The Trail of a Sourdough Part 6

Two miners sat smoking in a small log cabin in Dawson. They were hardy young fellows, and used the accent of born Canadians. They were brothers, and the elder was speaking.

"What's the use of our hanging 'round here all winter doing nothing? The best creeks are all staked, and there isn't the ghost of a show for us to get any first cla.s.s ground hereabouts. Let's light out, blaze a new trail for ourselves, and prospect in the likeliest places during the winter instead of idling away our time here, eating up high-priced grub and hating ourselves. I'm sick of this camp. What do you say?"

"Which way shall we go?"

"Any old way. No, it would be better to have some definite idea of the point we wish to reach, of course. We might make for the headwaters of the Klond.y.k.e and then east into the unknown country where only a few poor Indians live."

"They might prove ugly. What then?"

"We could manage them. We would take plenty of grub and ammunition, and a couple of white men, at least, with us."

"What makes you think there's gold there? It wouldn't pay us to risk our lives for nothing in such a wilderness. I would be willing to go if I thought our time and efforts might turn up something good."

"I have been watching the Indians who come here for supplies from that direction, and they are far from penniless. They carry good-sized pokes of nuggets and dust which they use in trading. They must get these from some of the creeks over east," said the elder of the two men.

"They are mum as oysters; one can't get any information from them."

"What'll you bet I can't?"

"A box of cigars," laughed the younger, whose name seemed appropriately bestowed, for it was Thomas, and he often doubted.

With that George MacDougall drew on his fur coat and mittens and quitted the cabin. He would find a certain long haired Indian he had seen that day, and prove to his brother that he was not simply a boaster.

It was early in the evening; but for the matter of that, the hour made little difference, for time slipped by unreckoned in the Klond.y.k.e in winter. Night was more often than not turned into day by the restless denizens of the mining camp, and belated breakfast sometime the following afternoon was the sequel.

Just now the moon shown brightly above the camp, the deep frozen river and the high hills. George MacDougall could plainly hear the loud talking and shouts of those bent on dissipation while crossing the ice by dog-team to West Dawson. Glancing in that direction he saw the brilliantly lighted dance-house and saloon, whose blare of bra.s.sy instruments reached his unwilling ears at that distance; the still, cold air of an Arctic night being a perfect conductor of sound. Under the sheltering, furry fringe of his cap his forehead gathered itself into a scowl.

"What fools!" he muttered. "If one must carouse why come here? That sort of thing can be done on the 'outside', but in here where grub is worth its weight in gold, and none expect comforts, why waste time? We came here for that we cannot obtain in the States--at least I did--for gold,--gold, and I'll have it, too, by Gad!" Then p.r.i.c.king up his ears again at the end of his soliloquy, he listened and laughed aloud.

"Hear those malamute cusses! How they do whoop it up, to be sure," as a familiar canine chorus surged clearcut through the frosty air. "I'd rather listen any time to the brutes zig-zagging up and down their scales than to the giggling 'box rustlers' from the Monte Carlo crossing yonder to the dance-house; but where's that blooming Indian, I wonder? I must find him," and the stalwart Canadian moved on more quickly up the main street.

An hour later he again smoked in his cabin with his brother. Opposite them sat an Indian with long, black hair. The latter held in his hand a whiskey gla.s.s, now almost drained, the contents of which had no doubt called up the good-humored expression at the corners of the native's habitually unsmiling mouth.

The Canadians smoked; their chair-backs tilted against the wall. There was no hurry. The elder MacDougall re-filled the Indian's gla.s.s with liquor, and leisurely and carefully knocking the ashes from his pipe, placed it upon a shelf. He then took from an inside pocket a half dozen cigars of reputable brand and placed one between his lips, by chance, probably, glancing toward his visitor, whose fingers now twitched at sight of the much relished tobacco stick.

"Plenty gold where you come from?" carelessly interrogated MacDougall, his eyes on the lighted end of his cigar, and flirting away the match he had been using.

"Yes," grunted the Indian in answer.

"Can we find it, too, Pete?" queried the white man, at the same moment holding one of the cigars toward his visitor, who eagerly seized it.

"I tink."

"Will you show us a gold creek, Pete?" continued the patiently questioning Canadian.

"How much you give?"

"I'll give you a gallon of whiskey and a box of good cigars if you will take me with my brother here to your gold creek, or any gold creek that is not taken up by white men already. Understand, Pete?"

The Indian nodded. He loved liquor better than gold, but Yukon authorities had prohibited the sale of the stuff to Indians, and strictly enforced the law, so, though he had attempted in various ways to purchase it in Dawson he had not been successful. Here was the offer of a whole gallon in exchange for gold so far away that the white man would probably die before he reached it, even if he attempted to cover the distance; and the Indian acquiesced in the bargain.

Thomas MacDougall wanted to be shown some of Pete's gold, and so remarked; whereupon the latter thrust his hand into his trouser's pockets, well hidden by the fur parkie he wore, took out a poke and threw it upon the table. When Thomas had untied the string and held the moose-hide sack by its two lower corners bottom upwards there clattered out upon the boards enough of good-sized golden nuggets to cause the eyes of the doubter to sparkle with interest.

"Are you sure you did not steal these from some white man's cabin on Bonanza or Eldorado, Pete?" queried the skeptic Thomas.

"No steal 'um,--catch 'um big crik,--plent' gold,--heap. You sabee?"

Thomas understood, but only partly believed. His brother argued that it was a case of "nothing venture, nothing have" and he would take the risk and follow Pete into the wintry wilderness.

If indecision is a sign of weak minds then there are but few feeble-minded men in an Alaskan gold camp. Here men decide matters quickly. It is touch and go with them. This trip might mean the end of all things earthly to the two MacDougalls, but they determined to make the venture. They might fail of finding gold in quant.i.ties, but that was their fate if they remained in Dawson. They could die but once. Having risked so much, and come so far already, it was small effort to stake still more of time, effort and money, and they decided to follow Pete.

A week later the two brothers, (their company augmented by two white men and as many Indians, besides long-haired Pete, the guide) might have been seen slowly but carefully making their way through the snowy hill region of the headwaters of the Klond.y.k.e River. Mapped carelessly, as it often is, this appears a small and unpretending stream; but to the Indian or prospector who has tracked its length from a small creeklet at starting to a wide and rus.h.i.+ng mouth emptying its pure waters into the muddy Yukon, it has a good length of several hundred miles, and must not be lightly mentioned. On its "left limit" were Bonanza and Eldorado Creeks where men with underground fires burning both night and day tried with puny strength to checkmate the stubborn ice king in order to add to the dumps to be hopefully washed out in the springtime. Though they burned their eyes from their sockets in these pestilential smoke holes, and though from badly cooked and scanty meals their blackened limbs made declaration that the dreaded scurvy was upon them; still there were always men eager to fill the places of those who succ.u.mbed, and the work went on.

There were creeks called Bear, Rock, Benson, Wolf, Gnat and Fox, which with Nello, Arizona, and many more, went to make up the far-famed Klond.y.k.e River.

Now all were fast frozen. Snow lay deep upon the ice. No babbling of hurrying waters over pebbly creek beds was heard, but instead, the axe of the solitary miner at wood chopping on the banks of silent streams.

As the short days pa.s.sed, and the small caravan forged on, the smoke of white men's cabins was more seldom seen; until finally the last one was pointed out by Indian Pete, and it was soon left far behind.

Shorter grew the daylight hours. Proceeding they were forced to break trails, although their guide appeared familiar with the region and was heading toward the best and easiest pa.s.s in the Rockies. This tedious snow waste once crossed, their way to the great lakes was comparatively clear.

They soon learned to travel as well in the dusky snow-light as by daylight, and enjoyed it better, for there was no glare of the sun on the white mantled earth. Their dog-teams were good ones, and a source of comfort to the travelers whose experience with this mode of migration was limited. While the weary men slept in their little tents by night the malamutes howled and rested at intervals. If one happened to be startled by a bad dream he immediately communicated the fact to his neighbors, of whom there were more than thirty, and they, either from sympathetic interest in a brother, or because they resented being waked thus unceremoniously in the midst of enjoyable naps, began echoing their sentiments in the most lugubrious manner. To all sorts of notes in the musical scale the voices of these dogs ranged, they seeming to spare no pains to give varied entertainment. How these creatures work so hard, eat and sleep so little, howl so much, and keep in good condition, is ever an unsolvable riddle; but they are usually docile, pleasant of disposition, and ready for any task.

The MacDougall party treated their animals kindly. Men must reasonably do this in self defense. That a brow-beaten dog gives up and drops from the race through sheer discouragement often happens; but well fed and with considerate treatment a malamute will bravely work to the last moment.

A few hundred miles farther east and these dogs would be exchanged for "Hudson Bay huskies", or sent back over the trail to Dawson to be sold.

In case the MacDougalls "struck it rich" in the Indian country it was imperative that they be provided with huskies, but for the present the "malamute made much music", as Tom MacDougall laughingly remarked.

One day the party came upon the fresh tracks of a caribou. Made by good-sized hoofs, the animal had gone toward the south apparently in great haste. In a moment Pete was off with his rifle to the nearest hill-top, stealthily but rapidly treading the soft, deep snow. The elder MacDougall shouldered his gun and followed the trail of the animal whose flesh he coveted as a feasting dish after living so long upon dried fish and bacon.

For more than an hour the Canadian tracked his game. Pete, from the hill-top, had sighted a tiny thread of blue smoke rising from the valley on the other side, and knew that Indians, probably Peel River men, were also upon the track of the animal, when instantly his enthusiasm in the chase cooled.

He decided to follow MacDougall. If these were the Peel River Indians they were far from their own hunting grounds, and must have driven big game into this vicinity which they were loath to abandon. In case that MacDougall should bring down the caribou he might get into trouble, and Pete hastened on.

The cold, crisp air was intensely still. As he proceeded, with alert ears, he heard a shot, angry voices in altercation, and a second shot, when the now thoroughly awakened Indian hurried on in the footprints of the Canadian.

One of the hunters would probably hunt no more; but which one was it?

He was not long in doubt. Coming suddenly upon them he discovered that his fears were realized.

MacDougall stood sternly regarding a fur-dressed Indian lying dead upon the snow. He and Pete exchanged glances.

"What's the matter?" asked Pete.

"He jumped upon me and declared the caribou was his. I told him it was mine, when he pulled his gun and I shot him--that's all," said MacDougall.

"That's plent'," tersely from Pete. Then casting his eye over the sky he said: "Snow c.u.m quick,--hide um. We cut caribou," whereupon he whipped out a big hunting knife, after placing his rifle in the crotch of a tree, and began slas.h.i.+ng the still warm body of the big caribou.