PARTNERS
For a long time Waseche Bill sat tilted back against the wall. His pipe
went out unheeded and remained black and cold, gripped between his
clenched teeth. At length he arose and, noiselessly crossing the room,
stood looking down at the tousled yellow curls that shone dully in the
lamp-light at the end of the roll of blankets. Making sure that the boy
slept, he began silently to assemble his trail pack. Tent, blankets,
grub, and rifle he bound firmly onto the strong dog-sled, and returning
to the room, slid back a loose board from its place in the floor. From
the black hole beneath he withdrew a heavy buckskin pouch and, pouring
the contents onto a folded paper, proceeded to divide equally the pile
of small glittering particles, and the flattened black nuggets of
water-worn gold. One portion he stuffed into a heavy canvas money belt
which he strapped about him, the other he placed in the pouch and
returned to its hiding place under the floor. He fumbled in his pocket
for the stub of a lead pencil and, with a sheet of brown paper before
him, sat down at the table and began laboriously to write.
[Illustration: "Making sure that the boy slept, he began silently to
assemble his trail pack."]
Waseche Bill had never written a letter, nor had he ever received one.
There was no one to write to, for, during an epidemic of smallpox in a
dirty, twenty-two calibre town of a river State, he had seen his mother
and father placed in long, black, pine boxes, by men who worked swiftly
and silently, and wore strange-looking white masks with sponges at the
mouth, and terrible straight, black robes which smelled strongly, like
the open door of a drug store, and he had seen the boxes carried out at
night and placed on a flat dray which drove swiftly away in the
direction of the treeless square of sand waste, within whose
white-fenced enclosure a few cheap marble slabs gleamed whitely among
many wooden ones. All this he watched from the window, tearful,
terrorized, alone, and from the same window watched the dray driven
hurriedly back through the awful silence of the deserted street and stop
before other houses where other black boxes were carried out by the
strange, silent men dressed in their terrible motley.
The next day other men came and took him away to the "home." That is,
the men called it a "home," but it was not at all like the home he had
left where there was always plenty to eat, and where mother and father,
no matter how tired and worried they were, always found time to smile or
romp, and in the long evenings, to tell stories. But in this new home
were a matron and a superintendent, instead of mother and father, and,
except on visiting days, there was rarely enough to eat, and many rules
to be obeyed, and irksome work to be done that tired small bodies. And
instead of smiles and romps and stories there were frowns and whippings
and quick, terrifying shakings and scoldings over hard lessons. He
remembered how one day he stole out through an unlocked gate and hid
until dark in a weed patch, and then trudged miles and miles through
the long night and in the morning found himself in the bewildering
outskirts of a great city--he was not Waseche Bill then, but just Willie
Antrum, a small boy, who at the age of nine faced the great world alone.
The solving of the problem of existence had left scant time for book
learning, and the man regretted the fact now when he was called upon for
the first time to express himself in writing. He had never examined a
letter; his brief excursions into the field of literature having been
confined to the recording of claim papers, and the painful spelling out
of various notices, handbills, and placards, which were posted from time
to time in conspicuous places about trading posts or docks. He puzzled
long over how to begin, and at each word paused to tug at his long
moustache, and glower helplessly and gnaw the end of his stubby pencil.
At last he finished, and weighting the paper with his own new,
six-bladed jackknife crossed again to the bunk and stood for a long
time looking down at the sleeping boy.
"I sho' do hate to go 'way an' leave yo' li'l' pa'd," he murmured.
"Feels like pullin' teeth in yere." The big fingers pressed the front of
his blue flannel shirt. "But it cain't neveh be tole how Waseche Bill
done helt his pa'dneh to a bad ba'gain afteh his own claim run out--an'
him only a kid. Ef yo' was a man 'twould be dif'ent, but yo' ain't, an'
when you' grow'd up yo' might think I tuk advantage of yo'."
"Sam Mo'gan unlucky!" he exclaimed, under his breath, "Why ef yo' was my
reg'lar own boy, pa'd, I'd be the luckiest man in Alaska--if I neveh
struck coleh. Unlucky, sho'!" And with a suspicious winking of the eyes,
and a strange lump in his throat, Waseche Bill blew out the lamp, closed
the door softly behind him, harnessed his dogs, and swung out onto the
moonlit trail which gleamed white and cold between low-lying ridges of
stunted spruce.
Connie Morgan awoke next morning with a feeling that all was not well.
It was dark in the cabin, but his ears could detect no sound of heavy
breathing from the direction of his partner's bunk. Hastily he slipped
from under his blankets and lighted the tin reflector lamp. As the
yellow light flooded the room the boy's heart almost stopped beating and
there was a strange sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach, like that
day at Anvik when the little Yukon steamer churned noisily away from the
log pier. For Waseche Bill's bunk was empty and his blankets were gone,
and so was the tent that had lain in a compact bale in the corner, and
Waseche Bill's rifle was missing from its pegs over the window.
Suddenly his glance was arrested by the scrap of paper upon the table,
where the rays of light glinted on the backs of the polished blades. He
snatched up the paper and holding it close to the light, spelled out,
with difficulty, the scrawling lines:
NOTISS.
dere Pard an' to Whom it may consern
this here is to Notissfy that me W. Bill [he never could remember
how to spell Waseche, and the name of Antrum had long been
forgotten] has quit pardners with C. Morgan. him to hev both claims
which mine aint no good no moar it havin Petered Out an sloped off
into hissen. i, W. BILL done tuk wat grub i nead an 1/2 the dust
which was ourn, leavin hissen into the poke which i hid as per
always him noin whar its at--an also to hev the cabin an geer.
SINED an SWORE TO befor ME OKT. 3 at ten Bow camp. so long. Kep the
jack nife Kid fer to rember me with. do like i tole yo an dont
drink no booz nor buck faro layouts like yer daddy never done an
sum day yull be like him barrin his heft which he was a big man but
mebe yull gro which ef yo dont dont wory none. ive saw runty size
men for now which they was _good men_ like Peat Moar down to rapid
City. play the game squr an tak adviz offen Mak Doogle an Duch
Henery an Scotty an D colton but not othes til yo no em wel. I
aimed to see yo thru but things turnin out as they done i caint.
but the boys will hand it to yo strate--thems GOOD MEN yurse troole
W. bill.
The boy finished reading and, dropping his head in his folded arms,
sobbed as if his heart would break.
Big McDougall was aroused in the early grey of the cold Alaska dawn by
an insistent pounding upon his door.
"Come in, can't ye! D'ye want to break doon the hoose?" And as Connie
Morgan burst into the room, he sat upon the edge of his bunk and grinned
sleepily.
"What's ailin' ye lad, ye look flustered?"
"Waseche's gone!" cried the boy, in a choking voice, as he thrust the
paper into the great hairy hand.
"Gone?" questioned the man, and began slowly to decipher the scrawl. At
length he glanced at the boy who stood impatiently by.
"Weel?" the Scotchman asked.
"I want your dogs!"
The man scratched his head.
"What'll ye be up to wi' the dogs?"
"I'm going to find Waseche, of course. He's my pardner, and I'm going to
stay by him!" McDougall slowly drew on his boots, and when he looked up
his bearded face was expressionless.
"D'ye onderstan' that Waseche's claim's no gude? It sloped off shallow
rock onto yourn, an' it's worked out a'ready. Waseche, he's gone, an'
ye're full owner o' the best claim on the Ten Bow. You ain't got no
pardner to divide up wi'--it's all yourn."
The boy regarded him with blazing eyes:
"What do you mean, I have no pardner? Waseche _is_ my pardner, and you
bet he'll find that out when I catch him! I'll stick by him no matter
what he says, and if he won't come back, I won't either! Of course I've
got the best claim on Ten Bow, but Waseche put me onto it, and gave me
old Boris, and--" his voice broke and the words came choking between dry
sobs--"and that day in Anvik he said he owed my father a hundred
dollars, and the others all chipped in--I thought it was true then--but
I know now--and I shut up about it because they thought I never knew!
"I don't want the claim, I want Waseche! And I'll stick by him if I have
to abandon the claim. Pardners are pardners! and when I catch that old
_tillicum_ I'll--I'll bring him back if I have to _beat him up_! My dad
licked British Kronk at Candle--and British was bigger! He's _got_ to
come back!" The small fists were doubled and the small voice rang shrill
and high with righteous indignation. Suddenly Big McDougall's hand shot
out and gripped the little fist, which he wrung in a mighty grip.
"Ah, laddie, fer all yer wee size, ye're a _mon_! Run ye the noo, an'
pack the sled whilst I harness the dogs. Wi' that ten-team ye'll come
up wi' Waseche anent Ragged Falls Post." Twenty minutes later the boy
appeared with his own dogs unleashed.
[Illustration: "McDougall's prize _malamutes_ shot out on the trail."]
"Mush! Boris, find Waseche! Mush!" And the old dog, in perfect
understanding, uttered a low whine of eagerness, and headed northward at
a run. The next instant the boy threw himself belly-wise onto the sled
and McDougall's prize _malamutes_ shot out on the trail of the old lead
dog, with big Mutt and the red-eyed Slasher running free in their wake.
Standing in his doorway, the Scotchman watched them dwindle in the
distance, while distinctly to his ears, through the still, keen air,
was borne the sharp creak of runners and the thin shouts of the boy as
he urged the dogs over the hard-packed trail:
"Hi! Hi! Mush-u! Mush-u! Chook-e-e-e!"