The last pack, from Long Lake to Linderman, was three miles, and the
trail, if trail it could be called, rose up over a thousand-foot
hogback, dropped down a scramble of slippery rocks, and crossed a wide
stretch of swamp. John Bellew remonstrated when he saw Kit arise with
a hundred pounds in the straps and pick up a fifty-pound sack of flour
and place it on top of the pack against the back of his neck.
"Come on, you chunk of the hard," Kit retorted. "Kick in on your
bear-meat fodder and your one suit of underclothes."
But John Bellew shook his head.
"I'm afraid I'm getting old, Christopher."
"You're only forty-eight. Do you realize that my grandfather, sir,
your father, old Isaac Bellew, killed a man with his fist when he was
sixty-nine years old?"
John Bellew grinned and swallowed his medicine.
"Avuncular, I want to tell you something important. I was raised a
Lord Fauntleroy, but I can outpack you, outwalk you, put you on your
back, or lick you with my fists right now."
John Bellew thrust out his hand and spoke solemnly.
"Christopher, my boy, I believe you can do it. I believe you can do it
with that pack on your back at the same time. You've made good, boy,
though it's too unthinkable to believe."
Kit made the round trip of the last pack four times a day, which is to
say that he daily covered twenty-four miles of mountain climbing,
twelve miles of it under one hundred and fifty pounds. He was proud,
hard, and tired, but in splendid physical condition. He ate and slept
as he had never eaten and slept in his life, and as the end of the work
came in sight, he was almost half sorry.
One problem bothered him. He had learned that he could fall with a
hundredweight on his back and survive; but he was confident, if he fell
with that additional fifty pounds across the back of his neck, that it
would break it clean. Each trail through the swamp was quickly churned
bottomless by the thousands of packers, who were compelled continually
to make new trails. It was while pioneering such a new trail, that he
solved the problem of the extra fifty.
The soft, lush surface gave way under him; he floundered, and pitched
forward on his face. The fifty pounds crushed his face in the mud and
went clear without snapping his neck. With the remaining hundred
pounds on his back, he arose on hands and knees. But he got no farther.
One arm sank to the shoulder, pillowing his cheek in the slush. As he
drew this arm clear, the other sank to the shoulder. In this position
it was impossible to slip the straps, and the hundredweight on his back
would not let him rise. On hands and knees, sinking first one arm and
then the other, he made an effort to crawl to where the small sack of
flour had fallen. But he exhausted himself without advancing, and so
churned and broke the grass surface, that a tiny pool of water began to
form in perilous proximity to his mouth and nose.
He tried to throw himself on his back with the pack underneath, but
this resulted in sinking both arms to the shoulders and gave him a
foretaste of drowning. With exquisite patience, he slowly withdrew one
sucking arm and then the other and rested them flat on the surface for
the support of his chin. Then he began to call for help. After a time
he heard the sound of feet sucking through the mud as some one advanced
from behind.
"Lend a hand, friend," he said. "Throw out a life-line or something."
It was a woman's voice that answered, and he recognized it.
"If you'll unbuckle the straps I can get up."
The hundred pounds rolled into the mud with a soggy noise, and he
slowly gained his feet.
"A pretty predicament," Miss Gastell laughed, at sight of his
mud-covered face.
"Not at all," he replied airily. "My favourite physical exercise
stunt. Try it some time. It's great for the pectoral muscles and the
spine."
He wiped his face, flinging the slush from his hand with a snappy jerk.
"Oh!" she cried in recognition. "It's Mr--ah--Mr Smoke Bellew."
"I thank you gravely for your timely rescue and for that name," he
answered. "I have been doubly baptized. Henceforth I shall insist
always on being called Smoke Bellew. It is a strong name, and not
without significance."
He paused, and then voice and expression became suddenly fierce.
"Do you know what I'm going to do?" he demanded. "I'm going back to
the States. I am going to get married. I am going to raise a large
family of children. And then, as the evening shadows fall, I shall
gather those children about me and relate the sufferings and hardships
I endured on the Chilcoot Trail. And if they don't cry--I repeat, if
they don't cry, I'll lambaste the stuffing out of them."