[Illustration: "LIKE HIS FATHER BEFORE HIM, HE WAS ANSWERING THE CALL OF
THE GOLD."]
CONNIE MORGAN IN
ALASKA
BY
JAMES B. HENDRYX
AUTHOR OF
"THE PROMISE," "THE LAW OF THE WOODS," ETC.
[Illustration]
_ILLUSTRATED_
G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
COPYRIGHT, 1916
BY
J.B. HENDRYX
[Illustration]
Made in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--SAM MORGAN'S BOY 1
II.--THE TEN BOW STAMPEDE 16
III.--THE NEW CAMP 30
IV.--PARTNERS 41
V.--ON THE TRAIL OF WASECHE 54
VI.--THE MEN OF EAGLE 70
VII.--IN THE LILLIMUIT 91
VIII.--WASECHE BILL TO THE RESCUE 105
IX.--THE WHITE DEATH 120
X.--THE _IGLOO_ IN THE SNOW 141
XI.--ON THE DEAD MAN'S LONELY TRAIL 156
XII.--IN THE HEART OF THE SILENT LAND 169
XIII.--O'BRIEN 185
XIV.--THE ESCAPE FROM THE WHITE INDIANS 203
XV.--O'BRIEN'S CANS OF GOLD 219
XVI.--FIGHTING THE NORTH 234
XVII.--THE SNOW TRAIL 251
XVIII.--ALASKA! 269
XIX.--ON THE KANDIK 283
XX.--THE DESERTER 296
XXI.--MISTER SQUIGG 312
XXII.--THE MAN WHO DIDN'T FIT 325
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
"Like his father before him, he was answering
the call of the gold" _Frontispiece_
"Making sure that the boy slept, he began
silently to assemble his trail pack" 42
"McDougall's prize _malamutes_ shot out on the
trail" 52
"When Connie opened his eyes, daylight had
vanished" 67
"What could one small boy do in the face of
the ultimatum of these men of the North?" 81
"My dad would have got out, and, you bet,
so will I!" 103
"Now, what d' yo' think of that! I'd sho' hate
fo' this heah rope to break!" 116
Connie Morgan "stared spellbound at the
terrible splendour of the changing lights" 136
"Waseche Bill attacked the hard-packed snow
with his axe" 149
"We'ah lost, kid. It's a cinch we cain't find
the divide" 154
"The boy's lips moved in prayer, the only one
he had ever learned" 166
"The two partners stared open-mouthed at the
apparition. _The face was white!_" 183
"With a palsied arm he motioned to O'Brien,
who stepped before him" 195
"The boy's fifteen-foot lash sang through the
thin air" 216
"As they passed between the pillared rocks
the Indians broke cover, hurling their
copper-tipped harpoons as they ran" 232
"You make me tired!" cried Connie. "Anybody'd
think you needed a city, with the streets all
numbered, to find your way around" 237
"Without waiting for a reply, Connie slipped
softly over the edge" 262
"Recklessly O'Brien rushed out upon the
glittering span of snow while Connie and
Waseche watched breathlessly" 272
"My dad followed British Kronk eight hundred
miles through the snow before he caught
him--and then--you just wait." 299
"Mechanically he drew the knife from its sheath
and dragged himself to the body of the
moose." 310
"Between them walked a little, rat-faced man.
The man was Mr. Squigg." 331
"Squigg slunk into the star-lit night." 337
Connie Morgan in Alaska
CHAPTER I
SAM MORGAN'S BOY
Connie Morgan, or as he is affectionately called by the big, bearded men
of the Yukon, Sam Morgan's boy, now owns one of the crack dog teams of
Alaska. For Connie has set his heart upon winning the great Alaska
Sweepstakes--the grandest and most exciting race in all the world, a
race that crowds both driver and dogs to the very last measure of
endurance, sagacity, and skill.
But that is another story. For Connie also owns what is probably the
most ludicrous and ill-assorted three-dog team ever assembled; and he is
never so happy as when jogging slowly over the trail behind old Boris,
Mutt, and Slasher.
No sourdough in his right senses would give fifty dollars for the three,
but Sam Morgan's boy would gladly sacrifice his whole team of
thousand-dollar dogs to save any one of them. For it was the fine
courage and loyalty of this misfit team that enabled him to beat out the
Ten Bow stampede and file on "One Below Discovery," next to Waseche
Bill, the big sourdough who is his partner--and who loves him as Sam
Morgan loved him before he crossed the Big Divide.
Sam Morgan was among those who went to Alaska in the first days of the
great gold rush. Like Peg's father in the play, Sam Morgan could do
anything but make money. So when the news came of gold--bright, yellow
gold lying loose on the floors of creeks up among the snows of the
Arctic--Sam Morgan bid his wife and boy good-bye at the door of the
little cottage in a ten-carat town of a middle State and fared forth to
win riches.
The man loved his wife and son with all the love of his rugged nature,
and for their sakes cheerfully endured the perils and hardships of the
long trails without a murmur. But in spite of his dogged persistence and
unflagging toil he never made a strike. He was in the van of a dozen
stampedes--stampedes that made millionaires out of some men and stark
corpses out of others--but somehow his claims never panned out.
Unlucky, men called him. And his name became a byword for ill-luck
throughout the length and breadth of the Northland.
"She's a Sam Morgan," men would say, as they turned in disappointment
from an empty hole driven deep into frozen gravel, and would wearily hit
the trail to sink other shafts in other gulches.
So Sam Morgan's luck became a proverb in the North. But Sam Morgan,
himself, men loved. He was known among the meat-eaters as a man whose
word was as good as other men's bonds, and his cheery smile made long
trails less long. It was told in the camps that on one occasion, during
a blizzard, he divided his last piece of bacon with a half-starved
Indian, and then, carrying the man on his back, made eighteen miles
through the storm to the shelter of a prospector's cabin.
His word became law in the settling of disputes. And to this day it is
told on the trails how he followed "British Kronk," who struck it rich
on the Black Horn, and abandoned his wife, leaving her starving in the
cabin where she would surely have died had not Sam Morgan happened along
and found her; and of how, after eight hundred miles of winter trail, he
came upon him in Candle, and of the great man-fight that took place
there on the hard-packed snow; of the tight clamp of the square jaw, and
the terrible gleam of the grey eyes as, bare fisted, he made the huge
man beg for mercy; and of how he took the man back, single-handed and
without authority of law, clear to Fort Yukon, and forced him to
recognize the woman and turn over to her a share of his gold.
It is not the bragging swashbucklers, the self-styled "bad men," who win
the respect of the rough men upon the edges of the world. It is the
silent, smiling men who stand for justice and a square deal--and who
carry the courage of their convictions in their two fists.
Of these things men tell in gruff tones, to the accompaniment of hearty
fist-bangs of approval. With lowered voices they tell the story of "Sam
Morgan's Stumble," as the sharp elbow is called where the Ragged Falls
trail bends sharply around a shoulder of naked rock, with a sheer drop
of five hundred feet to the boulder-strewn floor of the creek bed. "Just
Sam Morgan's luck," they whisper. "The only place on the whole hundred
and fifty miles of the Ragged Falls trail where a man could come to
harm--right there he steps on a piece of loose ice and stumbles head
first into the canyon. He sure played in tough luck, Sam Morgan did. But
he was a _man_!"
When the letters from the North ceased coming, Sam Morgan's wife
sickened and died.
"Jest nach'lly pined away a-waitin' fer word from Sam," the neighbours
said. And when fifteen-year-old Connie returned to the empty cottage
from the bleak little cemetery on the outskirts of the village, he sat
far into the night and thought things over.
In the morning he counted the few dollars he had managed to save by
doing odd jobs about the village, and placing them carefully in his
pocket, together with a few trinkets that had belonged to his mother,
left the cottage and started in search of Sam Morgan. He locked the door
and laid the key under the mat, just where he knew his father would look
for it should he return before he found him.
Connie told nobody of his plans, said no good-byes, but with a stout
heart and a strange lump in his throat, passed quietly out of the
familiar village and resolutely turned his face toward the great white
North.
Thus is was that a small boy stepped off the last boat into Anvik that
fall and mingled unnoticed among the boisterous men who crowded the
shore. As the boat swung out into the current, the men left the river
and entered the wide, low door of the trading post.
Dick Colton paused in his examination of the pile of freight, and
noticing for the first time the forlorn little figure who stood watching
the departing boat, sauntered over and spoke:
"Hello, sonny, where you bound?"
The boy turned and gravely faced the smiling man. "I've come to find my
father," he answered.
"Where is your father?"
"He is here--somewhere."
"Here? In Anvik, you mean?"
"In Alaska."
The man uttered a low whistle. The smile was gone from his face, and he
noted the threadbare cloth overcoat, and the bare legs showing through
the ragged holes in the boy's stockings.
"What is your father's name, boy?"
"Sam Morgan."
At the name the man started and an exclamation escaped his lips.
"Do you know him?" The boy's face was eager with expectation, and the
man found the steadfast gaze of the blue eyes disconcerting.
"Just you wait here, son, for a minute, while I run up to the store.
Maybe some of the boys know him." And he turned and hurried toward the
long, low building into which the men had disappeared.
"Boys!" he cried, bursting in on them, "there is a kid out here. Came in
on the boat. He is hunting for his dad." The men ceased their talk and
looked at the speaker with interest. "And, Heaven help us, it's Sam
Morgan's boy!"
"Sam Morgan's boy! Sam Morgan's boy!" In all parts of the room men
repeated the words and stared uneasily into each other's faces.
"He has got to be told," said Dick, with a shake of the head. "You tell
him, Pete. I couldn't do it."
"Me neither. Here you, Waseche Bill, you tell him."
"I cain't do it, boys. Honest I cain't. You tell him." Thus each man
urged his neighbour, and in the midst of their half-spoken sentences the
door opened and the boy entered. An awkward hush fell upon them--the
fifty rough, fur-clad men whose bearded faces stared at him from the
gloom of the long, dark room--and the one small boy who stared back with
undisguised interest. The silence became painful, and at length someone
spoke:
"So you're Sam Morgan's boy?" the man asked, advancing and offering a
great hairy hand. The boy took the hand and bore the pain of the mighty
grip without flinching.
"Yes, sir," he answered. "Do you know him--my father?"
"Sure I know him! Do I know Sam Morgan? Well, I just guess I _do_ know
him! There ain't a man 'tween here an' Dawson don't know Sam Morgan!"
Others crowded about and welcomed the boy with rude kindness.
"Is my father here, in Anvik?" the boy asked of the man called Pete.
"No, kid, he ain't here--in Anvik. Say, Waseche, where is Sam Morgan at?
Do you know?" Thus Pete shifted the responsibility. But Waseche Bill, a
long, lank Kentuckian, was equal to the occasion.
"Why, yes, Sam Mo'gan, he's up above, somewhe's," with a sweep of his
arm in the direction of the headwaters of the great river.
"That's right," others added, "Sam Morgan's up above."
"When can I go to him?" asked the boy, and again the men looked at each
other helplessly.
"The's a bunch of us goin' up Hesitation way in a day or two, an' yo'
c'n go 'long of us. Sam's cabin's at Hesitation. But yo' cain't go 'long
in that rig," he added, eyeing the threadbare overcoat and ragged
stockings.
"Oh! That's all right. I'll buy some warm clothes. I've got money. Eight
dollars!" exclaimed the boy, proudly producing a worn leather pocketbook
in which were a few tightly wadded bills.
Eight dollars! In Alaska! And yet not a man laughed. Waseche Bill placed
his hand on the boy's shoulder and smiled:
"Well, now, sonny, that's a right sma't lot o' money, back in the
States, but it don't stack up very high in Alaska." He noticed the look
of disappointment with which the boy eyed his hoard, and hastened to
proceed: "But don't yo' fret none. It's lucky yo' chanced 'long heah,
'cause I happen to be owin' Sam Mo'gan a hund'ed, an' it's right handy
fo' to pay it now." Hardly had he ceased speaking when Dick Colton
stepped forward:
"I owe Sam fifty." "An' me!" "An' me, too!" "An' me, I'd most forgot
it!" The others had taken their cue, and it seemed to the bewildered boy
as though these men owed his father all the money in the world.
"But I don't understand," he gasped. "Is father rich? Has he made a
strike, at last?"
"No, son," answered Dick, "your father is not rich--in gold. He never
made a strike. In fact, he is counted the most unlucky man in the
North--in some ways." He turned his head. "But just the same, boy,
there's not a man in Alaska but owes Sam Morgan more than he can pay."
"Tell me about him," cried the boy, his eyes alight. "Did my father do
some great thing?" The silence was broken by old Scotty McCollough:
"Na', laddie, Sam Morgan never done no great thing. He di' na' ha' to.
He _was_ great!" And by the emphasis which the bluff old Scotchman
placed upon the word "was," of a sudden the boy knew!
"My father is dead!" he moaned, and buried his face in his hands, while
the men looked on in silent sympathy. Only for a moment did the boy
remain so, then the little shoulders stiffened under the thin overcoat,
the hands dropped to his side and clenched, and the square jaw set
firm--as Sam Morgan's had set, that day he faced big "British Kronk" on
the snow-packed street of Candle. As the boy faced the men of the North,
he spoke, and his voice trembled.
"I will stay in Alaska," he said, "and dig for the gold my father never
found. I think he would have liked it so." Suddenly the low-ceilinged
room rang with cheers and the boy was lifted bodily onto the shoulders
of the big men.
"You bet, he'd liked it!" yelled the man called Pete.
"Yo'r Sam Mo'gan's boy all right--jest solid grit clean through. It
looks f'om heah like Sam's luck has tu'ned at last!" cried Waseche Bill.
Two days later, when he hit the long trail for Hesitation, in company
with Waseche Bill, Dick Colton, and Scotty McCollough, Sam Morgan's boy
was clad from _parka_ hood to _mukluks_ in the most approved gear of the
Northland.
He learned quickly the tricks of the trail, the harnessing and handling
of dogs, the choosing of camps, and the hasty preparation of meals; and
in the evenings, as they sat close about the camp fire, he never tired
of listening as the men told him of his father. His heart swelled with
pride, and in his breast grew a great longing to follow in the footsteps
of this man, and to hold the place in the affections of the big, rough
men of the White Country that his father had held.
All along the trail men grasped him by the hand. He made new friends at
every camp. And so it was that Sam Morgan's boy became the pride of the
Yukon.
At Hesitation he moved into his father's cabin, and went to work for
Scotty McCollough, who was the storekeeper. Many a man went out of his
way to trade with Scotty that he might boast in other camps that he knew
Sam Morgan's boy.
One day Waseche Bill took him out on the Ragged Falls trail where, at
the foot of the precipice, his father lay buried. The two stood long at
the side of the snow-covered mound, at the head of which stood a little
wooden cross with its simple legend burned deep by the men who were his
friends:
SAM MORGAN
ALASKA
The man laid a kindly hand on the boy's shoulder:
"Notice, son, it don't say Hesitation, nor Circle, nor Dawson--but just
Alaska. It takes a mighty big man to fill that there description in this
country," and the man brushed away a tear of which he was not ashamed.