THE _IGLOO_ IN THE SNOW
"Now, kid," said Waseche Bill the following morning, "we got to make
tracks fo' the Tatonduk. We got too many dogs, an' we got to cut down on
the feed. I hate to do it--on the trail--but they's no two ways about
it. Three or fo' days ort to put us at the divide. I made a _cache_
the'h comin' in an' we'll be all right when we strike it."
The two stood in front of the cavern, breathing deeply of the clear,
pure air. A stiff breeze was blowing from the south-west, and the day
was warm and pleasant. The sun had not yet risen, and as the dogs swung
into the trail Connie glanced at the little thermometer lashed firmly to
the back of his sled. It registered twenty degrees below zero, an ideal
temperature for trail travel and the boy cracked his whip and yelled
aloud in the very joy of living.
At the mouth of the canyon they swerved in a north-westerly direction,
toward the northernmost reach of the Ogilvie Range. All day they mushed
across the wide caribou barrens and flat tundra that separated the great
nameless range behind them from the high mountains to the westward that
lay between them and Alaska. For, upon ascending the Tatonduk, they had
passed out of Alaska into the unmapped Yukon district of sub-arctic
Canada. Evening of the second day found them among the foothills of the
mountains. Patches of stunted timber appeared and the lay of the land
forced them to keep to the winding beds of frozen creeks and rivers. The
end of the next day found them camped on the snow-covered ice of a small
river. Waseche divided the few remaining fish, threw half of them to the
dogs, and sat down beside the boy, who had prepared a meal of caribou
_charqui_ and coffee:
"Seems like this _must_ be the creek--but I ain't sho'. I thought the
one we tackled yeste'day was it, too--but it petered out on us."
"I don't know," replied Connie, "I thought I'd remember the back trail,
but since the big snow everything looks different. And I was in an awful
hurry to catch up with you, besides."
"Sho', kid, I know. I'd ort to took mo' pains myself, but I wasn't so
pa'ticlah about gettin' back--then. Anyways, we'll try this one. We got
to watch the grub now, fo' sho'. Them _malamutes_ is hongry! Day afteh
tomorrow, if we don't find the _cache_, we'll have to kill a dawg."
Connie nodded.
"We'll find it, all right. This looks like the creek. Still, so do they
all," he added reflectively.
The next day was a repetition of the day preceding. They followed the
bed of the creek to its source in a narrow canyon which lost itself upon
the steep side of a gigantic mountain. Wearily, they retraced their
steps and once again among the foothills, turned to the northward.
"They's no dodgin' the truth, son," said Waseche gloomily, as they
mushed on, scrutinizing the mouths of creeks in a vain endeavour to
locate a landmark. "We're lost--jest na'chly plumb _lost_--like a couple
of _chechakos_."
"The divide's _somewhere_," answered the boy, bravely. "We'll find it."
"Yes, it's somewhe'h. But how many thousan' of these creeks, all jest
alike, do yo' reckon they is? An' how about grub?"
"I hate to kill a dog," the boy said.
"So do I, but the rest has got to eat. I know them wolf-dawgs; onct they
get good an' hongry they'll begin tearin' one another up--then they'll
lay fo' _us_--folks is meat, too, yo' know."
Night overtook them on a small wooded plateau and they camped in the
shelter of a dense thicket of larch and stunted spruce. At the very edge
of the thicket was a low white mound, its crown rising some three or
four feet above the surrounding level. The sleds were drawn up at the
foot of this mound, the dogs unharnessed, and, unslinging his axe,
Waseche Bill went to the thicket for firewood, leaving Connie to unpack
the outfit. The boy noted as he spread the robes that the mound was
singularly regular, about twelve feet in diameter at the base and having
evenly rounded sides--entirely different from the irregular ridges and
spurs of the foothills.
"You're a funny little foothill," he murmured, "way off by yourself. You
look lonesome. Maybe you're lost, too--in the big, white Lillimuit."
Waseche returned with the wood and lighted the fire while Connie tossed
the last of the fish to the dogs. Supper was finished in silence, the
fire replenished, and the two partners lay back on the robes and watched
the little red sparks shower upward from among the crackling flames.
"We ain't the first that's camped heah," remarked Waseche, between noisy
puffs at his pipe. "Yondeh in the thicket is stubs wheah fiahwood's be'n
chopped--an' one place wheah consid'able poles has be'n cut. The axe
mawks is weatheh-checked, showin' they was cut green. But it wasn't
done this yeah--an' me'be not last."
"I wonder who it was? And what became of them? What did they want with
poles?"
"Built a _cache_, me'be--mout of be'n a sled--but mo'n likely a _cache_.
We'll projec' around a bit in the mo'nin'. Me'be we c'n find out who
they was, an' wheah they was headin'. Me'be they'll be a trail map to
some _cache_ befo' this or to the divide."
"I hope we will find a _cache_. Then we wouldn't have to kill a dog."
Waseche's brow puckered judicially:
"Yes--we would. Yo' see, son, it's like this: We got mo' dawgs than is
needful fo' a two-man outfit. If we was down to six dawgs, or even
seven, an' one sled, an' they was weak or stahvin, then we could bust a
fish _cache_--but to feed twenty-one dawgs--that ain't right. Likewise
with ouah own grub--a man's supposed to take from anotheh man's _cache_
jest so much as is needful fo' life; that is, what will get him to the
neahest camp--not an ounce mo'. This is the unwritten law of the Nawth.
An' a good law. Men's lives is staked on a _cache_--an' that's why when,
onct in a while, a man's caught robbin' a _cache_--takin' mo'n what's
needful fo' life, they ain't much time wasted. He gets--what's comin' to
him."
The dogs had licked up the last crumbs of their scant ration and,
burrowing into the snow, wrapped themselves snugly in their thick, bushy
tails. Old Boris and Slasher dug their beds in the side of the mound
near where Connie had spread his robes. The boy watched them idly as
they threw the hard, dry snow behind them in volleys, and long after the
other dogs had curled up for the night, the sound of old Boris' claws
rasping at the flinty snow could be heard at the fireside.
"Boris is digging _some bed_!" exclaimed the boy, as he glanced toward
the tunnel from which emerged spurts of sand-like snow.
"He ain't diggin' no bed," answered Waseche. "He smells somethin'." Even
as he spoke the snow ceased to fly, and seemingly from the depths of
the earth, came the sound of a muffled bark. Instantly Slasher was on
his feet growling and snarling into the tunnel from which the voice of
old Boris could be heard in a perfect bedlam of barking.
"Oh! It's a cave! A cave!" cried Connie, pushing aside the growling
wolf-dog. "Maybe it's the _cache_!"
Waseche Bill finished twisting a spruce twig torch. He shook his head
dubiously:
"Come heah, Boris!" he called, sharply, "come out of that!" The old dog
appeared, barking joyously over his discovery. Waseche Bill lighted his
torch at the fire, and pushing it before him, wriggled into the opening.
After what, to the waiting boy, seemed an age, the man's head appeared
at the entrance, and he pulled himself clear.
"What is it?" inquired the impatient boy. "What did you find?"
The man regarded him gravely for a moment, and then answered, speaking
slowly:
[Illustration: "Waseche Bill attacked the hard-packed snow with his
axe."]
"It's an _igloo_, son--an _igloo_ buried in the snow. An' the'h's a man
in the'h."
"A _man_!" cried the astonished boy.
"Yes, kid--it's Carlson. He's _dead_."
Tired as they were after a hard day on the trail, the two partners were
unwilling to sleep without first making a thorough examination of the
buried _igloo_. More firewood was cut, and by the light of the leaping
flames Waseche Bill attacked the hard-packed snow with his axe, while
Connie busied himself in removing the cakes and loose snow from the
excavation. At the end of an hour a squared passageway was completed and
the two entered the _igloo_.
"He had a plenty grub, anyways," remarked Waseche, as he cast an
appraising eye over the various bags of provisions piled upon the snow
floor. "He didn't stahve, an' it wasn't the red death (smallpox)--I
looked pa'tic'lah, fo' I went out of heah."
Connie glanced at the body which lay partially covered by a pile of
robes. The man's features were calm and composed--one could have fancied
him asleep, had it not been for the marble whiteness of the skin. One by
one, they examined all the dead man's effects; the little Yukon stove,
half filled with ashes, the bags of provisions, his "war-bag"--all were
carefully scrutinized, but not a map--not even a pencil mark rewarded
their search.
"He's met up with Eskimos, somewhe'h," said Waseche, examining a rudely
shaped copper pan in which a bit of wicking made from frayed canvas
protruded from a quantity of frozen blubber grease.
Finally the two turned to the body. The coarse woollen shirt was open at
the throat, and about the man's neck, they noticed for the first time,
was a thin caribou skin thong. Cutting the thong Waseche removed from
beneath the shirt a flat pouch of oiled canvas. Connie lighted the wick
in the copper pan and together the two sat upon a robe and, in the
guttering flare of the smoky lamp, carefully unwrapped the canvas cover.
The packet contained only a battered pocket notebook, upon whose worn
leaves appeared a few rough sketches and many penciled words.
"Yo' read it, kid. I ain't no hand to read much," said Waseche, handing
the book to Connie, and his eyes glowed with admiration as the boy read
glibly from the tattered pages.
"Tu'n to the last page an' wo'k back," suggested Waseche.
"January tenth--" began Connie. "Why, that was nearly a year ago! He
couldn't have been dead a year!" His eyes rested on the white face of
Carlson.
"A yeah, or a hund'ed yeahs--it's all the same. He's froze solid as
stone, an' he'll stay like that till the end of time," replied the man,
gravely.
"It says," continued the boy, "'Growing weaker. For two days no fire.
Too weak. Pain gone, but cannot breathe. To-day'--That's all, it ends
there."
"Noomony," laconically remarked Waseche. The preceding pages were
devoted almost entirely to a record of the progress of the disease. The
first notation was January third. Under the date of January fifth he
wrote:
"I am afraid my time has come. If so, tell Pete Mateese the claims are
staked on Ignatook--mine and his. See map in lining of _parka_. Maybe
Pete is dead. He has been gone a year. He tried to go out by the
Tatonduk. I can't find him. I can't find the divide. The Lillimuit has
got me! They said it would--but the gold! It is here--gold, gold,
gold--yellow gold--and it is all mine--mine and Pete Mateese's. But the
steam! The stillness! The white, frozen forest--and the creeks that
don't freeze! After Pete left _things_ came in the night. It is
cold--yet my brain is on fire! I can't sleep!"
This proved to be the longest entry; the man seemed to grow rapidly
weaker. When the boy finished Waseche Bill shuddered.
"The Lillimuit got him," he said slowly. "He went _marihuana_." On the
next page, under the date of January sixth, the boy read:
"Made a _cache_ here in timber. Growing weaker. Tomorrow I will turn
back. Mapped the back trail. _2 caches_--then the claims on Ignatook,
the creek of the stinking steam. I will go out by the Kandik. I mapped
that trail. It is shorter, but I must find Pete Mateese. I must tell
him--the claims."
"Who is Pete Mateese? And where is Ignatook?" inquired the boy.
"Sea'ch me!" exclaimed Waseche. "I ain't neveh hea'd tell of eitheh one,
an' I be'n in Alaska goin' on fo'teen yeah."
[Illustration: "We'ah lost, kid. It's a cinch we cain't find the
divide."]
For an hour they studied Carlson's map, which they found as he had
directed, concealed in the lining of his _parka_. Finally Waseche Bill
looked up:
"We'ah lost, kid. It's a cinch we cain't find the divide if Carlson
couldn't--he know'd the country. The thing fo' us to do is to follow
Carlson's map to his camp, an' then on out by the Kandik. Neah's I c'n
make out, it means about three or fo' hund'ed miles of trail--but we got
to tackle it. Tomorrow we'll rest an' hunt up the _cache_--Carlson's
past needin' it now. We sho' got hea'h jest in time!"