THE END OF THE LONG TRAIL
THE END OF THE LONG TRAIL
THE END OF THE LONG TRAIL
The transformation was complete. It was beyond anything that had been dreamed of by those who had foreseen the thing that would happen. It had come with that startling rapidity which the lure and magic of gold never fails to bring about.
Just before the break of spring saw the return to the Caribou of Chilcoot and Bill Wilder. But their return was very different from their adventurous going, when it had been a desperate race against the season. They came while the grip of the Arctic night was still fast upon the great waterways, and before the sun had lifted its shining face above the horizon. They came with a great equipment of men and material on heavily laden dog-sleds. They came with all speed that not a moment of the coming daylight might be lost, and to head off the rush of the human tide that was already strung out behind them for the new adventure.
Bill Wilder had not permitted the grievous tragedy he had witnessed on the upper waters of the Hekor to deflect his purpose one iota. The shock of the thing he had witnessed had been painful beyond words. For the blind leader of the Euralian marauders he had had not one grain of pity. For the great Indian, who had given his life to the loyal service of the girl he loved, there had been a regret that was not untinged with a sensation of relief. He felt somehow that the thing was right; he felt that had the demented creature achieved his purpose and himself escaped, the position would have been fraught with serious complications, not to say dangers. Usak would have expected to return to his service of Felice as though nothing had happened. He would have demanded the thing he looked upon as his right. And to hold his place at her side he would have been prepared to use any and all the methods his savage mind prompted.
Wilder’s duty would have been obvious. The man had committed his wanton crime. He was a serious danger to them all. Even, he felt, to the girl herself. There would have been nothing for him to do but hand the story of the crime to his friend, George Raymes. That would have deeply involved him. The Kid would have been hurt, hurt as he had no desire to hurt her, with the knowledge of the hideous crime, and that the full penalty of whiteman’s law had fallen upon the man who had been a second father and devoted servant to her. As it was she need never know the thing that had happened. No one need ever know the thing that had happened, except Raymes, and perhaps Chilcoot, who would, he knew, remain as silent as the grave.
He had felt it was all for the best. And somehow, in those moments in which he had witnessed the calm courage with which the Indian had faced his terrible end a feeling of intense admiration and sympathy went out to the savage whose conception of manhood was so curious a blending of downright honesty and loyalty, of hate to the limit of fiendish cruelty, and of an invincible courage in face of personal disaster.
But for the little Japanese woman his feelings were stirred to the deepest. When he thought of her, body and soul he hated the ruthless Indian with all the passionate manhood in him. And the more deeply he pondered her tragic end, the more surely he cried out against the seeming injustice that Fate could have allowed it to come to pass.
He had sat for hours over the flickering camp fire before he contemplated continuing his labours. But in the end the shock of the horror passed, and the urgency of the moment bestirred him. There was nothing to be done but to continue his journey. There was no need even to obliterate such traces of the camp as might remain. It was the way of Nature in these far-flung regions to hide up man’s track almost in the moment of his passing.
So he had made his way down to Placer, not even pausing at the rapids at the mouth of the Caribou, so vivid with happy memories for him. It was a journey of weeks that taxed every ounce of the manhood in him. For the night of winter had fallen, and the storming world about him was often doubly blinded. But he reached his destination at last, and reached it with the last of the open water.
It was his return to Placer that set the whole city agog. It was known he had been about in the north for two open seasons. And the conclusions drawn were natural enough in a gold community watching the movements of the man who was the leading figure in the traffic upon which it was engaged.
He denied every inquiry by which he was assailed. He denied even his friend, and, for the time being, chief, George Raymes. He visited him at once. And with his first greeting explained in a fashion he had long since prepared.
“I’m right glad to see you again, George,” he declared, as they gripped hands. “Ther’ve been times when I didn’t guess it would happen ever. But I’ve so far beat the game, and I’m glad. Now, see, right here,” he went on, smiling whimsically into the other’s questioning eyes, “I haven’t any report to hand you yet. And I’ll take it more than friendly you don’t ask me a thing. I’m setting right out with one big outfit, and if the game goes my way I’ll be right back when the earth’s dry, and the skitters are humming. And when that time comes I’ll hand you a story that ought to set you sky high with the folks who run your end of the game. Do you feel like acting that way?”
The policeman was content. He knew Wilder too well to press him. Besides, Chilcoot had been in the city weeks. Chilcoot had been in close contact with the Gold Commissioner. Furthermore, Chilcoot had been preparing the return outfit, collecting men and material for a swift rush, and had talked with him in his office. So he readily acquiesced, and left these “special” constables to work out their plans in the way they saw fit.
But the whisper had gone round. Bill Wilder and Chilcoot Massy were preparing a great outfit for the trail. Bill Wilder and Chilcoot Massy were buying largely. And their purchases were of all that material required in the exploitation of a big “strike.” Then word had leaked out through the Gold Commissioner’s office, as, somehow, it always contrived to do when something of real magnitude was afoot. So the “sharps,” and the “wise-guys,” and the traders, and all the riff-raff, ready to jump in on anything offering a promise of easy gain, bestirred themselves out of their winter’s pursuit of pleasure. Not one, but a hundred outfits were quietly being prepared with the deliberate intention of dogging these great captains of the gold trade to their destination. Chilcoot and Wilder were preparing for the winter trail. And as a result every dog and sled within the city was brought into commission.
Then had come the setting out. It was arranged with the utmost secrecy. The preparations of these men had been made beyond the straggling town’s limits, so that the get-away could be as sudden as they chose to make it. Every man engaged to accompany them was under bond to report each day at the camp at a given hour, and this had gone on since the moment of their engagement. It was on this rule Wilder depended for his get-away from those who were determined to follow.
For days and weeks the outfit stood ready. Each day the dogs were harnessed, and every man was in his place. Then the word was passed to unhitch, and the men were permitted to return to the city.
The intending pursuit knew the game from A to Z. It was not new. It had been practised a hundred times. It was no less ready. It was no less on the watch. When the start was actually made word would reach them within two hours and the whole wolf pack would jump.
So it happened. One day the men did not return to the city. But word came back, and the rush began. Out into the twilight of the Arctic night leapt the army of trail dogs and their teamsters. Hundreds of sleds hissed their way over the snow-bed on the great river. Hundreds of voices shouted the jargon of the trail at their eager beasts of burden, and the fierce whips flung out. Many were rushing on disaster in the blind northern night. Many would never reach the hoped-for goal to grab the alluring wealth from the bosom of mother earth. But that was always the way of it. Whatever the threat, whatever the dread, whatever the possibility of disaster, the lust of gold in the hearts of these people remained triumphant.
But the thing worked out for Wilder as he designed. The old tried artifice gave him the start he needed. Three hours was all he required. For the rest these hardy adventurers behind him would never see the snow dust from his sled runners. He was equipped for a speed such as none of them could compete with, and if the weather became bad he calculated to lose the pursuit utterly.
It was a storming journey. The North he loved and courted did her best for him in return. Snow-storm and blizzard came to his aid, and, after weeks of terrible hardship, he reached the Caribou with his track lost beneath feet of drift snow.
He had gained all the time he needed. And so when the spring sun rose above the horizon, and the world of ice began its thunderous peals of disintegration, and the hordes of Placer swarmed on the banks of the Caribou he had established his outfit upon the staked claims ready to hurl at the work before him, and defend his property from all lawless aggression.
With the return of daylight it was a bewildering scene on the river. From its mouth right up to the gold-working on the creek, which had lain so long hidden, the tide of adventurers was swarming. And almost with every passing hour the flood seemed to grow. The low banks were dotted with tents and habitations of almost every sort of primitive construction. And men and women, and even children, were like human flies where for ages the silence of the North had remained all unbroken.
As the season advanced and the fever of work developed to its height, the reality of the thing became evident. Gold? Why the original strike was little more than the fringe of the thing awaiting those whose hardihood had been sufficient for them to survive the winter journey. The creek, as Chilcoot had suggested, was laden with its immense treasure, and rich claims were staked for ten miles up its narrow course. “The Luck of the Kid,” as Wilder had christened it, was a veritable Eldorado.
The homestead lying back in its shelter of windswept bluff had no place in the bustle and traffic on the river. It was a home of even deeper calm now than was its wont when the northern world aroused itself at the dawn of the open season. Usually at such a time the caribou herd was brought in, and the work its advent entailed never failed to absorb the rising spirits of those young lives, ready like the simple wild flowers of spring, to hurl themselves into their annual labours after the long night of winter’s inactivity. Usually at such a time it was the hub of life upon the river, literally teeming in contrast with the stillness of the cheerless valley. But now the herd remained at large free to drift back to its original wild state. The corrals were empty and unrepaired, for there was no Usak to guide the efforts of the half-breed Eskimo, and no half-breed Eskimo to need such guidance.
The farm had died in the winter night. And curiously enough there were no mourners. All that remained was the homestead itself, with Hesther McLeod and the girl children, and the Kid, to enjoy its sturdy shelter. The half-breeds had joined in the rush for gold. And Clarence, and Alg, and Perse were out there, away up the river “batching it” on their claims, absorbed in the exhilarating pursuit of extracting the wealth which had been literally flung into their hands. Then Usak had failed to return from his “one big trip.”
Hesther and the Kid were at the kitchen door, and with them was the author of the amazing transformation.
It was a day of brilliant sunshine with a spring sky of white, frothing, windswept cloud that broke, and gathered, and swept on, yielding a vision of brilliant blue sky at every break. Already the flies were making their presence felt, and the river was a rushing torrent, wide, and deep, and brown with the sweepings of its completely submerged banks.
They were gazing out upon the distant panorama of the busy river. They were watching the general movement going on. There were men moving up, packing their goods afoot since the river was for the moment un-navigable for the light craft, which, as yet, were alone available. There were traders building shanties for the housing of their wares. There were tents which sheltered those who were relying on the gambler’s desire for their share in the feast. There were other habitations which housed, the even more disreputable creatures, who, like vultures, hover always in the distance waiting to glut themselves upon the spoils of the wayside. Then, much more in their appeal to the gentle mind of Hesther, there were the figures of women, staunch, devoted women carrying on their simple domestic labours while their men were absent farther up the river seeking the treasure which their dazzled eyes yearned to gaze upon.
For all they were gazing upon the scene Hesther and the Kid were far more deeply interested in Bill Wilder and the thing he was saying. The eyes of the girl were shining with unfeigned happiness and delight. The long winter of his absence had been ended weeks ago, and his early return had transformed her whole outlook. From the moment of his coming there had been no more darkness for her, no more anxious waiting. For had not almost his first words been to tell her that his work, that work which had taken him from her side, was finished; completely, successfully finished. The excitement of the gold rush, the excitement of the boys had left her undisturbed. But the happy excitement of this man’s return had thrilled her in a fashion that left her without thought or care for anything else. And now he was detailing those plans which envisaged for her simple mind all that was beautiful and desirable in life.
“You see,” he said, “ther’s not a thing here now to keep us. It’s just the other way around. All this.” He indicated the life on the river. “We best get out before—before it gets worse, as it surely will.”
He turned directly to Hesther.
“My organization’s right up there on the claims, under the control of Chilcoot, and they’re working your stuff same as if it was for me. And the result of it’ll come along through my office, just the same as if it was mine. I’m not needed around up there. Maybe I best tell you I’m so full of gold I don’t care ever to see fresh colour. I want to quit it all, and take you folks along with me. The boys can stop around and Chilcoot’ll see to ’em. And we’ll just get along down and fix things the way we want ’em. Ther’s a swell house waiting in Placer for you, mam. It’s all fixed good. It’s your home, for you an’ yours just as soon as you feel like taking possession, and maybe the Kid here’ll feel like stopping along with you till—till—Say,” he turned to the smiling girl, “we won’t let a thing keep us waiting, eh? We’ll get married right away in Placer, just as quick as things can be fixed right. Then your Mum, here, can choose just where she feels like living. That so?”
There was no need for verbal response. It was there in the girl’s eyes, which smiled happily up into his as she slipped her brown hand through his arm.
“That’s the way I’d like to fix things,” he went on, taking possession of the girl’s hand. “Does it suit you, mam?” he said, turning again to Hesther. “Just say right here. Ther’s a bank roll waiting on you down there, in the way of an advance on the stuff that’s coming to you out of your claim. And I’ll be around all the time to see you ain’t worried a thing.”
The gentle-eyed mother opened her lips to speak. But words seemed difficult under his steady gaze. Wilder glanced quickly away, and the woman’s emotion passed.
“I just don’t know how to say the thing I feel, Bill,” she said softly. “The thing you’ve been to me an’ mine. God’ll surely bless you, an’—an’—”
Bill laughed. He felt his laugh was needed.
“Not a word that way. Say, you been mother to my little Kid. It goes?”
“Sure. The thing you say goes with me—all the time.” Hesther glanced hastily back into the kitchen. She was seeking excuse and found it in her simple labours.
“I guess that stew’ll be boilin’,” she said. “I’ll go fix it.”
And Billy’s happy smile followed her into the room, while he caressed the hand he was holding.
Bill and the Kid had passed on down to the landing so pregnant with memories for them both.
It was the girl who was talking now while the man stared out down the busy river.
“You know, Bill. I just don’t sort of understand the way this—this gold makes folks act. It sort of seems to set them kind of crazy. The boys are the same. I used to feel it would be fine to have dollars an’ dollars. I used to think of all the swell food and clothes I’d buy for the boys, an’ Hesther, an’ the girls. That was all right. But I didn’t get crazy for gold like these folk. You say ther’s a heap of gold in my claim. I—I don’t seem to feel I want a thing of it. True I don’t.” She laughed. “Maybe you’ll guess I’m more crazy than they are. Do you?”
Bill shook his head.
“No, Kid. I don’t,” he said gently. “I’m glad. Later, maybe, when we’re married, and you’ve got around, and learned about things, and seen the things you can have with gold you’ll feel different. But I’m glad it don’t get you that way now. I tell you ther’s a big heap more to life than this gold. But ther’s a heap of good things you can do with gold. You feel you want to make other folks happy and comfortable? Well, gold’ll help you that way. I bin all my life collecting a bunch of this dam old stuff, and I’d learned to hate it good. Well, it’s not that way now. Say, I just lie awake at nights thinkin’ the things I can do for you, and the folks belonging to you. And I got to like the darn stuff again. And I’m just as crazy glad as all those other poor folk I got it.” He smiled whimsically down into the girl’s eyes. “The outfit’s ready, Kid. I’ve had it ready days,” he went on. “Ther’s two big canoes, and they’ll hold your Mum, and the gals, and you and me and the half-breeds to paddle. When do you say, little girl? It’s right up to you.”
He waited anxiously for the girl’s reply. Watching her he saw the happy smile fade abruptly out of her eyes, and he knew the bad moment he had foreseen had arrived.
“Usak hasn’t got back,” she said quickly.
“No.”
Suddenly the girl withdrew her hand from the rough cloth arm of the man’s pea-jacket.
“You know I just can’t understand the thing that’s happened. He’s been gone six months. He went, as I told you, right after you, and we haven’t heard a thing. You know, Bill, it kind of seems to me he’s—dead. I sort of feel it right here,” she went on, pressing her hands to her bosom. “An’—an’ I feel—Oh, he was an Indian I know, but he was the feller who raised me like a father an’ mother. An’ I sort of loved him for it, an’—an’—I just can’t bear to quit till—till— Don’t you understand? I sort of feel I must wait for him. It would break him all up if I quit him. And I—I don’t want to quit him. Indeed I don’t.”
For some moments Bill made no attempt to reply. He remained staring out at the surging river as it roared on down under the freshet. He did not even attempt to comfort the girl in her obvious distress.
It was difficult. But Bill was steadily resolved not to tell the real truth as he knew it. It would break her heart to know Usak to be the fierce fiend he was. No. If necessary he would lie in preference.
He shook his head at last.
“He won’t come back,” he said decidedly. “Get a grip on the position. He went on a winter trip. He set out in his kyak, you told me. He went with a light outfit and his rifle. Why, his kyak couldn’t carry two months’ grub, an’ he’s been away six. Let’s guess a bit. We know this old North. The winter trail. We know these rivers with the ice crowding down on ’em. We know you’ve only to beat the winter trail long enough to get your med’cine. The North gets us all beaten in the end if we don’t quit in time. The one way trail’s claimed Usak, little girl, if I’m a judge. No. Don’t wait on his return. If he gets back Chilcoot’ll send him right along on to us. If he’s alive I mean to have him with us. I squared things with him before he went so he’ll be glad to be with us both. Let’s leave it that way. Eh?”
The girl’s hand had stolen back to its place on the man’s arm, and he took possession of it again. To her he was irresistible, and then there was that wonderful, wonderful time coming.
She nodded her fair head, and the smile dawned once more in her eyes.
“I guess it’s best—but—”
“That’s right.”
The man drew a deep breath of relief. He had been saved a deliberate lie. And his eyes smiled.
“To-morrow?” he said quickly.
But the girl was no less quick in her denial.
“Mum couldn’t be ready. Ther’s the boys.”
Bill laughed.
“I forgot. This day week, eh?” he went on urgently. “The river’ll slacken then. That do?”
The Kid laughed happily as he squeezed the soft hand lying so contentedly in his.
Superintendent Raymes laid aside the folded sheets of the closely written report which he had read several times over. For a moment he sat gazing at it thoughtfully. Then he reached across his desk and selected a long cigar, and passed the box to his visitor and temporary subordinate.
“Best take one, Bill,” he said. Then he laughed quietly. “You can only die once.”
“But I don’t want to die—now.”
Bill shook his head and pulled a pipe from the pocket of his pea-jacket.
In a moment both men were smoking. Bill gazed about him while he waited for the other to speak. It was the same office he had always known. Simple, plain, typical of the lives of these Mounted Policemen. Somehow it appealed to him just now infinitely more than it had ever done before. He remembered his mood that time when he had sat in the same chair two years before. And somehow he wanted to laugh.
“It’s an amazing story, Bill,” Raymes said after awhile. “I guessed when I got you interested two years back there was a deal to it. But I never reckoned it was going to be the thing it is. Say—” His eyes lit and he swung his chair about and faced the other while he held his cigar poised streaming its smoke upon the somewhat dense atmosphere of the room. “By all accounts the folk hereabouts owe you a deal for the nosing of Le Gros’ ‘strike.’ It’s the biggest since ‘Eighty-Mile’?”
Bill shook his head.
“Nobody owes me a thing—not even thanks. We’ve helped ourselves. And I’ve helped myself most of all.”
“But I thought you said you hadn’t a claim on it?”
“That’s so.”
“Well?”
Bill laughed outright.
“Guess you’ve forgotten the ‘girl-child, white.’” Raymes nodded. His usually sober face was smiling in response.
“I know. You located her.”
“Sure I did.” Bill sucked happily at his old pipe. “I located her. And I brought her and her folks right down with me to this city. I fixed ’em all up in a swell house, and made things right for them. The Kid and I are going to be married in two weeks from now. And I’ll take it friendly for you to stand by me when the passon fixes things. No, I don’t guess anyone owes me a thing. The Kid herself is my claim, an’ she’s chock full of the only gold that sets me yearning.”
“Well, say!”
The police officer sat gazing in smiling astonishment.
“Seems queer?”
“No. I’m just glad I’ve had a hand in passing you that claim. Good luck, Bill. I’m sure your man.”
Bill gripped the hand thrust out at him. Then the smile passed out of both men’s faces as if by agreement. After all the policeman’s work was his foremost concern.
“It don’t seem to me there’s a thing to do about your story of this murdering Indian, and the folks he dragged to death with him,” he said, in his alert official way. “In a way it’s a sort of poetic justice on all concerned. I’ll need to pass it along with the official report, but it’ll maybe just end right there. But these Euralians. That’s a swell scoop for me, sure. It’s a thing for Ottawa, an’ll need to go down in detail. Maybe you’ll be needed to hand further information. Japanese, eh? Well, it isn’t new in this western country. It’s the same from northern Alaska down to Panama. The darn continent’s alive with ’em, penetrating peacefully, and robbing us white folks of our birthright. You know, Bill ther’s a bad day coming for us whites. We sit around an’ look on, shrugging our shoulders, and eating and sleeping well. And all the time this thing’s creeping on us, like some dam disease. The Americans know it, and are alive to the danger. We don’t seem to worry. At least, not officially. But I sort of see the day coming when this thing’s got to be fought sheer out, and I’m by no means sure of the outcome. We’re told the Yellow man in the West outnumbers the White. But that don’t suggest a thing of the reality. When the Yellow men mean to strike you’ll find they’ve honeycombed this country, and the States, and it’ll be something like four to one waiting to rise at the given word. Yes, it’s bad,” he finished up, with a grave shake of the head. “But you certainly have given me a swell scoop that should help my boat along with Ottawa. Guess you won’t feel like quitting our territory now, eh?”
The man’s manner had changed from gravity to something bantering as he put his question.
“More than ever,” Bill said, with a shake of the head.
“But it’s the North’s given you all—this?”
“Yes. That’s so, George.” Bill knocked out his pipe. “But you don’t know. Felice has been raised in the darkness of that darn region, almost without decent human comfort. She hasn’t known a thing but buckskin and the river trail, and the flies and skitters of a barren world for twenty of the best years of her life. She doesn’t know a thing but an almighty fight to make three meals of food a day, and a night passed in queer brown blankets an’ caribou pelts. Well, it’s up to me to teach her the thing life is and can be. I’m going to. I’m going to give her such a time she won’t remember those days. She’s going where the sun’s warm and life’s dead easy. And so are those belonging to her. It’s up to me, and I’m out to do it. You haven’t seen her yet. You’d understand if you had. She’s right outside sitting waiting for me in the buggy. Will you come along and say a word of welcome to her?”
Bill had risen to his feet. There was just a shade of eagerness in his invitation. It was almost as if he feared reluctance in this old friend of his.
But there was none. Not a shadow. Raymes rose from his desk on the instant, and his eyes were full of swift censure.
“You kept her waiting there, Bill?” he cried. “You? Say, come right on and present me, so I can tell her the thing I think of you.”