CHAPTER X
THE _IGLOO_ IN THE SNOW
"Now, kid," said Waseche Bill the following morning, "we got to maketracks fo' the Tatonduk. We got too many dogs, an' we got to cut down onthe feed. I hate to do it--on the trail--but they's no two ways aboutit. Three or fo' days ort to put us at the divide. I made a _cache_the'h comin' in an' we'll be all right when we strike it."
The two stood in front of the cavern, breathing deeply of the clear,pure air. A stiff breeze was blowing from the south-west, and the daywas warm and pleasant. The sun had not yet risen, and as the dogs swunginto the trail Connie glanced at the little thermometer lashed firmly tothe back of his sled. It registered twenty degrees below zero, an idealtemperature for trail travel and the boy cracked his whip and yelledaloud in the very joy of living.
At the mouth of the canyon they swerved in a north-westerly direction,toward the northernmost reach of the Ogilvie Range. All day they mushedacross the wide caribou barrens and flat tundra that separated the greatnameless range behind them from the high mountains to the westward thatlay between them and Alaska. For, upon ascending the Tatonduk, they hadpassed out of Alaska into the unmapped Yukon district of sub-arcticCanada. Evening of the second day found them among the foothills of themountains. Patches of stunted timber appeared and the lay of the landforced them to keep to the winding beds of frozen creeks and rivers. Theend of the next day found them camped on the snow-covered ice of a smallriver. Waseche divided the few remaining fish, threw half of them to thedogs, and sat down beside the boy, who had prepared a meal of caribou_charqui_ and coffee:
"Seems like this _must_ be the creek--but I ain't sho'. I thought theone we tackled yeste'day was it, too--but it petered out on us."
"I don't know," replied Connie, "I thought I'd remember the back trail,but since the big snow everything looks different. And I was in an awfulhurry to catch up with you, besides."
"Sho', kid, I know. I'd ort to took mo' pains myself, but I wasn't sopa'ticlah about gettin' back--then. Anyways, we'll try this one. We gotto watch the grub now, fo' sho'. Them _malamutes_ is hongry! Day aftehtomorrow, if we don't find the _cache_, we'll have to kill a dawg."Connie nodded.
"We'll find it, all right. This looks like the creek. Still, so do theyall," he added reflectively.
The next day was a repetition of the day preceding. They followed thebed of the creek to its source in a narrow canyon which lost itself uponthe steep side of a gigantic mountain. Wearily, they retraced theirsteps and once again among the foothills, turned to the northward.
"They's no dodgin' the truth, son," said Waseche gloomily, as theymushed on, scrutinizing the mouths of creeks in a vain endeavour tolocate a landmark. "We're lost--jest na'chly plumb _lost_--like a coupleof _chechakos_."
"The divide's _somewhere_," answered the boy, bravely. "We'll find it."
"Yes, it's somewhe'h. But how many thousan' of these creeks, all jestalike, do yo' reckon they is? An' how about grub?"
"I hate to kill a dog," the boy said.
"So do I, but the rest has got to eat. I know them wolf-dawgs; onct theyget good an' hongry they'll begin tearin' one another up--then they'lllay fo' _us_--folks is meat, too, yo' know."
Night overtook them on a small wooded plateau and they camped in theshelter of a dense thicket of larch and stunted spruce. At the very edgeof the thicket was a low white mound, its crown rising some three orfour feet above the surrounding level. The sleds were drawn up at thefoot of this mound, the dogs unharnessed, and, unslinging his axe,Waseche Bill went to the thicket for firewood, leaving Connie to unpackthe outfit. The boy noted as he spread the robes that the mound wassingularly regular, about twelve feet in diameter at the base and havingevenly rounded sides--entirely different from the irregular ridges andspurs of the foothills.
"You're a funny little foothill," he murmured, "way off by yourself. Youlook lonesome. Maybe you're lost, too--in the big, white Lillimuit."
Waseche returned with the wood and lighted the fire while Connie tossedthe last of the fish to the dogs. Supper was finished in silence, thefire replenished, and the two partners lay back on the robes and watchedthe little red sparks shower upward from among the crackling flames.
"We ain't the first that's camped heah," remarked Waseche, between noisypuffs at his pipe. "Yondeh in the thicket is stubs wheah fiahwood's be'nchopped--an' one place wheah consid'able poles has be'n cut. The axemawks is weatheh-checked, showin' they was cut green. But it wasn'tdone this yeah--an' me'be not last."
"I wonder who it was? And what became of them? What did they want withpoles?"
"Built a _cache_, me'be--mout of be'n a sled--but mo'n likely a _cache_.We'll projec' around a bit in the mo'nin'. Me'be we c'n find out whothey was, an' wheah they was headin'. Me'be they'll be a trail map tosome _cache_ befo' this or to the divide."
"I hope we will find a _cache_. Then we wouldn't have to kill a dog."
Waseche's brow puckered judicially:
"Yes--we would. Yo' see, son, it's like this: We got mo' dawgs than isneedful fo' a two-man outfit. If we was down to six dawgs, or evenseven, an' one sled, an' they was weak or stahvin, then we could bust afish _cache_--but to feed twenty-one dawgs--that ain't right. Likewisewith ouah own grub--a man's supposed to take from anotheh man's _cache_jest so much as is needful fo' life; that is, what will get him to theneahest camp--not an ounce mo'. This is the unwritten law of the Nawth.An' a good law. Men's lives is staked on a _cache_--an' that's why when,onct in a while, a man's caught robbin' a _cache_--takin' mo'n what'sneedful fo' life, they ain't much time wasted. He gets--what's comin' tohim."
The dogs had licked up the last crumbs of their scant ration and,burrowing into the snow, wrapped themselves snugly in their thick, bushytails. Old Boris and Slasher dug their beds in the side of the moundnear where Connie had spread his robes. The boy watched them idly asthey threw the hard, dry snow behind them in volleys, and long after theother dogs had curled up for the night, the sound of old Boris' clawsrasping at the flinty snow could be heard at the fireside.
"Boris is digging _some bed_!" exclaimed the boy, as he glanced towardthe tunnel from which emerged spurts of sand-like snow.
"He ain't diggin' no bed," answered Waseche. "He smells somethin'." Evenas he spoke the snow ceased to fly, and seemingly from the depths ofthe earth, came the sound of a muffled bark. Instantly Slasher was onhis feet growling and snarling into the tunnel from which the voice ofold Boris could be heard in a perfect bedlam of barking.
"Oh! It's a cave! A cave!" cried Connie, pushing aside the growlingwolf-dog. "Maybe it's the _cache_!"
Waseche Bill finished twisting a spruce twig torch. He shook his headdubiously:
"Come heah, Boris!" he called, sharply, "come out of that!" The old dogappeared, barking joyously over his discovery. Waseche Bill lighted historch at the fire, and pushing it before him, wriggled into the opening.After what, to the waiting boy, seemed an age, the man's head appearedat the entrance, and he pulled himself clear.
"What is it?" inquired the impatient boy. "What did you find?"
The man regarded him gravely for a moment, and then answered, speakingslowly:
"Waseche Bill attacked the hard-packed snow with hisaxe."]
"It's an _igloo_, son--an _igloo_ buried in the snow. An' the'h's a manin the'h."
"A _man_!" cried the astonished boy.
"Yes, kid--it's Carlson. He's _dead_."
Tired as they were after a hard day on the trail, the two partners wereunwilling to sleep without first making a thorough examination of theburied _igloo_. More firewood was cut, and by the light of the leapingflames Waseche Bill attacked the hard-packed snow with his axe, whileConnie busied himself in removing the cakes and loose snow from theexcavation. At the end of an hour a squared passageway was completed andthe two entered the _igloo_.
"He had a plenty grub, anyways," remarked Waseche, as he cast anappraising eye over the various bags of provisions piled upon the snowfloor. "He didn't stahve, an' it wasn't the red d
eath (smallpox)--Ilooked pa'tic'lah, fo' I went out of heah."
Connie glanced at the body which lay partially covered by a pile ofrobes. The man's features were calm and composed--one could have fanciedhim asleep, had it not been for the marble whiteness of the skin. One byone, they examined all the dead man's effects; the little Yukon stove,half filled with ashes, the bags of provisions, his "war-bag"--all werecarefully scrutinized, but not a map--not even a pencil mark rewardedtheir search.
"He's met up with Eskimos, somewhe'h," said Waseche, examining a rudelyshaped copper pan in which a bit of wicking made from frayed canvasprotruded from a quantity of frozen blubber grease.
Finally the two turned to the body. The coarse woollen shirt was open atthe throat, and about the man's neck, they noticed for the first time,was a thin caribou skin thong. Cutting the thong Waseche removed frombeneath the shirt a flat pouch of oiled canvas. Connie lighted the wickin the copper pan and together the two sat upon a robe and, in theguttering flare of the smoky lamp, carefully unwrapped the canvas cover.The packet contained only a battered pocket notebook, upon whose wornleaves appeared a few rough sketches and many penciled words.
"Yo' read it, kid. I ain't no hand to read much," said Waseche, handingthe book to Connie, and his eyes glowed with admiration as the boy readglibly from the tattered pages.
"Tu'n to the last page an' wo'k back," suggested Waseche.
"January tenth--" began Connie. "Why, that was nearly a year ago! Hecouldn't have been dead a year!" His eyes rested on the white face ofCarlson.
"A yeah, or a hund'ed yeahs--it's all the same. He's froze solid asstone, an' he'll stay like that till the end of time," replied the man,gravely.
"It says," continued the boy, "'Growing weaker. For two days no fire.Too weak. Pain gone, but cannot breathe. To-day'--That's all, it endsthere."
"Noomony," laconically remarked Waseche. The preceding pages weredevoted almost entirely to a record of the progress of the disease. Thefirst notation was January third. Under the date of January fifth hewrote:
"I am afraid my time has come. If so, tell Pete Mateese the claims arestaked on Ignatook--mine and his. See map in lining of _parka_. MaybePete is dead. He has been gone a year. He tried to go out by theTatonduk. I can't find him. I can't find the divide. The Lillimuit hasgot me! They said it would--but the gold! It is here--gold, gold,gold--yellow gold--and it is all mine--mine and Pete Mateese's. But thesteam! The stillness! The white, frozen forest--and the creeks thatdon't freeze! After Pete left _things_ came in the night. It iscold--yet my brain is on fire! I can't sleep!"
This proved to be the longest entry; the man seemed to grow rapidlyweaker. When the boy finished Waseche Bill shuddered.
"The Lillimuit got him," he said slowly. "He went _marihuana_." On thenext page, under the date of January sixth, the boy read:
"Made a _cache_ here in timber. Growing weaker. Tomorrow I will turnback. Mapped the back trail. _2 caches_--then the claims on Ignatook,the creek of the stinking steam. I will go out by the Kandik. I mappedthat trail. It is shorter, but I must find Pete Mateese. I must tellhim--the claims."
"Who is Pete Mateese? And where is Ignatook?" inquired the boy.
"Sea'ch me!" exclaimed Waseche. "I ain't neveh hea'd tell of eitheh one,an' I be'n in Alaska goin' on fo'teen yeah."
"We'ah lost, kid. It's a cinch we cain't find thedivide."]
For an hour they studied Carlson's map, which they found as he haddirected, concealed in the lining of his _parka_. Finally Waseche Billlooked up:
"We'ah lost, kid. It's a cinch we cain't find the divide if Carlsoncouldn't--he know'd the country. The thing fo' us to do is to followCarlson's map to his camp, an' then on out by the Kandik. Neah's I c'nmake out, it means about three or fo' hund'ed miles of trail--but we gotto tackle it. Tomorrow we'll rest an' hunt up the _cache_--Carlson'spast needin' it now. We sho' got hea'h jest in time!"