CHAPTER XVIIITHE TRADEThe records could hardly have been worse and the machine was suffering badly from the asthma, but the Shaman could not have shown more appreciation had it been the grandest combination in existence. “Won’t you come Home, Bill Bailey?” seemed to give him complete satisfaction, but “Ain’t It Funny When You’re Out of Money That the Only Thing You Get Is Sympathy?” brought forth an expressive grunt, while “If You Ain’t Got No Money, Why You Needn’t Come Around,” appeared to afford him great pleasure. Then Alex made the mistake he had been dreading all the evening. After winding up the machine he slipped in a fresh record and started it going. At the first snappy, scratching, breaking sounds, Alex and Ike looked at each other in dismay. It was the worst record in the lot because it had been their favorite and had been played over and over again until it was only a battered wreck, seamed with scratches and disfigured by cracks. Of the former Battle Hymn of the Republic there remained only a few unintelligible words and a discordant discord.The boys glanced at the Shaman fearfully and were surprised to find him grinning with delight at the awful discord.“I know that spirit,” he declared, proudly, as the record ended with one last abrupt crash, “It’s the voice of Luna, the great Yukon spirit. It is his voice. I know it. Many seasons I have heard it when he was breaking up the ice in the spring. Have you more of the spirits to put into the box?”But Alex was not going to risk another mistake. It might not turn out so fortunately next time. “There are dozens more of them,” he said, “but we are getting tired of calling them forth. It is enough for tonight. We have proved that all white men are not liars.”“It is true,” agreed the Shaman, “but,” he added, thoughtfully, “you are not grown to man’s size yet.”“Maybe we trade it to the Shaman in the next village,” Ike suggested with a guileless face.But the Shaman protested violently. “They were not all good Shamans like himself in the other villages. They would certainly cheat and rob him. Why did he not trade with him? He had a big heart. He always gave more than he received. Then, too, he was losing power over his people. There were the priests that traveled summer and winter through the land, treating the sick for nothing and always talking against the medicine men and forever preaching a new faith that might be all right in another land, but which would not work in the Northland, where life was cruel and no man could love his brother like himself. Many of his own tribe had embraced the faith and openly laughed at his power. And soon he, the Shaman, whose father had been a Shaman, and whose father’s father had been a Shaman, would be regarded as only a common man in the tribe. The wondrous box would help him to regain his power. His people would be convinced of his greatness when he summoned the spirits to talk and sing to them, but to give up the finest team in Alaska, that was too much.”This was Ike’s cue, and the bargaining that ensued was a thing worth remembering. From the lockers, Ike brought out some of all the things they had brought to barter, while the Shaman viewed the head with eyes of cupidity.Ike selected a dozen plugs of tobacco and laid them out in a row.The Shaman eyed them with envy, but controlled himself with an effort.“More,” he grunted.Ike wrung his hands and declared he was being robbed, but he added four more plugs of tobacco to the row. After all it was only the beginning of the battle and he had decided in the first place to give thirty plugs if he had to do so. For two hours the battle raged, the pile of trinkets before the Shaman growing steadily. Often the boys turned their heads aside to hide their grins at Ike who, with tears in his eyes, protested that he was being robbed, that he was a poor man with a sick child to support, and he was taking the bread from his child’s mouth to give to a stranger, but Ike’s wildest outbursts were met by the Esquimau, with a steady demand of:“More, more.”But it was not in the law of things for a Jew to be worsted by a mere Esquimau, so when Ike decided that the pile had grown big enough, he reached out and gathered it up in his arms. “We can not trade,” he shouted angrily. “Here I offer you gifts worthy of a prince, besides a box full of spirits, and all you say is ‘More, more,’ all the time. All these things I offer you for a few mangy dogs, so poor you can see their ribs and so old and worn out that they do not snap and bite like real huskies do. Go. Perhaps in the next village we will find a Shaman who is not a robber.”“Wait,” protested the Shaman, startled at all the rich treasure he was about to lose. “Let not a trifle upset a trade between friends. Just give me of those shiny things a few and our trade will be complete.” The shiny things were a box of coffin trimmings which Clay had brought as a venture because, though made of tin, they were cheap and bright and stamped out in the shape of birds, fruits and flowers.Alex measured out a quart of them with a reluctant hand. “Now you must keep the dogs for us till we come back in the fall. Not starve ’em, you understand, make them sleek and fat.”“It will take many salmon,” said the Shaman. For that there should be two more measures of the shiny birds and flowers.”Ike hastened to dole out the two measures, for he had expected to pay much more for the dogs’ keep.Business concluded, the boys showed the Shaman how to run the phonograph, and the wily savage departed as silently as he had come, all his newly gained treasure tightly rolled up in his dirty, greasy parka.“How much did the team cost us?” Alex inquired.Ike grinned. “Not so bad, you understand. Fifty dollars as near as I can tell and that includes their board.”“Why, that’s highway robbery,” Clay exclaimed. “Fifty dollars for a nine hundred dollar team of dogs is as bad as stealing.”“It’s business,” said Ike, placidly. “If he was smart enough, don’t you think he would take everything we have got? Besides,” he continued. “You needn’t worry about him. He will get plenty of furs with the things we gave him. I expect he make them coffin trimmings bring him in a fur for each trimming.”“Then the poor people of the villages have to pay for our bargain,” Alex said.“That is business also,” Ike remarked. “But I think the same as you, Clay. We get a good trade. When we come back let’s give them poor people plenty of good things to eat, so that they will not suffer from hunger this winter. Say we give five hundred dollars’ worth of rice, sugar, beans and flour. You see, we still have made a good trade for the team, the Shaman makes plenty of money off his coffin trimmings, and the box, and the poor people are contented because the hunger does not gnaw at their bellies.”“I am too sleepy to point it out,” yawned Clay, “but there’s a flaw some where in your reasoning. We beat a man out of his dogs for a few worthless trinkets. We gain, don’t we?” The man who owns the dogs gains, the people gain also. Nobody loses. Looks to me like high finance.”“High finance,” snorted Ike, indignantly. “Who ever heard of high finance giving back food to the people—a library or an institute, perhaps, but food, no. We might give them $500.00 worth of books,” he added thoughtfully, “on condition, you understand, that they raise another $500.00. The Shaman could be the librarian.”“You idiot,” grinned Clay, as he crawled into his bunk. “What do the Esquimaux want with books? They are too hungry, weary, and hopeless for books.”“Maybe,” admitted Ike, as he climbed into his own bunk, “but say, it would make us one splendid advertisement.”When they crowded up on deck after a hearty breakfast next morning, there curled up on the bank was Buck, surrounded by his family. At sight of Alex, he barked joyously, and the boy went ashore to bid the noble animal farewell. “Good-bye, Buck,” he whispered. “We will come back for you soon. Be patient, for it will only be a short time. Very soon we come and get you.”Buck wagged his tail mournfully at thought of the delay, but beamed with joy over Alex’s parting head patting.As they backed out of the cove, Alex glanced back. Buck was leading his family back to the settlement, but the big leader’s tail drooped mournfully and every few paces he would stop and gaze back at the retreating boat.The boys found that the steamer was some five miles ahead of them, but under full speed it took but a short time to range alongside the clumsy craft. The Kid, without waiting for an invitation, came sliding aboard. “Well, how did you like the village?” was his first query.“All right, except for the people, the huts and the smells,” Clay grinned and he proceeded to relate the story of their experiences.“Sure you’re going some for chekakos,” the Kid commented. “I’ve heard of that dog team. All the Yukon has for that matter, but few have seen it. I saw them once on the trail and I’d been glad to have traded my team for them and given two hundred dollars to boot, which is going some, for I’ve got one of the best teams on the Yukon.” The kid will be a lot of help too, if you can raise him. The Pymauts live not far from the Holy Cross Mission and the fathers have taught many of them to speak English and have converted many. He’ll come handy interpreting for you when you get down to trading with the tribes. I reckon I’ll step below and see how both of those chaps are making out,” he said.He was back soon with a smile on his face. “They are both sound asleep,” he said and I wouldn’t disturb them. “Sleep’s the best healer there is. I’ll see them again after they are awake,” he said.“Do you think your party would like to take a spin on theRamblertoday,” Clay asked, thoughtfully. “I mean of course, Miss—er—”“Ethel Mason,” supplied the Kid promptly. “Miss Ethel Mason and her parents, I mean, of course,” Clay said. “It would be a change from that slow, lumbering steamboat. They could troll for salmon—there are lots of them around here and we could have a fish dinner and maybe they would like the change from the steamer for even a day.”“They would,” exclaimed the Kid, brightly.“It’s rough on them—being only two women amongst such a raft of men. ’Course the men don’t, many of them, mean anything wrong but they haven’t seen anything but ugly Indian squaws for so long that they can’t help but stare when they see a pretty face peeping up like a flower out of the snow. Sure, they will come. I’ll get one of the crew to fix up a boatswain’s chair and lower them all three down easy.”“I’m so sorry you can’t come, Mr. Kid,” said Ike, regretfully.“But I am coming,” declared the Kid emphatically. “Why not?”“I thought you had to stay on board and guard that mail,” said Ike, innocently.The Kid reddened. “I’ll go up and tell them and see about getting that chair ready,” he said, hurriedly, as he clambered up the rope.“In a few minutes the chair was ready and the two old folks, followed by the girl, were lowered to theRambler’sdecks.Clay immediately decided that he liked all three of the visitors. The girl had a frank, boyish-looking face, charming in its gentleness and firmness. Her father was a great giant of a man with the quaintly gentle air of authority that one comes to associate with country storekeepers or local postmasters, while his wife was a kind-faced, motherly-looking woman. Clay decided that the Kid was right. These three gentle folks were not of the kind to meet the rough, lawless element of gold-mad Dawson.Mrs. Mason at once declared her desire to see the sick boys, of whom the Yukon Kid had told her.Ike led her below, having already informed the invalids of her coming. Case ground his teeth to shut out the groans. He was feeling worse than usual that morning. His wounds were knitting and the tortured nerves were crying out for mercy. He looked up suddenly to see a kindly face with tear-filled eyes bending over him and to hear a quite motherly voice saying, “You poor, poor boy; how you must be suffering.” A few deft pats to the pillow and a rearrangement of the blankets gave Case unspeakable relief. “Now, boy, just keep still and try to go to sleep,” commanded the gentle voice. “As soon as I look at that other poor boy. I’m going to come back and read to you for a while.”The little Esquimau met Mrs. Mason’s eyes with the dark mournful gaze bred by the untold suffering of hundreds of generations of hunger, suffering ancestors. The good woman groaned at the sight of the skin-covered bones. “You speak English?” she inquired with lips that trembled with emotion.“Yes, I speak the English,” he said weakly. “Learn it at Holy Cross Mission. Here all the same as Holy Cross, all clean and white and every one good and kind.”“You must lie still and get well,” commanded the lady, “so you can tell me much about the Holy Cross, and, always, eat of the things I send you. They will make you well and strong. Good-bye, I’ll see you again soon,” and the tender-hearted woman stumbled up the cabin stairs with eyes that could scarcely see through the tears that blinded them.“Go right back to the steamer,” she commanded Clay. “You boys have done your best for your sick companions, but there are some things you lack and I am going back to get them.”Clay signalled to Alex to turn around and in a few minutes theRamblerwas tearing her way back to the steamer.CHAPTER XIXWINTER QUARTERS“Slow her down, Clay, slow her down,” pleaded Case. “Slow her down,” shouted Alex from the bow. “I can’t do much with her going so fast.”It was a different scene from that, in which we last saw the boys. Long gone were the golden days when they had journeyed leisurely up the river with Mrs. Mason nursing Case and the Esquimau lad back to speedy health. Gone also were that exhilaration of shooting the rapids, and gone were the pleasant nights when, with a bad stretch of water ahead of them, the steamer and theRamblerhad tied up together at the bank and all had made merry by the light of big fires, singing, talking, and even dancing on the rough, uneven ground. Gone were the pleasant loitering days in gold-mad Dawson, mingling with the old timers, eager to lend a hand wherever needed and gaining in return many new quaint facts of the country and the trail. They had hardly noted the growing keenness in the air until the Kid, anxious still in his love affair, whispered to them that it was time for them to go, that much ice was already bubbling up in the smaller streams, and, knowing the Kid as they did, they had followed his advice. It was an exciting race with winter at their heels, but theRamblerdriving ahead with the current at a speed of from twenty-five to twenty-eight miles an hour, kept ahead of the big cold.At the Indian village they had stopped to get their dogs and buy furs from the Shaman who, fat and sleek, by artful trading, had acquired nearly all the furs from the hunters who were drifting in from the long hunt one by one. To the hunger-pinched poor folks, they gave the provisions Ike had suggested. They also gave them freely of their trinkets that they might not be tempted to trade off the precious food for the Shaman’s worthless baubles.Short as their stay had been, they were surprised at the change in the river. Much ice was bubbling to the surface like yeast. It was not the same Yukon upon which they had ridden up so pleasantly in summer. It was tempestuous with white-capped waves that battered against theRambler’sbow and sent icy showers of spray aft. By midday the fierce wind had died away and thin cakes of ice were floating on the surface.Slow her down, Clay,” Alex begged. “I can’t help much at the rate she’s going.” He was leaning over the bow, boat hook in hand, trying vainly to thrust to one side the blocks of ice that impeded theRambler’sprogress. While Case, well once more, was standing at the wheel, his alert eyes picking out the channels of open water freed from ice throes.Down in the cabin, Ike was already beginning the evening meal and talking gravely to Abe, whose wan face had filled out amazingly and who was clumsily trying to help fadder with the cooking.“Slow her down, can’t you?” Alex yelled again.Clay left the motor and made his way forward. “Do you see that mountain ahead where the river seems to make a bend? I noticed it when we were going up. Just beyond it is a snug little cove with a shelving beach. Just the place to winter in, it struck me. Now the shores here are not fit for a winter camp. They are too wind-swept. We have just got to make that cove. We simply can’t stop. The river will be frozen over by morning and when the ice breaks up in the spring, theRamblerwould be crushed into splinters between the floes. At this rate we can not make the cove before night. I don’t want the responsibility all on myself. But I think now is the time to make a break for it. The ice is thin yet and theRamblerhas got plenty of power and we know she has not got an unsound plank in her. I vote to try for the cove. What do you fellows say?”“I’m for it,” said Case, knocking his ice-cold hands against his body to take away the numbness. “Anything is better than this.”“The cove or bust,” Alex exclaimed, as he threw the boat hook up on the cabin top. “This spearing off ice floes is like bobbing for apples, only more so. One just gets wet and tired without getting any apples.”“All right,” Clay agreed. “Pick out the smoothest course you can, Case, and hold her to it.”He went back to the motor and slowly shoved the timer ahead. TheRambler, which before had been barely moving, suddenly gathered speed and leaped forward at the ice field ahead. She struck with a crash, and, scarcely pausing, darted forward to meet the next, leaving behind a rapidly closing wake filled with shattered ice.Clay, leaning out of her motor hold, grinned with delight. “She eats them, eats them up alive,” he exulted.But it was a dearly bought victory for the little boat, for when at last she reached the cove, her bow post was a mass of splinters, while long streamers of wood hung from her bruised sides, and showed where the sharp ice had torn streaks out of her oak planking.“Another victory like that would be a defeat,” remarked Case, as from the shore he viewed her wrecked appearance.A portion of the brief Arctic day remained, and it’s dim twilight glow was too precious to be wasted. Alex cut down a dead cottonwood tree and chopped it up for the Yukon stove, which they had bought at Dawson, on the Kid’s advice. While he was thus engaged, Ike, leaving Abe to look out for the cooking supper, came on deck to render his assistance. A thick layer of spruce boughs were cut and laid ahead of the boat, and, by use of rollers and block and tackle, the three managed to pull theRamblerout on her springy bed.“That will help to keep her warmer inside in winter,” Clay said with satisfaction. “We could never have kept her warm with her bottom resting on the ice. Now the next thing is to fix up the sides and cabin top so as to protect them from the stinging cold.”Long poles were cut and placed rafterwise from the peak of the pitched cabin roof to the ground. On these rafters they piled layer upon layer of small spruce boughs and banked up around the sides with a generous supply of the fragrant limbs. It was almost dark when their task was completed and they stood back and viewed the result with satisfaction. “A house inside a house,” Case said. “All it needs is a good fall of snow to fill up the chinks and we will be as snug as a bug in a rug.”They were all tired, cold, and hungry and it was a joy to descend into the brightly lit cabin where a merry fire crackled in the Yukon stove and a savory supper fresh from the fire, steamed on the table.“I wonder when we will see the Yukon Kid again,” said Case musingly, during a lull in the supper chatter. “He was due to leave St. Michael’s yesterday and I bet he started on time, for he’s fairly crazy to get back to his lady fair in Dawson.”Alex snorted in disgust. “Looks like all you fellows can think of is girls,” he sneered, and his companions shifted sheepishly in their chairs, expecting and dreading a storm of ridicule from his sharp little tongue. But Alex remained silent after his outburst. In truth, he was picturing for himself a dull and sombre future. As the others wandered on to other topics he sat thinking gloomily. Here was the Yukon Kid, mightiest of the mighty men of the North, hanging to the apron strings of a mere slip of a girl. Clay and Case both had girls in Chicago, he knew; they would soon be getting old enough to marry and then the fine long cruises would stop, for their wives would not let them go unless they went with them. Case’s red headed girl wouldn’t, he was certain. There would be no more trips. Only he and Ike would be left to talk over alone the glory of this trip. A horrible suspicion flashed into his mind, perhaps even Ike had a girl.“Ike,” he demanded, suddenly. “Where does Rebecca work?”“She works in a shirt waist factory. By and by she be forewoman,” Ike said proudly, caught unawares.A roar of laughter from the boys awoke him to the slip he had made. His face reddened and he resolutely closed his mouth and refused to commit himself further in reply to Alex’s adroit question.“It’s all right, Alex,” he said stoutly. “Maybe you got one little laugh on me now, you understand. But some day I get big laugh on you because I laugh last.”“Fadder,” interrupted Abe, “you better put mukluks by the fire to dry.”It was a rule of the trail, the Kid had tried to impress upon them, to always dry out their footwear after the day’s work, but it needed the grave voice of the child to recall it to them. Abe was born on the trail and he was learned in its dangers.“If Abe says so we had better do it and turn in,” Clay remarked, and soon five sets of footwear were ranged around the stock and the five boys were sound asleep in their bunks.It was Clay’s cheery “Get up, grub’s ready,” that awakened his sleeping companions.“What do you mean by having breakfast at such an unearthly hour?” grumbled Alex, tumbling out of his bunk and fumbling for his trousers. “Why, the cabin’s as dark as pitch.”Clay snapped on the electric lights. “We are late getting up this morning. Remember, young man, this is the season when the days grow short and we’ve got to make every minute of daylight count. Get up and thank your lucky star that you’ve got a partner good enough to get up before you, warm the cabin up, fry ham and eggs, and cook coffee for you.”The mention of food sent Alex tumbling into his clothes, an example his companions were not slow to follow.By the time they had finished eating, a wan light was stealing into the cabin windows. The last mouthful swallowed, they hurried up for a look at the river. It was a sheet of solid white from shore to shore. They all felt a feeling of gratitude that they had won to the little cove and were not penned up out there in that desolate waste exposed to the full fury of every gale. They now had time to note more closely the place in which their winter was to be passed. It was a tiny cove well protected from wintry blasts. On one side of them rose the big mountain; on the other side lofty crumbling cliffs protected them from the raw west winds, while back of them the ground rose in a gradual slope, densely covered by cottonwoods and spruces.“The first thing to do is to get out our snow shoes and practice breaking trails,” Clay declared. “We have got to harden our muscles and get used to it before we start out on the trading trips.”All of the boys, but Ike, had had on snow shoes before, but this task of breaking trail for the dogs was a new trick to them and they could not quite get the hang of it until the little Esquimau lad gravely strapped on a pair and showed them how the big webbed shoe must be lifted carefully up, straight up, until it cleared the surface, so that no snow should be tumbled into the packed place, then how it must be shoved cautiously ahead while the same careful uplifting must be repeated by the other foot. Ike’s first experiment plunged him into a snow drift, leaving only his big snow shoes waving madly above the surface.“Fadder, fadder,” cried Abe in delight. “If you want to walk on your hands tie the shoes on them.”Clay and Case grinned at each other. It was the first time either of them had heard the lad laugh. Clearly, under the nourishing food and kind treatment he was receiving, Abe was certainly picking up.The unaccustomed trail breaking brought into play muscles the boys never dreamed they possessed, and after a few hours’ practice, Clay called a halt. “We don’t want to try it too long at a time. Tomorrow we will do a little more and keep it up that way until we can do an all-day stunt. Then we will be fit to start out on our trading trips.”About noon the Yukon Kid hove in sight and with but little pressure, was induced to stay to dinner and rest up his tired dogs, which he had evidently been pushing hard.“I’ve got a bit of news for you,” he said between mouthfuls. “Got the true story of Bill and Jud. Got it straight from an old timer who lived in the same part of Ohio that Bill came from. Bill and Jud are brothers, but no more alike than a rotten egg is like a fresh laid one. Jud, he stuck to the farm and grew up big, strong, and honest, though I guess he would have done that anywhere. Bill hit for the city, and the village folks said they hoped he would never come back for he’d always been mean, lying and thieving, although Jud was always mighty fond of him and was always making excuses for him and claiming that it was only Bill’s high spirits that got him into mischief. Well, Bill got a job in a store and mighty proud of it Jud was, always telling people that Bill was getting along fine in the city Pretty soon the store people found out that their cash was turning up short every night and they traced it to Bill. He confessed and Jud put a mortgage on the farm and went up and settled with the store folks so that Bill wouldn’t be prosecuted, but the lesson didn’t do Bill any good, he kept getting lower and lower until he got to be a common holdup man and burglar. Then Jud up and sold his interest in the farm, and bid good-bye to the village folks, telling them that he was going to get Bill away from the bad fellows who were always leading him into trouble all the time. He made good his word evidently, for here they are up here on the Yukon with Jud looking out for Bill and keeping him as straight as he can. Funny ain’t it, how a good man like Jud will let himself be forced into bad ways just to keep a worse man from doing worse things. I reckon Jud would kill any one who tried to hurt his brother. Reckon that’s what the Good Book calls brotherly love, but I don’t take much stock in that kind of love myself, it’s too one-sided.”The Kid did not pause for much more conversation and the boys did not attempt to detain him, for they knew he was eager to be off for Dawson.“I’ll have more time to stay with you on my way back,” he shouted back to them as his rested team swung into line. “Oh! by the way. Bill and Jud are on the Yukon now somewhere. Heard they left Nome with two boats and a small outfit, but I haven’t passed them on the river.”CHAPTER XXTHE VISIONIt was not until they had practiced a week at the mock trail work that Clay decided they were in shape to tackle the real work of the trail. The week had wrought changes in them. It had been real work. Everything they had learned of the work from the old timers they had put into practice again and again until they had learned to do the thing with neatness and despatch. They were astonished at the miracle the week had wrought in themselves. Their bodies were stripped of every ounce of fat and new unknown muscles had sprung into notice while the old prominent ones had become as things of elastic steel. Their hunger was of the order of famished wolves and they grew to understand the look of knowing hunger in the eyes of their dogs as they wistfully watched them eat breakfast and supper, of which two meals the animals were not allowed to partake, but could only look on in wretched misery at their masters eating with such relish.Before leaving Dawson the boys had cleared out the forehold and had filled it with a great store of dried salmon. Of this, they gave their dogs more than double the quantity usually given by dog drivers. But they gave it to them only at night, according to the iron law of the trail, whose motto was that a full dog travels slow. Their first real trip was to the nearest of the Indian villages which seemed to inclose the Catholic Mission of the Holy Cross in a kind of semi-circle. They started with the usual trail traveler’s pack, containing only the things absolutely necessary, such as frying pan and a big kettle to cook in, a change of footgear and clothing for each, an axe and a fair amount of the staple food of the trail, beans, pork, coffee, flour and sugar. A smaller pack contained the supply of dried salmon for the dogs, and another of trading trinkets, while over all was strapped down tightly over the load a large square of waterproofed canvas, another of the Kid’s suggestions. It being the first trip and a novelty, all were eager to go, but none liked to leave theRambleralone. For, although well protected from view, there was the possible chance that some traveler might stumble upon the tiny cove and relieve theRamblerof some of her already diminishing stock of provisions. So it was decided that one should be left to guard the boat, that one to be decided by the drawing of straws. The short straw fell to Case to his intense disgust.“Just my luck,” he grumbled, “to be left behind on a day like this when the snow has just got a crust an elephant could not break through, and everything seems to promise the finest kind of weather. When I get a chance to go the snow will be five feet deep and we will have to pack trail every foot of the way right in the teeth of a sixty-mile gale.”What Case said about the conditions for traveling were true. They could hardly have selected a better time. The start was made long before daylight, Clay running side by side with the leader and striving to keep to the due south course by his pocket compass, but he soon realized that Buck sensed their destination and, like one on familiar ground, was picking his way toward a certain goal. Now and then he would swerve to one side to avoid a clump of trees or a steep gully, but always swinging back again and ever bearing back again to the south.“No use trying to guide that dog,” Clay panted as he fell back to join his companions who were half running to keep up with the flying sled. “He knows where we are going and the best way of getting there far better than I do myself. I don’t believe there’s another team like this in the world. Look how they run in perfect harmony with each other.”Their admiration for their team was further increased when, upon the rising of the sun, they looked back at the distant mountain from whose base they started only a few hours before. All the boys were feeling the tremendous pace at which they had traveled and Clay called a brief halt for them all to gain their breath. The dogs, obedient to his commands, dropped down in their traces and instantly curled up in the hard snow.“Look how much trail wisdom they’ve got,” said Alex in admiration. “They go like the wind, by they don’t waste a second when they get a chance to rest.”“We have got to borrow a little of their wisdom,” Clay observed. “If we don’t we will all of us be tired to death and have to camp long before the day is over. We had better take turns in riding on the sled, one at a time. That will give each man thirty minutes of running and fifteen minutes to rest up in. We ought to be able to hold on at that.”Even under this liberal arrangement, the boys were well pleased when the whole team stopped and curled up in their traces, close beside a bunch of cottonwood trees.“Get up! Push on there!” shouted Clay, surprised at the sudden action, but Buck only gave him a reproachful look.Alex grinned with delight. “Don’t disgust Buck right at the start by letting him know that you are a blamed chekako,” he advised. “He knows that it’s dinner time and that this is a mighty good place to cook with all the dead cottonwood lying around.”The boys fell to the work of getting dinner with the system of old timers. While Clay cut dead cottonwood, Ike built a fire and melted snow for coffee. Alex brought out a frozen sausage-like length of beans, ready cooked with a generous mixture of cubes of pork, from which he hacked short pieces and placed them into the frying pan to heat, continuing the operation until the pan was full. Then in a short time dinner was ready and the boys sat down to it with keen appetites. A short rest after, and they were off again. Before daylight ended, they swept around a high bluff into full sight of the village they sought. Buck, in his knowledge of the country, had brought them straight to their destination. Barking dogs and a crowd of natives met them at the village limits. The dogs’ barking ceased at sight of Buck who, with hair raised and teeth bared, gave utterance to one low ominous growl at which the dogs in front shrank back silently, leaving a path through their midst for the sled. Down it Buck walked in state with never a glance to left or right, moving like a king before his subjects.“He’s grand,” Clay exclaimed. “He’s the Yukon Kid of the dog trails.”It was evident that the natives thought so too, for they crowded around with grunts of envy and admiration.“Sell him?” queried one native, but Clay shook his head.“No sell.”“Trade?”“No trade for dogs. Trade for furs plenty. Got a pack full of wonderful things.”The crowd of Esquimaux greeted this announcement with grunts of satisfaction. No trader had come their way as yet and their igloos were crowded with furs of the finest. Would the strangers come and look and be convinced? But Clay declined the invitation. He had learned too much of the stuffiness and smells of the average Esquimau dwelling to care to enter one again. “No,” he announced, “they would camp in the open. When the night fires were lit all who had fine furs could come and exchange them for many wonderful things.”The preparations for the night were simple and speedily made. While one cut wood, another put on a huge pot of bacon and beans to boil and the third cut poles and drove them down in the snow, then all three joined in stretching the big square canvas over the poles, bringing it down to the snow on one side and raising it at the side nearest the fire so the heat would radiate downwards.The whole village gathered around the fire and watched the boys as they cooked and ate; they were of a far superior class to any the boys had yet seen, due, perhaps, to the efforts of the priests from the not far distant mission, who labored constantly to teach and help all within their reach. Nearly all had brought valuable furs with them and the trading was quickly concluded, for Clay frowned down all of Ike’s attempts to drive long, close bargains and their customers departed well pleased at having received for their furs much more than they had intended to demand.While the village was yet asleep the boys struck camp next morning and headed back for theRambler, for they knew Case would worry until they returned. They reached the boat shortly after midday to find Case sitting in the cabin gloomily playing solitaire. He greeted them with joy, and, as they had not stopped for dinner on the trail, he flew around and got them a hasty lunch while he listened to the story of their trip. The first time he could do so unnoticed by Alex and Abe and Ike, he gave Clay a signal that he wanted to see him alone. Clay, quick to note the anxiety in his partner’s face, quickly finished his dinner and turned to the others.“Will you two clean up and pack away the furs when you get through?” he inquired. “Case and I want to take a hunt and see if we can not get a few squirrels or something else fresh to eat.”The two were quick to agree. Their feet and legs were aching from their long, hard run and they were thinking longingly, of a nice long rest in their bunks after the simple tasks were performed.Taking the rifle and shot gun with them, Clay and Case made their way out on the ice.“What’s the matter, old chap?” Clay asked as soon as they were beyond the hearing of those on board theRambler.“First, I want you to keep your eye on that mountain,” Case replied. “It’s due to come at any minute now. I noted the time it came yesterday by my watch, and it is nearly it now.”Mystified, Clay gazed up at the lofty mountain. Being so early in the winter and still in the midst of the windy season, the mountain was free from snow, save where it nestled in the pockets and crevices, and the main part of it lay naked and exposed to the eye. It was like a huge cake packed layer after layer, each layer getting smalled and smaller until the apex was hidden in eternal snows. Each layer was made of a different strata of which the mountain was composed. Here was a dull-red streak indicating the presence of iron ore, above it the dull grey of granite, and below that a curious blend of green. As Clay stood looking up, the miracle happened. The low slanting sun lingered on the mountain’s face for a minute and it became as a thing transformed, all its varying hues stood out blended softly together by the sun’s lingering rays. Pink, red, lavender and green blended for a moment in one harmonious whole, then the sun’s rays passed on and—the vision of beauty was gone.Clay drew in a breath of keenest pleasure. “Glorious,” he exclaimed.“Don’t it suggest anything to you?” questioned Case.“A great big, beautiful rainbow seen close to, of course,” Clay replied promptly.“Nothing more?” Case suggested.Clay thought for a moment. “I’ve got it,” he suddenly exclaimed. “That mountain marks the bend in the river, and that rainbow furnishes the rest. It’s Rainbow Bend, the place Ike’s uncle lives. He must have a camp in the next cove. Funny that we should be neighbors so long and never know it.”“I wouldn’t say anything to Ike about it, not just now at any rate,” Clay said slowly. “I—well, I did a little exploring myself after I saw that rainbow yesterday and I found a little cabin of logs in that next cove. The door was open a bit and the cabin was partly full of snow, but in one corner, back behind the door, was a sight that made me hustle out into the open air with my legs shaking a bit, I guess, Clay,” and the lad’s voice lowered. “It was the skeleton of a man, a big man with bent shoulders. His skull was smashed to pieces and an axe lay close by with some grayish hairs sticking to it.”Clay turned back for theRambler. “Let’s be getting back,” he said quietly, “we will slip away tomorrow and bury the body and say nothing to the boys until winter is over. This country is no place to brood in over anything.”“But I haven’t told you the worst yet, Clay,” Case blurted out. “Our potatoes are all gone, and part of our provisions also.”Clay stopped in his tracks, his face paling. This was the last straw. “When did it happen. Who did it?” he said, bewilderedly.“Goodness knows,” Case said despairingly. “It may have happened a week ago. You see we have been light on the potatoes because we did not have more than enough to last until spring anyway. We have kept a supply in the kitchen locker so as not to have to burrow around in the hold for them every time we wanted a mess. I guess I was the last one to fill the locker, about a week ago. I went to fill it again yesterday but could only find a handful scattered in the hold. Part of our flour, beans and bacon is gone too.”“It must have been done when we were getting in that week of practice work with the snow shoes and team,” said Clay, thoughtfully. “There were hours at a time when all of us would be out of sight of theRambler. It strikes me something like this,” he continued, after another pause. “It looks like the work of those two wretches. Bill and Jud, from beginning to end. They knew Ike’s uncle well enough so that he trusted them to carry a letter to Ike. He may have let out a hint to them that he had found something of value. Likely they demanded to have a share in it. A quarrel arose over it and the old man was killed without their learning his secret. But they had the letter to Ike. They opened it but apparently could not make out its meaning. They tore off a corner of it, however, so that Ike could not make out its meaning either, without their help. Then they came to the States and delivered it to Ike. We all know how they pestered Ike all winter and in the end how they tried to kill or rob him. When we get up here, we find them here ahead of us and ready to do us harm at the first opportunity. They know of Rainbow Bend. They likely reasoned that Ike knew its whereabouts too and would land here sooner or later and they proposed to be not far off when he came. We know from what the Kid said that they are up the river somewhere. I believe that it is they who have stolen our stuff. I believe that their main plan is to get Ike and torture him until he reveals the secret in his uncle’s letter. Well, there is a lot of theory in what I’ve been saying, but it fits in nicely with the facts.”“What are we going to do?” asked Case hopelessly.“Do,” said Clay, straightening up. “We are going to face it like men. Trust in the Lord, and do our best.”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE TRADE
The records could hardly have been worse and the machine was suffering badly from the asthma, but the Shaman could not have shown more appreciation had it been the grandest combination in existence. “Won’t you come Home, Bill Bailey?” seemed to give him complete satisfaction, but “Ain’t It Funny When You’re Out of Money That the Only Thing You Get Is Sympathy?” brought forth an expressive grunt, while “If You Ain’t Got No Money, Why You Needn’t Come Around,” appeared to afford him great pleasure. Then Alex made the mistake he had been dreading all the evening. After winding up the machine he slipped in a fresh record and started it going. At the first snappy, scratching, breaking sounds, Alex and Ike looked at each other in dismay. It was the worst record in the lot because it had been their favorite and had been played over and over again until it was only a battered wreck, seamed with scratches and disfigured by cracks. Of the former Battle Hymn of the Republic there remained only a few unintelligible words and a discordant discord.
The boys glanced at the Shaman fearfully and were surprised to find him grinning with delight at the awful discord.
“I know that spirit,” he declared, proudly, as the record ended with one last abrupt crash, “It’s the voice of Luna, the great Yukon spirit. It is his voice. I know it. Many seasons I have heard it when he was breaking up the ice in the spring. Have you more of the spirits to put into the box?”
But Alex was not going to risk another mistake. It might not turn out so fortunately next time. “There are dozens more of them,” he said, “but we are getting tired of calling them forth. It is enough for tonight. We have proved that all white men are not liars.”
“It is true,” agreed the Shaman, “but,” he added, thoughtfully, “you are not grown to man’s size yet.”
“Maybe we trade it to the Shaman in the next village,” Ike suggested with a guileless face.
But the Shaman protested violently. “They were not all good Shamans like himself in the other villages. They would certainly cheat and rob him. Why did he not trade with him? He had a big heart. He always gave more than he received. Then, too, he was losing power over his people. There were the priests that traveled summer and winter through the land, treating the sick for nothing and always talking against the medicine men and forever preaching a new faith that might be all right in another land, but which would not work in the Northland, where life was cruel and no man could love his brother like himself. Many of his own tribe had embraced the faith and openly laughed at his power. And soon he, the Shaman, whose father had been a Shaman, and whose father’s father had been a Shaman, would be regarded as only a common man in the tribe. The wondrous box would help him to regain his power. His people would be convinced of his greatness when he summoned the spirits to talk and sing to them, but to give up the finest team in Alaska, that was too much.”
This was Ike’s cue, and the bargaining that ensued was a thing worth remembering. From the lockers, Ike brought out some of all the things they had brought to barter, while the Shaman viewed the head with eyes of cupidity.
Ike selected a dozen plugs of tobacco and laid them out in a row.
The Shaman eyed them with envy, but controlled himself with an effort.
“More,” he grunted.
Ike wrung his hands and declared he was being robbed, but he added four more plugs of tobacco to the row. After all it was only the beginning of the battle and he had decided in the first place to give thirty plugs if he had to do so. For two hours the battle raged, the pile of trinkets before the Shaman growing steadily. Often the boys turned their heads aside to hide their grins at Ike who, with tears in his eyes, protested that he was being robbed, that he was a poor man with a sick child to support, and he was taking the bread from his child’s mouth to give to a stranger, but Ike’s wildest outbursts were met by the Esquimau, with a steady demand of:
“More, more.”
But it was not in the law of things for a Jew to be worsted by a mere Esquimau, so when Ike decided that the pile had grown big enough, he reached out and gathered it up in his arms. “We can not trade,” he shouted angrily. “Here I offer you gifts worthy of a prince, besides a box full of spirits, and all you say is ‘More, more,’ all the time. All these things I offer you for a few mangy dogs, so poor you can see their ribs and so old and worn out that they do not snap and bite like real huskies do. Go. Perhaps in the next village we will find a Shaman who is not a robber.”
“Wait,” protested the Shaman, startled at all the rich treasure he was about to lose. “Let not a trifle upset a trade between friends. Just give me of those shiny things a few and our trade will be complete.” The shiny things were a box of coffin trimmings which Clay had brought as a venture because, though made of tin, they were cheap and bright and stamped out in the shape of birds, fruits and flowers.
Alex measured out a quart of them with a reluctant hand. “Now you must keep the dogs for us till we come back in the fall. Not starve ’em, you understand, make them sleek and fat.”
“It will take many salmon,” said the Shaman. For that there should be two more measures of the shiny birds and flowers.”
Ike hastened to dole out the two measures, for he had expected to pay much more for the dogs’ keep.
Business concluded, the boys showed the Shaman how to run the phonograph, and the wily savage departed as silently as he had come, all his newly gained treasure tightly rolled up in his dirty, greasy parka.
“How much did the team cost us?” Alex inquired.
Ike grinned. “Not so bad, you understand. Fifty dollars as near as I can tell and that includes their board.”
“Why, that’s highway robbery,” Clay exclaimed. “Fifty dollars for a nine hundred dollar team of dogs is as bad as stealing.”
“It’s business,” said Ike, placidly. “If he was smart enough, don’t you think he would take everything we have got? Besides,” he continued. “You needn’t worry about him. He will get plenty of furs with the things we gave him. I expect he make them coffin trimmings bring him in a fur for each trimming.”
“Then the poor people of the villages have to pay for our bargain,” Alex said.
“That is business also,” Ike remarked. “But I think the same as you, Clay. We get a good trade. When we come back let’s give them poor people plenty of good things to eat, so that they will not suffer from hunger this winter. Say we give five hundred dollars’ worth of rice, sugar, beans and flour. You see, we still have made a good trade for the team, the Shaman makes plenty of money off his coffin trimmings, and the box, and the poor people are contented because the hunger does not gnaw at their bellies.”
“I am too sleepy to point it out,” yawned Clay, “but there’s a flaw some where in your reasoning. We beat a man out of his dogs for a few worthless trinkets. We gain, don’t we?” The man who owns the dogs gains, the people gain also. Nobody loses. Looks to me like high finance.”
“High finance,” snorted Ike, indignantly. “Who ever heard of high finance giving back food to the people—a library or an institute, perhaps, but food, no. We might give them $500.00 worth of books,” he added thoughtfully, “on condition, you understand, that they raise another $500.00. The Shaman could be the librarian.”
“You idiot,” grinned Clay, as he crawled into his bunk. “What do the Esquimaux want with books? They are too hungry, weary, and hopeless for books.”
“Maybe,” admitted Ike, as he climbed into his own bunk, “but say, it would make us one splendid advertisement.”
When they crowded up on deck after a hearty breakfast next morning, there curled up on the bank was Buck, surrounded by his family. At sight of Alex, he barked joyously, and the boy went ashore to bid the noble animal farewell. “Good-bye, Buck,” he whispered. “We will come back for you soon. Be patient, for it will only be a short time. Very soon we come and get you.”
Buck wagged his tail mournfully at thought of the delay, but beamed with joy over Alex’s parting head patting.
As they backed out of the cove, Alex glanced back. Buck was leading his family back to the settlement, but the big leader’s tail drooped mournfully and every few paces he would stop and gaze back at the retreating boat.
The boys found that the steamer was some five miles ahead of them, but under full speed it took but a short time to range alongside the clumsy craft. The Kid, without waiting for an invitation, came sliding aboard. “Well, how did you like the village?” was his first query.
“All right, except for the people, the huts and the smells,” Clay grinned and he proceeded to relate the story of their experiences.
“Sure you’re going some for chekakos,” the Kid commented. “I’ve heard of that dog team. All the Yukon has for that matter, but few have seen it. I saw them once on the trail and I’d been glad to have traded my team for them and given two hundred dollars to boot, which is going some, for I’ve got one of the best teams on the Yukon.” The kid will be a lot of help too, if you can raise him. The Pymauts live not far from the Holy Cross Mission and the fathers have taught many of them to speak English and have converted many. He’ll come handy interpreting for you when you get down to trading with the tribes. I reckon I’ll step below and see how both of those chaps are making out,” he said.
He was back soon with a smile on his face. “They are both sound asleep,” he said and I wouldn’t disturb them. “Sleep’s the best healer there is. I’ll see them again after they are awake,” he said.
“Do you think your party would like to take a spin on theRamblertoday,” Clay asked, thoughtfully. “I mean of course, Miss—er—”
“Ethel Mason,” supplied the Kid promptly. “Miss Ethel Mason and her parents, I mean, of course,” Clay said. “It would be a change from that slow, lumbering steamboat. They could troll for salmon—there are lots of them around here and we could have a fish dinner and maybe they would like the change from the steamer for even a day.”
“They would,” exclaimed the Kid, brightly.
“It’s rough on them—being only two women amongst such a raft of men. ’Course the men don’t, many of them, mean anything wrong but they haven’t seen anything but ugly Indian squaws for so long that they can’t help but stare when they see a pretty face peeping up like a flower out of the snow. Sure, they will come. I’ll get one of the crew to fix up a boatswain’s chair and lower them all three down easy.”
“I’m so sorry you can’t come, Mr. Kid,” said Ike, regretfully.
“But I am coming,” declared the Kid emphatically. “Why not?”
“I thought you had to stay on board and guard that mail,” said Ike, innocently.
The Kid reddened. “I’ll go up and tell them and see about getting that chair ready,” he said, hurriedly, as he clambered up the rope.
“In a few minutes the chair was ready and the two old folks, followed by the girl, were lowered to theRambler’sdecks.
Clay immediately decided that he liked all three of the visitors. The girl had a frank, boyish-looking face, charming in its gentleness and firmness. Her father was a great giant of a man with the quaintly gentle air of authority that one comes to associate with country storekeepers or local postmasters, while his wife was a kind-faced, motherly-looking woman. Clay decided that the Kid was right. These three gentle folks were not of the kind to meet the rough, lawless element of gold-mad Dawson.
Mrs. Mason at once declared her desire to see the sick boys, of whom the Yukon Kid had told her.
Ike led her below, having already informed the invalids of her coming. Case ground his teeth to shut out the groans. He was feeling worse than usual that morning. His wounds were knitting and the tortured nerves were crying out for mercy. He looked up suddenly to see a kindly face with tear-filled eyes bending over him and to hear a quite motherly voice saying, “You poor, poor boy; how you must be suffering.” A few deft pats to the pillow and a rearrangement of the blankets gave Case unspeakable relief. “Now, boy, just keep still and try to go to sleep,” commanded the gentle voice. “As soon as I look at that other poor boy. I’m going to come back and read to you for a while.”
The little Esquimau met Mrs. Mason’s eyes with the dark mournful gaze bred by the untold suffering of hundreds of generations of hunger, suffering ancestors. The good woman groaned at the sight of the skin-covered bones. “You speak English?” she inquired with lips that trembled with emotion.
“Yes, I speak the English,” he said weakly. “Learn it at Holy Cross Mission. Here all the same as Holy Cross, all clean and white and every one good and kind.”
“You must lie still and get well,” commanded the lady, “so you can tell me much about the Holy Cross, and, always, eat of the things I send you. They will make you well and strong. Good-bye, I’ll see you again soon,” and the tender-hearted woman stumbled up the cabin stairs with eyes that could scarcely see through the tears that blinded them.
“Go right back to the steamer,” she commanded Clay. “You boys have done your best for your sick companions, but there are some things you lack and I am going back to get them.”
Clay signalled to Alex to turn around and in a few minutes theRamblerwas tearing her way back to the steamer.
CHAPTER XIX
WINTER QUARTERS
“Slow her down, Clay, slow her down,” pleaded Case. “Slow her down,” shouted Alex from the bow. “I can’t do much with her going so fast.”
It was a different scene from that, in which we last saw the boys. Long gone were the golden days when they had journeyed leisurely up the river with Mrs. Mason nursing Case and the Esquimau lad back to speedy health. Gone also were that exhilaration of shooting the rapids, and gone were the pleasant nights when, with a bad stretch of water ahead of them, the steamer and theRamblerhad tied up together at the bank and all had made merry by the light of big fires, singing, talking, and even dancing on the rough, uneven ground. Gone were the pleasant loitering days in gold-mad Dawson, mingling with the old timers, eager to lend a hand wherever needed and gaining in return many new quaint facts of the country and the trail. They had hardly noted the growing keenness in the air until the Kid, anxious still in his love affair, whispered to them that it was time for them to go, that much ice was already bubbling up in the smaller streams, and, knowing the Kid as they did, they had followed his advice. It was an exciting race with winter at their heels, but theRamblerdriving ahead with the current at a speed of from twenty-five to twenty-eight miles an hour, kept ahead of the big cold.
At the Indian village they had stopped to get their dogs and buy furs from the Shaman who, fat and sleek, by artful trading, had acquired nearly all the furs from the hunters who were drifting in from the long hunt one by one. To the hunger-pinched poor folks, they gave the provisions Ike had suggested. They also gave them freely of their trinkets that they might not be tempted to trade off the precious food for the Shaman’s worthless baubles.
Short as their stay had been, they were surprised at the change in the river. Much ice was bubbling to the surface like yeast. It was not the same Yukon upon which they had ridden up so pleasantly in summer. It was tempestuous with white-capped waves that battered against theRambler’sbow and sent icy showers of spray aft. By midday the fierce wind had died away and thin cakes of ice were floating on the surface.
Slow her down, Clay,” Alex begged. “I can’t help much at the rate she’s going.” He was leaning over the bow, boat hook in hand, trying vainly to thrust to one side the blocks of ice that impeded theRambler’sprogress. While Case, well once more, was standing at the wheel, his alert eyes picking out the channels of open water freed from ice throes.
Down in the cabin, Ike was already beginning the evening meal and talking gravely to Abe, whose wan face had filled out amazingly and who was clumsily trying to help fadder with the cooking.
“Slow her down, can’t you?” Alex yelled again.
Clay left the motor and made his way forward. “Do you see that mountain ahead where the river seems to make a bend? I noticed it when we were going up. Just beyond it is a snug little cove with a shelving beach. Just the place to winter in, it struck me. Now the shores here are not fit for a winter camp. They are too wind-swept. We have just got to make that cove. We simply can’t stop. The river will be frozen over by morning and when the ice breaks up in the spring, theRamblerwould be crushed into splinters between the floes. At this rate we can not make the cove before night. I don’t want the responsibility all on myself. But I think now is the time to make a break for it. The ice is thin yet and theRamblerhas got plenty of power and we know she has not got an unsound plank in her. I vote to try for the cove. What do you fellows say?”
“I’m for it,” said Case, knocking his ice-cold hands against his body to take away the numbness. “Anything is better than this.”
“The cove or bust,” Alex exclaimed, as he threw the boat hook up on the cabin top. “This spearing off ice floes is like bobbing for apples, only more so. One just gets wet and tired without getting any apples.”
“All right,” Clay agreed. “Pick out the smoothest course you can, Case, and hold her to it.”
He went back to the motor and slowly shoved the timer ahead. TheRambler, which before had been barely moving, suddenly gathered speed and leaped forward at the ice field ahead. She struck with a crash, and, scarcely pausing, darted forward to meet the next, leaving behind a rapidly closing wake filled with shattered ice.
Clay, leaning out of her motor hold, grinned with delight. “She eats them, eats them up alive,” he exulted.
But it was a dearly bought victory for the little boat, for when at last she reached the cove, her bow post was a mass of splinters, while long streamers of wood hung from her bruised sides, and showed where the sharp ice had torn streaks out of her oak planking.
“Another victory like that would be a defeat,” remarked Case, as from the shore he viewed her wrecked appearance.
A portion of the brief Arctic day remained, and it’s dim twilight glow was too precious to be wasted. Alex cut down a dead cottonwood tree and chopped it up for the Yukon stove, which they had bought at Dawson, on the Kid’s advice. While he was thus engaged, Ike, leaving Abe to look out for the cooking supper, came on deck to render his assistance. A thick layer of spruce boughs were cut and laid ahead of the boat, and, by use of rollers and block and tackle, the three managed to pull theRamblerout on her springy bed.
“That will help to keep her warmer inside in winter,” Clay said with satisfaction. “We could never have kept her warm with her bottom resting on the ice. Now the next thing is to fix up the sides and cabin top so as to protect them from the stinging cold.”
Long poles were cut and placed rafterwise from the peak of the pitched cabin roof to the ground. On these rafters they piled layer upon layer of small spruce boughs and banked up around the sides with a generous supply of the fragrant limbs. It was almost dark when their task was completed and they stood back and viewed the result with satisfaction. “A house inside a house,” Case said. “All it needs is a good fall of snow to fill up the chinks and we will be as snug as a bug in a rug.”
They were all tired, cold, and hungry and it was a joy to descend into the brightly lit cabin where a merry fire crackled in the Yukon stove and a savory supper fresh from the fire, steamed on the table.
“I wonder when we will see the Yukon Kid again,” said Case musingly, during a lull in the supper chatter. “He was due to leave St. Michael’s yesterday and I bet he started on time, for he’s fairly crazy to get back to his lady fair in Dawson.”
Alex snorted in disgust. “Looks like all you fellows can think of is girls,” he sneered, and his companions shifted sheepishly in their chairs, expecting and dreading a storm of ridicule from his sharp little tongue. But Alex remained silent after his outburst. In truth, he was picturing for himself a dull and sombre future. As the others wandered on to other topics he sat thinking gloomily. Here was the Yukon Kid, mightiest of the mighty men of the North, hanging to the apron strings of a mere slip of a girl. Clay and Case both had girls in Chicago, he knew; they would soon be getting old enough to marry and then the fine long cruises would stop, for their wives would not let them go unless they went with them. Case’s red headed girl wouldn’t, he was certain. There would be no more trips. Only he and Ike would be left to talk over alone the glory of this trip. A horrible suspicion flashed into his mind, perhaps even Ike had a girl.
“Ike,” he demanded, suddenly. “Where does Rebecca work?”
“She works in a shirt waist factory. By and by she be forewoman,” Ike said proudly, caught unawares.
A roar of laughter from the boys awoke him to the slip he had made. His face reddened and he resolutely closed his mouth and refused to commit himself further in reply to Alex’s adroit question.
“It’s all right, Alex,” he said stoutly. “Maybe you got one little laugh on me now, you understand. But some day I get big laugh on you because I laugh last.”
“Fadder,” interrupted Abe, “you better put mukluks by the fire to dry.”
It was a rule of the trail, the Kid had tried to impress upon them, to always dry out their footwear after the day’s work, but it needed the grave voice of the child to recall it to them. Abe was born on the trail and he was learned in its dangers.
“If Abe says so we had better do it and turn in,” Clay remarked, and soon five sets of footwear were ranged around the stock and the five boys were sound asleep in their bunks.
It was Clay’s cheery “Get up, grub’s ready,” that awakened his sleeping companions.
“What do you mean by having breakfast at such an unearthly hour?” grumbled Alex, tumbling out of his bunk and fumbling for his trousers. “Why, the cabin’s as dark as pitch.”
Clay snapped on the electric lights. “We are late getting up this morning. Remember, young man, this is the season when the days grow short and we’ve got to make every minute of daylight count. Get up and thank your lucky star that you’ve got a partner good enough to get up before you, warm the cabin up, fry ham and eggs, and cook coffee for you.”
The mention of food sent Alex tumbling into his clothes, an example his companions were not slow to follow.
By the time they had finished eating, a wan light was stealing into the cabin windows. The last mouthful swallowed, they hurried up for a look at the river. It was a sheet of solid white from shore to shore. They all felt a feeling of gratitude that they had won to the little cove and were not penned up out there in that desolate waste exposed to the full fury of every gale. They now had time to note more closely the place in which their winter was to be passed. It was a tiny cove well protected from wintry blasts. On one side of them rose the big mountain; on the other side lofty crumbling cliffs protected them from the raw west winds, while back of them the ground rose in a gradual slope, densely covered by cottonwoods and spruces.
“The first thing to do is to get out our snow shoes and practice breaking trails,” Clay declared. “We have got to harden our muscles and get used to it before we start out on the trading trips.”
All of the boys, but Ike, had had on snow shoes before, but this task of breaking trail for the dogs was a new trick to them and they could not quite get the hang of it until the little Esquimau lad gravely strapped on a pair and showed them how the big webbed shoe must be lifted carefully up, straight up, until it cleared the surface, so that no snow should be tumbled into the packed place, then how it must be shoved cautiously ahead while the same careful uplifting must be repeated by the other foot. Ike’s first experiment plunged him into a snow drift, leaving only his big snow shoes waving madly above the surface.
“Fadder, fadder,” cried Abe in delight. “If you want to walk on your hands tie the shoes on them.”
Clay and Case grinned at each other. It was the first time either of them had heard the lad laugh. Clearly, under the nourishing food and kind treatment he was receiving, Abe was certainly picking up.
The unaccustomed trail breaking brought into play muscles the boys never dreamed they possessed, and after a few hours’ practice, Clay called a halt. “We don’t want to try it too long at a time. Tomorrow we will do a little more and keep it up that way until we can do an all-day stunt. Then we will be fit to start out on our trading trips.”
About noon the Yukon Kid hove in sight and with but little pressure, was induced to stay to dinner and rest up his tired dogs, which he had evidently been pushing hard.
“I’ve got a bit of news for you,” he said between mouthfuls. “Got the true story of Bill and Jud. Got it straight from an old timer who lived in the same part of Ohio that Bill came from. Bill and Jud are brothers, but no more alike than a rotten egg is like a fresh laid one. Jud, he stuck to the farm and grew up big, strong, and honest, though I guess he would have done that anywhere. Bill hit for the city, and the village folks said they hoped he would never come back for he’d always been mean, lying and thieving, although Jud was always mighty fond of him and was always making excuses for him and claiming that it was only Bill’s high spirits that got him into mischief. Well, Bill got a job in a store and mighty proud of it Jud was, always telling people that Bill was getting along fine in the city Pretty soon the store people found out that their cash was turning up short every night and they traced it to Bill. He confessed and Jud put a mortgage on the farm and went up and settled with the store folks so that Bill wouldn’t be prosecuted, but the lesson didn’t do Bill any good, he kept getting lower and lower until he got to be a common holdup man and burglar. Then Jud up and sold his interest in the farm, and bid good-bye to the village folks, telling them that he was going to get Bill away from the bad fellows who were always leading him into trouble all the time. He made good his word evidently, for here they are up here on the Yukon with Jud looking out for Bill and keeping him as straight as he can. Funny ain’t it, how a good man like Jud will let himself be forced into bad ways just to keep a worse man from doing worse things. I reckon Jud would kill any one who tried to hurt his brother. Reckon that’s what the Good Book calls brotherly love, but I don’t take much stock in that kind of love myself, it’s too one-sided.”
The Kid did not pause for much more conversation and the boys did not attempt to detain him, for they knew he was eager to be off for Dawson.
“I’ll have more time to stay with you on my way back,” he shouted back to them as his rested team swung into line. “Oh! by the way. Bill and Jud are on the Yukon now somewhere. Heard they left Nome with two boats and a small outfit, but I haven’t passed them on the river.”
CHAPTER XX
THE VISION
It was not until they had practiced a week at the mock trail work that Clay decided they were in shape to tackle the real work of the trail. The week had wrought changes in them. It had been real work. Everything they had learned of the work from the old timers they had put into practice again and again until they had learned to do the thing with neatness and despatch. They were astonished at the miracle the week had wrought in themselves. Their bodies were stripped of every ounce of fat and new unknown muscles had sprung into notice while the old prominent ones had become as things of elastic steel. Their hunger was of the order of famished wolves and they grew to understand the look of knowing hunger in the eyes of their dogs as they wistfully watched them eat breakfast and supper, of which two meals the animals were not allowed to partake, but could only look on in wretched misery at their masters eating with such relish.
Before leaving Dawson the boys had cleared out the forehold and had filled it with a great store of dried salmon. Of this, they gave their dogs more than double the quantity usually given by dog drivers. But they gave it to them only at night, according to the iron law of the trail, whose motto was that a full dog travels slow. Their first real trip was to the nearest of the Indian villages which seemed to inclose the Catholic Mission of the Holy Cross in a kind of semi-circle. They started with the usual trail traveler’s pack, containing only the things absolutely necessary, such as frying pan and a big kettle to cook in, a change of footgear and clothing for each, an axe and a fair amount of the staple food of the trail, beans, pork, coffee, flour and sugar. A smaller pack contained the supply of dried salmon for the dogs, and another of trading trinkets, while over all was strapped down tightly over the load a large square of waterproofed canvas, another of the Kid’s suggestions. It being the first trip and a novelty, all were eager to go, but none liked to leave theRambleralone. For, although well protected from view, there was the possible chance that some traveler might stumble upon the tiny cove and relieve theRamblerof some of her already diminishing stock of provisions. So it was decided that one should be left to guard the boat, that one to be decided by the drawing of straws. The short straw fell to Case to his intense disgust.
“Just my luck,” he grumbled, “to be left behind on a day like this when the snow has just got a crust an elephant could not break through, and everything seems to promise the finest kind of weather. When I get a chance to go the snow will be five feet deep and we will have to pack trail every foot of the way right in the teeth of a sixty-mile gale.”
What Case said about the conditions for traveling were true. They could hardly have selected a better time. The start was made long before daylight, Clay running side by side with the leader and striving to keep to the due south course by his pocket compass, but he soon realized that Buck sensed their destination and, like one on familiar ground, was picking his way toward a certain goal. Now and then he would swerve to one side to avoid a clump of trees or a steep gully, but always swinging back again and ever bearing back again to the south.
“No use trying to guide that dog,” Clay panted as he fell back to join his companions who were half running to keep up with the flying sled. “He knows where we are going and the best way of getting there far better than I do myself. I don’t believe there’s another team like this in the world. Look how they run in perfect harmony with each other.”
Their admiration for their team was further increased when, upon the rising of the sun, they looked back at the distant mountain from whose base they started only a few hours before. All the boys were feeling the tremendous pace at which they had traveled and Clay called a brief halt for them all to gain their breath. The dogs, obedient to his commands, dropped down in their traces and instantly curled up in the hard snow.
“Look how much trail wisdom they’ve got,” said Alex in admiration. “They go like the wind, by they don’t waste a second when they get a chance to rest.”
“We have got to borrow a little of their wisdom,” Clay observed. “If we don’t we will all of us be tired to death and have to camp long before the day is over. We had better take turns in riding on the sled, one at a time. That will give each man thirty minutes of running and fifteen minutes to rest up in. We ought to be able to hold on at that.”
Even under this liberal arrangement, the boys were well pleased when the whole team stopped and curled up in their traces, close beside a bunch of cottonwood trees.
“Get up! Push on there!” shouted Clay, surprised at the sudden action, but Buck only gave him a reproachful look.
Alex grinned with delight. “Don’t disgust Buck right at the start by letting him know that you are a blamed chekako,” he advised. “He knows that it’s dinner time and that this is a mighty good place to cook with all the dead cottonwood lying around.”
The boys fell to the work of getting dinner with the system of old timers. While Clay cut dead cottonwood, Ike built a fire and melted snow for coffee. Alex brought out a frozen sausage-like length of beans, ready cooked with a generous mixture of cubes of pork, from which he hacked short pieces and placed them into the frying pan to heat, continuing the operation until the pan was full. Then in a short time dinner was ready and the boys sat down to it with keen appetites. A short rest after, and they were off again. Before daylight ended, they swept around a high bluff into full sight of the village they sought. Buck, in his knowledge of the country, had brought them straight to their destination. Barking dogs and a crowd of natives met them at the village limits. The dogs’ barking ceased at sight of Buck who, with hair raised and teeth bared, gave utterance to one low ominous growl at which the dogs in front shrank back silently, leaving a path through their midst for the sled. Down it Buck walked in state with never a glance to left or right, moving like a king before his subjects.
“He’s grand,” Clay exclaimed. “He’s the Yukon Kid of the dog trails.”
It was evident that the natives thought so too, for they crowded around with grunts of envy and admiration.
“Sell him?” queried one native, but Clay shook his head.
“No sell.”
“Trade?”
“No trade for dogs. Trade for furs plenty. Got a pack full of wonderful things.”
The crowd of Esquimaux greeted this announcement with grunts of satisfaction. No trader had come their way as yet and their igloos were crowded with furs of the finest. Would the strangers come and look and be convinced? But Clay declined the invitation. He had learned too much of the stuffiness and smells of the average Esquimau dwelling to care to enter one again. “No,” he announced, “they would camp in the open. When the night fires were lit all who had fine furs could come and exchange them for many wonderful things.”
The preparations for the night were simple and speedily made. While one cut wood, another put on a huge pot of bacon and beans to boil and the third cut poles and drove them down in the snow, then all three joined in stretching the big square canvas over the poles, bringing it down to the snow on one side and raising it at the side nearest the fire so the heat would radiate downwards.
The whole village gathered around the fire and watched the boys as they cooked and ate; they were of a far superior class to any the boys had yet seen, due, perhaps, to the efforts of the priests from the not far distant mission, who labored constantly to teach and help all within their reach. Nearly all had brought valuable furs with them and the trading was quickly concluded, for Clay frowned down all of Ike’s attempts to drive long, close bargains and their customers departed well pleased at having received for their furs much more than they had intended to demand.
While the village was yet asleep the boys struck camp next morning and headed back for theRambler, for they knew Case would worry until they returned. They reached the boat shortly after midday to find Case sitting in the cabin gloomily playing solitaire. He greeted them with joy, and, as they had not stopped for dinner on the trail, he flew around and got them a hasty lunch while he listened to the story of their trip. The first time he could do so unnoticed by Alex and Abe and Ike, he gave Clay a signal that he wanted to see him alone. Clay, quick to note the anxiety in his partner’s face, quickly finished his dinner and turned to the others.
“Will you two clean up and pack away the furs when you get through?” he inquired. “Case and I want to take a hunt and see if we can not get a few squirrels or something else fresh to eat.”
The two were quick to agree. Their feet and legs were aching from their long, hard run and they were thinking longingly, of a nice long rest in their bunks after the simple tasks were performed.
Taking the rifle and shot gun with them, Clay and Case made their way out on the ice.
“What’s the matter, old chap?” Clay asked as soon as they were beyond the hearing of those on board theRambler.
“First, I want you to keep your eye on that mountain,” Case replied. “It’s due to come at any minute now. I noted the time it came yesterday by my watch, and it is nearly it now.”
Mystified, Clay gazed up at the lofty mountain. Being so early in the winter and still in the midst of the windy season, the mountain was free from snow, save where it nestled in the pockets and crevices, and the main part of it lay naked and exposed to the eye. It was like a huge cake packed layer after layer, each layer getting smalled and smaller until the apex was hidden in eternal snows. Each layer was made of a different strata of which the mountain was composed. Here was a dull-red streak indicating the presence of iron ore, above it the dull grey of granite, and below that a curious blend of green. As Clay stood looking up, the miracle happened. The low slanting sun lingered on the mountain’s face for a minute and it became as a thing transformed, all its varying hues stood out blended softly together by the sun’s lingering rays. Pink, red, lavender and green blended for a moment in one harmonious whole, then the sun’s rays passed on and—the vision of beauty was gone.
Clay drew in a breath of keenest pleasure. “Glorious,” he exclaimed.
“Don’t it suggest anything to you?” questioned Case.
“A great big, beautiful rainbow seen close to, of course,” Clay replied promptly.
“Nothing more?” Case suggested.
Clay thought for a moment. “I’ve got it,” he suddenly exclaimed. “That mountain marks the bend in the river, and that rainbow furnishes the rest. It’s Rainbow Bend, the place Ike’s uncle lives. He must have a camp in the next cove. Funny that we should be neighbors so long and never know it.”
“I wouldn’t say anything to Ike about it, not just now at any rate,” Clay said slowly. “I—well, I did a little exploring myself after I saw that rainbow yesterday and I found a little cabin of logs in that next cove. The door was open a bit and the cabin was partly full of snow, but in one corner, back behind the door, was a sight that made me hustle out into the open air with my legs shaking a bit, I guess, Clay,” and the lad’s voice lowered. “It was the skeleton of a man, a big man with bent shoulders. His skull was smashed to pieces and an axe lay close by with some grayish hairs sticking to it.”
Clay turned back for theRambler. “Let’s be getting back,” he said quietly, “we will slip away tomorrow and bury the body and say nothing to the boys until winter is over. This country is no place to brood in over anything.”
“But I haven’t told you the worst yet, Clay,” Case blurted out. “Our potatoes are all gone, and part of our provisions also.”
Clay stopped in his tracks, his face paling. This was the last straw. “When did it happen. Who did it?” he said, bewilderedly.
“Goodness knows,” Case said despairingly. “It may have happened a week ago. You see we have been light on the potatoes because we did not have more than enough to last until spring anyway. We have kept a supply in the kitchen locker so as not to have to burrow around in the hold for them every time we wanted a mess. I guess I was the last one to fill the locker, about a week ago. I went to fill it again yesterday but could only find a handful scattered in the hold. Part of our flour, beans and bacon is gone too.”
“It must have been done when we were getting in that week of practice work with the snow shoes and team,” said Clay, thoughtfully. “There were hours at a time when all of us would be out of sight of theRambler. It strikes me something like this,” he continued, after another pause. “It looks like the work of those two wretches. Bill and Jud, from beginning to end. They knew Ike’s uncle well enough so that he trusted them to carry a letter to Ike. He may have let out a hint to them that he had found something of value. Likely they demanded to have a share in it. A quarrel arose over it and the old man was killed without their learning his secret. But they had the letter to Ike. They opened it but apparently could not make out its meaning. They tore off a corner of it, however, so that Ike could not make out its meaning either, without their help. Then they came to the States and delivered it to Ike. We all know how they pestered Ike all winter and in the end how they tried to kill or rob him. When we get up here, we find them here ahead of us and ready to do us harm at the first opportunity. They know of Rainbow Bend. They likely reasoned that Ike knew its whereabouts too and would land here sooner or later and they proposed to be not far off when he came. We know from what the Kid said that they are up the river somewhere. I believe that it is they who have stolen our stuff. I believe that their main plan is to get Ike and torture him until he reveals the secret in his uncle’s letter. Well, there is a lot of theory in what I’ve been saying, but it fits in nicely with the facts.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Case hopelessly.
“Do,” said Clay, straightening up. “We are going to face it like men. Trust in the Lord, and do our best.”