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SNOWDRIFT
_A Story of the Land of the Strong Cold_
By JAMES B. HENDRYX
AUTHOR OF
"The Gold Girl," "The Gun Brand," "The Texan,"
"Prairie Flowers," "The Promise," etc.
A.L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with G.P. Putnam's Sons
Printed in U.S.A.
COPYRIGHT, 1922
BY
JAMES B. HENDRYX
BY JAMES B. HENDRYX
The Promise
The Gun Brand
The Texan
North
The Gold Girl
Prairie Flowers
Snowdrift
Without Gloves
At the Foot of the Rainbow
This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
CONTENTS
PAGE
A PROLOGUE 3
CHAPTER
I.--COARSE GOLD 41
II.--ON DYEA BEACH 60
III.--AT THE MISSION 72
IV.--ACE-IN-THE-HOLE 84
V.--LUCK TURNS 93
VI.--THE DEALER AT STOELL'S 104
VII.--"WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?" 120
VIII.--THE PLOTTING OF CAMILLO BILL 132
IX.--SNOWDRIFT RETURNS TO THE BAND 143
X.--THE DINNER AT REEVES' 155
XI.--JOE PETE 170
XII.--ON THE TRAIL 184
XIII.--THE CAMP ON THE COPPERMINE 198
XIV.--IN THE BARRENS 206
XV.--MOONLIGHT 223
XVI.--CONFESSIONS 243
XVII.--IN THE CABIN OF THE "BELVA LOU" 260
XVIII.--LOST 277
XIX.--TRAPPED 293
XX.--"YOU ARE WHITE!" 305
XXI.--THE PASSING OF WANANEBISH 323
XXII.--CLAW HITS FOR DAWSON 339
XXIII.--IN THE TOILS 351
XXIV.--THE FIGHT AT CUTER MALONE'S 364
SNOWDRIFT
A PROLOGUE
I
Murdo MacFarlane, the Hudson's Bay Company's trader at Lashing Water
post, laid aside his book and glanced across the stove at his wife who
had paused in her sewing to hold up for inspection a very tiny shirt of
soft wool.
"I tell you it's there! It's bound to be there," he announced with
conviction. "Just waitin' for the man that's man enough to go an' get
it."
Margot nodded abstractedly and deftly snipped a thread that dangled from
a seam of a little sleeve. She had heard this same statement many times
during the three years of their married life, and she smiled to herself
as Molaire, her father, who was the Company's factor at Lashing Water,
laid aside his well thumbed invoice with a snort of disgust. She knew
her two men well, did Margot, and she could anticipate almost word for
word the heated argument that was bound to follow. Without rising she
motioned to Tom Shirts, the Company Indian, to light the great swinging
lamp. And as the yellow light flooded the long, low trading room, she
resumed her sewing, while Molaire hitched his chair nearer the stove and
whittled a pipeful of tobacco from a plug.
"There ye go again with ye're tomrot an' ye're foolishness!" exploded
the old Frenchman, as he threw away his match and crowded the swelling
tobacco back into the bowl of his pipe. "Always babblin' about the gold.
Always wantin' to go an' find out for ye'reself it ain't there."
"But I'm tellin' you it _is_ there," insisted MacFarlane.
"Where is it, then? Why ain't it be'n got?"
"Because the right man ain't gone after it."
"An' ye're the right man, I suppose! Still lackin' of twenty-five years,
an' be'n four years in the bush; tellin' me that's be'n forty years in
the fur country, an' older than ye before ever I seen it. Ye'll do
better to ferget this foolishness an' stick to the fur like me. I've
lived like a king in one post an' another--an' when I'm old I'll retire
on my pension."
"An' when I'm old, if I find the gold, I'll ask pension of no man. It
ain't so much for myself that I want gold--it's for them--for Margot,
there, an' the wee Margot in yon." He nodded toward the door of the
living room where the year-old baby lay asleep.
Molaire shrugged: "Margot has lived always in the bush. She needs no
gold, an' the little one needs no gold. Gold costs lives. Come, Margot,
speak up! Would ye send ye're man to die in the barrens for the gold
that ain't there?"
Margot paused in her sewing and smiled: "I am not sending him into the
barrens," she said. "If he goes, I go, and the little Margot, too. If
one dies, we all die together. But there must be gold there. Has not
Murdo read it in books? And we have heard rumors of gold among the
Indians."
"Read it in books!" sniffed Molaire. "Rumors among Injuns! Ye better
stick to fur, boy. Ye take to it natural. There's no better judge of fur
in all the traders I've had. Before long the Company'll make ye a
factor."
As young Murdo MacFarlane filled and lighted his pipe, his eyes rested
with burning intensity upon his young wife. When finally he spoke it was
half to himself, half to Molaire: "When the lass an' I were married,
back yon, to the boomin' of the bells of Ste. Anne's, I vowed me a vow
that I'd do the best 'twas in me to do for her. An' I vowed it again
when, a year later, the bells of Ste. Anne's rang out at the christening
of the wee little Margot. Is it the best a man can do--to spend his life
in the buyin' of fur for a wage, when gold 'twould pay for a kingdom
lies hid in the sands for the takin'?"
Molaire's reply was interrupted by a sound from without, and the
occupants of the room looked at each other in surprise. For it was
February and the North lay locked in the iron grip of the strong cold.
Since mid-afternoon the north wind had roared straight out of the
Arctic, driving before it a blue-white smother of powder-dry snow
particles that cut and seared the skin like white-hot steel filings.
MacFarlane was half way across the floor when the door opened and a man,
powdered white from head to foot, stepped into the room in a swirl of
snow fine as steam. With his hip he closed the door against the push of
the wind, and advancing into the room, shook off his huge bear-skin
mittens and unwound the heavy woolen scarf that encircled his parka hood
and muffled his face to the eyes. The scarf, stiff with ice from his
frozen breath, crackled as it unwound, and little ice-chips fell to the
floor.
"Ha, it's Downey, who else? Lad, lad, what a night to be buckin' the
storm!" cried the trader.
Corporal Downey, of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, grinned as he
advanced to the stove. "It was buck the storm to Lashin' Water post, or
hole up in a black spruce swamp till it was over. She looks like a three
days' storm, an' I prefer Lashin' Water."
"Ye're well in time for supper, Corporal," welcomed Molaire, "and the
longer the storm lasts the better. For now we'll have days an' nights of
real whist. We've tried to teach Tom Shirts to play, but he knows no
more about it now than he knows about the ten commandments--an' cares
less. So we've be'n at it three-handed. But three-handed whist is like a
three-legged dog--it limps."
Neseka, the squaw, looked in from the kitchen to announce supper, and
after ordering Tom to attend to the Corporal's dogs, Molaire clapped his
hands impatiently to attract the attention of MacFarlane and Downey who
were beating the snow from the latter's moose hide parka. "Come,"
insisted the old man, "ye're outfit'll have plenty time to dry out. The
supper'll be cold, an' we're losin' time. We've wasted a hand of cards
already."
"Is the gold bug still buzzin' in your bonnet, Mac?" asked Downey, as
Molaire flourished the keen bladed carving knife over the roasted
caribou haunch.
"Aye," answered the young Scotchman. "An' when the rivers run free in
the spring, I'll be goin' to get it."
A long moment of silence followed the announcement during which the
carving knife of Molaire was held suspended above the steaming roast.
The old man's gaze centered upon his son-in-law's face, and in that
moment he knew that the younger man's decision had been made, and that
nothing in the world could change it. The words of Margot flashed
through his brain: "If he goes, I go, and the little Margot, too. If one
dies, we all die together." His little daughter, the light of his life
since the death of her mother years before--and the tiny wee Margot who
had snuggled her way into his rough old heart to cheer him in his old
age--going away--far and far away into the God-knows-where of bitter
cold and howling blizzard--and all on a fool's errand! The keen blade
bit the roast to the bone, raised, dripping red juice, and bit again.
"_Mon Dieu_, what a fool!" breathed the old man, and as if in final
appeal, turned to Corporal Downey, who had known him long, and who had
guessed what was passing in his mind. "Tell him, Downey, you know the
North beyond the barrens. Tell him he is a fool!"
And Downey who was not old in years but very wise in the ways of men,
smiled. He liked young Murdo MacFarlane, but he was a Scotchman himself
and he knew the hard-headedness of the breed.
"Well, a man ain't always a fool because he goes huntin' for gold.
That's accordin'. Where is this gold, Mac? An' how do you know it's
there?"
"It's there, all right--gold and copper, too. Didn't Captain Knight try
to find it? And Samuel Hearne?"
"Yes," broke in Molaire, "an' Knight's bones are bleachin' on Marble
Island with his ships on the bottom of the Bay, an' Hearne came back
empty handed."
"That's why the gold is still there," answered MacFarlane.
"Where 'bouts is it?" insisted Downey.
"Up in the Coppermine River country, to the north and east of Bear
Lake."
"How do you know?"
"The Injuns had chunks of it. That's what sent Knight and Hearne after
it."
"How long ago?"
"Captain Knight started in 1719, an' Hearne about fifty years later."
"Gosh!" exclaimed Downey. "Ain't that figurin' quite a ways back?"
"Gold don't rot. If it was there then, it's there now. It's never been
brought out."
"Yes--_if_ it was there. But, maybe it ain't there an' never was--what
then?"
"I talked with an Injun, a year back, that said he had seen an Injun
from the North that had seen some Eskimos that had dishes made of yellow
metal."
"He was prob'ly lyin'," observed Downey, "or the Injun that told him was
lyin'. I've be'n north to the coast a couple of times, an' I never seen
no Injuns nor Eskimos eatin' out of no gold dishes yet."
"Maybe it's because you've stuck to the Mackenzie, where the posts are.
Have you ever crossed the barrens straight north--between the Mackenzie
an' the Bay?"
"No," answered Downey, dryly, "an' I hope to God I don't never have to.
You've got a good thing here with the Company, Mac. If I was you I'd
stick to it, anyways till I seen an Injun with some gold. I never seen
one yet--an' I don't never expect to. An' speakin' of Injuns reminds me,
I passed a camp of 'em this forenoon."
"A camp of 'em!" exclaimed Molaire, in surprise. "Who were they? My
Injuns are all on the trap lines."
"These are from the North somewheres. I couldn't savvy their lingo. They
ain't much good I guess. They're non-treaty Injuns--wanderers. They
wanted to know where a post was, an' I told 'em. They'll prob'ly be in
to trade when the storm lets up."
That evening old Molaire played whist badly. His heart was not in the
game, for try as he would to keep his mind on the cards, in his ears was
the sound of the dull roar of the wind, and his thoughts were of the
future--of the long days and nights to come when his loved ones would be
somewhere far in the unknown North, and he would be left alone with his
Company Indians in the little post on Lashing Water.
II
All night the storm roared unabated and, as is the way of Arctic
blizzards, the second day saw its fury increased. During the morning the
four played whist. There had been no mention of gold, and old Molaire
played his usual game with the result that when Neseka called them to
dinner, he and MacFarlane held a three-game lead over Downey and Margot.
The meal over, they returned to the cards. The first game after dinner
proved a close one, each side scoring the odd in turn, while the old
Frenchman, as was his custom, analyzed each hand as the cards were
being shuffled for the next deal. Finally he scored a point and tied the
score. Then he glared at his son-in-law: "An' ye'd of finessed your
ten-spot through on my lead of hearts we'd of made two points an' game!"
he frowned.
"How was I to know?" MacFarlane paused abruptly in the midst of his deal
and glanced in surprise toward the door which swung open to admit four
Indians who loosened the blankets that covered them from head to foot
and beat the snow from them as they advanced toward the stove. Three of
them carried small packs of fur. The fourth was a young squaw, straight
and lithe as a panther, and as she loosened the moss-bag from her
shoulders, a thin wail sounded from its interior.
"A baby!" cried Margot, as MacFarlane made his way to the counter, his
eyes upon the packs of fur. She stooped and patted her own little one
who was rolling about upon a thick blanket spread on the floor. The
squaw smiled, and fumbling in the depths of the bag drew forth a tiny
brown-red mite which ceased crying and stared stolidly at the cluster of
strange white faces. "What a terrible day for a baby to be out!"
continued the white woman, as she pushed a chair near to the stove.
Again the squaw smiled and seating herself, turned her back upon the
occupants of the room and proceeded to nurse the tiny atom.
Meanwhile MacFarlane was trying by means of the Cree language to
question the three bucks who stood in solemn line before the counter,
each with his pack of fur before him. Downey tried them with the
Blackfoot tongue, and the Jargon, while old Molaire and Tom Shirts added
half a dozen dialects from nearer the Bay. But no slightest flicker of
comprehension crossed the face of any one of them. Presently the young
squaw arose and placed her baby upon the blanket beside the white child
where the two little mites sat and stared at each other in owlish
solemnity. As she advanced toward the counter MacFarlane addressed her
in Cree. And to the surprise of all she spoke to him in English: "We buy
food," she said, indicating the packs of fur.
"Where did you come from?" queried the trader. "An' how is it that you
talk English an' the rest of 'em can't talk nothin'?"
"We come from far to the northward," she answered. "I have been to
school at the mission. These are Dog Ribs. They have not been to school.
I am of the Yellow Knives. My man was drowned in a rapids. He was name
Bonnetrouge. He was a Dog Rib so I live with these."
"Why don't you trade at your own post?" asked MacFarlane, suspiciously.
"Is it because you have a debt there that you have not paid?"
"No. We have no debt at any post. We are only a small band. We move
about all the time. We do not like to stay in one place like the rest.
We see many new rivers, and many lakes, and we go to many places that
the others do not know. We have no debt at any post, we trade as we go
and pay with skins for what we buy."
"One of them wanderin' bands," observed Downey. "I've run across two or
three of 'em here an' there. They camp a while somewheres an' then,
seems like, they just naturally get restless an' move on."
The squaw nodded: "The police is right. We do not like to stay and trap
in one place. I have seen many new things, and many things that even the
oldest man has not seen."
MacFarlane opened the packs and examined their contents, fur by fur,
laying them in separate piles and paying for each as he appraised it in
brass tokens of made beaver. The three bucks looked on in stolid
indifference but MacFarlane noted that the eyes of the squaw followed
his every movement.
As a general rule the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company deal fairly
with the Indians in the trading of the common or standard skins, and
MacFarlane was no exception. It was in a spirit of fun, to see what the
squaw would do, that he counted out thirty made beaver in payment for a
large otter skin.
The Indian woman shook her head: "No, that is a good otter. He is worth
more." And with a smile the Scotchman counted ten additional tokens into
the pile, whereat the squaw nodded approval and the trading proceeded.
When at last it was finished the squaw took entire charge of the
purchasing, pausing only now and then, to consult one or the other of
the Indians in their own tongue, and in her selection of only the
essentials, MacFarlane realized that he was dealing with that rarest of
northern Indians, one who possessed sound common sense and the force of
character to reject the useless trinkets so dear to the Indian heart.
While the bucks were making up their packs the squaw plunged her hand
into the bottom of the moss-bag from which she had taken the baby, and
drew out a single skin. For a long time she stood holding the skin in
one hand while with the other she stroked its softly gleaming surface.
MacFarlane and Molaire gazed at the skin in fascination while Margot
rose from the blanket where she had been playing with the two babies,
and even Corporal Downey who knew little of skins crowded close to feast
his eyes on the jet black pelt whose hairs gleamed with silver radiance.
In all the forty years of his trading Molaire had handled fewer than a
dozen such skins--a true black fox, taken in its prime, so that the
silvered hairs seemed to emit a soft radiance of their own--a skin to
remember, and to talk about. Then the squaw handed the pelt to
MacFarlane and smiled faintly as she watched the trader examine it
almost hair by hair.
"Where did you get it?" he asked.
"I trapped it far to the northward, in the barren grounds, upon a river
that has no name. It is a good skin."
"Did you trap it yourself?"
"Yes. I am a good trapper. My man was a good trapper and he showed me
how. These are good trappers, too," she indicated the three Indians,
"And all the rest who are with us. There are thirty of us counting the
women and children. But we have not had good luck. That is all the fur
we have caught," she pointed to the skins MacFarlane had just bought,
"Those and the little black fox. When the storms stops we will go again
into the barren grounds, and we must have food, or, if we have bad luck
again, some of us will die."
"Why do you go to the barren grounds?" asked MacFarlane. "The trappin'
is better to the eastward, or to the westward."
The squaw shrugged: "My man he had been to school a little, but mostly
he had worked far to the westward along the coast of the sea--among the
white men who dig for gold. And he heard men talk of the gold that lies
in the barren grounds and northward to the coast of the frozen sea. So
he went back to the country of his people, far up on the Mackenzie, and
he told the men of the gold and how it was worth many times more than
the fur. But the old men would not believe him and many of the young men
would not, but some of them did, and these he persuaded to go with him
and hunt for the gold. It was when they were crossing through the
country of my people that I saw him and he saw me and we were married.
That was two years ago and since then we have traveled far and have seen
many things. Then my husband was drowned in a rapids, and I have taken
his place. I will not go back to my people. They were very angry when I
married Bonnetrouge, for the Yellow Knives hate the Dog Ribs. Even if
they were not angry I would not go back, for my husband said there is
gold in the barren grounds. He did not lie. So we will go and get the
gold."
"There's your chance, Mac," grinned Corporal Downey, "You better throw
in with 'em an' get in on the ground floor."
But MacFarlane did not smile. Instead, he spoke gravely to the woman:
"An' have you found any gold in the barrens?"
The squaw shrugged, and glanced down at the babies. When she looked up
again her eyes were upon the little fox skin. "How much?" she asked.
MacFarlane considered. Holding the pelt he stroked its glossy surface
with his hand. Here was a skin of great value. He had heard many traders
and factors boast of the black, and the silver grey fox skins they had
bought at ridiculously low price--and they were men who did not hesitate
to give full value for the common run of skins. Always, with the
traders, the sight of a rare skin arouses a desire to obtain it--and to
obtain it at the lowest possible figure. And MacFarlane was a trader.
He fixed upon a price in his mind. He raised his eyes, but the squaw
was not looking at him and he followed her glance to the blanket where
the two babies, the red baby and the white baby--his own baby and
Margot's, were touching each other gravely with fat pudgy hands.
He opened his lips to mention the price, but closed them again as a new
train of thought flashed through his mind. How nearly this woman's case
paralleled his own. The imagination of each was fired by the lure of
gold, and both were scoffed at by their people for daring to believe
that there was still gold in the earth to be had for the taking. Then,
there was the matter of the babies----
When finally MacFarlane spoke it was to mention a sum three times larger
than the one that he had fixed upon in his mind--a sum that caused old
Molaire to snort and sputter and to stamp angrily up and down the room.
The squaw nodded gravely: "You are a good man," she said, simply. "You
have dealt fairly. Sometime, maybe you will know that Wananebish does
not forget."
Two hours later, when the price of the pelt had been paid and the
supplies all made into packs and carried to the toboggans that had been
left before the door, the Indians wrapped their blankets about them and
prepared to depart.
As the Indian woman wrapped the baby in warm woolens, Margot urged her
to remain until the storm subsided, but the woman declined with a
smile: "No. These are my people. I will go with them. Where one goes,
all go."
"But the baby! This is a terrible storm to take a baby into."
"The baby is warm. She does not know that it storms. She is one of us.
Where we go, she goes, too."
As the Indians filed through the door into the whirling white smother
the young squaw stepped to the counter for a last look at her black fox
skin. She raised it in her hand, drew it slowly across her cheek,
stroked it softly, and then returned it to the counter, taking
deliberate care to lay it by itself apart from the other skins. Then she
turned and was swallowed up in the storm as MacFarlane closed the door
behind her.
"Ye could of bought it for half the price!" growled old Molaire, as his
son-in-law returned to the card table.
"Aye," answered the younger man as he resumed his cards. "But the
Company has still a good margin of profit. They're headin' for the
barrens, an' if, as she said, they have bad luck some of 'em would die.
An' you know who would be the first to go--it would be the babies. I'm
glad I done as I did. I'll sleep better nights."
"And I'm glad, too," added Margot, as she reached over and patted her
husband's hand, "And so is papa way down in his heart. But he loves to
have people think he is a cross old bear--and bears must growl."
Corporal Downey grinned at the twinkle that appeared in old Molaire's
eyes, and the game proceeded until Neseka called them to supper.
MacFarlane paused at the counter and raised the fox skin to the light.
And as he did so, a very small, heavy object rolled from its soft folds
and thudded upon the boards. Slowly MacFarlane laid down the skin and,
picking up the object, carried it close under the swinging lamp, where
he held it in his open palm. Curiously the others crowded about and
stared at the dull yellow lump scarcely larger than the two halves of a
split pea. For a long moment there was silence and then MacFarlane
turned to Corporal Downey: "What was it you said," he asked, "about
sticking to my job until I saw an Injun with some gold?"
III
The north wind moaned and soughed about the eaves of the low log trading
post on Lashing Water. Old Molaire rose from his place by the stove,
crossed the room, and threw open the door. Seconds passed as he stood
listening to the roar of the wind in the tree tops, heedless of the fine
powdering of stinging snow particles that glistened like diamond points
upon his silvery hair and sifted beneath his shirt collar. Then he
closed the door and returned to his chair beside the stove. Corporal
Downey watched in silence while the old man filled his pipe. He threw
away the match and raised his eyes to the officer: "It was a year ago,
d'ye mind, an' just such a storm--when that squaw came bringin' her
black fox skin, and her nugget of damned gold."
"It would be about a year," agreed Downey, gravely nodding his head. "I
made this patrol in February."
"It's just a year--the thirteenth of the month. I'll not be forgetting
it."
"An' have you had no word?"
The old factor shook his head: "No word. They left in May--with the
rivers not yet free of running ice. Two light canoes. Margot could
handle a canoe like a man."
"You'll prob'ly hear from 'em on the break-up this spring. Maybe they'll
give it up an' come back."
Molaire shook his head: "Ye don't know Murdo MacFarlane," he said,
"He'll never give up. He swore he would never return to Lashin' Water
without gold. He's Scotch--an' stubborn as the seven-year itch."
"I'm Scotch," grinned Downey, hoping to draw the old man into an
argument and turn his thoughts from the absent ones. But he would not be
drawn. For a long time he smoked in silence while outside the wind
howled and moaned and sucked red flames high into the stovepipe.
"She'd be two years old, now," Molaire said, "An' maybe talkin' a bit.
Maybe they've taught her to say grand-pere. Don't you think she might be
talkin' a little?"
"I don't know much about 'em. Do they talk when they're two?"
The old factor pondered: "Why--it seems to me _she_ did--the other
Margot. But--it's a long time ago--yet it seems like yesterday. I'm
gettin' old an' my memory plays me tricks. Maybe it was three, instead
of two when she begun to say words. D'ye mind, Downey, a year ago we
played whist?"
"Two-handed cribbage is all right," suggested the Corporal. But the old
man shook his head and for a long, long time the only sound in the room
was the irregular tapping of contracting metal as the fire died down
unheeded in the stove. The old man's pipe went out and lay cold in his
hand. The bearded chin sagged forward onto the breast of his woolen
shirt and his eyes closed. Beyond the stove Corporal Downey drowsed in
his chair.
Suddenly the old man raised his head: "What was that?" he asked sharply.
Downey listened with his eyes on the other's face. "I hear nothing," he
answered, "but the booming of the wind."
The peculiar startled look died out of Molaire's eyes: "Yes," he
answered, "It is the wind. I must have be'n dozin'. But it sounded like
bells. I've heard the bells of Ste. Ann's boom like that--tollin'--when
some one--died." Stiffly he rose from his chair and fumbled upon the
counter for a candle which he handed to Downey. "We'll be goin' to bed,
now," he said, "It's late."
IV
Upon a bunk built against the wall of a tiny cabin of logs five hundred
miles to the northward of Lashing Water post the sick woman turned her
head feebly and smiled into the tear-dimmed eyes of the man who leaned
over her: "It's all right, Murdo," she murmured, "The pain in my side
seems better. I think I slept a little."
Murdo MacFarlane nodded: "Yes, Margot, you have been asleep for an hour.
In a few days, now, I'm thinkin' you'll be sittin' up, an' in a week's
time you'll be on your feet again."
The woman's eyes closed, and by the tightening of the drawn lips her
husband knew that she was enduring another paroxysm of the terrible
pain. Outside, the wind tore at the eaves, the sound muffled by its full
freighting of snow. And on the wooden shelf above the man's head the
little alarm clock ticked brassily.
Once more Margot's eyes opened and the muscles of the white pain-racked
face relaxed. The breath rushed in quick jerky stabs between the parted
lips that smiled bravely. "We are not children, Murdo--you and I," she
whispered. "We must not be afraid to face--this thing. We have found
much happiness together. That will be ours always. Nothing can rob us
of that. We have had it. And now you must face a great unhappiness. I am
going to die. In your eyes I have seen that you, too, know this--when
you thought I slept. To-day--to-night--not later than to-morrow I must
go away. I am not afraid to go--only sorry. We would have had many more
years of happiness, Murdo--you--and I--and the little one--" The low
voice faltered and broke, and the dark eyes brimmed with tears.
The man's hands clenched till the nails bit deep into the palms. A great
dry sob shook the drooped shoulders: "God!" he breathed, hoarsely, "An'
it's all my fault for bringin' you into this damned waste of snow an'
ice, an' bitter cold!"
"No, Murdo, it is not your fault. I was as anxious to come as you were.
I am a child of the North, and I love the North. I love its storms and
its sunshine. I love even the grim cruelty of it--its relentless
snuffing out of lives in the guarding of its secrets. Strong men have
gone to their death fighting it, and more men will go--why then should
not I, who am a woman, go also? But, it would have been the same if we
had stayed at Lashing Water. I know what this sickness is. I have seen
men die of it before--Nash, of the Mounted--and Nokoto, a Company
Indian. It is the appendicitis, and no doctor could have got to Lashing
Water in time, any more than he could have got here. They sent the
fastest dog-team on the river when Nash was sick, and before the doctor
came he was dead. It is not your fault, my husband. It is no one's
fault. There is a time when each of us must die. My time is now. That is
all." She ceased speaking, and with an effort that brought little beads
of cold sweat to her forehead, she raised herself upon her elbow and
pointed a faltering forefinger toward the little roughly made crib that
stood close beside the bunk. "Promise me, Murdo," she gasped, "promise
me upon your soul that you will see--that--she--_that she shall go to
school!_ More than I have gone, for there are many things I do not know.
I have read in books things I do not understand."
"Aye, girl," the deep voice of MacFarlane rumbled through the room as he
eased his wife back onto the pillow, "I promise."
The dark eyes closed, the white face settled heavily onto the pillow,
and as MacFarlane bent closer he saw that the breathing was peaceful and
regular. It was as though a great load had been lifted from her mind,
and she slept. With her hand still clasped in his the man's tired body
sagged forward until his head rested beside hers.
MacFarlane awoke with a start. Somewhere in the darkness a small voice
was calling: "Mamma! Daddy! I cold!" For a moment the man lay trying to
collect his befuddled senses. "Just a minute, baby," he called, "Daddy's
comin'." As he raised to a sitting posture upon the edge of the bunk his
fingers came in contact with his wife's hand--the hand that he suddenly
remembered had been clasped in his. Rapidly his brain cleared. He must
have fallen asleep. The fire had burned itself out in the stove and he
shivered in the chill air. Margot's hand must have slipped from his
clasp as they slept. It was too cold for her hand to lie there on top of
the blankets, and her arm protected only by the sleeve of her nightgown.
He would slip it gently beneath the covers and then build up a roaring
fire.
A low whimpering came from the direction of the crib: "Daddy, I cold."
"Just a minute, baby, till daddy lights the light." He reached for the
hand that lay beside him there in the darkness. As his fingers clutched
it a short, hoarse cry escaped him. The hand was icy cold--too cold for
even the coldness of the fireless room. The fingers yielded stiffly
beneath his palm and the arm lay rigid upon the blanket.
MacFarlane sprang to his feet and as he groped upon the shelf for
matches his body was shaken by great dry sobs that ended in low throaty
moans. Clumsily his trembling fingers held the tiny flame to the wick of
the candle, and as the light flickered a moment and then burned clear,
he crossed to the crib where the baby had partly wriggled from beneath
her little blankets and robes. Wrapping her warmly in a blanket, he drew
the rest of the covers over her.
"I want to get in bed with mamma," came plaintively from the small
bundle.
MacFarlane choked back a sob: "Don't, don't! little one," he cried, then
lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper, he bent low over the crib.
"S-h-s-h, don't disturb mamma. She's--asleep."
"I want sumpin' to eat. I want some gravy and some toast."
"Yes, you wait till daddy builds the fire an' then we'll be nice an'
warm, an' daddy'll get supper."
Silently MacFarlane set about his work. He kindled a fire, put the
teakettle on, and warmed some caribou gravy, stirring it slowly to
prevent its scorching while he toasted some bread upon the top of the
stove. Once or twice he glanced toward the bed. Margot's face was turned
away from him, and all he could see was a wealth of dark hair massed
upon the pillow. That--and the hand that showed at the end of the
nightgown sleeve. White as snow--and cold as snow it looked against the
warm red of the blanket. MacFarlane crossed and drew the blanket up over
the hand and arm, covering it to the shoulder. Bending over, he looked
long into the white face. The eyes were closed, MacFarlane was glad of
that, and the lips were slightly parted as though in restful slumber.
"Good bye--Margot--lass--" his voice broke thickly. He was conscious of
a gnawing pain in his throat, and two great scalding tears rolled down
his cheeks and dropped to the mass of dark hair where they glistened in
the steady glow of the single candle like tiny globes of fire. He raised
the blanket to cover the still face, lowered it again and crossed to
the table where he laid out a tincup for himself and a little thick
yellow bowl into which he crumbled the toast and poured the gravy over
it. Then he warmed a tiny blanket, wrapped the baby in it and, holding
her on his lap, fed her from a spoon. Between the slowly portioned
spoonfuls he drank great gulps of scalding tea. There were still several
spoonfuls left in the bowl when the tiny mite in his arms snuggled
warmly against him. "Tell me a 'tory," demanded the mite. MacFarlane
told the "'tory"--and another, and another. And then, in response to an
imperious demand, he sang a song. It was the first time MacFarlane had
ever sung a song. It was a song he had often heard Margot sing, and he
was surprised that he had unconsciously learned the words which fell
from his lips in a wailing monotone.
MacFarlane's heart was breaking--but he finished the song.
"I sleepy," came drowsily from the blanket. "I want to kiss mamma."
"S-h-s-h, mamma's asleep. Kiss daddy, and we'll go to bed."
"I want to kiss mamma," insisted the baby.
MacFarlane hesitated with tight-pressed lips. Then he rose and carried
the baby to the bedside. "See, mamma's asleep," he whispered, pointing
to the mass of dark hair on the pillow. "Just kiss her hair--and
we--won't--wake--her--up." He held the baby so that the little pursed
lips rested for a moment in the thick mass of hair, then he carried her
to her crib and tucked her in. She was asleep when he smoothed the robe
into place.
For a long time he stood looking down at the little face on the pillow.
Then he crossed to the table where he sat with his head resting upon his
folded arms while the minutes ticked into hours and the fire burned low.
As he sat there with closed eyes MacFarlane followed the thread of his
life from his earliest recollection. His childhood on the little
hillside farm, the long hours that he struggled with his books under the
eye of the stern-faced schoolmaster, his 'prenticeship in the shop of
the harness-maker in the small Scotch town, his year of work about the
docks at Liverpool, his coming to Canada and hiring out to the Hudson's
Bay Company, his assignment to Lashing Water as Molaire's clerk, his
meeting with Margot when she returned home from school at the
mission--and the wonderful days of that first summer together. Then--his
promotion to the position of trader, his marriage to Margot--step by
step he lived again that long journey from Lashing Water to Ste. Anne's.
For it was old Molaire's wish that his daughter should be married in the
old Gothic church where, years before, he had married her mother.
MacFarlane raised his head and listened, his wide-staring eyes fixed
upon the black square of the window--that sound--it was--only the moan
and the muffled roar of the wind--but, for a moment it had sounded like
the tone of a deep-throated bell--like the booming of the bells of Ste.
Anne's. Slowly the man lowered his head to his arms and groped for the
thread of his thought where he had left it. Lingeringly, he dwelt upon
the happiness that had been theirs, the coming of the little Margot--the
infinite love that welled in their hearts for this soft little helpless
thing, their delight in her unfolding--the gaining of a pound--the first
tooth--the first half-formed word--the first step. He remembered, too,
their distress at her tiny ills, real and fancied. Then, his own desire
to seek gold--not for himself, but that these two loved ones might enjoy
life in a fullness undreamed by the family of a fur trader. He
recollected Molaire's opposition, his arguments, his scoffing, and his
prediction that by the end of a year he would be back at Lashing Water
buying fur for the Company. And he recollected his own retort, that
without the gold he would never come back.
And here, in this little thick walled cabin far into the barren grounds,
he had come to the end of the long, long trail. MacFarlane raised his
head and stared at the crib. But, was it the end? He knew that it was
not, and he groped blindly, desperately to picture the end. If it were
not for her--for this little one who lay asleep there in the crib, the
end would be easy. The man's glance sought the rifle that rested upon
its pegs above the window. It was out of the question to think of
returning to Lashing Water, if he would--the baby could not stand five
hundred miles of gruelling winter-trail. He could not keep her here and
leave her alone while he prospected. He could not remain in the cabin
all winter and care for her--he must hunt to live--and game was scarce
and far afield. He shuddered at the thought of what might happen if he
were to leave her alone in the cabin with a fire in the stove--or worse,
of what might eventually happen if some accident befell him and he could
not return to the cabin.
MacFarlane sat bolt upright. He suddenly remembered that a few days
before, from a high hill some thirty miles to the westward, he had seen
an Indian village nestled against a spruce swamp at a wide bend of a
river. It was a small village of a dozen or more tepees, and he had
intended to visit it later. Why not take the baby over there and give
her into the keeping of some squaw. If he could find one like Neseka all
would be well, for Neseka's love for the little Margot was hardly less
than his own. And surely, in a whole village there must be at least one
like her.
MacFarlane replenished his fire, and groping upon the shelf, found a
leather covered note book and pencil. The guttered candle flared smokily
and he replaced it with another, and for an hour or more he wrote
steadily, filling page after page of the note book with fine lined
writing.
When he had finished he thrust the note book into his pocket and again
buried his face in his arms.
V
Toward morning the storm wore itself out, and before the belated winter
dawn had tinted the east MacFarlane set out for the Indian village. The
cold was intense so that his snowshoes crunched on the surface of the
flinty, wind-driven snow. Mile after mile he swung across the barrens
that lay trackless, and white, and dead, skirting towering rock ledges
and patches of scraggly timber. The sun came out and the barrens glared
dazzling white. MacFarlane had left his snow-goggles back in the cabin,
so he squinted his eyes and pushed on. Three times that day he stopped
and built a fire at the edge of a thicket and heated thick caribou gruel
which he fed by spoonfuls to the tiny robe-wrapped little girl that
snuggled warm in his pack sack. Darkness had fallen before he reached
the high hill from which he had seen the village. He scanned the sweep
of waste that lay spread before him, its shapes and distances distorted
and unreal in the feeble light of the glittering stars. He hardly
expected a light to show from a village of windowless tepees in the dead
of winter, and he strove to remember which of those vague splotchy
outlines was the black spruce swamp against which he had seen the
tepees. Suddenly the silence of the night was broken by the sharp jerky
yelp of a stricken dog. The sound issued from one of the dark blotches
of timber, and was followed by a rabble of growls and snarls. MacFarlane
judged the distance that separated him from the vague outline of the
swamp to be three or four miles, but the shrill sounds cut the frozen
air so distinctly that they seemed to issue from the foot of the hill
upon which he stood. A dull spot of light showed for a moment, rocketed
through the air, and disappeared amid a chorus of yelps and howls. An
Indian, disturbed by the fighting dogs, had thrown back the flap of his
tepee and hurled a lighted brand among them.
Swiftly MacFarlane descended the slope and struck out for the black
spruce swamp. An hour later he stood upon the snow-covered ice of the
river while barking, snarling and growling, the Indian dog pack crowded
about him. It seemed a long time that he stood there holding the dogs at
bay with a stout spruce club. At length dark forms appeared in front of
the tepees and several Indians advanced toward him, dispersing the dogs
with blows and kicks and commands in hoarse gutterals. MacFarlane spoke
to them in Cree, and getting no response, he tried several of the
dialects from about the Bay. He had advanced until he stood among them
peering from one to another of the flat expressionless faces for some
sign of comprehension. But they returned his glances with owlish
blinking of their smoke reddened eyes. MacFarlane's heart sank. These
were the people in whose care he had intended to leave his little
daughter! Suddenly, as a ray of starlight struck aslant one of the flat
bestial faces, a flash of recognition lighted MacFarlane's eyes. The man
was one of the four who had come to trade a year before at Lashing
Water.
"Where is the squaw?" he cried in English, grasping the man by the
shoulder and shaking him roughly, "Where is Wananebish?"
At the name, the Indian turned and pointed toward a tepee that stood
slightly apart from the rest, and a moment later MacFarlane stood before
its door. "Wananebish!" he called. And again, "Wananebish!"
"Yes," came the answer, "What does the white man want?"
"It is MacFarlane, the trader at Lashing Water. Do you remember a year
ago you sold me a black fox skin?"
"I remember. Did I not say that Wananebish would not forget? Wait, and I
will let you in, for it is cold." The walls of the tepee glowed faintly
as the squaw struck a light. He could hear her moving about inside and a
few minutes later she threw open the flap and motioned him to enter.
MacFarlane blinked in surprise as she fastened the flap behind him.
Instead of the filthy smoke-reeking interior he had expected, the tepee
was warm and comfortable, its floor covered thickly with robes, and
instead of the open fire in the center with its smoke vent at the apex
of the tepee, he saw a little Yukon stove in which a fire burned
brightly.
Without a word he removed his pack sack and tenderly lifting the
sleeping baby from it laid her on the robes. Then, seating himself
beside her he told her, simply and in few words what had befallen him.
The squaw listened in silence and for a long time after he finished she
sat staring at the flame of the candle.
"What would you have me do?" she asked at length.
"Keep the little one and care for her until I return," answered the man,
"I will pay you well."
The Indian woman made a motion of dissent. "Where are you going?"
"To find gold."
Was it fancy, or did the shadow of a peculiar smile tremble for an
instant upon the woman's lips? "And, if you do not return--what then?"
"If I do not return by the time of the breaking up of the rivers,"
answered the man, "You will take the baby to Lashing Water post to
Molaire, the factor, who is the father of her mother." As he spoke
MacFarlane drew from his pocket the leather notebook, and a packet
wrapped in parchment deer skin and tied with buckskin thongs. He handed
them to the squaw: "Take these," he said, "and deliver them to Molaire
with the baby. In the book I have instructed him to pay you for her
keep."
"But this Molaire is an old man. Suppose by the time of the breaking up
of the rivers he is not to be found at Lashing Water? He may be dead, or
he may have gone to the settlements."
"If he has gone to the settlements, you are to find him. If he is
dead--" MacFarlane hesitated: "If Molaire is dead," he repeated, "You
are to take care of the baby until she is old enough to enter the school
at some mission. I'm Scotch, an' no Catholic--but, her mother was
Catholic, an' if the priests an' the sisters make as good woman of her
as they did of her mother, I could ask no more. Give them the notebook
in which I have set down the story as I have told it to you. The packet
you shall open and take out whatever is due you for her keep. It
contains money. Keep some for yourself and give some to the priests to
pay for her education."
The squaw nodded slowly: "It shall be as you say. And, if for any
reason, we move from here before the breaking up of the rivers, I will
write our direction and place it inside the caribou skull that hangs
upon the great split stump beside the river."
MacFarlane rose; "May God use you as you use the little one," he said,
"I'll be going now, before she wakes up. It will be better so." He
stooped and gazed for a long time at the face of the sleeping baby. A
hot tear splashed upon the back of his hand, and he brushed it away and
faced the squaw in the door of the tepee: "Goodbye," he said, gruffly,
"Until the rivers break up in the spring."
The Indian woman shook her head: "Do not say it like that," she
answered, "For those were the words of my man when he, too, left to find
gold. And when the river broke up in the spring he did not come back to
me--for the grinding ice-cakes caught his canoe, and he was crushed to
death in a rapids."
VI
For four long nights and four short days MacFarlane worked at the
digging of a grave. It was a beautiful spot he chose to be the last
resting place of his young wife--a high, spruce-covered promontory that
jutted out into a lake. The cabin and its surroundings had grown
intolerable to him, so that he worked furiously, attacking the iron-hard
ground with fire, and ice-chisel, and spade. At last it was done and
placing the body of his wife in the rough pole coffin, he placed it upon
his sled and locking the dogs in the cabin, hauled it himself to the
promontory and lowered it into the grave. Then he shoveled back the
frozen earth, and erected a wooden cross upon which was burned deep her
name, and returning to the cabin, slept the clock around.
If MacFarlane had been himself he would have heeded the signs of
approaching storm. But he had become obsessed with desire to leave that
place with its haunting memories, where every mute object seemed to
whisper to him of his loved ones. He was talking and mumbling to himself
as he harnessed his dogs and headed into the North at the breaking of a
day.
Three hours after MacFarlane hit the trail he left the sparsely timbered
country behind and struck into a vast treeless plain whose glaring white
surface was cut here and there by rugged ridges of basalt which
terminated abruptly in ledges of bare rock.
At noon he made a fireless camp, ate some pilot bread, and caribou meat.
The air was still--ominously dead and motionless to one who knew the
North. But MacFarlane gave no heed, nor did he even notice that though
there were no clouds in the sky, the low-hung sun showed dull and
coppery through a steel-blue fog. He bolted his food and pressed on.
Before him was no guiding landmark. He laid his course by the compass
and held straight North across the treeless rock-ribbed plain. The man's
lean face looked pinched and drawn. For a week he had taken his sleep in
short fitful snatches, in his chair beside the cabin stove, or with his
back against a tree while he waited for the fire to bite a few inches
deeper into the frozen ground as he toiled at the lonely grave. On and
on he mushed at the head of his dogs, his eyes, glowing feverbright,
stared fixedly from between red-rimmed lids straight into the steel
blue fog bank that formed his northern horizon. And as he walked, he
talked incessantly--now arguing with old Molaire, who predicted dire
things, and refused to believe that there was gold in the North--now
telling Margot of his hopes and planning his future--and again, telling
stories to little Margot of Goldilocks and the three little bears, and
of where the caribou got their horns.
The blue fog thickened. From somewhere far ahead sounded a low
whispering roar--the roar of mightly wind, muffled by its burden of
snow. When the first blast struck, MacFarlane tottered in his tracks,
then lowering his head, leaned against it and pushed on. Following the
gust was a moment of calm. Behind him the dogs whimpered uneasily.
MacFarlane did not hear them, nor did he hear the roar of the onrushing
wind.
Around a corner of a rock ledge a scant two hundred yards ahead of him,
appeared a great grey shape, running low. The shape halted abruptly and
circled wide. It was followed by other shapes--gaunt, and grey, and
ugly, between whose back-curled lips white fangs gleamed. The wolf pack,
forty strong, was running before the storm, heading southward for the
timber. Whining with terror, MacFarlane's dogs crowded about his legs in
a sudden rush. The man went down and struggled to his feet, cursing, and
laying about him with clubbed rifle. Then the storm struck in all its
fury. MacFarlane gasped for air, and sucked in great gulps of powdery
snow that bit into his lungs and seared his throat with their stinging
cold. He choked and coughed and jerking off his mitten, clawed with bare
fingers at his throat and eyes. While behind him, down wind, the great
grey caribou wolves, stopped in their wild flight by the scent of meat,
crowded closer, and closer.
In a panic, MacFarlane's dogs whirled, and dragging the sled behind them
bolted. MacFarlane staggered a few steps forward and fell, then, on
hands and knees he crawled back, groping and pawing the snow for his
mitten and rifle. The sharp frenzied yelps as the dog team plunged into
the wolf-pack sounded faint and far. The man threw up his head. He
pulled off his cap to listen and the wind whipped it from his numbed
fingers--but MacFarlane did not know. Moments of silence followed during
which the man strained his ears to catch a sound that eluded him.
When the last shred of flesh had been ripped from the bones of the dogs
the gaunt grey leader of the pack raised his muzzle and sniffed the
wind. He advanced a cautious step or two and sniffed again, then seating
himself on his haunches he raised his long pointed muzzle to the sky and
gave voice to the long drawn cry of the kill--and the shapes left the
fang-scarred bits of bone and sniffed up-wind at the man-scent.
As the sound of the great wolf cry reached his ears above the roar of
the wind, MacFarlane's face lighted with a smile of infinite gladness:
"The bells," he muttered, "I heard them--d'you hear them, Margot--girl?
It's for us--the booming of the bells of Ste. Anne's!" And with the
words on his lips MacFarlane pillowed his head on the snow--and slept.
VII
Years afterward, after old Molaire had been gathered to his fathers and
laid in the little cemetery within the sound of the bells of Ste.
Anne's, Corporal Downey one day came upon a long deserted cabin far into
the barren grounds upon the shore of a nameless lake. He closed the
rotting door behind him, and methodically searching the ground, came at
length upon the solitary grave upon the high promontory that jutted into
the lake. Unconsciously he removed his hat as he read the simple
inscription burned deep into the little wooden cross. His lips moved:
"Margot--girl," he whispered, "if--if--" the whisper thickened and
choked him. He squared his shoulders and cleared his throat roughly. "Aw
hell!" he breathed, and turning, walked slowly back to his canoe and
shoved out onto the water.
And during the interval of the years the little band of non-treaty
Indians--the homeless and the restless ones--moved on--and on--and
on----
CHAPTER I
COARSE GOLD
As Carter Brent pushed through the swinging doors of "The Ore Dump"
saloon, the eyes of the head bartender swept with approval from the
soles of the high laced boots to the crown of the jauntily tilted
Stetson. "What'll it be this morning, Mr. Brent?" he greeted. "Little
eye-opener?"
The young man grinned as he crossed to the bar: "How did you guess it?"
The bartender set out decanter and glasses. "Well, after last night,
thought maybe you'd have a kind of fuzzy taste in your mouth."
"Fuzzy is right! My tongue is coated with fur--dark brown fur--thick and
soft. What time was it when we left here?"
"Must have been around two o'clock. But, how does it come you ain't on
the works this mornin'? Never knew you to lose a day on account of a
hang-over. Heard a couple of the S. & R.'s tunnels got flooded last
night."
Brent poured a liberal drink and downed it at a swallow: "Yes," he
answered, dryly, "And that's why I'm not on the works. I'm hunting a
job, and the S. & R. is hunting a new mining engineer."
"Jepson fired you, did he! Well, you should worry. I've heard 'em
talkin' in here, now an' then--some of the big guns--an' they all claim
you're one of the best engineers in Montana. They say if you'd buckle
down to business you'd have 'em all skinned."
"Buckle down to business, eh! The trouble with them is that when they
hire a man they think they buy him. It's none of their damn business
what I do evenings. If I'm sober when I'm on the job--and on the job six
days a week, and sometimes seven--they're getting all they're paying
for."
"They sure are," agreed the other with emphasis, "Have another shot," he
shoved the decanter toward the younger man and leaned closer: "Say Mr.
Brent, you ain't--er, you don't need a little change, do you? If you do
just say so, you're welcome to it." The man drew forth a roll of bills,
but Brent shook his head:
"No thanks. You can cash this check for me though. Jepson was square
enough about it--paid me in full to date and threw in a month's salary
in advance. I don't blame him any. We quit the best of friends. When he
hired me he knew I liked a little drink now and then, so I took the job
with the understanding that if the outfit ever lost a dollar because of
my boozing, I was through right then."
"What was it flooded the tunnels?"
"Water," grinned Brent.
"Oh," laughed the bartender, "I thought maybe it was booze."
"You'd have thought so all the more if you'd been there this morning to
hear the temperance lecture that old Jepson threw in gratis along with
that extra month's pay. About the tunnels--we get our power from
Anaconda, and something happened to the high tension wire, and the pumps
stopped, and there wasn't any light, and Number Four and Number Six are
wet tunnels anyway so they filled up and drowned two batteries of
drills. Then, instead of rigging a steam pump and pumping them out
through Number Four, one of the shift bosses rigged a fifteen inch
rotary in Number Six and started her going full tilt with the result
that he ran the water down against that new piece of railroad grade and
washed about fifty feet of it into the river and left the track hanging
in the air by the rails."
"The damn fool!"
"Oh, I don't know. He did the best he could. A shift boss isn't hired to
think."
"What did old Jepson fire _you_ for? He didn't think you clim up an' cut
the high tension wire did he? Or, did he expect you to set around nights
an' keep the juice flowin'?"
Brent laughed: "Not exactly. But they tried to find me and couldn't. So
when I showed up this morning old Jepson sent for me and asked me where
I was last night. I could have lied out of it easy enough. He would have
accepted any one of a half a dozen excuses--but lying's poor
business--so I told him I was out having a hell of a good time and wound
up about three in the morning with a pretty fair snootful."
"Bet he thinks a damn sight more of you than if you'd of lied, at that.
But they's plenty of jobs fer you. You've got it in your noodle--what
they need--an' what they've got to pay to get. You might drop around an'
talk to Gunnison, of the Little Ella. He was growlin' in here the other
night because he couldn't get holt of an engineer. Goin' to do a lot of
cross tunnel work or somethin'. Said he was afraid he'd have to send
back East an' get some pilgrim or some kid just out of college. Hold on
a minute there's a bird down there, among them hard rock men, that looks
like he was figgerin' on startin' somethin'. I'll just step down an' put
a flea in his ear."
Brent's eyes followed the other as he made his way toward the rear of
the long bar where three or four bartenders were busy serving drinks to
a crowd of miners. He noticed casually that the men were divided into
small groups and that they seemed to be talking excitedly among
themselves, and that the talk was mostly in whispers.
"The Ore Dump" was essentially a mining man's saloon. Its proprietor,
Patsy Kelliher, was an old time miner who, having struck it lucky with
pick and shovel, had started a modest little saloon, and later had
opened "The Ore Dump," in the fitting up of which he had gone the limit
in expensive furnishings. It was his boast that no miner had ever gone
out of his door hungry or thirsty, nor had any man ever lost a cent by
unfair means within his four walls. Rumor had it that Patsy had given
away thousands. Be that as it may, "The Ore Dump" had for years been the
mecca of the mining fraternity. Millionaire mine owners, managers,
engineers, and on down through the list to the humblest "hunk," were
served at its long bar, which had, by common usage become divided by
invisible lines of demarkation. The mine owners, the managers, the
engineers, and the independent contractors foregathered at the front end
of the bar; the hunks, and the wops, and the guineas at the rear end;
while the long space between was a sort of no-man's-land where drank the
shift bosses and the artisans of the mines--the hard-rock men, the
electricians, and the steam-fitters. Combinations of capital running
into millions had been formed at the front end, and combinations of
labor at the rear, while in no-man's-land great mines had been tied up
at the crooking of a finger.
On this particular morning Carter Brent was the only customer at the
front end of the bar. He poured another drink and watched it glow like a
thing of life with soft amber lights that played through the crystal
clear glass as a thin streak of sunlight struck aslant the bar. The
liquor in his stomach was taking hold. He felt warm, with a glowing,
tingling warmth that permeated to his finger tips. In his mind was a
vast sense of well being. The world was a great old place to live in. He
drank the whisky in his glass and refilled it from the cut glass
decanter. Poor old Jepson--fired the best engineer in Montana--that's
what his friend, the bartender, had just told him, and he got it from
the big guns. Well, it was Jepson's funeral--he and the S. & R. would
have to stagger along as best they could. He would go and see
Gunnison--no, to hell with Gunnison! Brent's fingers closed about the
roll of bills in his trousers pocket. He had plenty of money, he would
wait and pick out a job. He needn't worry. He always was sure of a good
job. Hadn't he had five in the two years since he graduated from
college? There were plenty of mines and they all needed good engineers.
Brent smiled as his thoughts drifted lazily back to his four years in
college. He wished some of the fellows would drop in. "They were a bunch
of damned good sports," he muttered to himself, "And we sure did roll
'em high! Speedy Bennet was always the first to go under--about two
drinks and we'd lay him on the shelf to call for when needed. Then came
McGivern, then Sullivan, and about that time little Morse would begin
flapping his arms around and proclaiming he could fly. Then, after a
while there wouldn't be anyone left but Morey and me--good old
Morey--they canned him in his senior year--and they've been canning me
ever since."
Brent paused in his soliloquy and regarded the men who had been
whispering among themselves toward the rear of the room. There were no
small groups now, and no whispering. With tense faces they were crowding
about a man who stood with hands palm down upon the bar. He wondered
what it was all about. From his position at the head of the bar he could
see the man's face plainly. Also he could see the faces of the
others--the lined, rugged faces of the hard rock and the vapid,
loose-lipped faces of the wops--and of all the faces only the face of
the man who stood with his hands on the bar betrayed nothing of tense
expectancy. Why were these others crowding about him, and why was he the
only man of them all who was not holding in check by visible effort some
pent up emotion? Brent glanced again into the weather-lined face with
its drooping sun-burned mustache, and its skin tanned to the color of
old leather--a strong face, one would say--the face of a man who had
battled long against odds, and won. Won what? He wondered. For an
instant the man's eyes met his own, and it seemed to Brent as though he
had read the question for surely, behind the long drooping mustache, the
lips twisted into just the shadow of a cynical grin.
The head bartender stepped to the back bar and, from beside a huge
gilded cash register, he lifted a set of tiny scales which he carried to
the bar and set down directly before the man with the sun-burned
mustache.
In front of the bar men crowded closer, craning their necks, and
elbowing one another, as their feet made soft shuffling sounds upon the
hardwood floor. One of the man's hands slipped into a side pocket of his
coat and when it came out something thudded heavily upon the bar. Brent
saw the object plainly as the bartender reached for it, a small buckskin
pouch, its surface glazed with the grease and soot of many campfires. He
had seen men carry their tobacco in just such pouches, but this pouch
held no tobacco, it had thumped the bar heavily and lay like a sack of
sand.
The bartender untied the strings and stood with the pouch poised above
the scales while his eyes roved over the eager, expectant faces of the
crowd. Then he placed a small weight upon the pan of the scales and
poured something slowly from the pouch into the small scoop upon the
opposite side. From his position Brent could see the delicate scales
oscillate and finally strike a balance. The bartender closed the pouch
and handed it back to the owner. Then he picked up the scales and
returned them to their place beside the cash register, while in front of
the bar men surged about the pouch owner clawing and shoving to get next
to him, and all talking at once, nobody paying the slightest attention
to the bartenders who were vainly trying to serve a round of drinks.
The head bartender returned to his position opposite Brent, and reaching
for the decanter, poured himself a drink. "Drink up and have one on the
stranger--he just set 'em up to the house."
Brent swallowed the liquor in his glass and refilled it: "What's the
excitement?" he asked, "A man don't ordinarily get as popular as he
seems to be just because he buys a round of drinks, does he?"
"Didn't you see it? It ain't the round of drinks, it's--wait--" He
stepped to the back bar and lifting the scoop from the scales set it
down in front of Brent, "That's what it is--_gold_! Yes sir, pure gold
just as she comes from the sand--nuggets and dust. It's be'n many a year
since any of that stuff has been passed over this bar for the drinks.
I've be'n here seven years and it's the first _I've_ took in, except now
and then a few colors that some _hombre's_ washed out of some dry coulee
or creek bed--fine dust that's cost him the shovelin' an' pannin' of
tons of gravel. Patsy keeps the scales settin' around for a
curiosity--that, an' because the old-timers likes to see 'em handy. Kind
of reminds 'em of the early days an' starts 'em gassin'. But this here's
the real stuff. Look at that boy." He poked with his finger at an
irregular nugget the size of a navy bean, "Looks like a chunk of
slag--an' that ain't all! He's got a bag full of 'em. I held it in my
hand, an' it weighed _pounds_!"
As Brent stood looking down at the grains of yellow metal in the little
scoop a strange uneasiness stirred deep within him. He picked up the
nugget and held it in the palm of his hand. One side of it was flat, as
though polished by a thousand years of water-wear, and the other side
was rough and fire-eaten as though fused by a mighty heat. Brent had
seen plenty of gold--coined gold, gold fashioned by the goldsmith's art,
and gold in bricks and ingots, in the production of which he himself had
been a factor. Yet never before had the sight of gold moved him. It had
been merely a valuable metal which it was his business to help extract
from certain rocks by certain processes of chemistry and expensive
machinery. Yet here in his hand was a new kind of gold--gold that seemed
to reach into the very heart of him with a personal appeal. Raw
gold--gold that had known the touch of neither chemicals nor machinery,
but that had been wrested by the bare hands of a man from some far place
where the fires of a glowing world and the glacial ice-drift had
fashioned it. The vague uneasiness that had stirred him at sight of the
yellow grains, flamed into a mighty urge at its touch. He, too, would go
and get gold--and he would get it not by process of brain, but by
process of brawn. Not by means of chemicals and machinery, but by
slashing into the sides of mountains, and ripping the guts out of
creeks! Carefully he returned the nugget to the scoop, and as he raised
his eyes to the bartender's, he moistened his lips with his tongue.
"Where did he get it?" he asked, huskily.
"God, man! If I know'd that I wouldn't be standin' here, would I?" He
jerked his thumb toward the rear of the room where men were frenziedly
crowding the stranger. "That's what they all want to know. Lord, if he'd
let the word slip what a stampede there'd be! Every man for himself an'
the devil take the hindmost. Out of every hundred that's in on a
stampede, about one makes a stake, an' ten gets their ante back, an' the
rest goes broke. They all know what they're going up against--but the
damned fools! Every one of 'em would stake all they've got, an' their
life throw'd in, to be in on it."
"It's the lure of gold," muttered Brent, "I've heard of it, but I never
felt it before. Are they damned fools? Wouldn't you?"
"Wouldn't I--what?"
"Wouldn't you go--along with the rest?"
"_Hell--yes!_ An' so would anyone else that had any red guts in 'em!"
Brent poured himself a drink, and shoved the decanter toward the other,
"Let's liquor," he said, "and then maybe if we can get that fellow away
from the crowd where we can talk----"
The bartender interrupted the thought before it was expressed; "No
chance. Take a look at him. Believe me, there's one _hombre_ that ain't
goin' to spill nothin' he don't want to. An' when a man makes a strike
like that he don't hang around bars runnin' off at the chin about
it--not what you could notice, he don't. Far as I can see we got just
one chance. It's a damn slim one, but you can't always tell what's
runnin' in these birds' heads. He asked me if Patsy Kelliher was runnin'
this dump, an' when I told him he was, he had me send for him. Said he
wanted to see him _pronto_. An' then he kind of throw'd his eyes around
over the faces of the boys an' he says: 'You're all friends of Patsy's?'
He seen in a minute how Patsy stood acehigh with them all, an' then he
says; 'Well, just kind of stick around 'till Patsy gets down here an' it
might be I'll explode somethin' amongst his friends that'll clean this
dump out.' Now, you might take that two ways, but he don't look like one
of these, what you might call, anarchists, does he? An' when he said
that he laughed, an' he says: 'Belly up to the bar an' I'll buy a little
drink--_an' I'll pay for it with coarse gold!_' Well, you seen how much
drinkin' they done, an'--Here's Patsy, now!"
Brent turned and nodded greeting as the proprietor of "The Ore Dump"
entered the door.
"Is it yersilf that sint fer me, Mister Brint, ye spalpeen?" he grinned,
"Bein' a gintleman yersilf, ye'll be knowin' Oi'd still be at me
newspaper an' seegar. Whut's on yer mind thot ye'll be dhraggin' a mon
from the bossom of his family befoor lunch?"
"It ain't him," explained the bartender, "It's the stranger, I told him
you didn't never show up till after dinner, but----"
"_Lunch! Damn it! Lunch!_" Kelliher's fist smote the bar, and as he
scowled into the face of his head bartender, Brent detected a twinkle in
the deep-set blue eyes. "Didn't the owld woman beat that same into me
own head a wake afther we'd moved into the big house? An' she done ut
wid a tree-calf concoordance to Shakspere wid gold edges thot sets on
the par--livin' room table? 'Tis a handy an' useful weapon--a worthy
substitute, as the feller says, to the pleebeen rollin' pin an' fryin'
pan. Thim tree calves has got a hide on 'em loike the bottom av a
sluice-box. Oi bet they could make anvils out av the hide av a
full-grow'd tree-bull. G'wan now an' trot out this ill-fared magpie that
must be at his chatterin' befoor the break av day!"
At a motion from the bartender the crowd parted to allow the stranger to
make his way to the front, surged together behind him, and followed,
ranging itself in a semicircle at a respectful distance. Thus with the
two principals, Brent found himself included within this semicircle of
excited faces.
The two eyed each other for a moment in silence, the stranger with a
smile half-veiled by his sun-burned mustache, and Kelliher with a
frankly puzzled expression upon his face as his thick fingers toyed with
the heavy gold chain that hung cable-like from pocket to pocket of his
gaily colored vest.
"I figured you wouldn't know me." The stranger's grin widened as he
noted the look of perplexity.
"An' no more I don't," retorted the other, unconsciously tilting his
high silk hat at an aggressive angle over his right eye. "Let's git the
cards on the table. Who are ye? An' what ye got in ye're head that ye
couldn't kape there till afther lunch?"
"I'm McBride."
Brent saw that the name conveyed nothing to the other, whose puzzled
frown deepened. "Ye're McBride!" The tone was good-naturedly sarcastic,
"Well, ye'd av still be'n McBride this afthernoon, av ye'd be'n let live
that long. But who the divil's McBride that Oi shud come tearin' down to
look into the ugly mug av um?"
The stranger laughed: "Nine years ago McBride was the night telegraph
operator over in the yards. That was before you moved up here. You was
still in the little dump over on Fagin street an' you done most of the
work yerself--used to open up mornings. There wasn't no big diamon's
shinin' in the middle of yer bald-face shirt them days--I doubt an' you
owned a bald-face shirt, except, maybe, for Sundays. Anyhow, you'd be
openin' up in the mornin' when I'd be goin off trick, an' I most
generally stopped in for a couple of drinks or so. An' one mornin' when
I'd downed three or four, I noticed you kind of givin' me the once-over.
There wasn't no one else in the place, an' you come over an' leaned yer
elbows on the bar, an' you says: 'Yer goin' kind of heavy on that stuff,
son,' you says.
"'What the hell's the difference?' I says, 'I ain't got only six months
to live an' I might's well enjoy what I can of it.'
"'Are they goin' to hang ye in six months?' you asks, 'Have ye got yer
sentence?'
"'I've got my sentence,' I says, 'But it ain't hangin'. The doctors
sentenced me. It's the con.'
"'To hell with the doctors,' you says, 'They don't know it all. We'll
fool 'em. All you need is to git out in the mountains--an' lay off the
hooch.'
"I laughed at you. 'Me go to the mountains!' I says, 'Why man I ain't
hardly got strength to get to my room an' back to the job again--an'
couldn't even make that if it wasn't for the hooch.'
"'That's right,' you says, 'From the job to the room, an' the room to
the job, ye'll last maybe six months--but I'm doubtin' it. But the
mountains is different.' An' then you goes on an talks mountains an'
gold till you got me interested, an' you offers to grub-stake me for a
trip into the Kootenay country. You claimed it was a straight business
proposition--fifty-fifty if I made a strike, an' you put up the money
against my time." The stranger paused and smiled as a subdued ripple of
whisperings went from man to man as he mentioned the Kootenay. Then he
looked Kelliher squarely in the face: "There wasn't no gold in the
Kootenay," he said simply, "Or leastwise I couldn't find none. I figured
someone had be'n stringin' you."
Patsy Kelliher shifted the hat to the back of his head and laughed out
loud as his little eyes twinkled with merriment. "I git ye now, son," he
said, "I moind the white face av ye, an' the chist bowed in like the
bottom av a wash bowl, an' yer shoulders stuck out befront ye loike the
horns av a cow." He paused as his eyes ran the lines of sinewy leanness
and came to rest upon the sun bronzed face: "So ye made a failure av the
trip, eh? A plumb clane failure--an' Oi'm out the couple av hundred it
cost me fer the grub stake----"
"It cost you more than five hundred," interrupted the other. "I was in
bad shape and there was things I needed that other men wouldn't of--that
I don't need--now."
"Well--foive hundred, thin. An' how long has ut be'n ago?"
"Nine years."
Kelliher laughed: "Who was roight--me or the damn doctors? Ye've lived
eighteen toimes as long as they was going to let ye live a'ready--an' av
me eyes deceive me roight, ye ain't ordered no coffin yet."
"No--I ain't ordered no coffin. I come here to hunt you up an' pay you
back."
Kelliher laughed: "There ain't nothin' to pay son. You don't owe me a
cent. A grub-stake's a grub-stake, an' no one iver yit said Patsy
Kelliher welched on a bargain. Besoides, Oi guess ye got all Oi sint ye
afther. I know'd damn well they wasn't no gold in the Kootenay--none
that a tenderfoot lunger cud foind."
McBride laughed: "Sure--I knew after I'd been there six months what you
done it for. I doped it all out. But, as you say, a grub-stake's a
grub-stake, an' no time limit on it, an' no one ever said Jim McBride
ever welched on a bargain, neither. I ain't never be'n just ready to
come back an' settle with you, till now. I drifted north, and farther
north, till I wound up in the Yukon country. I prospected around there
an' had pretty good luck. I'd got back my strength an' my health till
right now there ain't but damn few men in the big country that can hit
the trail with Jim McBride. But I wasn't never satisfied with what I was
takin' out. I know'd there was somethin' big somewheres up there. I
could _feel_ it, an' I played for the big stake. Others stuck by stuff
that was pannin' 'em out wages. I didn't. They called me a fool--an' I
let 'em. I struck up river at last an' they laughed--but they ain't
laughin' now. Me an' a squaw-man named Carmack hunted moose together
over on Bonanza. One day Carmack was scratchin' around the roots of a
big birch tree an' just fer fun he gets to monkeyin' with my pan." The
man paused and Brent could hear the suppressed breathing of the miners
who had crowded close. His eyes swept their faces and he saw that every
eye in the house was staring into the face of McBride as they hung upon
his every word. He realized suddenly that he himself was waiting in a
fever of impatience for the man to go on. "Then I come into camp, an' we
both fooled with the pan--but we didn't fool long. God, man! We was
shakin' it out of the grass roots! _Coarse gold!_ I stayed at it a
month--an' I've filed on every creek within ten miles of that lone birch
tree. Then I come outside to find you an' settle." He paused and his
eyes swept the room: "These men friends of yourn?" he asked. Kelliher
nodded. "Well then I'm lettin' 'em in. Right here starts the biggest
stampede the world ever seen. Some of the old timers that was already up
there are into the stuff now--but in the spring the whole world will be
gettin' in on it!"
Kelliher was the only self-possessed man in the room: "What'll she run
to the pan?" he asked.
"_Run to the pan!_ God knows! We thought she was _big_ when she hit an
ounce----"
"_An ounce to the pan!_" cried Kelliher, "Man ye're crazy!"
The other continued: "An' we thought she was _little_ when she run a
hundred dollars--two hundred! I've washed out six-hundred dollars to
the pan! An' I ain't to bed rock!"
And then he began to empty his pockets. One after another the little
buckskin sacks thudded upon the bar--ten--fifteen--twenty of them.
McBride spoke to Kelliher, who stared with incredulous, bulging eyes:
"That's your share of what I've took out. You're filed along with me as
full pardner in all the claims I've got. They's millions in them
claims--an' more millions fer the men that gets there first." He paused
and turned to the men of the crowd who stood silent, with tense white
faces, and staring eyes glued on the pile of buckskin sacks: "Beat it,
you gravel hogs!" he cried, "It's the biggest strike that ever was! Hit
fer Seattle, go by Dyea Beach an' over the Chilkoot, an' take a thousand
pounds of outfit--or you'll die. A hell of a lot of you'll die
anyhow--but some of you will win--an' win big. Over the Chilkoot, down
through the lakes, an' down the Yukon to Dawson--" A high pitched,
unnatural yell, animal-like in its nervous excitement broke from a
throat in the crowd, and the next instant pandemonium broke loose in
Kelliher's, and Carter Brent fought his way to the door through a
howling mass of mad men, and struck out for his boarding house at a
run.