ON THE TRAIL OF WASECHE
Waseche Bill loved the North. The awful grandeur of the naked peaks
towering above wooded heights, the wide sweep of snow valleys, the chill
of the thin, keen air, and the mystic play of the aurora never failed to
cast their magic spell over the heart of the man as he answered the call
of the long white trails. And, until Connie Morgan came into his life,
he had loved _only_ the North.
Accustomed to disappointment--that bitter heritage of the men who seek
gold--he took the trail from Ten Bow as he had many times taken other
trails, and from the moment the dogs strung out at the crack of his
long-lashed whip, his mind was busy with plans for the future.
"Reckon I'll pass up Ragged Falls. The's nothin' theh--Coal Creek's
staked, an' Dog Creek, an' Tanatat's done wo'ked out. Reckon I'll jest
drift up Eagle way an git holt of some mo' dogs an' a new outfit, an'
me'be take on a pa'dner an' make a try fo' the Lillimuit." Mile after
mile he covered, talking aloud to himself, as is the way of the men of
the silent places, while the smooth-worn runners of the sled slipped
over the well-packed trail.
Overhead the sky was brilliant with the shifting, many-hued lights of
the aurora borealis, which threw a weird, flickering glow over the drear
landscape. It was the kind of a night Waseche loved, when the cold, hard
world lay veiled in the half-light of mystery. But his mind was not upon
the wild beauty of his surroundings. His heart was heavy, and a strange
sense of loneliness lay like a load upon his breast. For, not until he
found himself alone upon the trail, did he realize how completely his
little partner had taken possession of his rough, love-starved heart.
Yet, not for an instant did he regret his course in the abandonment of
the claim.
"It's all in a lifetime," he murmured, "an' I didn't do so bad, at that.
I 'speck theh's clost to ten thousan' in my poke right now--but the
boy's claim! Gee Whiz! Fust an' last it ort to clean up a million! But,
'taint leavin' all that gold in the gravel that's botherin' me.
It's--it's--I reckon it's jest the boy _hisself_. Li'l ol' sourdough!
"Hayr, yo' One Ear, yo'! Quit yo' foolin'! I'm talkie' like a woman.
Mush on!"
At daybreak, when he struck the wide trail of the big river, Waseche
Bill halted for breakfast, fed and rested his dogs, and swung upstream
on the long trail for Eagle.
* * * * *
McDougall's ten _malamutes_ were the pride of McDougall and the envy of
the Yukon. As they disappeared in the distance bearing Connie Morgan on
the trail of his deserting "pardner," the big Scotchman turned and
entered his cabin.
"He's a braw lad," he rumbled, as he busied himself about the stove. "To
Waseche's mind the lad's but a wee lad; an' the mon done what few men
w'd done when ut come to the test. But, fer a' his sma' size the lad's
uncanny knowin', an' the heart o' um's the heart o' a _tillicum_.
"He'll fetch Waseche back, fer he'll tak' na odds--an' a gude job ut'll
be--fer, betwixt me an' mesel', the ain needs the ither as much as the
ither needs the ain. 'Tis the talk o' the camp that ne'er a nicht sin'
Ten Bow started has Waseche darkened the door o' Dog Head Jake's saloon,
an' they aint a sourdough along the Yukon but what kens when things was
different wi' Waseche Bill."
Out on the trail, Connie urged the dogs forward. Like Waseche Bill, he,
too, had learned to love the great White Country, but this day he had
eyes only for the long sweep of the trail and the flying feet of the
_malamutes_.
"I must catch him! I've _got_ to catch him!" he kept repeating to
himself, as the flying sled shot along hillsides and through long
stretches of stunted timber. "He'll make Ragged Falls Post tonight, and
I'll make it before morning."
Darkness had fallen before the long team swept out onto the Yukon.
Overhead the stars winked coldly upon the broad surface of the frozen
river whose snow reefs and drifts, between which wound the trail, lay
like the marble waves of a sculptured ocean.
Old Boris, running free in the lead, paused at the junction of the
trails, sniffed at the place where Waseche had halted early in the
morning, and loped unhesitatingly up the river. The old lead dog was
several hundred yards in advance of the team, and cut off from sight by
the high-piled drifts; so that when Connie reached the spot he swung the
_malamutes_ downstream in the direction of Ragged Falls Post, never for
an instant suspecting that his partner had taken the opposite trail.
For several minutes old Boris ran on with his nose to the snow, then,
missing the sound of the scratching feet and the dry husk of the
runners, he paused and listened with ears cocked and eyes in close
scrutiny of the back trail. Surely, those were the sounds of the dog
team--but why were they growing fainter in the distance? The old dog
whimpered uneasily, and then, throwing back his head, gave voice to a
long, bell-like cry which, floating out on the tingling air like the
blast of a bugle, was borne to the ears of the boy on the flying dog
sled, already a half-mile to the westward. At his sharp command, the
well trained _malamutes_ nearly piled up with the suddenness of their
stop. The boy listened breathlessly and again it sounded--the long-drawn
howl he knew so well. "Why has Boris left the trail," wondered the boy.
"Had Waseche met with an accident and camped? Were the feet of his dogs
sore? Was he hurt?" Connie glanced at his own two dogs, Mutt and
Slasher, who, unharnessed, had followed in his wake. They, too, heard
the call of their leader and had crouched in the snow, gazing backward.
Quickly he swung the sled dogs and dashed back at a gallop. Passing the
point where the Ten Bow trail slanted into the hills, he urged the dogs
to greater effort. If something had happened and Waseche had camped, the
quicker he found him the better. But, if Waseche had not camped, and old
Boris was fooling him, it would mean nearly an hour lost in useless
doubling. With anxious eyes he scanned the trail ahead, seeking to
penetrate the gloom of the Arctic night. At length, as the sled shot
from between two high-piled drifts, he made out a dark blotch in the
distance, which quickly resolved itself into the figure of the old lead
dog sitting upon his haunches with ears alert for the approaching sled.
Connie whistled, a loud, peculiar whistle, and the old dog bounded
forward with short, quick yelps of delight.
"Where is Waseche, Boris?" The boy had leaped from the sled and was
mauling the rough coat playfully. "Find Waseche! Boris! Go find him!"
With a sharp, joyful bark, the old dog leaped out upon the trail and the
wolf-dogs followed. A mile slipped past--two miles--and no sign of
Waseche! The boy called a halt. "Boris is fooling me," he muttered,
with disappointment. "He couldn't have come this far and gotten back to
the place I found him."
Connie had once accompanied Waseche Bill to Ragged Falls Post and when
he took the trail it was with the idea that Waseche had headed for that
point. Unconsciously, Scotty McDougall had strengthened the conviction
when he told the boy he should overtake his partner at Ragged Falls. So
now it never occurred to him that the man had taken the trail for Eagle,
which lay four days to the south-east.
Disappointed in the behaviour of the old dog, upon whose sagacity he had
relied, and bitterly begrudging the lost time, he whistled Boris in and
tried to start him down the river. But the old dog refused to lead and
continued to make short, whimpering dashes in the opposite direction. At
last, the boy gave up in despair and headed the team for Ragged Falls,
and Boris, with whimpered protests and drooping tail, followed beside
Mutt and Slasher.
All night McDougall's _malamutes_ mushed steadily over the trail, and in
the grey of the morning, as they swept around a wide bend of the great
river, the long, low, snow-covered roof of Ragged Falls Post, with its
bare flagpole, appeared crowning a flat-topped bluff on the right bank.
Connie's heart bounded with relief at the sight. For twenty hours he had
urged the dogs over the trail with only two short intervals of rest, and
now he had reached his goal--and Waseche!
"Wonder what he'll say?" smiled the tired boy. "I bet he'll be surprised
to see me--and glad, too--only he'll pretend not to be. Doggone old
_tillicum_! He's the best pardner a man ever had!"
Eagerly the boy swung the dogs at the steep slope that led to the top of
the bluff. A thin plume of smoke was rising above the roof; there was
the sound of an opening door, and a man in shirt sleeves eyed the
approaching outfit sleepily. Connie recognized him as Black Jack
Demaree, the storekeeper. And then the boy's heart almost stopped
beating, for the gate of the log stockade that served as a dog corral
stood open, and upon the packed snow before the door was no sled.
"Hello, sonny!" called the man from the doorway. "Well, dog my cats! If
it ain't Sam Morgan's boy! Them's Scotty McDougall's team, ain't it?"
"Where's Waseche Bill?" asked the boy, ignoring the man's greeting.
"Waseche Bill! Why, I ain't saw Waseche sense you an' him was down las'
summer." The small shoulders drooped wearily, and the small head turned
away, as, choking back the tears of disappointment, the boy stared out
over the river. The man looked for a moment at the dejected little
figure and, stepping to his side, laid a rough, kindly hand on the boy's
arm.
"Come, sonny; fust off, we'll git the dawgs unharnessed an' fed, an'
then, when we git breakfas' et, we c'n make medicine." The boy shook his
head.
"I can't stop," he said; "I must find Waseche."
"Now, look a here, don't you worry none 'bout Waseche. That there ol'
sourdough'll take care of hisself. Why, he c'n trail through a country
where a wolf w'd starve to death!
"Ye've got to eat, son. An' yer dawgs has got to eat an' rest. I see
ye're in a hurry, an' I won't detain ye needless. Mind ye, they worn't
no better man than Sam Morgan, yer daddy, an' he worn't above takin'
advice off a friend." Without a word the boy fell to and helped the man,
who was already unharnessing the dogs.
"Now, son, 'fore ye turn in fer a few winks," said Black Jack Demaree,
as he gulped down the last of his coffee and filled his pipe. "Jes'
loosten up an' tell me how come you an' Waseche ain't up on Ten Bow
workin' yer claim?"
The man listened attentively as the boy told how his partner's claim had
sloped off into his own and "petered out." And of how Waseche Bill had
taken the trail in the night, so the boy would have an undivided
interest in the good claim. And, also, of how, when he woke up and
found his partner gone, he had borrowed McDougall's dogs and followed.
And, lastly, of the way old Boris acted at the fork of the trails. When
the boy finished, the man sat for several minutes puffing slowly at his
short, black pipe, and watching the blue smoke curl upward. Presently he
cleared his throat.
"In the first place, sonny, ye'd ort to know'd better'n to go contrary
to the ol' dawg. In this here country it's as needful to know dawgs as
it is to know men. That there's a lesson ye won't soon fergit--never set
up yer own guess agin' a good dawgs nose. Course, ye've got to know yer
dawg. Take a rankus pup that ain't got no sense yet, an' he's li'ble to
contankerate off on the wrong trail--but no one wouldn't pay no heed to
him, no more'n they would to some raw shorthorn that come a
blustercatin' along with a sled load o' pyrites, expectin' to start a
stampede.
"But, ye're only delayed a bit. It's plain as daylight, Waseche hit fer
Eagle, an' ye'll come up with him, 'cause, chances is, he'll projec'
round a bit among the boys, an' if he figgers on a trip into the hills
he'll have to outfit fer it."
"Thank you, Jack," said the boy, offering his small hand; "I'll sure
remember what you told me. I think I'll take a little nap and then
mush."
"That's the talk, son. Never mind unrollin' yer bed, jes' climb into my
bunk, yonder. It's five days to Eagle, an' while ye're sleepin' I'll
jes' run through yer outfit an' see what ye need, an' when ye wake up
it'll be all packed an' ready fer ye."
When Connie opened his eyes, daylight had vanished and Black Jack sat
near the stove reading a paper-backed novel by the light of a tin
reflector lamp.
"What time is it?" asked the boy, as he fastened his _mukluks_.
"'Bout 'leven G.M.," grinned the man.
"Why, I've slept twelve hours!" exclaimed the boy in dismay.
[Illustration: "When Connie opened his eyes, daylight had vanished."]
"Well, ye needed it, er ye wouldn't of slep' it," remarked the man,
philosophically.
"But, look at the _time_ I've wasted. I might have been----"
"Now, listen to me, son. Yere's another thing ye've got to learn, an'
that is: In this here country a man's got to keep hisself fit--an' his
dawgs, too. Forcin' the trail means loosin' out in the long run. Eight
or ten hours is a day's work on the trail--an' a good day. 'Course
they's exceptions, like a stampede or a rush fer a doctor when a man c'n
afford to take chances. But take it day in an' day out, eight or ten
hours'll git ye further than eighteen or twenty.
"It's the _chechakos_ an' the tin horns that excrootiates theirselves
an' their dawgs to a frazzle, an' when a storm hits 'em, er they miss a
cache, it's good-night! Take an ol' sourdough an' he'll jes' sagashitate
along, eat a plenty an' sleep a plenty an' do the like by his dawgs, an'
when trouble comes he jes' tightens his belt a hole er two an' hits his
dawgs couple extra licks fer breakfas' an' exooberates along on his
nerve.
"Eat yer supper, now, an' ye c'n hit the trail whenever ye like. Yer
sled's packed fer the trip an' a couple days to spare."
"I came away in such a hurry I forgot to bring my dust," said the boy,
ruefully.
"Well, I guess ye're good fer it," laughed the man. "Wisht I had a
thousan' on my books with claims as good as yourn an' Waseche's."
After supper they harnessed the dogs and the boy turned to bid his
friend good-bye. The man extended a buckskin pouch.
"Here's a poke with a couple hundred in it. Take it along. Ye mightn't
need it, an' then agin ye might, an' if ye do need it, ye'll need it
bad." The boy made a motion of protest.
"G'wan, it's yourn. I got it all chalked up agin ye, an' I'd have to
change the figgers, an' if they's anything on earth I hate, it's to
bookkeep. So long! When ye see Waseche Bill, tell him Black Jack Demaree
says ye can't never tell by the size of a frog how fer he c'n jump."