longer, he shipped for Skagway himself. He dropped off at Port Simpson
and inquired about Ramsey.
Yes, the Hudson people said, it was quite probable that Ramsey had
passed in that way. Some hundreds of prospectors had gone in during the
past three years, but the current created by the Klondike rush had drawn
most of them out and up the Sound.
One man declared that he had seen Ramsey ship for Skagway on the
"Dirigo," and, after a little help and a few more drinks, gave a minute
description of a famous nugget pin which the passing pilgrim said the
prospector wore.
And so the capitalist took the next boat for Skagway.
By the time he reached Dawson the death-rattle had begun to assert
itself in the bosom of the boom. The most diligent inquiry failed to
reveal the presence of the noted prospector. On the contrary, many
old-timers from Colorado and California declared that Ramsey had never
reached the Dike--that is, not since the boom. In a walled tent on a
shimmering sand-bar at the mouth of the crystal Klondike, Captain Jack
Crawford, the "Poet Scout," severely sober in that land of large
thirsts, wearing his old-time halo of lady-like behavior and hair, was
conducting an "Ice Cream Emporium and Soft-drink Saloon."
"No," said the scout, with the tips of his tapered fingers trembling on
an empty table, straining forward and staring into the stranger's face;
"no, Jack Ramsey has not been here; and if what you say be true--he
sleeps alone in yonder fastness. Alas, poor Ramsey!--Ah knew 'im well";
and he sank on a seat, shaking with sobs.
* * * * *
The English-American, on his way out, stopped at Simpson again. From a
half-breed trapper he heard of a white man who had crossed the Coast
Range three grasses ago. This white man had three or four head of
cattle, a Cree servant, and a queer-looking cayuse with long ears and a
mournful, melancholy cry. This latter member of the gang carried the
outfit.
Taking this half-caste Cree to guide him, the mining man set out in
search of the long-lost Ramsey. They crossed the first range and
searched the streams north of the Peace River pass, almost to the crest
of the continent, but found no trace of the prospector.
When the summer died and the wilderness was darkened by the Northern
night, the search was abandoned.
The years drifted into the past, and finally the Chinook Mining and
Milling Company went to the wall. The English-American promoter,
smarting under criticism, reimbursed each of his associates and took
over the office, empty ink-stands and blotting paper, and so blotted out
all records of the one business failure of his life.
But he could not blot out Jack Ramsey from his memory. There was a
"reason," he would say, for Ramsey's silence.
One day, when in Edmonton, he met Mayor Ross, who had come into the
country by the back door some thirty years ago. The tales coaxed from
the Mayor's memory corresponded with Ramsey's report; and having nothing
but time and money, the ex-President of the C.M. & M. Company determined
to go in _via_ the Peace River pass and see for himself. He made the
acquaintance of Smith "The Silent," as he was called, who was at that
time pathfinding for the Grand Trunk Pacific, and secured permission to
go in with the engineers.
At Little Slave Lake he picked up Jim Cromwell, a free-trader, who
engaged to guide the mining man into the wonderland he had described.
The story of Ramsey and his rambles appealed to Cromwell, who talked
tirelessly, and to the engineer, who listened long; and in time the
habitants of Cromwell's domains, which covered a country some seven
hundred miles square, all knew the story and all joined in the search.
Beyond the pass of the Peace an old Cree caught up with them and made
signs, for he was deaf and dumb. But strange as it may seem, somehow,
somewhere, he had heard the story of the lost miner and knew that this
strange white man was the miner's friend.
Long he sat by the camp fire, when the camp was asleep, trying, by
counting on his fingers and with sticks, to make Cromwell understand
what was on his mind.
When day dawned, he plucked Cromwells' sleeve, then walked away fifteen
or twenty steps, stopped, unrolled his blankets, and lay down, closing
his eyes as if asleep. Presently he got up, rubbed his eyes, lighted his
pipe, smoked for awhile, then knocked the fire out on a stone. Then he
got up, stamped the fire out as though it had been a camp fire, rolled
up his blankets, and travelled on down the slope some twenty feet and
repeated the performance. On the next march he made but ten feet. He
stopped, put his pack down, seated himself on the trunk of a fallen tree
and, with his back to Cromwell, began gesticulating, as if talking to
some one, nodding and shaking his head. Then he got a pick and began
digging.
At the end of an hour Cromwell and the engineer had agreed that these
stations were day's marches and the rests camping places. In short, it
was two and a half "sleeps" to what he wanted to show them,--a prospect,
a gold mine maybe,--and so Cromwell and the English-American detached
themselves and set out at the heels of the mute Cree in search of
something.
On the morning of the third day the old Indian could scarcely control
himself, so eager was he to be off.
All through the morning the white men followed him in silence. Noon
came, and still the Indian pushed on.
At two in the afternoon, rounding the shoulder of a bit of highland
overlooking a beautiful valley, they came suddenly upon a half-breed boy
playing with a wild goose that had been tamed.
Down in the valley a cabin stood, and over the valley a small drove of
cattle were grazing.
Suddenly from behind the hogan came the weird wail of a Colorado canary,
who would have been an ass in Absalom's time.
They asked the half-breed boy his name, and he shook his head. They
asked for his father, and he frowned.
The mute old Indian took up a pick, and they followed him up the slope.
Presently he stopped at a stake upon which they could still read the
faint pencil-marks:--
C.M.
M. Co.
L'T'D
The old Indian pointed to the ground with an expression which looked to
the white men like an interrogation. Cromwell nodded, and the Indian
began to dig. Cromwell brought a shovel, and they began sinking a shaft.
The English-American, with a sickening, sinking sensation, turned toward
the cabin. The boy preceded him and stood in the door. The man put his
hand on the boy's head and was about to enter when he caught sight of a
nugget at the boy's neck. He stooped and lifted it. The boy shrank back,
but the man, going deadly pale, clutched the child, dragging the nugget
from his neck.
Now all the Indian in the boy's savage soul asserted itself, and he
fought like a little demon. Pitying the child in its impotent rage, the
man gave him the nugget and turned away.
Across the valley an Indian woman came walking rapidly, her arms full of
turnips and onions and other garden-truck. The white man looked and
loathed her; for he felt confident that Ramsey had been murdered, his
trinkets distributed, and his carcass cast to the wolves.
When the boy ran to meet the woman, the white man knew by his behavior
that he was her child. When the boy had told his mother how the white
man had behaved, she flew into a rage, dropped her vegetables, dived
into the cabin, and came out with a rifle in her hands. To her evident
surprise the man seemed not to dread death, but stood staring at the
rifle, which he recognized as the rifle he had sent to Ramsey. To his
surprise she did not shoot, but uttering a strange cry, started up the
slope, taking the gun with her. With rifle raised and flashing eyes she
ordered the two men out of the prospect hole. Warlike as she seemed, she
was more than welcome, for she was a woman and could talk. She talked
Cree, of course, but it sounded good to Cromwell. Side by side the
handsome young athlete and the Cree woman sat and exchanged stories.
Half an hour later the Englishman came up and asked what the prospect
promised.
"Ah," said Cromwell, sadly, "this is another story. There is no gold in
this vale, though from what this woman tells me the hills are full of
it. However," he added, "I believe we have found your friend."
"Yes?" queried the capitalist.
"Yes," echoed Cromwell, "here are his wife and his child; and here,
where we're grubbing, his grave."
"Quite so, quite so," said the big, warm-hearted English-American,
glaring at the ground; "and that was Ramsey's 'reason' for not
writing."
THE GREAT WRECK ON THE PÈRE MARQUETTE
The reader is not expected to believe this red tale; but if he will take
the trouble to write the General Manager of the Père Marquette Railroad,
State of Michigan, U.S.A. enclosing stamped envelope for answer, I make
no doubt that good man, having by this time recovered from the dreadful
shock occasioned by the wreck, will cheerfully verify the story even to
the minutest detail.
* * * * *
Of course Kelly, being Irish, should have been a Democrat; but he was
not. He was not boisterously or offensively Republican, but he was going
to vote the prosperity ticket. He had tried it four years ago, and
business had never been better on the Père Marquette. Moreover, he had a
new hand-car.
The management had issued orders to the effect that there must be no
coercion of employees. It was pretty well understood among the men that
the higher officials would vote the Republican ticket and leave the
little fellows free to do the same. So Kelly, being boss of the gang,
could not, with "ju" respect to the order of the Superintendent, enter
into the argument going on constantly between Burke and Shea on one side
and Lucien Boseaux, the French-Canadian-Anglo-Saxon-Foreign-American
Citizen, on the other. This argument always reached its height at
noon-time, and had never been more heated than now, it being the day
before election. "Here is prosper tee," laughed Lucien, holding up a
half-pint bottle of _vin rouge_.
"Yes," Burke retorted, "an' ye have four pound of cotton waste in the
bottom o' that bucket to trow the grub t' the top. Begad, I'd vote for
O'Bryan wid an empty pail--er none at all--before I'd be humbugged."
"Un I," said Lucien, "would pour Messieur Rousveau vote if my baskett
shall all the way up be cotton."
"Sure ye would," said Shea, "and ate the cotton too, ef your masther
told ye to. 'Tis the likes of ye, ye bloomin' furreighner, that kapes
the thrust alive in this country."
When they were like to come to blows, Kelly, with a mild show of
superiority, which is second nature to a section boss, would interfere
and restore order. All day they worked and argued, lifting low joints
and lowering high centres; and when the red sun sank in the tree-tops,
filtering its gold through the golden leaves, they lifted the car onto
the rails and started home.
When the men had mounted, Lucien at the forward handle and Burke and
Shea side by side on the rear bar, they waited impatiently for Kelly to
light his pipe and seat himself comfortably on the front of the car, his
heels hanging near to the ties.
There was no more talk now. The men were busy pumping, the "management"
inspecting the fish-plates, the culverts, and, incidentally, watching
the red sun slide down behind the trees.
At the foot of a long slope, down which the men had been pumping with
all their might, there was a short bridge. The forest was heavy here,
and already the shadow of the woods lay over the right-of-way. As the
car reached the farther end of the culvert, the men were startled by a
great explosion. The hand-car was lifted bodily and thrown from the
track.
The next thing Lucien remembers is that he woke from a fevered sleep,
fraught with bad dreams, and felt warm water running over his chest. He
put his hand to his shirt-collar, removed it, and found it red with
blood. Thoroughly alarmed, he got to his feet and looked, or rather
felt, himself over. His fingers found an ugly ragged gash in the side of
his neck, and the fear and horror of it all dazed him.
* * * * *
He reeled and fell again, but this time did not lose consciousness.
Finally, when he was able to drag himself up the embankment to where the
car hung crosswise on the track, the sight he saw was so appalling he
forgot his own wounds.
On the side opposite to where he had fallen, Burke and Shea lay side by
side, just as they had walked and worked and fought for years, and just
as they would have voted on the morrow had they been spared.
Immediately in front of the car, his feet over one rail and his neck
across the other, lay the mortal remains of Kelly the boss, the stub of
his black pipe still sticking between his teeth. As Lucien stooped to
lift the helpless head his own blood, spurting from the wound in his
neck, flooded the face and covered the clothes of the limp foreman.
Finding no signs of life in the section boss, the wounded, and by this
time thoroughly frightened, French-Canadian turned his attention to the
other two victims. Swiftly now the realization of the awful tragedy came
over the wounded man. His first thought was of the express now nearly
due. With a great effort he succeeded in placing the car on the rails,
and then began the work of loading the dead. Out of respect for the
office so lately filled by Kelly, he was lifted first and placed on the
front of the car, his head pillowed on Lucien's coat. Next he put Burke
aboard, bleeding profusely the while; and then began the greater task of
loading Shea. Shea was a heavy man, and by the time Lucien had him
aboard he was ready to faint from exhaustion and the loss of blood.
Now he must pump up over the little hill; for if the express should come
round the curve and fall down the grade, the hand-car would be in
greater danger than ever.
After much hard work he gained the top of the hill, the hot blood
spurting from his neck at each fall of the handle-bar, and went hurrying
down the long easy grade to Charlevoix.
To show how the trifles of life will intrude at the end, it is
interesting to hear Lucien declare that one of the first thoughts that
came to him on seeing the three prostrate figures was, that up to that
moment the wreck had worked a Republican gain of one vote, with his own
in doubt.
But now he had more serious work for his brain, already reeling from
exhaustion. At the end of fifteen minutes he found himself hanging onto
the handle, more to keep from falling than for any help he was giving
the car. The evening breeze blowing down the slope helped him, so that
the car was really losing nothing in speed. He dared not relax his hold;
for if his strength should give out and the car stop, the express would
come racing down through the twilight and scoop him into eternity. So he
toiled on, dazed, stupefied, fighting for life, surrounded by the dead.
Presently above the singing of the wheels he heard a low sound, like a
single, smothered cough of a yard engine suddenly reversed. Now he had
the feeling of a man flooded with ice-water, so chilled was his blood.
Turning his head to learn the cause of delay (he had fancied the pilot
of an engine under his car), he saw Burke, one of the dead men, leap up
and glare into his face. That was too much for Lucien, weak as he was,
and twisting slightly, he sank to the floor of the car.
Slowly Burke's wandering reason returned. Seeing Shea at his feet,
bloodless and apparently unhurt, he kicked him, gently at first, and
then harder, and Shea stood up. Mechanically the waking man took his
place by Burke's side and began pumping, Lucien lying limp between them.
Kelly, they reasoned, must have been dead some time, by the way he was
pillowed.
When Shea was reasonably sure that he was alive, he looked at his mate.
"Phat way ar're ye feelin'?" asked Burke.
"Purty good fur a corpse. How's yourself?"
"Oh, so-so!"
"Th' Lord is good to the Irish."
"But luck ut poor Kelly."
"'Tis too bad," said Shea, "an' him dyin' a Republican."
"'Tis the way a man lives he must die."
"Yes," said Shea, thoughtfully, "thim that lives be the sword must go be
the board."
When they had pumped on silently for awhile, Shea asked, "How did ye
load thim, Burke?"
"Why--I--I suppose I lifted them aboard. I had no derrick."
"Did ye lift me, Burke?"
"I'm damned if I know, Shea," said Burke, staring ahead, for Kelly had
moved. "Keep her goin'," he added, and then he bent over the prostrate
foreman. He lifted Kelly's head, and the eyes opened. He raised the head
a little higher, and Kelly saw the blood upon his beard, on his coat, on
his hands.
"Are yez hurted, Kelly?" he asked.
"Hurted! Man, I'm dyin'. Can't you see me heart's blood ebbin' over me?"
And then Burke, crossing himself, laid the wounded head gently down
again.
By this time they were nearing their destination. Burke, seeing Lucien
beyond human aid, took hold again and helped pump, hoping to reach
Charlevoix in time to secure medical aid, or a priest at least, for
Kelly.
When the hand-car stopped in front of the station at Charlevoix, the
employees watching, and the prospective passengers waiting, for the
express train gathered about the car.
"Get a docther!" shouted Burke, as the crowd closed in on them.
In a few moments a man with black whiskers, a small hand-grip, and
bicycle trousers panted up to the crowd and pushed his way to the car.
"What's up?" he asked; for he was the company's surgeon.
"Well, there's wan dead, wan dying, and we're all more or less kilt,"
said Shea, pushing the mob back to give the doctor room.
Lifting Lucien's head, the doctor held a small bottle under his nose,
and the wounded man came out. Strong, and the reporter would say
"willing hands," now lifted the car bodily from the track and put it
down on the platform near the baggage-room.
When the doctor had revived the French-Canadian and stopped the flow of
blood, he took the boss in hand. Opening the man's clothes, he searched
for the wound, but found none.
They literally stripped Kelly to the waist; but there was not a scratch
to be found upon his body. When the doctor declared it to be his opinion
that Kelly was not hurt at all, but had merely fainted, Kelly was
indignant.
Of course the whole accident (Lucien being seriously hurt) had to be
investigated, and this was the finding of the experts:--
A tin torpedo left on the rail by a flagman was exploded by the wheel of
the hand-car. A piece of tin flew up, caught Lucien in the neck, making
a nasty wound. Lucien was thrown from the car, when it jumped the track,
so violently as to render him unconscious. Kelly and Burke and Shea,
picking themselves up, one after the other, each fainted dead away at
the sight of so much blood.
Lucien revived first, took in the situation, loaded the limp bodies, and
pulled for home, and that is the true story of the awful wreck on the
Père Marquette.
THE STORY OF AN ENGLISHMAN
A young Englishman stood watching a freight train pulling out of a new
town, over a new track. A pinch-bar, left carelessly by a section gang,
caught in the cylinder-cock rigging and tore it off.
Swearing softly, the driver climbed down and began the nasty work of
disconnecting the disabled machinery. He was not a machinist. Not all
engine-drivers can put a locomotive together. In fact the best runners
are just runners. The Englishman stood by and, when he saw the man
fumble his wrench, offered a hand. The driver, with some hesitation,
gave him the tools, and in a few minutes the crippled rigging was taken
down, nuts replaced, and the rigging passed by the Englishman to the
fireman, who threw it up on the rear of the tank.
"Are you a mechanic?" asked the driver.
"Yes, sir," said the Englishman, standing at least a foot above the
engineer. "There's a job for me up the road, if I can get there."
"And you're out of tallow?"
The Englishman was not quite sure; but he guessed "tallow" was United
States for "money," and said he was short.
"All right," said the engine-driver; "climb on."
The fireman was a Dutchman named Martin, and he made the Englishman
comfortable; but the Englishman wanted to work. He wanted to help fire
the engine, and Martin showed him how to do it, taking her himself on
the hills. When they pulled into the town of E., the Englishman went
over to the round-house and the foreman asked him if he had ever
"railroaded." He said No, but he was a machinist. "Well, I don't want
you," said the foreman, and the Englishman went across to the little
eating-stand where the trainmen were having dinner. Martin moved over
and made room for the stranger between himself and his engineer.
"What luck?" asked the latter.
"Hard luck," was the answer, and without more talk the men hurried on
through the meal.
They had to eat dinner and do an hour's switching in twenty minutes.
That is an easy trick when nobody is looking. You arrive, eat dinner,
then register in. That is the first the despatcher hears of you at E.
You switch twenty minutes and register out. That is the last the
despatcher hears of you at E. You switch another twenty minutes and go.
That is called stealing time; and may the Manager have mercy on you if
you're caught at it, for you've got to make up that last twenty minutes
before you hit the next station.
As the engineer dropped a little oil here and there for another dash,
the Englishman came up to the engine. He could not bring himself to ask
the driver for another ride, and he didn't need to.
"You don't get de jobs?" asked Martin.
"No."
"Vell, dat's all right; you run his railroad some day."
"I don't like the agent here," said the driver; "but if you were up at
the other end of the yard, over on the left-hand side, he couldn't see
you, and I couldn't see you for the steam from that broken
cylinder-cock."
Now they say an Englishman is slow to catch on, but this one was not;
and as the engine rattled over the last switch, he climbed into the cab
in a cloud of steam. Martin made him welcome again, pointing to a seat
on the waste-box. The dead-head took off his coat, folded it carefully,
laid it on the box, and reached for the shovel. "Not yet," said Martin,
"dare is holes already in de fire; I must get dose yello smoke from de
shtack off."
The dead-head leaned from the window, watching the stack burn clear,
then Martin gave him the shovel. Half-way up a long, hard hill the
pointer on the steam-gauge began to go back. The driver glanced over at
Martin, and Martin took the shovel. The dead-head climbed up on the tank
and shovelled the coal down into the pit, that was now nearly empty. In
a little while they pulled into the town of M.C., Iowa, at the crossing
of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul. Here the Englishman had to
change cars. His destination was on the cross-road, still one hundred
and eighteen miles away. The engine-driver took the joint agent to one
side, the agent wrote on a small piece of paper, folded it carefully,
and gave it to the Englishman. "This may help you," said he; "be
quick--they're just pulling out--run!"
Panting, the Englishman threw himself into a way-car that was already
making ten miles an hour. The train official unfolded the paper, read
it, looked the Englishman over, and said, "All right."
It was nearly night when the train arrived at W., and the dead-head
followed the train crew into an unpainted pine hotel, where all hands
fell eagerly to work. A man stood behind a little high desk at the door
taking money; but when the Englishman offered to pay he said, "Yours is
paid fer."
"Not mine; nobody knows me here."
"Then, 'f the devil don't know you better than I do you're lost, young
man," said the landlord. "But some one p'inted to you and said, 'I pay
fer him.' It ain't a thing to make a noise about. It don't make no
difference to me whether it's Tom or Jerry that pays, so long as
everybody represents."
"Well, this is a funny country," mused the Englishman, as he strolled
over to the shop. Now when he heard the voice of the foreman, with its
musical burr, which stamped the man as a Briton from the Highlands, his
heart grew glad. The Scotchman listened to the stranger's story without
any sign of emotion or even interest; and when he learned that the man
had "never railroaded," but had been all his life in the British
Government service, he said he could do nothing for him, and walked
away.