III. THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK.
Two months after Smoke Bellew and Shorty went after moose for agrub-stake, they were back in the Elkhorn saloon at Dawson. The huntingwas done, the meat hauled in and sold for two dollars and a half apound, and between them they possessed three thousand dollars in golddust and a good team of dogs. They had played in luck. Despite the factthat the gold-rush had driven the game a hundred miles or more into themountains, they had, within half that distance, bagged four moose in anarrow canyon.
The mystery of the strayed animals was no greater than the luck of theirkillers, for within the day four famished Indian families, reporting nogame in three days' journey back, camped beside them. Meat was tradedfor starving dogs, and after a week of feeding, Smoke and Shortyharnessed the animals and began freighting the meat to the eager Dawsonmarket.
The problem of the two men now was to turn their gold-dust into food.The current price for flour and beans was a dollar and a half a pound,but the difficulty was to find a seller. Dawson was in the throes offamine. Hundreds of men, with money but no food, had been compelled toleave the country. Many had gone down the river on the last water, andmany more, with barely enough food to last, had walked the six hundredmiles over the ice to Dyea.
Smoke met Shorty in the warm saloon, and found the latter jubilant.
"Life ain't no punkins without whiskey an' sweetenin'," was Shorty'sgreeting, as he pulled lumps of ice from his thawing moustache and flungthem rattling on the floor. "An' I sure just got eighteen pounds of thatsame sweetenin'. The geezer only charged three dollars a pound for it.What luck did you have?"
"I, too, have not been idle," Smoke answered with pride. "I bought fiftypounds of flour. And there's a man up on Adam Creek who says he'll letme have fifty pounds more to-morrow."
"Great! We'll sure live till the river opens. Say, Smoke, them dogs ofourn is the goods. A dog-buyer offered me two hundred apiece for thefive of them. I told him nothin' doin'. They sure took on class whenthey got meat to get outside of; but it goes against the grain, feedin'dog-critters on grub that's worth two an' a half a pound. Come onan' have a drink. I just got to celebrate them eighteen pounds ofsweetenin'."
Several minutes later, as he weighed in on the gold-scales for thedrinks, he gave a start of recollection.
"I plum forgot that man I was to meet in the Tivoli. He's got somespoiled bacon he'll sell for a dollar an' a half a pound. We can feed itto the dogs an' save a dollar a day on each's board-bill. So long."
"So long," said Smoke. "I'm goin' to the cabin an' turn in."
Hardly had Shorty left the place, when a fur-clad man entered throughthe double storm-doors. His face lighted at sight of Smoke, whorecognized him as Breck, the man whose boat they had run through the BoxCanyon and White Horse Rapids.
"I heard you were in town," Breck said hurriedly, as they shook hands."Been looking for you for half an hour. Come outside, I want to talkwith you."
Smoke looked regretfully at the roaring, red-hot stove.
"Won't this do?"
"No; it's important. Come outside."
As they emerged, Smoke drew off one mitten, lighted a match, and glancedat the thermometer that hung beside the door. He remittened his nakedhand hastily as if the frost had burned him. Overhead arched the flamingaurora borealis, while from all Dawson arose the mournful howling ofthousands of wolf-dogs.
"What did it say?" Breck asked.
"Sixty below." Kit spat experimentally, and the spittle crackled in theair. "And the thermometer is certainly working. It's falling all thetime. An hour ago it was only fifty-two. Don't tell me it's a stampede."
"It is," Breck whispered back cautiously, casting anxious eyes about infear of some other listener. "You know Squaw Creek?--empties in on theother side of the Yukon thirty miles up?"
"Nothing doing there," was Smoke's judgment. "It was prospected yearsago."
"So were all the other rich creeks. Listen! It's big. Only eight totwenty feet to bedrock. There won't be a claim that don't run to half amillion. It's a dead secret. Two or three of my close friends let me inon it. I told my wife right away that I was going to find you beforeI started. Now, so long. My pack's hidden down the bank. In fact, whenthey told me, they made me promise not to pull out until Dawson wasasleep. You know what it means if you're seen with a stampeding outfit.Get your partner and follow. You ought to stake fourth or fifth claimfrom Discovery. Don't forget--Squaw Creek. It's the third after you passSwede Creek."
When Smoke entered the little cabin on the hillside back of Dawson, heheard a heavy familiar breathing.
"Aw, go to bed," Shorty mumbled, as Smoke shook his shoulder. "I'm noton the night shift," was his next remark, as the rousing hand becamemore vigorous. "Tell your troubles to the barkeeper."
"Kick into your clothes," Smoke said. "We've got to stake a couple ofclaims."
Shorty sat up and started to explode, but Smoke's hand covered hismouth.
"Ssh!" Smoke warned. "It's a big strike. Don't wake the neighborhood.Dawson's asleep."
"Huh! You got to show me. Nobody tells anybody about a strike, of coursenot. But ain't it plum amazin' the way everybody hits the trail just thesame?"
"Squaw Creek," Smoke whispered. "It's right. Breck gave me the tip.Shallow bedrock. Gold from the grass-roots down. Come on. We'll sling acouple of light packs together and pull out."
Shorty's eyes closed as he lapsed back into sleep. The next moment hisblankets were swept off him.
"If you don't want them, I do," Smoke explained.
Shorty followed the blankets and began to dress.
"Goin' to take the dogs?" he asked.
"No. The trail up the creek is sure to be unbroken, and we can makebetter time without them."
"Then I'll throw 'em a meal, which'll have to last 'em till we get back.Be sure you take some birch-bark and a candle."
Shorty opened the door, felt the bite of the cold, and shrank back topull down his ear-flaps and mitten his hands.
Five minutes later he returned, sharply rubbing his nose.
"Smoke, I'm sure opposed to makin' this stampede. It's colder thanthe hinges of hell a thousand years before the first fire was lighted.Besides, it's Friday the thirteenth, an' we're goin' to trouble as thesparks fly upward."
With small stampeding-packs on their backs, they closed the door behindthem and started down the hill. The display of the aurora borealishad ceased, and only the stars leaped in the great cold and by theiruncertain light made traps for the feet. Shorty floundered off a turn ofthe trail into deep snow, and raised his voice in blessing of the dateof the week and month and year.
"Can't you keep still?" Smoke chided. "Leave the almanac alone. You'llhave all Dawson awake and after us."
"Huh! See the light in that cabin? An' in that one over there? An' hearthat door slam? Oh, sure Dawson's asleep. Them lights? Just buryin'their dead. They ain't stampedin', betcher life they ain't."
By the time they reached the foot of the hill and were fairly in Dawson,lights were springing up in the cabins, doors were slamming, and frombehind came the sound of many moccasins on the hard-packed snow. AgainShorty delivered himself.
"But it beats hell the amount of mourners there is."
They passed a man who stood by the path and was calling anxiously in alow voice: "Oh, Charley; get a move on."
"See that pack on his back, Smoke? The graveyard's sure a long ways offwhen the mourners got to pack their blankets."
By the time they reached the main street a hundred men were in linebehind them, and while they sought in the deceptive starlight for thetrail that dipped down the bank to the river, more men could be heardarriving. Shorty slipped and shot down the thirty-foot chute into thesoft snow. Smoke followed, knocking him over as he was rising to hisfeet.
"I found it first," he gurgled, taking off his mittens to shake the snowout of the gauntlets.
The next moment they were scrambling wildly out of the way of thehurtling bodies of those that followed. At
the time of the freeze-up,a jam had occurred at this point, and cakes of ice were up-ended insnow-covered confusion. After several hard falls, Smoke drew out hiscandle and lighted it. Those in the rear hailed it with acclaim. In thewindless air it burned easily, and he led the way more quickly.
"It's a sure stampede," Shorty decided. "Or might all them besleep-walkers?"
"We're at the head of the procession at any rate," was Smoke's answer.
"Oh, I don't know. Mebbe that's a firefly ahead there. Mebbe they're allfireflies--that one, an' that one. Look at 'em! Believe me, they is awhole string of processions ahead."
It was a mile across the jams to the west bank of the Yukon, and candlesflickered the full length of the twisting trail. Behind them, clear tothe top of the bank they had descended, were more candles.
"Say, Smoke, this ain't no stampede. It's a exode-us. They must be athousand men ahead of us an' ten thousand behind. Now, you listen toyour uncle. My medicine's good. When I get a hunch it's sure right. An'we're in wrong on this stampede. Let's turn back an' hit the sleep."
"You'd better save your breath if you intend to keep up," Smoke retortedgruffly.
"Huh! My legs is short, but I slog along slack at the knees an' don'tworry my muscles none, an' I can sure walk every piker here off theice."
And Smoke knew he was right, for he had long since learned his comrade'sphenomenal walking powers.
"I've been holding back to give you a chance," Smoke jeered.
"An' I'm plum troddin' on your heels. If you can't do better, let me goahead and set pace."
Smoke quickened, and was soon at the rear of the nearest bunch ofstampeders.
"Hike along, you, Smoke," the other urged. "Walk over them unburieddead. This ain't no funeral. Hit the frost like you was goin'somewheres."
Smoke counted eight men and two women in this party, and before theway across the jam-ice was won, he and Shorty had passed another partytwenty strong. Within a few feet of the west bank, the trail swerved tothe south, emerging from the jam upon smooth ice. The ice, however, wasburied under several feet of fine snow. Through this the sled-trail ran,a narrow ribbon of packed footing barely two feet in width. On eitherside one sank to his knees and deeper in the snow. The stampeders theyovertook were reluctant to give way, and often Smoke and Shorty had toplunge into the deep snow and by supreme efforts flounder past.
Shorty was irrepressible and pessimistic. When the stampeders resentedbeing passed, he retorted in kind.
"What's your hurry?" one of them asked.
"What's yours?" he answered. "A stampede come down from Indian Riveryesterday afternoon an' beat you to it. They ain't no claims left."
"That being so, I repeat, what's your hurry?"
"WHO? Me? I ain't no stampeder. I'm workin' for the government. I'm onofficial business. I'm just traipsin' along to take the census of SquawCreek."
To another, who hailed him with: "Where away, little one? Do you reallyexpect to stake a claim?" Shorty answered:
"Me? I'm the discoverer of Squaw Creek. I'm just comin' back fromrecordin' so as to see no blamed chechako jumps my claim."
The average pace of the stampeders on the smooth going was three milesand a half an hour. Smoke and Shorty were doing four and a half, thoughsometimes they broke into short runs and went faster.
"I'm going to travel your feet clean off, Shorty," Smoke challenged.
"Huh! I can hike along on the stumps an' wear the heels off yourmoccasins. Though it ain't no use. I've been figgerin'. Creek claimsis five hundred feet. Call 'em ten to the mile. They's a thousandstampeders ahead of us, an' that creek ain't no hundred miles long.Somebody's goin' to get left, an' it makes a noise like you an' me."
Before replying, Smoke let out an unexpected link that threw Shorty halfa dozen feet in the rear. "If you saved your breath and kept up, we'dcut down a few of that thousand," he chided.
"Who? Me? If you'd get outa the way I'd show you a pace what is."
Smoke laughed, and let out another link. The whole aspect of theadventure had changed. Through his brain was running a phrase of themad philosopher--"the transvaluation of values." In truth, he was lessinterested in staking a fortune than in beating Shorty. After all, heconcluded, it wasn't the reward of the game but the playing of it thatcounted. Mind, and muscle, and stamina, and soul, were challenged in acontest with this Shorty, a man who had never opened the books, and whodid not know grand opera from rag-time, nor an epic from a chilblain.
"Shorty, I've got you skinned to death. I've reconstructed every cellin my body since I hit the beach at Dyea. My flesh is as stringy aswhipcords, and as bitter and mean as the bite of a rattlesnake. A fewmonths ago I'd have patted myself on the back to write such words, butI couldn't have written them. I had to live them first, and now thatI'm living them there's no need to write them. I'm the real, bitter,stinging goods, and no scrub of a mountaineer can put anything over onme without getting it back compound. Now, you go ahead and set pace forhalf an hour. Do your worst, and when you're all in I'll go ahead andgive you half an hour of the real worst."
"Huh!" Shorty sneered genially. "An' him not dry behind the ears yet.Get outa the way an' let your father show you some goin'."
Half-hour by half-hour they alternated in setting pace. Nor did theytalk much. Their exertions kept them warm, though their breath froze ontheir faces from lips to chin. So intense was the cold that they almostcontinually rubbed their noses and cheeks with their mittens. A fewminutes' cessation from this allowed the flesh to grow numb, and thenmost vigorous rubbing was required to produce the burning prickle ofreturning circulation.
Often they thought they had reached the lead, but always they overtookmore stampeders who had started before them. Occasionally, groups ofmen attempted to swing in behind to their pace, but invariably they werediscouraged after a mile or two and disappeared in the darkness to therear.
"We've been out on trail all winter," was Shorty's comment. "An' themgeezers, soft from layin' around their cabins, has the nerve to thinkthey can keep our stride. Now, if they was real sour-doughs it'd bedifferent. If there's one thing a sour-dough can do it's sure walk."
Once, Smoke lighted a match and glanced at his watch. He never repeatedit, for so quick was the bite of the frost on his bared hands that halfan hour passed before they were again comfortable.
"Four o'clock," he said, as he pulled on his mittens, "and we've alreadypassed three hundred."
"Three hundred and thirty-eight," Shorty corrected. "I been keepin'count. Get outa the way, stranger. Let somebody stampede that knows howto stampede."
The latter was addressed to a man, evidently exhausted, who could nomore than stumble along and who blocked the trail. This, and one other,were the only played-out men they encountered, for they were very nearto the head of the stampede. Nor did they learn till afterwards thehorrors of that night. Exhausted men sat down to rest by the way andfailed to get up again. Seven were frozen to death, while scores ofamputations of toes, feet, and fingers were performed in the Dawsonhospitals on the survivors. For the stampede to Squaw Creek occurred onthe coldest night of the year. Before morning, the spirit thermometersat Dawson registered seventy degrees below zero. The men composing thestampede, with few exceptions, were new-comers in the country who didnot know the way of the cold.
The other played-out man they found a few minutes later, revealed by astreamer of aurora borealis that shot like a searchlight from horizon tozenith. He was sitting on a piece of ice beside the trail.
"Hop along, sister Mary," Shorty gaily greeted him. "Keep movin'. If yousit there you'll freeze stiff."
The man made no response, and they stopped to investigate.
"Stiff as a poker," was Shorty's verdict. "If you tumbled him over he'dbreak."
"See if he's breathing," Smoke said, as, with bared hand, he soughtthrough furs and woollens for the man's heart.
Shorty lifted one ear-flap and bent to the iced lips. "Nary breathe," hereported.
"Nor heart-beat,
" said Smoke.
He mittened his hand and beat it violently for a minute before exposingit to the frost to strike a match. It was an old man, incontestablydead. In the moment of illumination, they saw a long grey beard, massedwith ice to the nose, cheeks that were white with frost, and closed eyeswith frost-rimmed lashes frozen together. Then the match went out.
"Come on," Shorty said, rubbing his ear. "We can't do nothin' for theold geezer. An' I've sure frosted my ear. Now all the blamed skin'llpeel off, and it'll be sore for a week."
A few minutes later, when a flaming ribbon spilled pulsating fire overthe heavens, they saw on the ice a quarter of a mile ahead two forms.Beyond, for a mile, nothing moved.
"They're leading the procession," Smoke said, as darkness fell again."Come on, let's get them."
At the end of half an hour, not yet having overtaken the two in front,Shorty broke into a run.
"If we catch 'em we'll never pass 'em," he panted. "Lord, what a pacethey're hittin'. Dollars to doughnuts they're no chechakos. They're thereal sour-dough variety, you can stack on that."
Smoke was leading when they finally caught up, and he was glad to easeto a walk at their heels. Almost immediately he got the impression thatthe one nearer him was a woman. How this impression came, he could nottell. Hooded and furred, the dark form was as any form; yet there was ahaunting sense of familiarity about it. He waited for the next flame ofthe aurora, and by its light saw the smallness of the moccasined feet.But he saw more--the walk, and knew it for the unmistakable walk he hadonce resolved never to forget.
"She's a sure goer," Shorty confided hoarsely. "I'll bet it's anIndian."
"How do you do, Miss Gastell?" Smoke addressed her.
"How do you do," she answered, with a turn of the head and a quickglance. "It's too dark to see. Who are you?"
"Smoke."
She laughed in the frost, and he was certain it was the prettiestlaughter he had ever heard. "And have you married and raised all thosechildren you were telling me about?" Before he could retort, she wenton. "How many chechakos are there behind?"
"Several thousand, I imagine. We passed over three hundred. And theyweren't wasting any time."
"It's the old story," she said bitterly. "The new-comers get in on therich creeks, and the old-timers, who dared and suffered and made thiscountry, get nothing. Old-timers made this discovery on Squaw Creek--howit leaked out is the mystery--and they sent word up to all theold-timers on Sea Lion. But it's ten miles farther than Dawson, and whenthey arrive they'll find the creek staked to the skyline by the Dawsonchechakos. It isn't right, it isn't fair, such perversity of luck."
"It is too bad," Smoke sympathized. "But I'm hanged if I know whatyou're going to do about it. First come, first served, you know."
"I wish I could do something," she flashed back at him. "I'd like tosee them all freeze on the trail, or have everything terrible happen tothem, so long as the Sea Lion stampede arrived first."
"You've certainly got it in for us hard," he laughed.
"It isn't that," she said quickly. "Man by man, I know the crowd fromSea Lion, and they are men. They starved in this country in the olddays, and they worked like giants to develop it. I went through the hardtimes on the Koyukuk with them when I was a little girl. And I was withthem in the Birch Creek famine, and in the Forty Mile famine. They areheroes, and they deserve some reward, and yet here are thousands ofgreen softlings who haven't earned the right to stake anything, milesand miles ahead of them. And now, if you'll forgive my tirade, I'll savemy breath, for I don't know when you and all the rest may try to passdad and me."
No further talk passed between Joy and Smoke for an hour or so, thoughhe noticed that for a time she and her father talked in low tones.
"I know 'em now," Shorty told Smoke. "He's old Louis Gastell, an' thereal goods. That must be his kid. He come into this country so long agothey ain't nobody can recollect, an' he brought the girl with him, sheonly a baby. Him an' Beetles was tradin' partners an' they ran the firstdinkey little steamboat up the Koyukuk."
"I don't think we'll try to pass them," Smoke said. "We're at the headof the stampede, and there are only four of us."
Shorty agreed, and another hour of silence followed, during which theyswung steadily along. At seven o'clock, the blackness was broken by alast display of the aurora borealis, which showed to the west a broadopening between snow-clad mountains.
"Squaw Creek!" Joy exclaimed.
"Goin' some," Shorty exulted. "We oughtn't to been there for anotherhalf hour to the least, accordin' to my reckonin'. I must 'a' beenspreadin' my legs."
It was at this point that the Dyea trail, baffled by ice-jams, swervedabruptly across the Yukon to the east bank. And here they must leavethe hard-packed, main-travelled trail, mount the jams, and follow a dimtrail, but slightly packed, that hovered the west bank.
Louis Gastell, leading, slipped in the darkness on the rough ice, andsat up, holding his ankle in both his hands. He struggled to his feetand went on, but at a slower pace and with a perceptible limp. After afew minutes he abruptly halted.
"It's no use," he said to his daughter. "I've sprained a tendon. You goahead and stake for me as well as yourself."
"Can't we do something?" Smoke asked solicitously.
Louis Gastell shook his head. "She can stake two claims as well as one.I'll crawl over to the bank, start a fire, and bandage my ankle. I'll beall right. Go on, Joy. Stake ours above the Discovery claim; it's richerhigher up."
"Here's some birch bark," Smoke said, dividing his supply equally."We'll take care of your daughter."
Louis Gastell laughed harshly. "Thank you just the same," he said. "Butshe can take care of herself. Follow her and watch her."
"Do you mind if I lead?" she asked Smoke, as she headed on. "I know thiscountry better than you."
"Lead on," Smoke answered gallantly, "though I agree with you it's adarned shame all us chechakos are going to beat that Sea Lion bunch toit. Isn't there some way to shake them?"
She shook her head. "We can't hide our trail, and they'll follow it likesheep."
After a quarter of a mile, she turned sharply to the west. Smoke noticedthat they were going through unpacked snow, but neither he nor Shortyobserved that the dim trail they had been on still led south. Had theywitnessed the subsequent procedure of Louis Gastell, the history of theKlondike would have been written differently; for they would have seenthat old-timer, no longer limping, running with his nose to the traillike a hound, following them. Also, they would have seen him trampleand widen the turn to the fresh trail they had made to the west. And,finally, they would have seen him keep on the old dim trail that stillled south.
A trail did run up the creek, but so slight was it that they continuallylost it in the darkness. After a quarter of an hour, Joy Gastell waswilling to drop into the rear and let the two men take turns in breakinga way through the snow. This slowness of the leaders enabled the wholestampede to catch up, and when daylight came, at nine o'clock, as farback as they could see was an unbroken line of men. Joy's dark eyessparkled at the sight.
"How long since we started up the creek?" she asked.
"Fully two hours," Smoke answered.
"And two hours back make four," she laughed. "The stampede from Sea Lionis saved."
A faint suspicion crossed Smoke's mind, and he stopped and confrontedher.
"I don't understand," he said.
"You don't? Then I'll tell you. This is Norway Creek. Squaw Creek is thenext to the south."
Smoke was for the moment, speechless.
"You did it on purpose?" Shorty demanded.
"I did it to give the old-timers a chance." She laughed mockingly. Themen grinned at each other and finally joined her. "I'd lay you acrossmy knee an' give you a wallopin', if women folk wasn't so scarce in thiscountry," Shorty assured her.
"Your father didn't sprain a tendon, but waited till we were out ofsight and then went on?" Smoke asked.
She nodded.
"And you were the decoy?"
Again she nodded, and this time Smoke's laughter rang out clear andtrue. It was the spontaneous laughter of a frankly beaten man.
"Why don't you get angry with me?" she queried ruefully. "Or--or wallopme?"
"Well, we might as well be starting back," Shorty urged. "My feet'sgettin' cold standin' here."
Smoke shook his head. "That would mean four hours lost. We must be eightmiles up this creek now, and from the look ahead Norway is making a longswing south. We'll follow it, then cross over the divide somehow, andtap Squaw Creek somewhere above Discovery." He looked at Joy. "Won't youcome along with us? I told your father we'd look after you."
"I--" She hesitated. "I think I shall, if you don't mind." She waslooking straight at him, and her face was no longer defiant and mocking."Really, Mr. Smoke, you make me almost sorry for what I have done. Butsomebody had to save the old-timers."
"It strikes me that stampeding is at best a sporting proposition."
"And it strikes me you two are very game about it," she went on, thenadded with the shadow of a sigh: "What a pity you are not old-timers!"
For two hours more they kept to the frozen creek-bed of Norway, thenturned into a narrow and rugged tributary that flowed from the south. Atmidday they began the ascent of the divide itself. Behind them, lookingdown and back, they could see the long line of stampeders breaking up.Here and there, in scores of places, thin smoke-columns advertised themaking of camps.
As for themselves, the going was hard. They wallowed through snow totheir waists, and were compelled to stop every few yards to breathe.Shorty was the first to call a halt.
"We been hittin' the trail for over twelve hours," he said. "Smoke, I'mplum willin' to say I'm good an' tired. An' so are you. An' I'm free toshout that I can sure hang on to this here pasear like a starvin' Indianto a hunk of bear-meat. But this poor girl here can't keep her legs notime if she don't get something in her stomach. Here's where we build afire. What d'ye say?"
So quickly, so deftly and methodically, did they go about making atemporary camp, that Joy, watching with jealous eyes, admitted toherself that the old-timers could not do it better. Spruce boughs,with a spread blanket on top, gave a foundation for rest and cookingoperations. But they kept away from the heat of the fire until noses andcheeks had been rubbed cruelly.
Smoke spat in the air, and the resultant crackle was so immediate andloud that he shook his head. "I give it up," he said. "I've never seencold like this."
"One winter on the Koyukuk it went to eighty-six below," Joy answered."It's at least seventy or seventy-five right now, and I know I'vefrosted my cheeks. They're burning like fire."
On the steep slope of the divide there was no ice, so snow, as fine andhard and crystalline as granulated sugar, was poured into the gold-panby the bushel until enough water was melted for the coffee. Smoke friedbacon and thawed biscuits. Shorty kept the fuel supplied and tended thefire, and Joy set the simple table composed of two plates, two cups, twospoons, a tin of mixed salt and pepper, and a tin of sugar. When it cameto eating, she and Smoke shared one set between them. They ate out ofthe same plate and drank from the same cup.
It was nearly two in the afternoon when they cleared the crest of thedivide and began dropping down a feeder of Squaw Creek. Earlier in thewinter some moose-hunter had made a trail up the canyon--that is, ingoing up and down he had stepped always in his previous tracks. As aresult, in the midst of soft snow, and veiled under later snow falls,was a line of irregular hummocks. If one's foot missed a hummock, heplunged down through unpacked snow and usually to a fall. Also, themoose-hunter had been an exceptionally long-legged individual. Joy, whowas eager now that the two men should stake, and fearing that they wereslackening their pace on account of her evident weariness, insistedon taking her turn in the lead. The speed and manner in which shenegotiated the precarious footing called out Shorty's unqualifiedapproval.
"Look at her!" he cried. "She's the real goods an' the red meat. Look atthem moccasins swing along. No high-heels there. She uses the legs Godgave her. She's the right squaw for any bear-hunter."
She flashed back a smile of acknowledgment that included Smoke. Hecaught a feeling of chumminess, though at the same time he was bitinglyaware that it was very much of a woman who embraced him in thatcomradely smile.
Looking back, as they came to the bank of Squaw Creek, they could seethe stampede, strung out irregularly, struggling along the descent ofthe divide.
They slipped down the bank to the creek bed. The stream, frozen solidlyto bottom, was from twenty to thirty feet wide and ran between six- andeight-foot earth banks of alluvial wash. No recent feet had disturbedthe snow that lay upon its ice, and they knew they were above theDiscovery claim and the last stakes of the Sea Lion stampeders.
"Look out for springs," Joy warned, as Smoke led the way down the creek."At seventy below you'll lose your feet if you break through."
These springs, common to most Klondike streams, never cease at thelowest temperatures. The water flows out from the banks and lies inpools which are cuddled from the cold by later surface-freezings andsnow falls. Thus, a man, stepping on dry snow, might break through halfan inch of ice-skin and find himself up to the knees in water. In fiveminutes, unless able to remove the wet gear, the loss of one's foot wasthe penalty.
Though only three in the afternoon, the long grey twilight of the Arctichad settled down. They watched for a blazed tree on either bank, whichwould show the center-stake of the last claim located. Joy, impulsivelyeager, was the first to find it. She darted ahead of Smoke, crying:"Somebody's been here! See the snow! Look for the blaze! There it is!See that spruce!"
She sank suddenly to her waist in the snow.
"Now I've done it," she said woefully. Then she cried: "Don't come nearme! I'll wade out."
Step by step, each time breaking through the thin skin of ice concealedunder the dry snow, she forced her way to solid footing. Smoke did notwait, but sprang to the bank, where dry and seasoned twigs and sticks,lodged amongst the brush by spring freshets, waited the match. By thetime she reached his side, the first flames and flickers of an assuredfire were rising.
"Sit down!" he commanded.
She obediently sat down in the snow. He slipped his pack from his back,and spread a blanket for her feet.
From above came the voices of the stampeders who followed them.
"Let Shorty stake," she urged.
"Go on, Shorty," Smoke said, as he attacked her moccasins, already stiffwith ice. "Pace off a thousand feet and place the two center-stakes. Wecan fix the corner-stakes afterwards."
With his knife Smoke cut away the lacings and leather of the moccasins.So stiff were they with ice that they snapped and crackled under thehacking and sawing. The Siwash socks and heavy woollen stockingswere sheaths of ice. It was as if her feet and calves were encased incorrugated iron.
"How are your feet?" he asked, as he worked.
"Pretty numb. I can't move nor feel my toes. But it will be all right.The fire is burning beautifully. Watch out you don't freeze your ownhands. They must be numb now from the way you're fumbling."
He slipped his mittens on, and for nearly a minute smashed the openhands savagely against his sides. When he felt the blood-prickles, hepulled off the mittens and ripped and tore and sawed and hacked at thefrozen garments. The white skin of one foot appeared, then that of theother, to be exposed to the bite of seventy below zero, which is theequivalent of one hundred and two below freezing.
Then came the rubbing with snow, carried on with an intensity ofcruel fierceness, till she squirmed and shrank and moved her toes, andjoyously complained of the hurt.
He half-dragged her, and she half-lifted herself, nearer to the fire. Heplaced her feet on the blanket close to the flesh-saving flames.
"You'll have to take care of them for a while," he said.
She could now safely remove her mittens and manipulate her own feet,with the wisdom of the initiated, being watchful that the he
at of thefire was absorbed slowly. While she did this, he attacked his hands.The snow did not melt nor moisten. Its light crystals were like so muchsand. Slowly the stings and pangs of circulation came back into thechilled flesh. Then he tended the fire, unstrapped the light pack fromher back, and got out a complete change of foot-gear.
Shorty returned along the creek bed and climbed the bank to them. "Isure staked a full thousan' feet," he proclaimed. "Number twenty-sevenan' number twenty-eight, though I'd only got the upper stake oftwenty-seven, when I met the first geezer of the bunch behind. He juststraight declared I wasn't goin' to stake twenty-eight. An' I toldhim--"
"Yes, yes," Joy cried. "What did you tell him?"
"Well, I told him straight that if he didn't back up plum five hundredfeet I'd sure punch his frozen nose into ice-cream an' chocolateeclaires. He backed up, an' I've got in the center-stakes of two fullan' honest five-hundred-foot creek claims. He staked next, and I guessby now the bunch has Squaw Creek located to head-waters an' down theother side. Ourn is safe. It's too dark to see now, but we can put outthe corner-stakes in the mornin'."
When they awoke, they found a change had taken place during the night.So warm was it, that Shorty and Smoke, still in their mutual blankets,estimated the temperature at no more than twenty below. The cold snaphad broken. On top of their blankets lay six inches of frost crystals.
"Good morning! how are your feet?" was Smoke's greeting across the ashesof the fire to where Joy Gastell, carefully shaking aside the snow, wassitting up in her sleeping-furs.
Shorty built the fire and quarried ice from the creek, while Smokecooked breakfast. Daylight came on as they finished the meal.
"You go an' fix them corner-stakes, Smoke," Shorty said. "There's gravelunder where I chopped ice for the coffee, an' I'm goin' to melt waterand wash a pan of that same gravel for luck."
Smoke departed, axe in hand, to blaze the stakes. Starting from thedown-stream center-stake of 'twenty-seven,' he headed at right anglesacross the narrow valley towards its rim. He proceeded methodically,almost automatically, for his mind was alive with recollections ofthe night before. He felt, somehow, that he had won to empery over thedelicate lines and firm muscles of those feet and ankles he had rubbedwith snow, and this empery seemed to extend to the rest and all ofthis woman of his kind. In dim and fiery ways a feeling of possessionmastered him. It seemed that all that was necessary was for him to walkup to this Joy Gastell, take her hand in his, and say "Come."
It was in this mood that he discovered something that made him forgetempery over the white feet of woman. At the valley rim he blazed nocorner-stake. He did not reach the valley rim, but, instead, he foundhimself confronted by another stream. He lined up with his eye a blastedwillow tree and a big and recognizable spruce. He returned to the streamwhere were the center-stakes. He followed the bed of the creek around awide horseshoe bend through the flat and found that the two creeks werethe same creek. Next, he floundered twice through the snow from valleyrim to valley rim, running the first line from the lower stake of'twenty-seven,' the second from the upper stake of 'twenty-eight,' andhe found that THE UPPER STAKE OF THE LATTER WAS LOWER THAN THE LOWERSTAKE OF THE FORMER. In the gray twilight and half-darkness Shorty hadlocated their two claims on the horseshoe.
Smoke plodded back to the little camp. Shorty, at the end of washing apan of gravel, exploded at sight of him.
"We got it!" Shorty cried, holding out the pan. "Look at it! A nastymess of gold. Two hundred right there if it's a cent. She runs richfrom the top of the wash-gravel. I've churned around placers some, but Inever got butter like what's in this pan."
Smoke cast an incurious glance at the coarse gold, poured himself acup of coffee at the fire, and sat down. Joy sensed something wrongand looked at him with eagerly solicitous eyes. Shorty, however, wasdisgruntled by his partner's lack of delight in the discovery.
"Why don't you kick in an' get excited?" he demanded. "We got our pileright here, unless you're stickin' up your nose at two-hundred-dollarpans."
Smoke took a swallow of coffee before replying. "Shorty, why are our twoclaims here like the Panama Canal?"
"What's the answer?"
"Well, the eastern entrance of the Panama Canal is west of the westernentrance, that's all."
"Go on," Shorty said. "I ain't seen the joke yet."
"In short, Shorty, you staked our two claims on a big horseshoe bend."
Shorty set the gold pan down in the snow and stood up. "Go on," herepeated.
"The upper stake of 'twenty-eight' is ten feet below the lower stake of'twenty-seven.'"
"You mean we ain't got nothin', Smoke?"
"Worse than that; we've got ten feet less than nothing."
Shorty departed down the bank on the run. Five minutes later hereturned. In response to Joy's look, he nodded. Without speech, he wentover to a log and sat down to gaze steadily at the snow in front of hismoccasins.
"We might as well break camp and start back for Dawson," Smoke said,beginning to fold the blankets.
"I am sorry, Smoke," Joy said. "It's all my fault."
"It's all right," he answered. "All in the day's work, you know."
"But it's my fault, wholly mine," she persisted. "Dad's staked for medown near Discovery, I know. I'll give you my claim."
He shook his head.
"Shorty," she pleaded.
Shorty shook his head and began to laugh. It was a colossal laugh.Chuckles and muffled explosions yielded to hearty roars.
"It ain't hysterics," he explained. "I sure get powerful amused attimes, an' this is one of them."
His gaze chanced to fall on the gold-pan. He walked over and gravelykicked it, scattering the gold over the landscape.
"It ain't ourn," he said. "It belongs to the geezer I backed up fivehundred feet last night. An' what gets me is four hundred an' ninetyof them feet was to the good--his good. Come on, Smoke. Let's start thehike to Dawson. Though if you're hankerin' to kill me I won't lift afinger to prevent."