THE END OF THE PASSAGE
Wally Selfridge was a reliable business subordinate, even though he had
slipped up in the matter of the appointment of Elliot. But when it came
to facing the physical hardships of the North he was a malingerer. The
Kamatlah trip had to be taken because his chief had ordered it, but the
little man shirked the journey in his heart just as he knew his soft
muscles would shrink from the aches of the trail.
His idea of work was a set of tennis on the outdoor wooden court of the
Kusiak clubhouse, and even there his game was not a hard, smashing one,
but an easy foursome with a girl for partner. He liked better to play
bridge with attendants at hand to supply drinks and cigars. By nature he
was a sybarite. The call of the frontier found no response in his
sophisticated soul.
The part of the journey to be made by water was not so bad. Left to his
own judgment, he would have gone to St. Michael's by boat and chartered
a small steamer for the long trip along the coast through Bering Sea.
But this would take time, and Macdonald did not mean to let him waste
a day. He was to leave the river boat at the big bend and pack across
country to Kamatlah. It would be a rough, heavy trail. The mosquitoes
would be a continual torment. The cooking would be poor. And at the end
of the long trek there awaited him monotonous months in a wretched coal
camp far from all the comforts of civilization. No wonder he grumbled.
But though he grumbled at home and at the club and on the street about
his coming exile, Selfridge made no complaints to Macdonald. That man of
steel had no sympathy with the yearnings for the fleshpots. He was used
to driving himself through discomfort to his end, and he expected as
much of his deputies. Wherefore Wally took the boat at the time
scheduled and waved a dismal farewell to wife and friends assembled upon
the wharf.
Elliot said good-bye to the Pagets and Miss O'Neill ten days later.
Diane was very frank with him.
"I hear you've been sleuthing around, Gordon, for facts about Colby
Macdonald. I don't know what you have heard about him, but I hope you've
got the sense to see how big a man he is and how much this country here
owes him."
Gordon nodded agreement. "Yes, he's a big man."
"And he's good," added Sheba eagerly. "He never talks of it, but one
finds out splendid things he has done."
The young man smiled, but not at all superciliously. He liked the stanch
faith of the girl in her friend, even though his investigations had not
led him to accept goodness as the outstanding quality of the Scotchman.
"I don't know what we would do without him," Diane went on. "Give him
ten years and a free hand and Alaska will be fit for white people to
live in. These attacks on him by newspapers and magazines are an
outrage."
"It's plain that you are a partisan," charged Gordon gayly.
"I'm against locking up Alaska and throwing away the key, if that is
what you mean by a partisan. We need this country opened up--the farms
settled, the mines worked, the coal-fields developed, railroads built.
It is one great big opportunity, the country here, and the narrow little
conservation cranks want to shut it up tight from the people who have
energy and foresight enough to help do the building."
"The Kusiak Chamber of Commerce ought to send you out as a lecturer to
change public opinion, Diane. You are one enthusiastic little booster
for freedom of opportunity," laughed the young man.
"Oh, well!" Diane joined in his laughter. It was one of her good points
that she could laugh at herself. "I dare say I do sound like a real
estate pamphlet, but it's all true anyhow."
Gordon left Kusiak as reluctantly as Wally Selfridge had done, though
his reasons for not wanting to go were quite different. They centered
about a dusky-eyed young woman whom he had seen for the first time a
fortnight before. He would have denied even to himself that he was in
love, but whenever he was alone his thoughts reverted to Sheba O'Neill.
At the big bend Gordon left the river boat for his cross-country trek.
Near the roadhouse was an Indian village where he had expected to get a
guide for the journey to Kamatlah. But the fishing season had begun, and
the men had all gone down river to take part in it.
The old Frenchman who kept the trading-post and roadhouse advised Gordon
not to attempt the tramp alone.
"The trail it ees what you call dangerous. Feefty-Mile Swamp ees a
monster that swallows men alive, Monsieur. You wait one week--two
week--t'ree week, and some one will turn up to take you through," he
urged.
"But I can't wait. And I have an official map of the trail. Why can't
I follow it without a guide?" Elliot wanted to know impatiently.
The post-trader shrugged. "Maybeso, Monsieur--maybe not. Feefty-Mile--it
ees one devil of a trail. No chechakoes are safe in there without a
guide. I, Baptiste, know."
"Selfridge and his party went through a week ago. I can follow the
tracks they left."
"But if it rains, Monsieur, the tracks will vaneesh, n'est ce pas? Lose
the way, and the little singing folk will swarm in clouds about Monsieur
while he stumbles through the swamp."
Elliot hesitated for the better part of a day, then came to an impulsive
decision. He knew the evil fame of Fifty-Mile Swamp--that no trail in
Alaska was held to be more difficult or dangerous. He knew too what a
fearful pest the mosquitoes were. Peter had told him a story of how he
and a party of engineers had come upon a man wandering in the hills,
driven mad by mosquitoes. The traveler had lost his matches and had been
unable to light smudge fires. Day and night the little singing devils
had swarmed about him. He could not sleep. He could not rest. Every
moment for forty-eight hours he had fought for his life against them.
Within an hour of the time they found him the man had died a raving
maniac.
But Elliot was well equipped with mosquito netting and with supplies. He
had a reliable map, and anyhow he had only to follow the tracks left by
the Selfridge party. He turned his back upon the big river and plunged
into the wilderness.
There came a night when he looked up into the stars of the deep, still
sky and knew that he was hundreds of miles from any other human being.
Never in all his life had he been so much alone. He was not afraid, but
there was something awesome in a world so empty of his kind. Sometimes
he sang, and the sound of his voice at first startled him. It was like
living in a world primeval, this traverse of a land so void of all the
mechanism that man has built about him.
The tracks of the Selfridge party grew fainter after a night of rain.
More rain fell, and they were obliterated altogether.
Gordon fished. He killed fresh game for his needs. Often he came on the
tracks of moose and caribou. Sometimes, startled, they leaped into view
quite close enough for a shot, but he used his rifle only to meet his
wants. A huge grizzly faced him on the trail one afternoon, growled its
menace, and went lumbering into the big rocks with awkward speed.
The way led through valley and morass, across hills and mountains. It
wandered in a sort of haphazard fashion through a sun-bathed universe
washed clean of sordidness and meanness. Always, as he pushed forward,
the path grew more faint and uncertain. Elk runs crossed it here and
there, so that often Gordon went astray and had to retrace his steps.
The maddening song of the mosquitoes was always with him. Only when he
slept did he escape from it. The heavy gloves, the netting, the smudge
fires were at best an insufficient protection.
It was the seventh night out that Elliot suspected he was off the trail.
Rain sluiced down in torrents and next day continued to pour from a dun
sky. His own tracks were blotted out and he searched for the trail in
vain. Before the rain stopped, he was thoroughly disturbed in mind. It
would be a serious business if he should be lost in the bad lands of the
bogs. Even though he knew the general direction he must follow, there
was no certainty that he would ever emerge from this swamp into which he
had plunged.
Before he knew it he was entangled in Fifty-Mile. His map showed him the
morass stretched for fifty miles to the south, but he knew that it had
been charted hurriedly by a surveying party which had made no extensive
explorations. A good deal of this country was _terra incognita_. It
ran vaguely into a No Man's Land unknown to the prospector.
The going was heavy. Gordon had to pick his way through the mossy swamp,
leading the pack-horse by the bridle. Sometimes he was ankle-deep in
water of a greenish slime. Again he had to drag the animal from the bog
to a hummock of grass which gave a spongy footing. This would end in
another quagmire of peat through which they must plough with the mud
sucking at their feet. It was hard, wearing toil. There was nothing to
do but keep moving. The young man staggered forward till dusk. Utterly
exhausted, he camped for the night on a hillock of moss that rose like
an island in the swamp.
After he had eaten he fed his fire with green boughs that raised a dense
smoke. He lay on the leeward side where the smoke drifted over him and
fought mosquitoes till a shift of the wind lessened the plague. Toward
midnight he rigged up a net for protection and crawled into his
blankets. Instantly he fell sound asleep.
Elliot traveled next day by the compass. He had food for three days
more, but he knew that no living man had the strength to travel for so
long in such a morass. It was near midday when he lost his horse. The
animal had bogged down several times and Gordon had wasted much time and
spent a good deal of needed energy in dragging it to firmer footing.
This time the pony refused to answer the whip. Its master unloaded pack
and saddle. He tried coaxing; he tried the whip.
"Come, Old-Timer. One plunge, and you'll make it yet," he urged.
The pack-horse turned upon him dumb eyes of reproach, struggled to free
its limbs from the mud, and sank down helplessly. It had traveled its
last yard on the long Alaska trails.
After the sound of the shot had died away, Gordon struggled with the
pack to the nearest hummock. He cut holes in a gunny-sack to fit his
shoulders and packed into it his blankets, a saucepan, the beans, the
coffee, and the diminished handful of flour. Into it went too the three
slices of bacon that were left.
He hoisted the pack to his back and slipped his arms through the slits
he had made. Painfully he labored forward over the quivering peat. Every
weary muscle revolted at the demands his will imposed upon it. He drew
on the last ounce of his strength and staggered forward. Sometimes he
stumbled and went down into the oozing mud, minded to stay there and
be done with the struggle. But the urge of life drove him to his feet
again. It sent him pitching forward drunkenly. It carried him for weary
miles after he despaired of ever covering another hundred yards.
With old, half-forgotten signals from the football field he spurred his
will. Perhaps his mind was already beginning to wander, though through
it all he held steadily to the direction that alone could save him.
He clapped his hands feebly and stooped for the plunge at the line of
the enemy. "'Attaboy, Gord--'attaboy--nine, eleven, seventeen. Hit 'er
low, you Elliot."
When at last he went down to stay it was in an exhaustion so complete
that not even his indomitable will could lash him to his feet again.
For an hour he lay in a stupor, never stirring even to fight the swarm
of mosquitoes that buzzed about him.
Toward evening he sat up and undid the pack from his back. The matches,
in a tin box wrapped carefully with oilskin, were still perfectly dry.
Soon he had a fire going and coffee boiling in the frying-pan. From
the tin cup he carried strung on his belt he drank the coffee. It went
through him like strong liquor. He warmed some beans and fried himself a
slice of bacon, sopping up the grease with a cold biscuit left over from
the day before.
Again he slept for a few hours. He had wound his watch mechanically
and it showed him four o'clock when he took up the trail once more.
In Seattle and San Francisco people were still asleep and darkness was
heavy over the land. Here it had been day for a long time, ever since
the summer sun, hidden for a while behind the low, distant hills, had
come blazing forth again in a saddle between two peaks.
Gordon had reduced his pack by discarding a blanket, the frying-pan,
and all the clothing he was not wearing. His rifle lay behind him in the
swamp. He had cut to a minimum of safety what he was carrying, according
to his judgment. But before long his last blanket was flung aside. He
could not afford to carry an extra pound, for he knew he was running a
race, the stakes of which were life and death.
A cloud of mosquitoes moved with him. He carried in his hand a spruce
bough for defense against them. His hands were gloved, his face was
covered with netting. But in spite of the best he could do they were an
added torture.
Afternoon found him still staggering forward. The swamps were now
behind him. He had won through at last by the narrowest margin possible.
The ground was rising sharply toward the mountains. Across the range
somewhere lay Kamatlah. But he was all in. With his food almost gone,
a water supply uncertain, reserve strength exhausted, the chances of
getting over the divide to safety were practically none.
He had come, so far as he could see, to the end of the passage.