce; also at sight of his hands and feet they
shuddered. With the former he had covered his eyes from the ravens, but
his cheeks and head were bloody and shredded. He muttered constantly,
like the thick whirring of machinery run down.
"Oh, my God!" Buck whispered.
Crowley had mastered himself and knelt beside the figure. He looked up
and tears lay on his cheeks.
"Look at them hands and feet! That was done by fire and frost together.
He must have fell in his own camp-fires after he went crazy."
The garments were burned off to elbow and knee, while the flesh was
black and raw.
Tenderly they carried the gabbing creature down to the timber and laid
him on a bed of boughs. His condition told the grim tale of his
wanderings, crazed with hunger and hardship.
Heating water, they poured it into him, dressing his wounds with strips
from their underclothes. Of stimulants they had none, but fed him the
last pinch of flour, together with the final rasher of salt pork,
although they knew that these things are not good for starving men. For
many days they had traveled on less than quarter rations themselves.
"What will we do?"
"It ain't over twenty miles to the niggers'. He'll die before we can get
help back. D'ye reckon we can carry him?"
It was not sympathy which prompted Crowley, for he sympathized with his
boyish companion, whose sufferings it hurt him sorely to augment. It was
not pity; he pitied himself, and his own deplorable condition; nor did
mercy enter into his processes, for the man had mercilessly planned to
kill him, and he likewise had nursed a bitter hatred against him, which
misfortune could only dim. It was not these things which moved him, but
a vaguer, wilder quality; an elemental, unspoken, indefinable feeling of
brotherhood throughout the length of the North, teaching subtly, yet
absolutely and without appeal, that no man shall be left in his
extremity to the cruel harshness of this forbidding land.
"Carry him?" Buck cried. "No! You're crazy! What's the use? He'll die,
anyhow--and so'll we if we don't get grub soon." Buck was new to the
country, and he was a boy.
"No, he won't. He lived hard and he'll die hard, for he's a hellion--he
is. We've got to pack him in!"
"By God! I won't risk _my_ life for a corpse--'specially one like him."
The lad broke out in hysterical panic, for he had lived on the raggedest
edge of his nerve these many days. Now his every muscle was dead and
numbed with pain. Only his mind was clear, caused by the effort to force
movement into his limbs. When he stopped walking he fell into a
half-slumber which was acutely painful. When he arose to redrive his
weary body it became freakish, so that he fell or collided with trees.
He was bloody and bruised and cut. Carry a dead man? It was madness,
and, besides, he felt an utter giving away at every joint.
He was too tired to make his reasoning plain; his tongue was thick, and
Crowley's brain too calloused to grasp argument, therefore he squatted
beside the muttering creature and wept impotently. He was asleep, with
tears in his stubbly beard, when his partner finished the rude litter,
yet he took up his end of the burden, as Crowley knew he would.
"You'll kill us both, damn ye!" he groaned.
"Probably so, but we can't leave him to them things." The other nodded
at the vampires perched observantly in the surrounding firs.
Then began their great trial and temptation. For hours on end the birds
fluttered from tree to tree, always in sight and hoarsely complaining
till the sick fancies of the men distorted them into foul, gibing
creatures of the Pit screaming with devilish glee at their anguish.
Blindly they staggered through the forest while the limbs reached forth
to block them, thrusting sharp needles into their eyes or whipping back
viciously. Vines writhed up their legs, straining to delay their march,
and the dank moss curled ankle-deep, slyly tripping their dragging,
swollen feet. Nature hindered them sullenly, with all her heart-breaking
implacability. They reeled constantly under their burden and grew to
hate the ragged-barked trees that smote them so cruelly and so roughly
tore their flesh. Ofttimes they fell, rolling the maniac limply from his
couch, but they dragged him back and strained forward to the hideous
racket of his mumblings, which grew louder as his delirium increased.
They were forced to tie him to the poles, but could not stop his ghastly
shriekings. At every pause the dismal ravens croaked and leered evilly
from the shadows, till Buck shuddered and hid his face while Crowley
gnashed his teeth. From time to time other birds joined them in
anticipation of the feast, till they were ringed about, and the sight of
this ever-growing, grisly, clamorous flock of watchers became awful to
the men. They felt the horny talons searching their flesh and the hungry
beaks tearing at their eyeballs.
A dog-sled and birch-bark practice covering both banks of the Yukon for
two hundred miles yielded Doc Lewis sufficient revenue to grub-stake a
Swede. Thus he slept warm, kept his feet dry, and was still a miner. He
did not believe in hardship, and eschewed stampedes. Yet when he had
seen the last able-bodied man vanish from camp on the Skookum run he
grew restless. He scoffed at fake excitements to Jarvis, the
faro-dealer, who also forbore the trail by virtue of his calling, but he
got no satisfaction. A fortnight later he rolled his blankets and
journeyed toilsomely up the river valley.
"Better late than never," he thought.
Arriving at the empty shack of the negroes, he camped, only to awaken
during the night to the roar of the torrent at his door. Having seen
other mountain streams in the break-up, he waited philosophically,
hunting ptarmigan among the firs back of the cabin.
He had lost track of the days when, down the gulch, in the morning
light, he descried a strange party approaching.
Two men bore between them a stretcher made from their shirts. They
crawled with dreadful slowness, resting every hundred feet. Moreover,
they stumbled and staggered aimlessly through the niggerheads. As they
drew near he sighted their faces, from which the teeth grinned in a
grimace of torture and through which the cheek-bones seemed to
penetrate.
He knew what the signs boded. For years he had ministered to these
necessities, and no man had ever approached his success.
"It is the rape of the North they are doing," he sighed. "We ravage her
stores, but she takes grim toll from all of us." He moved the hot water
forward on the stove, cleared off the rude table, and laid out his
instrument-case.