Kit Bellew landed through the madness of the Dyea beach, congested with
thousand-pound outfits of thousands of men. This immense mass of
luggage and food, flung ashore in mountains by the steamers, was
beginning slowly to dribble up the Dyea valley and across Chilcoot. It
was a portage of twenty-eight miles, and could be accomplished only on
the backs of men. Despite the fact that the Indian packers had jumped
the freight from eight cents a pound to forty, they were swamped with
the work, and it was plain that winter would catch the major portion of
the outfits on the wrong side of the divide.
Tenderest of the tender-feet was Kit. Like many hundreds of others he
carried a big revolver swung on a cartridge-belt. Of this, his uncle,
filled with memories of old lawless days, was likewise guilty. But Kit
Bellew was romantic. He was fascinated by the froth and sparkle of the
gold rush, and viewed its life and movement with an artist's eye. He
did not take it seriously. As he said on the steamer, it was not his
funeral. He was merely on a vacation, and intended to peep over the
top of the pass for a 'look see' and then to return.
Leaving his party on the sand to wait for the putting ashore of the
freight, he strolled up the beach toward the old trading post. He did
not swagger, though he noticed that many of the be-revolvered
individuals did. A strapping, six-foot Indian passed him, carrying an
unusually large pack. Kit swung in behind, admiring the splendid
calves of the man, and the grace and ease with which he moved along
under his burden. The Indian dropped his pack on the scales in front
of the post, and Kit joined the group of admiring gold-rushers who
surrounded him. The pack weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, which
fact was uttered back and forth in tones of awe. It was going some,
Kit decided, and he wondered if he could lift such a weight, much less
walk off with it.
"Going to Lake Linderman with it, old man?" he asked.
The Indian, swelling with pride, grunted an affirmative.
"How much you make that one pack?"
"Fifty dollar."
Here Kit slid out of the conversation. A young woman, standing in the
doorway, had caught his eye. Unlike other women landing from the
steamers, she was neither short-skirted nor bloomer-clad. She was
dressed as any woman travelling anywhere would be dressed. What struck
him was the justness of her being there, a feeling that somehow she
belonged. Moreover, she was young and pretty. The bright beauty and
colour of her oval face held him, and he looked over-long--looked till
she resented, and her own eyes, long-lashed and dark, met his in cool
survey.
From his face they travelled in evident amusement down to the big
revolver at his thigh. Then her eyes came back to his, and in them was
amused contempt. It struck him like a blow. She turned to the man
beside her and indicated Kit. The man glanced him over with the same
amused contempt.
"Chechaquo," the girl said.
The man, who looked like a tramp in his cheap overalls and dilapidated
woollen jacket, grinned dryly, and Kit felt withered though he knew not
why. But anyway she was an unusually pretty girl, he decided, as the
two moved off. He noted the way of her walk, and recorded the judgment
that he would recognize it after the lapse of a thousand years.
"Did you see that man with the girl?" Kit's neighbour asked him
excitedly. "Know who he is?"
Kit shook his head.
"Cariboo Charley. He was just pointed out to me. He struck it big on
Klondike. Old timer. Been on the Yukon a dozen years. He's just come
out."
"What's chechaquo mean?" Kit asked.
"You're one; I'm one," was the answer.
"Maybe I am, but you've got to search me. What does it mean?"
"Tender-foot."
On his way back to the beach Kit turned the phrase over and over. It
rankled to be called tender-foot by a slender chit of a woman.
Going into a corner among the heaps of freight, his mind still filled
with the vision of the Indian with the redoubtable pack, Kit essayed to
learn his own strength. He picked out a sack of flour which he knew
weighed an even hundred pounds. He stepped astride of it, reached
down, and strove to get it on his shoulder. His first conclusion was
that one hundred pounds was the real heavy. His next was that his back
was weak. His third was an oath, and it occurred at the end of five
futile minutes, when he collapsed on top of the burden with which he
was wrestling. He mopped his forehead, and across a heap of grub-sacks
saw John Bellew gazing at him, wintry amusement in his eyes.
"God!" proclaimed that apostle of the hard. "Out of our loins has come
a race of weaklings. When I was sixteen I toyed with things like that."
"You forget, avuncular," Kit retorted, "that I wasn't raised on
bear-meat."
"And I'll toy with it when I'm sixty."
"You've got to show me."
John Bellew did. He was forty-eight, but he bent over the sack,
applied a tentative, shifting grip that balanced it, and, with a quick
heave, stood erect, the somersaulted sack of flour on his shoulder.
"Knack, my boy, knack--and a spine."
Kit took off his hat reverently.
"You're a wonder, avuncular, a shining wonder. D'ye think I can learn
the knack?"
John Bellew shrugged his shoulders.
"You'll be hitting the back trail before we get started."
"Never you fear," Kit groaned. "There's O'Hara, the roaring lion, down
there. I'm not going back till I have to."