Connie Morgan "stared spellbound at the terrible splendour of the changing lights."Connie Morgan "stared spellbound at the terrible splendour of the changing lights."
"Don't get scairt, son. It's only the aurora. It's like they said—Carlson, an' one or two mo' I've hea'd talk. The blood-red aurora in the night time, an' the thousan' suns in the day." Waseche's sleeping bag was close against his own, and the sound of his voice reassured the terrified boy. Together, in silence, they watched the awful spectacle. Red lights—scarlet, crimson, vermilion flashed upon the snow, and among the far-off peaks which stood out distinctly above the farther wall of the long stretch of canyon that their viewpoint commanded. Upon the green ice at the entrance to the cavern the lights showed violet and purple. The boy stared spellboundat the terrible splendour of the changing lights, while above the hiss and crackle of the aurora he could hear the whimpering and moaning of the terrified dogs. He shrank back into his sleeping bag, pulling the flap tight to keep out the awful sights and sounds, and lay for hours waiting for something to happen. But nothing did happen and when he awoke again it was day. The dogs had ceased to whine, and Waseche Bill was moving about in the cave. The man had hung a robe over the entrance, but around the edges Connie could see narrow strips of light. The air was oppressive and heavy. His head ached. The acrid smell of smoke permeated the interior of the cavern and Connie wriggled from his sleeping bag and, while Waseche busied himself with the coffee and bacon, he broke out a bale of fish for the dogs.
"Cut 'em down to half ration, son," warned the man, eyeing the scanty supply. "We got to get out of this heah Lillimuit—an' we got to get out on what we got with us. I don't reckonthey's a livin' critteh in the whole blame country, 'cept us, an' we got to go easy on the grub."
"I heard a fox bark the other night," ventured the boy.
"Yo' won't get fat on fox bahks," grinned the man, "an' that's all the clost yo' even get to 'em. Outside of white goats, them foxes is about the hah'dest vahmint to get a shot at they is."
"Aren't we going to hit the trail?" asked the boy in evident surprise, when, after breakfast, instead of packing the outfit, Waseche lighted his pipe and stretched out on a robe.
"Notthisday, we ain't," replied the man; "An' me'be not tomorrow—if the wind don't come. Do yo' know how fah we'd get today?"
"How far?"
"I do'no—a hund'ed steps, me'be—me'be half a mile—'twouldn't be fah."
"Tell me what's the matter, Waseche. What's going to happen? And why have you closed up the door?"
"It's thewhite death," answered the man in anawed tone. "Nothin' won't happen if we stay inside. I've hea'd it spoke of, only I somehow—I neveh believed it befo'. As fo' the robe—hold yo' breath an' peek out through that crack along the aidge. Hold yo' breath, mind—don't breathe that air!"
Connie filled his lungs and drew back the edge of the robe. Instantly his face seemed seared by the points of a million red-hot needles. He scarcely noticed the pain, for he was gazing in awestruck wonder where a thousand suns seemed dancing in the cloudless sky. As upon the previous day, the air was filled with dancing white specks, and the suns glared with a glassy, yellow brightness. They looked wet and shiny, but their light seemed no brighter than the light of a single sun. No blue sky was visible, and the mountain peaks, even the nearer ones, were nowhere to be seen. The whole world seemed enveloped in a thick haze of sickly yellow.
He let go the edge of the robe and drew back from the opening.
"Gee whiz! but it's cold," he exclaimed, rubbing his stinging cheeks. "How cold is it, pardner?" For answer Waseche shifted his position, reached swiftly beneath the bottom of the robe, and withdrew from the outside a small spirit thermometer which he held up for the boy's inspection. It was frozen solid!
THEIGLOOIN 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 acachethe'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 traveland 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 cariboucharquiand coffee:
"Seems like thismustbe the creek—but Iain'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'. Themmalamutesis hongry! Day afteh tomorrow, if we don't find thecache, 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," saidWaseche gloomily, as they mushed on, scrutinizing the mouths of creeks in a vain endeavour to locate a landmark. "We're lost—jest na'chly plumblost—like a couple ofchechakos."
"The divide'ssomewhere," 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 thethicket 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 acache, me'be—mout of be'n a sled—but mo'n likely acache. 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 somecachebefo' this or to the divide."
"I hope we will find acache. 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 fishcache—but to feed twenty-one dawgs—that ain't right. Likewise with ouah own grub—a man's supposed to take from anotheh man'scachejest 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 acache—an' that's why when, onct in a while, a man's caught robbin' acache—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 diggingsome 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 thesnow 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 thecache!"
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:
Waseche Bill attacked the hard-packed snow with his axe."Waseche Bill attacked the hard-packed snow with his axe."
"It's anigloo, son—aniglooburied in the snow. An' the'h's a man in the'h."
"Aman!" cried the astonished boy.
"Yes, kid—it's Carlson. He'sdead."
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 buriedigloo. 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 theigloo.
"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 ofparka. 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 leftthingscame 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 wentmarihuana." On the next page, under the date of January sixth, the boy read:
We'ah lost, kid. It's a cinch we cain't find the divide."We'ah lost, kid. It's a cinch we cain't find the divide."
"Made acachehere in timber. Growing weaker. Tomorrow I will turn back. Mapped the back trail.2 caches—then the claims onIgnatook, 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."
For an hour they studied Carlson's map, which they found as he had directed, concealed in the lining of hisparka. Finally Waseche Bill looked up:
"We'ah lost, kid. It's a cinch we cain't findthe 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 thecache—Carlson's past needin' it now. We sho' got hea'h jest in time!"
ON THE DEAD MAN'S LONELY TRAIL
Connie Morgan pushed aside the flap of his sleeping bag and blinked sleepily into the blue-gray Arctic dawn. Far to the north-west, the thin rays of the belated winter sun pinked the edges of the ice god's chiselled peaks where the great white range guarded grimly the secrets of the man-feared Lillimuit.
The boy closed his eyes and pressed his face close against the warm fleece. Was it all a dream, he wondered vaguely—the crashing wall of the canyon—the trail of the white death—the blazing aurora—the search for the Tatonduk pass—the buriedigloo, and the man who died? Were these things real? Or, was he still following the trail of Waseche Bill, with the unknown Lillimuit before him, and the men of Eagle behind?
Again his eyes opened and he chuckled aloud as he thought of the man called Joe, and Fiddle Face, and big Jim Sontag, and the others in the hotel at Eagle. It was not a dream. There, by the fire, was Waseche, the coffeepot was boiling with a low bubbly sound, and beyond was the round-toppedigloo, its white side scarred by the sled-blocked entrance to the tunnel.
"What's so funny?" grinned Waseche as, frying pan in hand, he turned at the sound of the boy's laughter. "This heah mess we ah into ain't no joke, fah's I c'n see. Whateveh yo' laughin' at, anyhow?"
The boy wriggled from his sleeping bag and joined the man by the fireside, where the preparation of breakfast was well under way.
"Oh, nothing—I was just wondering what they thought, next morning—the men back in Eagle, who wouldn't let me come to you."
"Me'be it w'd be'n betteh if yo' hadn't of," answered the man, with a glance toward the towering snow peaks.
"Well, itwouldn't!" flashed the boy; "and, you bet, it would take more than just saying so to hold me back! You know you're glad I came—Anyway, Ididcome, and I'd rather belosthere, with you, than own the best claim on Ten Bow, and go it alone. You and I are going to beat the Lillimuit, pardner, and even Carlson couldn't do that!"
"No, he couldn't," agreed the man, eyeing the boy proudly. "An' theh's plenty othehs, too, that's tried it. Some come back—but, mostly, they didn't. Carlson, in theh—he was aman—he died huntin' up his pahdneh. I wondeh how much of a strike they made oveh on this heah Ignatook?"
"It must be somethingbig. The notebook said there was lots and lots of gold——"
"Yeh—an' it said they was creeks that don't freeze—an' frozen fohests—an' things that come in the night—an' steam. Yo' see, kid, Carlson was too long alone. It's boun' to get a man—the big, white country is—if he stays too long from his kind. It gets 'em with its flashin', hissin'lights, an' the roah of shiftin' ice—but, most of all, with its silence—the dead, awful stillness of the land of frozen things. It gets 'em in heah"—he pointed significantly to his forehead. "Somethin' goes wrong, sometimes all of a sudden—sometimes gradual—but, it's all the same—they might betteh died.
"But, come on, let's eat, an' then hunt up Carlson'scache. I sho' hope he was all theah when he made that map, 'cause, if he wasn't, yo' an' me is in fo' a hahd winteh. Rampsin' th'ough the Lillimuit followin' a crazy man's map ain't no Sunday school picnic—not what yo' c'n notice—an' when we-all come to the end of the trail, we'll know we be'n somewheahs."
Thecachewas easily located near the centre of the thicket. It was a rude crotch and pole affair, elevated beyond reach of prowling animals. A couple of blows from Waseche's axe brought the structure crashing into the snow, and they proceeded to cut the lashings of the caribou skins that served as tarpaulins.
"Theah's meat a plenty wheah he come from. Look at them quahte's of caribou, an' the hides."
"He didn't need to go to so much trouble with hiscache. There is nothing here to bother it."
"How about the foxes—an' wolves, too? Wheah theah's caribou theah's wolves. An' how about his dawgs?"
"That's so!" exclaimed Connie. "I wonder what became of the dogs? And where is his sled?"
"Sled's undeh the snow, somewheahs—dawgs, too, me'be—'less they pulled out. It's owin' to what kind they was.Malamuteswould of tu'ned wolf, an' when they found they couldn't bust thecache, they'd of hit out fo' the caribou heahd. Hudson Bays an' Mackenzie Riveh dawgs w'd done sim'lah, only they'd stahved to death tryin' it. An' mongrels, they'd of jest humped up an' died wheah they happen' to be standin'."
In addition to several saddles of caribou venison, thecachecontained coffee, flour, salt, a small bottle of saccharin, and three bags of fish for the dogs.Bound securely to the coffee bag was a rough map of the trail to the precedingcache, which Carlson had numbered 2, and they lost no time in comparing it with the notebook which Connie produced from his pocket.
"He wasn't plumb loco, anyhow," remarked Waseche, with a deep breath of relief. "His maps checks up all right, an' a crazy man couldn't make two maps hit out the same to save him, I don't reckon. Anyhow, I'm glad we found this otheh one. Neah's I c'n make out, it's three days to the nextcache, an' me'be the'll be anotheh map to check up with."
The remainder of the forenoon was spent in packing the supplies to the camp, and at noon the two made a prodigious dinner of fresh caribou venison, thawed out and broiled over the smokeless larch coals.
"The dawgs is ga'nted up some consid'ble, s'pose we jest feed twict today. They be'n on half ration since we-all left the canyon. 'Tain't good policy to feedmalamutestwict, an' if wedon't hit it out right to the nextcache, we'll wisht we hadn't, but, somehow, findin' that last map kind of clinched it with me. Whad'yo say, pahdneh?"
Connie glanced at the brutes lying about in the snow apparently uninterested in the saddles of venison and bags of fish piled near the camp fire. Only Mutt, the huge mongrel "wheel dog" of Connie's own team, whimpered and sniffed at the newly found food, for Mutt lacked the stoicism of the native dogs of the North, who knew that feed time was hours away. The boy regarded them with judicious eye and pondered his partner's proposition gravely.
"Well, we might try it, just this once. Theydolook a little gaunt and ribby," and the boy smiled broadly as he broke out a bag of fish; for the same thought had been in his own mind for an hour and he had been just on the point of broaching it to Waseche, at the risk of being thought a chicken-heartedchechako.
Connie returned to the fire as the dogs gnawedand snarled at their unexpected meal. There was plenty of coffee, now, and while the boy tossed the grounds onto the snow and refilled the pot, Waseche Bill whittled a pipe of tobacco, and stretched lazily upon his robe in the warmth of the crackling flames.
"We-all must bury him decent," he began, with a nod toward theigloo, as they sipped at the black coffee. "An' we must remembeh that name, Pete Mateese, the man he was huntin' fo'. If he's alive, he'd like to know. He was his pa'dneh, I reckon. Seems like, from what the book says, he neveh know'd about the strike." The man's eyes roved for a moment over the distant peaks, and he continued: "It's too bad we cain't dig no reg'lar grave fo' him, but it would take a good week to thaw out the ground, an' them fish ain't goin' to hold out only to the nextcache. But I know anotheh way that's good, heah. The rock wall yondeh shades theiglooso it won't neveh melt; leastwise, it ain't apt to. Las' summeh's sun neveh fazed it 'cept to sog it down all the mo'solid. We'll give him a coffin of ice, an' hisigloofo' a tomb of snow. I'd a heap sooneh have it that-a-way than like them ol' king of Egyp's, that's buried in the stone pyramids out on the aidge of the desert, somewheahs. I seen one, onct, in the dime museum in Chicago. Ferry O'Tolliveh, his name was, I recollect, an' the man that run the place give a consid'able lecture about him. Seems like he was embalmed, they call it, which means he was spiced an' all wrapped up in, I think he said it was a mile an' three-quahtehs of bandages, anyhow, they was a raft of 'em, 'cause I counted mo'n a hund'ed layehs of cloth wheah they'd cut th'ough to get to his face. Which it must of be'n a heap of wo'k without they put him in a lathe; anyways, theah he was, afteh bein' dead mo'n two thousan' yeahs!
"The man said how the embalmin' of them ol' Egyp' undehtakehs is a lost aht, an' I reckon, afteh takin' a look at Mr. Ferry O'Tolliveh, fo'ks is glad it is. He looked like the bottom row of a kit of herring. The man said his mummywas theah, too, but I didn't stop fo' to look at her—I seen all I wanted of the O'Tollivehs from lookin' at Ferry, but him bein' the only king I eveh seen, I'm glad I done it, even if he hadn't kep' well.
"Now, with Carlson, heah, it will be diffe'nt. He'll be jest the same two thousan' yeahs from now as he is today, an' was the day he died. Ice is ice, an' if it don't melt it'll stay ice till the crack of doom."
The two set about the work with a will. The provisions were carried outside, the dead man's effects ranged about the base of the circular wall, and his robes spread in the centre of the igloo upon the hard-packed floor of snow. The body was wrapped in its blankets and laid upon the robes, and Connie Morgan and Waseche Bill gazed for the last time upon the face of Carlson, the intrepid man of the North who, like hundreds of others, lured by the call of gold, braved the unknown terrors of the silent land to pass for ever from the haunts of man. There was that in thestrong, clean-cut features of the bearded face to make them pause. Here was aman! A man who, in the very strength and force of him, pushed beyond the barriers, defied the frozen desert, and from her ice-locked bosom tore the secret of the great white wilderness; and then, in the bigness of his heart, turned his back upon the goal of his heart's desire and faced death calmly in vain search for his absent partner.
The boy's lips moved in prayer, the only one he had ever learned."The boy's lips moved in prayer, the only one he had ever learned."
Instinctively, the small boy removed his cap and dropped to his knees beside the dead man, and opposite him, awkwardly, reverently, with bared head, knelt Waseche Bill. The boy's lips moved and in the cold, dead gloom of the snowigloo, his voice rang high and thin in the words of the only prayer he had ever learned:
"Now I lay me down to sleep,I pray the Lord my soul to keep.If I should die before I wake,I pray the Lord my soul to take."Amen."
"Now I lay me down to sleep,I pray the Lord my soul to keep.If I should die before I wake,I pray the Lord my soul to take."Amen."
"Amen," repeated Waseche Bill huskily, and together they left theigloo.
Blocks were cut from the surface of the hard crusted snow and packed closely about the body. Snow was melted at the fire and the blocks soaked with water, which froze almost instantly, cementing the whole into a solid mass of opaque ice. In the same manner, theigloowas sealed, and the body of Carlson was protected both from the fangs of prowling beasts and the ravages of time. From the trunk of a young spruce, Waseche Bill fashioned a rude cross, into which Connie burned deep the name:
SVEN CARLSONDIED JAN. 10-19—.
The cross was planted firmly and, having completed the task to their satisfaction, the two ate supper in silence and sought their sleeping bags.
Dogs were harnessed next morning by the little light of the stars, and long before the first faint streak of the late winter dawn greyed the north-east, the outfit swung onto the trail—the year-old trail of Carlson, the man who found gold.
Before passing from sight around a point of the spruce thicket, they halted the sleds for a last look at the solitaryigloo. There, in the shifting glow of the paling aurora, the little cross stood out sharp and black against its unending background of dead white snow, and below it showed the rounded outline of the low mound that was the fitting sepulchre of this man of the North.
IN THE HEART OF THE SILENT LAND
Waseche Bill and his little partner followed blindly the directions upon Carlson's map, which led them across snow as trackless and unscarred as the day it fell.
"Fr. C 3 N 3d. to FLAT MT. C 2 on rock-ledge at flagpole," read the directions on the map found in thecache, which was the exact reverse of the directions in the notebook which read: "Fr. FLAT MT. C 2. S 3d. to C 3. in spruce grove atigloo." The man had carefully mapped his trail as he proceeded, and then reversed the notes for the benefit of any chance backtrailer.
So far, the trail of Carlson was but a projection of their own trail in search of the Tatonduk divide, and for two days they mushed steadily northward, skirting the great range that lay to thewestward. To the north-east and east, as far as the eye could reach, stretched vast level snow barrens, and to the southward rolled the low-lying foothills toward the glacier-studded range which was still visible, its jagged peaks flashing blue-white in the distance. Hour after hour they threaded in and out among the foothills, avoiding the deeper ravines, and with tail rope and gee pole working the outfit across coulees.
Toward evening of the third day, both Connie and Waseche scanned the range eagerly for a glimpse of the flat mountain, but the early winter darkness settled about them without the sight of a mountain that could, by any stretch of imagination, be called "flat."
"Prob'ly we-all ah mushin' sloweh than what he done," ventured Waseche, as he peered into the gloom from the top of a rounded hill. "I hate to camp, an' I hate to mush on an' pass the landmahk in the dahk. It's mo' or less guesswo'k, followin' a cold trail. Landmahks change some, an' even if they don't, the time of yeah makes adiffe'nce, an' then, things looks diffe'nt to one man from what they look to anotheh. Likewise, things looks diffe'nt nights, than daytimes. Of co'se, a flat mountain couldn't hahdly look like nothin' else but a flat mountain nohow, but yo' cain't tell——"
"I'm sure we haven't passed it," interrupted the boy.
"No, we ain'tpassedit. What's pestehin' me is, did Carlson know whetheh he mushed three days or ten? An' whetheh he c'd tell a flat mountain from a peaked one? I've saw fog hang so that eveh' mountain yo' seen looked flat—cut right squah acrost in the middle."
"Let's mush on for a couple of hours. There is light enough to see the mountains, and we might as well be lost one place as another." The man grinned at the philosophical suggestion.
"All right, kid. Keep yo' eyes peeled, an' when yo' get enough jest yelp an' we 'll camp."
Hour after hour they pushed northward among the little hills. The sled runners slipped smoothlyover the hard, dry snow, and overhead a million stars glittered in cold brilliance against the blue-black pall of the night sky. And in all the vast solitude of the great white world the only living things were the fur-clad man and boy and the shaggy-coated dogs that drew the sleds steadily northward. Gradually it grew lighter and the stars paled before the increasing glow of the aurora. Broad banners flashed and waned in the heavens, and thin streamers of changing lights writhed and twisted sinuously, illuminating the drear landscape with a dull, uncanny light in which objects appeared strangely distorted and unreal.
Was it possible that other eyes had looked upon these cold, dead mountains? That other feet had trodden the snows of this forsaken world-waste? It seemed to the tired boy that they had passed the uttermost reach of men, and gazed for the first time upon a new and lifeless land.
They eased out of a ravine on a long slant, and at the top Connie halted McDougall'smalamutesand waited for Waseche Bill, whose sled had nosed deep into the soft snow of a huge drift. The man wrenched it free and urged on his dogs, which humped to the pull and clawed their way to the top, sending little showers of flinty snow rustling into the ravine. As the boy started the big ten-team, the light grew suddenly brighter. The whole North seemed bathed in a weird, greenish glow. Directly before him a broad banner flashed and blazed, and in the bright flare of light, upon the very edge of the vast frozen plain, loomed a great white mountain whose top seemed sheared by a single stroke of a giant sword! The boy's heart leaped with joy.
"The flat mountain! It's here! It's here!" he cried, and up over the rim of the ravine rushed Waseche Bill, and in silence they gazed upon the welcome sight until the light disappeared in a final blaze of glory—and it was night.
Cachenumber two was easily located upon a shelf of rock before which a wind-whipped piece of cloth fluttered dejectedly at the top of a saplingfirmly embedded in the snow. In spite of the increased confidence in Carlson's map, it was not without some trepidation that the partners set out the following day upon the second lap of the dead man's lonely trail.
"Fr. FLAT MT. C 2. DUE E 4d C 1 STONE CAIRN RT. BANK FORK OF RIV. FOL. RIV. N-E." were the directions upon the trail map pinned with a sliver to a caribou haunch. It had been well enough to skirt the great mountain range beyond which, to the westward, lay Alaska. It was quite another thing, however, to turn their backs upon this range and strike due east across the vast snow-covered plain which stretched, far as the eye could reach, as level as the surface of a frozen sea. For four days they must mush eastward across this white expanse, without so much as a hill or a thicket to guide—must hold, by compass alone, a course so true that it would bring them, at the end of four days, to a certain solitary rock cairn at the fork of an unnamed river. Even the hardened oldtillicum, Waseche Bill,hesitated as the dogs stood harnessed, awaiting the word of command, and glanced questioningly into the upturned face of the small boy:
"It's a long shot, son, what do yo' say?" His answer was the thin whine of the boy's long-lashed dog whip that ended in a vicious crack at the ears of McDougall's leaders:
"Mush-u, mush-u, hi!" and the boy whirled the long ten-team away from the mountains, straight into the heart of the Lillimuit.
The crust of the snow that lay deep over the frozen muskeg and tundra was ideal for sled-travel and, of course, rendered unnecessary the use of snowshoes. All day long the steel-blue, cold fog hung in the north, obliterating the line of the flat horizon. The bitter wind that whipped and tore out of the Arctic died down at nightfall and, for the first time in their lives, the two felt the awful depression of the real Arctic silence. Mountain men, these, used to the mighty uproar of frost-tortured nature. The silence they knew was punctuated by the long crash of snow cornicesas they tore loose from mountain crags and plunged into deep valleys to the roar of a riven forest; by the sudden boom of exploding trees; and the wild bellowing of lake ice, split from shore to wooded shore in the mighty grip of the frost king.
But here, on the frozen muskeg, was no sound—only the dead, unearthly silence that pressed upon them like an all-pervadingthing. Closer and closer it pressed, until their lungs breathed, not air—butsilence—the dreaded, surcharged silence of the void—the uncanny silence that has caused strong men to leap, screaming and shrieking, upon it and, bare-handed, seek to wring its awful secrets from its heart—and then to fall back upon the snow and maunder and laugh at the blood stains where the claw-like nails have bitten deep into their palms—but they feel no pain and gloat foolishly—for to their poor, tortured brains this blood is the heart's blood of the Silence of the North.
On the fourth day the ground rose slightly fromthe low level of the muskeg. All day they traversed long, low hills—which were not hills at all, but the roll of the barren ground, and in the evening came upon the bank of the river, but whether above or below the fork they could not tell.
"We'll follow it down—nawthwahd—fo' that's what the map says, an' if we do miss thecache, we'll strike the Ignatook camp in two mo' days. We got grub enough if a stawm don't hit us. I sho' am glad we-all didn't get catched out yondeh." The man's eyes swept the wide expanse of barrens that lay between them and the distant peaks. "It's a good hund'ed an' fifty mile acrost them flats—we sho' was lucky!"
The ice-locked river upon which they found themselves was a stream of considerable size which flowed north, with a decided trend to the eastward. The muskeg and tundra had given place to the rocky formation of the barren lands which cropped out upon the banks of the river in rock reefs and ledges. Scrub trees and bushesin sickly patches fringed the banks, their leafless branches rattling in the wind.
An hour's travel on the snow-covered ice of the river brought them to a sharp bend where a river flowed in from the eastward, and there, almost at the confluence of the two streams, stood the solitary rock cairn, a monument some seven feet in height and five feet in diameter at its base.
"He didn'tcacheno great sight of meat heah," observed Waseche as, one by one, they removed the stones of the cairn. "We got a plenty, but I counted on this fo' the dawgs." Even as he spoke, they came upon a flat stone midway of the pile, which required their combined strength to displace. With a harsh, grating sound it slid sidewise into the snow, disclosing a considerable cavity, in the centre of which lay, not the expectedcacheof caribou meat, but a human skull, whose fleshless jaws grinned into their startled faces in sardonic mockery. Beside the skull lay a leaf torn from Carlson's notebook, and in Carlson's handwriting the words:
FOL. RIV. 2d N to CREEK OF STEAM. FOL. UP CREEK 2m. CAMP W BANK IN OLD MINE TUNNEL. DISCOVERY 100ft. E. TUNNEL MOUTH. 1 ABOVE CLAIM—STAKED FOR PETE MATEESE. LOOK OUT FOR WHITE INJUNS.
FOL. RIV. 2d N to CREEK OF STEAM. FOL. UP CREEK 2m. CAMP W BANK IN OLD MINE TUNNEL. DISCOVERY 100ft. E. TUNNEL MOUTH. 1 ABOVE CLAIM—STAKED FOR PETE MATEESE. LOOK OUT FOR WHITE INJUNS.
"Ol' mine tunnel! White Injuns!" exclaimed Waseche. "I tell yo' what, son: so fah, Carlson's maps has hit out, but when he begins writin' about white Injuns an' ol' mine tunnels, an'cachin'skull bones, 'stead of meat! It's jest as I tol' yo'! We-all got to keep on now, but I sho' wisht we'd neveh found Carlson an' his crazy maps."
"Whose skull do you suppose it is? And why did hecacheit, I wonder?" asked Connie, as he handled gingerly the gruesome object.
"Seahch me!" said the man, glancing at the weather blackened skull. "Come on, le's mush."
As they advanced the surface of the surrounding land became more broken and the river descendedrapidly in a series of falls, enclosed by the freezing spray, in huge irregular masses of green-hued ice, which impeded their progress and taxed to the utmost the skill of the drivers and the tricks of the trail-wise dogs in preventing the sleds from being dashed to pieces upon the slope of the ice domes, from whose hollow interiors came the muffled roar of the plunging falls.
The dogs were again on half ration, and even this was a serious drain upon the supply of meat. The walls of the river became higher until, on the second day, they were threading a veritable canyon. At noon the light dimmed suddenly, and the two gazed in surprise at the sun which glowed with a sickly, vapoury glare, while all about them the air was filled with tiny glittering frost flakes, which lay thick and fluffy under their feet and collected in diamond flashing clusters on the rocks and bushes of the canyon walls.
"It's snowing!" cried Connie, excitedly. "Snowing at forty below!"
"'Tain't snow, son. It's frozen fog, an' Icain't sense it. I c'n see how it might thick up an' snow, even at forty below, but fog! Doggone it! It takes wahm weatheh tomakefog—an' it ain't wahm!"
Toggling the lead dogs, they selected a spot where the wall of the canyon was riven by the deep gash of a small feeder and climbed laboriously to the top for a better view of the puzzling phenomenon.
Scarcely a quarter of a mile ahead a great bank of fog ascended, rolling and twisting toward the heavens. Slowly it rose from out of the snow, spreading into the motionless air like a giant mushroom of glittering diamond points which danced merrily earthward, converting the whole landscape into a mystic tinsel world. Far to the westward the bank extended, winding and twisting like some great living monster.
"It's the creek of the steam!" cried Waseche Bill. "It's theah wheah Carlson's camp is." But, so entranced was the boy with the weird beauty of the scene, that he scarcely heard.He pointed excitedly toward a low hill whose sides were wooded with the scrub timber of the country, where each stunted tree, each limb and spiney leaf curved gracefully under its weight of flashing rime. Towers, battlements, and spires glinted in the brilliant splendour, for, out of the direct line of the fog bank that hung above the course of the narrow creek, the sun shone as clear and bright as the low-hung winter sun of the sub-Arctic ever does shine, and its slanting rays flashed sharply from a billion tiny facets.
"It's the frozen forest that he wrote about!" exclaimed the delighted boy. "It's the most beautiful thing in the world! Now, aren't you glad you came?" But Waseche Bill shook his head dubiously, and began the descent to the canyon.
"Why! Where are the dogs!" cried the boy, who was first upon the surface of the river. Waseche hurried to his side; sure enough, neither dogs nor sleds were in sight and the man leaped forward to examine the thick carpet of rime.