After running the strangers' boat through, whose name proved to be
Breck, Kit and Shorty met his wife, a slender, girlish woman whose blue
eyes were moist with gratitude. Breck himself tried to hand Kit fifty
dollars, and then attempted it on Shorty.
"Stranger," was the latter's rejection, "I come into this country to
make money outa the ground an' not outa my fellow critters."
Breck rummaged in his boat and produced a demijohn of whiskey. Shorty's
hand half went out to it and stopped abruptly. He shook his head.
"There's that blamed White Horse right below, an' they say it's worse
than the Box. I reckon I don't dast tackle any lightning."
Several miles below they ran in to the bank, and all four walked down
to look at the bad water. The river, which was a succession of rapids,
was here deflected toward the right bank by a rocky reef. The whole
body of water, rushing crookedly into the narrow passage, accelerated
its speed frightfully, and was upflung unto huge waves, white and
wrathful. This was the dread Mane of the White Horse, and here an even
heavier toll of dead had been exacted. On one side of the Mane was a
corkscrew curl-over and suck-under, and on the opposite side was the
big whirlpool. To go through, the Mane itself must be ridden.
"This plum rips the strings outa the Box," Shorty concluded.
As they watched, a boat took the head of the rapids above. It was a
large boat, fully thirty feet long, laden with several tons of outfit
and handled by six men. Before it reached the Mane it was plunging and
leaping, at times almost hidden by the foam and spray.
Shorty shot a slow, sidelong glance at Kit, and said:
"She's fair smoking, and she hasn't hit the worst. They've hauled the
oars in. There she takes it now. God! She's gone! No; there she is!"
Big as the boat was, it had been buried from sight in the flying
smother between crests. The next moment, in the thick of the Mane, the
boat leaped up a crest and into view. To Kit's amazement he saw the
whole long bottom clearly outlined. The boat, for the fraction of an
instant, was in the air, the men sitting idly in their places, all save
one in the stern who stood at the steering sweep. Then came the
downward plunge into the trough and a second disappearance. Three times
the boat leaped and buried itself, then those on the bank saw its nose
take the whirlpool as it slipped off the Mane. The steersman, vainly
opposing with his full weight on the steering-gear, surrendered to the
whirlpool and helped the boat to take the circle.
Three times it went around, each time so close to the rocks on which
Kit and Shorty stood, that either could have leaped on board. The
steersman, a man with a reddish beard of recent growth, waved his hand
to them. The only way out of the whirlpool was by the Mane, and on the
round the boat entered the Mane obliquely at its upper end. Possibly
out of fear of the draw of the whirlpool, the steersman did not attempt
to straighten out quickly enough. When he did, it was too late.
Alternately in the air and buried, the boat angled the Mane and sucked
into and down through the stiff wall of the corkscrew on the opposite
side of the river. A hundred feet below, boxes and bales began to
float up. Then appeared the bottom of the boat and the scattered heads
of six men. Two managed to make the bank in the eddy below. The
others were drawn under, and the general flotsam was lost to view,
borne on by the swift current around the bend.
There was a long minute of silence. Shorty was the first to speak.
"Come on," he said. "We might as well tackle it. My feet'll get cold
if I stay here any longer."
"We'll smoke some," Kit grinned at him.
"And you'll sure earn your name," was the rejoinder. Shorty turned to
their employers. "Comin'?" he queried.
Perhaps the roar of the water prevented them from hearing the
invitation.
Shorty and Kit tramped back through a foot of snow to the head of the
rapids and cast off the boat. Kit was divided between two impressions:
one, of the caliber of his comrade, which served as a spur to him; the
other, likewise a spur, was the knowledge that old Isaac Bellew, and
all the other Bellews, had done things like this in their westward
march of empire. What they had done, he could do. It was the meat, the
strong meat, and he knew, as never before, that it required strong men
to eat such meat.
"You've sure got to keep the top of the ridge," Shorty shouted at him,
the plug tobacco lifting to his mouth, as the boat quickened in the
quickening current and took the head of the rapids.
Kit nodded, swayed his strength and weight tentatively on the steering
oar, and headed the boat for the plunge.
Several minutes later, half-swamped and lying against the bank in the
eddy below the White Horse, Shorty spat out a mouthful of tobacco juice
and shook Kit's hand.
"Meat! Meat!" Shorty chanted. "We eat it raw! We eat it alive!"
At the top of the bank they met Breck. His wife stood at a little
distance. Kit shook his hand.
"I'm afraid your boat can't make it," he said. "It is smaller than
ours and a bit cranky."
The man pulled out a row of bills.
"I'll give you each a hundred if you run it through."
Kit looked out and up the tossing Mane of the White Horse. A long,
gray twilight was falling, it was turning colder, and the landscape
seemed taking on a savage bleakness.
"It ain't that," Shorty was saying. "We don't want your money.
Wouldn't touch it nohow. But my pardner is the real meat with boats,
and when he says yourn ain't safe I reckon he knows what he's talkin'
about."
Kit nodded affirmation, and chanced to glance at Mrs Breck. Her eyes
were fixed upon him, and he knew that if ever he had seen prayer in a
woman's eyes he was seeing it then. Shorty followed his gaze and saw
what he saw. They looked at each other in confusion and did not speak.
Moved by the common impulse, they nodded to each other and turned to
the trail that led to the head of the rapids. They had not gone a
hundred yards when they met Stine and Sprague coming down.
"Where are you going?" the latter demanded.
"To fetch that other boat through," Shorty answered.
"No you're not. It's getting dark. You two are going to pitch camp."
So huge was Kit's disgust that he forebore to speak.
"He's got his wife with him," Shorty said.
"That's his lookout," Stine contributed.
"And Smoke's and mine," was Shorty's retort.
"I forbid you," Sprague said harshly. "Smoke, if you go another step
I'll discharge you."
"And you, too, Shorty," Stine added.
"And a hell of a pickle you'll be in with us fired," Shorty replied.
"How'll you get your blamed boat to Dawson? Who'll serve you coffee in
your blankets and manicure your finger-nails? Come on, Smoke. They
don't dast fire us. Besides, we've got agreements. It they fire us
they've got to divvy up grub to last us through the winter."
Barely had they shoved Breck's boat out from the bank and caught the
first rough water, when the waves began to lap aboard. They were small
waves, but it was an earnest of what was to come. Shorty cast back a
quizzical glance as he gnawed at his inevitable plug, and Kit felt a
strange rush of warmth at his heart for this man who couldn't swim and
who couldn't back out.
The rapids grew stiffer, and the spray began to fly. In the gathering
darkness, Kit glimpsed the Mane and the crooked fling of the current
into it. He worked into this crooked current, and felt a glow of
satisfaction as the boat hit the head of the Mane squarely in the
middle. After that, in the smother, leaping and burying and swamping,
he had no clear impression of anything save that he swung his weight on
the steering oar and wished his uncle were there to see. They emerged,
breathless, wet through, and filled with water almost to the gunwale.
Lighter pieces of baggage and outfit were floating inside the boat. A
few careful strokes on Shorty's part worked the boat into the draw of
the eddy, and the eddy did the rest till the boat softly touched
against the bank. Looking down from above was Mrs Breck. Her prayer
had been answered, and the tears were streaming down her cheeks.
"You boys have simply got to take the money," Breck called down to them.
Shorty stood up, slipped, and sat down in the water, while the boat
dipped one gunwale under and righted again.
"Damn the money," said Shorty. "Fetch out that whiskey. Now that it's
over I'm getting cold feet, an' I'm sure likely to have a chill."