THE NEW CAMP
The fame of Ten Bow travelled to far reaches, and because in the gold country men are fascinated by prosperity, even though it is the prosperity of others, the shortening days brought many new faces into the mining camp of Ten Bow. Notwithstanding the fact that every square foot of the valley was staked, gaunt men, whose hollow eyes and depleted outfits spoke failure, mushed in from the hills, knowing that here cordwood must be chopped, windlasses cranked, and fires kept going, and preferring the certainty of high wages at day labour to the uncertainty of a new strike in unscarred valleys.
It was six months since Waseche Bill had burst into Scotty McCollough's store at Hesitation with the news of his great strike in the red rockvalley to the southward—news that spread like wildfire through the camp and sent two hundred men over the trail in a frenzied rush for gold.
It was a race long to be remembered in the Northland—the Ten Bow stampede. It is told to this day on the trails, by beardedtillicumsamid roars of bull-throated laughter and deep man-growls of approval, how the race was won by a boy—a slight, wiry, fifteen-year-oldchechakowho, scorning the broad river trail with its hundred rushing dog teams, struck straight through the hill with a misfit three-dog outfit, and staked "One Below Discovery" under the very noses of Big McDougall and his mail team of gauntmalamutes, and Dutch Henry with his Hudson Bays.
From the glacier-studded seaboard to the great white death barriers beyond the Yukon, wherever men forgathered, the fame of Connie Morgan, and old Boris, Mutt, and Slasher, passed from bearded lip to bearded lip, and the rough hearts of big, trail-toughened prospectors swelled with pride atthe mention of his name. Only, in the big white country, he is never called Connie Morgan, but Sam Morgan's boy; for Sam Morgan was Alaska's—big, quiet Sam Morgan, who never made a "strike," but stood for a square deal and the right of things as they are. And, as they loved Sam Morgan, these men loved Sam Morgan's boy. For it had been told in the hills how Dick Colton found him, ill-clad and ragged, forlornly watching the wheezy little Yukon steamer swing out into the stream at Anvik, whence he had come in search of his father. And how, when he learned that Sam Morgan had crossed the Big Divide, he bravely clenched his little fists, choked back the hot tears, and told the big men of the North, as he faced them there, that he would stay in Alaska and dig for the gold his father never found.
The Ten Bow stampede depopulated Hesitation, and the new camp of Ten Bow sprang up in a day, two hundred miles to the southward. A camp of tents andigloosit was, for in the madscramble for gold men do not stop to build substantial cabins, but improvise makeshift shelters from the bitter cold of the long nights, out of whatever material is at hand. For the Ten Bow strike came late in the season and, knowing that soon the water from the melting snows would drive them from their claims, men worked feverishly in the black-mouthed shafts that dotted the valley, and at night chopped cordwood and kept the fires blazing that thawed out the gravel for the morrow's digging. When the break-up came men abandoned the shafts and, with rude cradles and sluices, and deep gold pans, set to work on the frozen gravel of the dumps.
And then it was men realized the richness of the Ten Bow strike. Not since the days of Sand Creek and the Klondike had gravel yielded such store of the precious metal. As they cleaned up the riffles they laughed and talked wildly of wealth undreamed; for the small dumps, representing a scant sixty days' digging, panned out more gold than any man in Ten Bow had evertaken out in a year—more than most men had taken out in many years of disheartening, bone-racking toil.
During the long days of the short summer, while the cold waters of Ten Bow rushed northward toward the Yukon, log cabins replaced the tents andigloos, and by the end of August Ten Bow assumed an air of stability which its prosperity warranted. Scotty McCollough freighted his goods from Hesitation and soon presided over a brand new log store, which varied in no whit nor particular from the other log stores of other camps.
Those were wonderful days for Connie Morgan. Days during which the vague, half-formed impressions of youth were recast in a rough mould by association with the bearded men who treated him as an equal. He learned their likes and dislikes, their joys and sorrows, their shortcomings and virtues, and in the learning, he came instinctively to look under the surface and gauge men by their true worth—which is so rarely the great world's measure of men. And, under the unconscious tutelage of these men, was laid the foundation for the uncompromising sense of right and justice which was to become the underlying principle of the hand-hammered character of the man who would one day help shape the destiny of Alaska, and safeguard her people from the outreaching greed of monopoly.
Daily the boy worked shoulder to shoulder with his partner, Waseche Bill, the man who had presented him with old Boris, and whispered of the short-cut through the hills which had enabled him to beat out the Ten Bow stampede.
Now, the building of cabins is not easy work. Getting out logs, notching their ends, and rolling them into place, one above another, is a man's job. And many were the pretexts and fictions by which the men of Ten Bow contrived to relieve Connie of the heavier work in the building of his home.
"Sonny," said Big McDougall one day, loafing casually over from the adjoining claim where his own cabin was nearing completion,"swar to gudeness, my back's like to bust wi' stoopin' over yon chinkin'. C'u'dn't ye jist slip over to my place an' spell the auld mon off a bit. I'm mos' petered out." So Connie obligingly departed and, as he rammed in the moss and daubed it with mud, peered through a crack and smiled knowingly as he watched the "petered out" man heaving and straining by the side of Waseche Bill in the setting of a log. And the next day it was Dutch Henry who removed the short pipe from his mouth and called from his doorway:
"Hey, kid! Them dawgs o' mine is gittin' plumb scan'lous fat an' lazy. Seems like ef they don't git a workin' out they'll spile on me complete. Looks like I never fin' no time to fool with 'em. Now, ef you c'd make out to take 'em down the trail today, I'd sure take it mighty kind of ye." And when Connie returned to the camp it was to find Dutch Henry helping Waseche Bill in the rope-rolling of a roof log. And so it went each day until the cabin stood complete under its dirt roof. Some one or another of the big-heartedminers, with a sly wink at Waseche Bill, invented a light job which would take the boy from the claim and then took his place, grinning happily.
But Connie Morgan understood, and because he loved these men, kept his own counsel, and the big men never knew that the small, serious-eyed boy saw through their deception.
At last the cabin was finished and the boy took a keen delight in helping his big partner in the building of the furniture. Two bunks, a table, three or four chairs, and a wash bench—rude but serviceable—were fashioned from light saplings and packing case boards, brought up from Scotty's store. In the new camps lumber is scarce, and the canny Scotchman realized a tidy sum from the sale of his empty boxes.
In the shortening days men returned to the diggings and sloshed about in the wet gravel, cleaning up as they went; for before long, the freezing of the water would compel them to throw the gravel onto dumps to be worked out the following spring.
The partners hired a man to help with the heavier work and Connie busied himself with the hundred and one odd jobs about the claims and cabin. He became a wonderful cook, and Waseche Bill, returning from the diggings, always found a hot meal of well-prepared food awaiting his ravenous appetite, while the men of other cabins returned tired and wet to growl and grumble over the cooking of their grub.
Late in September the creek froze. Blizzard after whirling blizzard followed upon the heels of a heavy snowfall, and the Northland lay white and cold in the grip of the long winter. Ten Bow was a humming hive of activity. Windlasses creaked in the thin, frosty air, to the half-muffled cries of "haul away" which floated upward from the depths of the shafts, and the hillsides rang with the stroke of axes and the long crash of falling trees. By night the red flare of a hundred fires lighted the snow for miles and seemed reflected in the aurora-shot sky; and with each added bucketful, the dumps grew larger andshowed black and ugly against the white snow of the valley.
To conform to the mining laws the partners sank a shaft on each claim, working them alternately, and the experienced eye of Waseche Bill told him that the gravel he daily shovelled into the bucket was fabulously rich in gold.
And then, one day, at a depth of ten feet, Waseche Bill's pick struck against something hard. He struck again and the steel rang loudly in the cistern-like shaft. With his shovel he scraped away the thin covering of loose gravel which was deepest where his claim joined Connie's.
That evening the boy wondered at the silence of his big partner, who devoured his beans and bacon and sourdough bread, and washed them down with great draughts of black coffee. But he spoke no word, and after supper helped Connie with the dishes and then, filling his pipe, tilted his chair against the log wall and smoked, apparently engrossed in deep thought. At the table, Connie, poring over the contents of a year-oldillustrated magazine, from time to time cast furtive glances toward the man and wondered at his strange silence. After a while the boy laid the magazine aside, drew the bootjack from beneath the bunk, pulled off his small boots, and with a sleepy "good-night, pardner," rolled snugly into his blankets.
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.
"Making sure that the boy slept, he began silently to assemble his trail pack."
Waseche Bill had never written a letter, norhad 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 thesame 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 weedpatch, 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 bunkand 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 consernthis 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 nowwhich they wasgood menlike 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.
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 nowwhich they wasgood menlike 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? Wasecheismy 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 oldtillicumI'll—I'll bring him back if I have tobeat him up! My dad licked British Kronk at Candle—and British was bigger! He'sgotto 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 amon! Run ye the noo, an' pack the sled whilst I harnessthe 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.
"McDougall's prizemalamutesshot 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 prizemalamutesshot 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, whiledistinctly 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!"
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 lovedonlythe 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'snothin' 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 didhe 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 boyhisself. 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 tenmalamuteswere 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' atillicum.
"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 themalamutes.
"I must catch him! I'vegotto catch him!" he kept repeating to himself, as the flying sled shotalong 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 themalamutesdownstream 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, hepaused 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 trainedmalamutesnearly 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 wherethe 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'smalamutesmushed 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 oldtillicum! 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 JackDemaree, 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 upwith 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 hismukluks.
"'Bout 'leven G.M.," grinned the man.
"Why, I've slept twelve hours!" exclaimed the boy in dismay.
When Connie opened his eyes, daylight had vanished."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 thetimeI'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 thechechakosan' 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."
THE MEN OF EAGLE
Waseche Bill jogged along the main street of Eagle, past log cabins, board shacks, and the deceiving two-story fronts of one-story stores. Now and then an acquaintance hailed him from the wooden sidewalk, and he recognized others he knew, among the small knots of men who stood about idly discussing the meagre news of the camp. At the Royal Palm Hotel, a long, low, log building with a false front of boards, he swung in and, passing around to the rear, turned his dogs into the stockade.
In the office, seated about the stove, were a dozen or more men, most of whom Waseche knew. They greeted him loudly as he entered, and plied him with a volley of questions.
"Where ye headed?"
"Thought ye'd struck it rich on Ten Bow?"
"D'ye hear about Camaron Creek?"
The newcomer removed his heavyparkaand joined the group, answering a question here, and asking one there.
"How's Sam Morgan's boy comin' on? We heard how you an' him was pardners an' had a big thing over on Ten Bow," inquired a tall man whose doleful length of sallow countenance had earned him the nickname of Fiddle Face. As he talked, this man gnawed the end of his prodigiously long mustache. Waseche's eyes lighted at the mention of the boy.
"He's the finest kid eveh was, I reckon. Sma't as a steel trap, an' they ain't nawthin' he won't tackle. C'n cook a meal o' vittles that'd make yo' mouth wateh, an' jest nach'lly handles dogs like an ol'tillicum."
"How come ye ain't workin' yer claim?" asked someone.
"It's this-a-way," answered Waseche, addressing the group. "Mine's Discovery, an' his'n'sOne Below, an' we th'ow'd in togetheh. 'Bout ten foot down, mine sloped off into his'n—run plumb out. An' I come away so's the kid'll have the claim cleah." A silence followed Waseche's simple statement—a silence punctuated by nods of approval and low-voiced mutterings of "Hard luck," and "Too bad." Fiddle Face was first to speak.
"That's what I call aman!" he exclaimed, bringing his hand down on Waseche's shoulder with a resounding whack.
"Won't ye step acrost to Hank's place an' have a drink?" invited a large man, removing his feet from the fender of the big stove, and settling the fur cap more firmly upon his head.
"No thanks, Joe. Fact is, I ain't took a drink fo' quite a spell. Kind o' got out o' the notion, somehow."
"Well, sure seems funny to hear you refusin' a drink! Remember Iditarod?" The man smiled.
"Oh, sure, I recollect. An' I recollect that itain't neveh got me nawthin' but misery an' an empty poke. But, it ain't so much that. It's—well, it's like this: Sam Mo'gan, he ain't heah no mo' to look afteh the kid, an'—yo' see, the li'l scamp, he's kind o' got it in his head that they ain't no one jest like me—kind o' thinks I really 'mount to somethin', an' what I say an' do is 'bout right. It don't stand to reason I c'n make him b'lieve 'taint no good to drink licker, an' then go ahead an' drink it myself—does it, now?"
"Sure don't!" agreed the other heartily. "An' that's whatIcall a man!" And the whack that descended upon Waseche's shoulder out-sounded by half the whack of Fiddle Face.
After supper the men drifted out by twos and threes for their nightly rounds of the camp's tawdry places of amusement. Waseche Bill, declining their invitations, sat alone by the stove, thinking. The man was lonely. Until this night he had had no time to realize how much he missed his little partner, and his thoughtslingered over the long evenings when they talked together in the cabin, and the boy would read aloud from the illustrated magazines.
A chair was drawn up beside his, and the man called Joe laid a large hand upon his knee.
"This here Sam Morgan's boy—does he favour Sam?" he asked.
"Like as two bullets—barrin' size," replied Waseche, without raising his eyes.
"I s'pose you talked it over with the kid 'fore you come away?" Waseche looked up.
"Why, no! I done left a lettah, an' come away while he was sleepin'."
"D'ye think he'll stand fer that?"
"I reckon he's got to. Course, it'll be kind o' hard on him, fust off, me'be. Same as me. But it's bettah fo' him in the end. Why, his claim's good fo' a million! An' the boys up to Ten Bow, they'll see him through—McDougall, an' Dutch Henry, an' the rest. They-all think as much of the boy as what I do." The big man at Waseche's side shook his head doubtfully.
"I know'd Sam Morgan well," he said, fixing the other with his eyes. "He done me a good turn onct an' he never asked no odds off'en no one. Now, if the kid's jes' like him—s'pose he follers ye?"
"Cain't. He ain't got the dogs to."
The other smiled and dropped the subject.
"Where ye headin' fer, Waseche?" he asked, after a few moments of silence.
"I aim to make a try fo' the Lillimuit."
"The Lillimuit!" exclaimed Joe. "Man, be ye crazy?"
"No. They's gold theh. I seen the nuggets Sven Carlson fetched back two ye'rs ago."
"Yes! An' where's Sven Carlson now?"
"I don'no."
"An' no one else don't know, neither. He's dead—that's where he is! Leastwise, he ain't never be'n heerd from after he started back fer the Lillimuit."
"Want to go 'long?" asked Waseche, ignoring the other's statement.
"Who? Me! Not on yer life I don't—notto the Lillimuit! Not fer all the gold in the world."
"Oh, I reckon 'tain't so bad as folks claim."
"Claim! Folks ain't in no shape to claim! They ain't no one ever come back, 'cept Carlson—an' he was loco, an' went in agin—an' that's the last of Carlson."
"What ails the country?" asked Waseche.
"They's talk of white Injuns, an' creeks that don't freeze, an'—well, they don't no one really know, but Carlson." The man shrugged and glanced over his shoulder. "If I was you, I'd hit the back trail. They's a plenty fer two in the Ten Bow claim an' pardners is pardners."
Waseche ignored the suggestion:
"I'll be pullin' fer the Lillimuit in the mo'nin'. Sorry ye won't jine me. I'll be rollin' in, now. Good-night."
"So long! An' good luck to ye. I sure hate to see ye go."