Two months after Smoke Bellew and Shorty went after moose for a
grubstake, they were back in the Elkhorn saloon at Dawson. The hunting
was done, the meat hauled in and sold for two dollars and a half a
pound, and between them they possessed three thousand dollars in gold
dust and a good team of dogs. They had played in luck. Despite the
fact that the gold rush had driven the game a hundred miles or more
into the mountains, they had, within half that distance, bagged four
moose in a narrow canyon.
The mystery of the strayed animals was no greater than the luck of
their killers, for within the day four famished Indian families
reporting no game in three days' journey back, camped beside them. Meat
was traded for starving dogs, and after a week of feeding, Smoke and
Shorty harnessed the animals and began freighting the meat to the eager
Dawson market.
The problem of the two men now, was to turn their gold-dust into food.
The current price for flour and beans was a dollar and a half a pound,
but the difficulty was to find a seller. Dawson was in the throes of
famine. Hundreds of men, with money but no food, had been compelled to
leave the country. Many had gone down the river on the last water, and
many more with barely enough food to last, had walked the six hundred
miles over the ice to Dyea.
Smoke met Shorty in the warm saloon, and found the latter jubilant.
"Life ain't no punkins without whiskey an' sweetenin'," was Shorty's
greeting, as he pulled lumps of ice from his thawing moustache and
flung them rattling on the floor. "An' I sure just got eighteen pounds
of that same sweetenin'. The geezer only charged three dollars a pound
for it. What luck did you have?"
"I, too, have not been idle," Smoke answered with pride. "I bought
fifty pounds of flour. And there's a man up on Adam Creek says he'll
let me have fifty pounds more to-morrow."
"Great! We'll sure live till the river opens. Say, Smoke, them dogs
of ourn is the goods. A dog-buyer offered me two hundred apiece for
the five of them. I told him nothin' doin'. They sure took on class
when they got meat to get outside of; but it goes against the grain
feedin' dog-critters on grub that's worth two and a half a pound. Come
on an' have a drink. I just got to celebrate them eighteen pounds of
sweetenin'."
Several minutes later, as he weighed in on the gold-scales for the
drinks, he gave a start of recollection.
"I plum forgot that man I was to meet in the Tivoli. He's got some
spoiled bacon he'll sell for a dollar an' a half a pound. We can feed
it to the dogs an' save a dollar a day on each's board bill. So long."
"So long," said Smoke. "I'm goin' to the cabin an' turn in."
Hardly had Shorty left the place, when a fur-clad man entered through
the double storm-doors. His face lighted at sight of Smoke, who
recognized him as Breck, the man whose boat he had run through the Box
Canyon and White Horse rapids.
"I heard you were in town," Breck said hurriedly, as they shook hands.
"Been looking for you for half an hour. Come outside, I want to talk
with you."
Smoke looked regretfully at the roaring, red-hot stove.
"Won't this do?"
"No; it's important. Come outside."
As they emerged, Smoke drew off one mitten, lighted a match, and
glanced at the thermometer that hung beside the door. He re-mittened
his naked hand hastily as if the frost had burnt him. Overhead arched
the flaming aurora borealis, while from all Dawson arose the mournful
howling of thousands of wolf-dogs.
"What did it say?" Breck asked.
"Sixty below." Kit spat experimentally, and the spittle crackled in
the air. "And the thermometer is certainly working. It's falling all
the time. An hour ago it was only fifty-two. Don't tell me it's a
stampede."
"It is," Breck whispered back cautiously, casting anxious eyes about in
fear of some other listener. "You know Squaw Creek?--empties in on the
other side the Yukon thirty miles up?"
"Nothing doing there," was Smoke's judgment. "It was prospected years
ago."
"So were all the other rich creeks. Listen! It's big. Only eight to
twenty feet to bedrock. There won't be a claim that don't run to half
a million. It's a dead secret. Two or three of my close friends let
me in on it. I told my wife right away that I was going to find you
before I started. Now, so long. My pack's hidden down the bank. In
fact, when they told me, they made me promise not to pull out until
Dawson was asleep. You know what it means if you're seen with a
stampeding outfit. Get your partner and follow. You ought to stake
fourth or fifth claim from Discovery. Don't forget--Squaw Creek. It's
the third after you pass Swede Creek."