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Title: The Trail of the Goldseekers
A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse
Author: Hamlin Garland
Release Date: April 10, 2009 [eBook #28551]
Language: English
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THE TRAIL OF THE GOLDSEEKERS
[Illustration: Publisher logo]
THE TRAIL OF THE GOLDSEEKERS
A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse
by
HAMLIN GARLAND
Author of
Rose of Dutcher's Coolly
Main Travelled Roads
Prairie Folks
Boy Life on the Prairie, etc.
New York
The MacMillan Company
London: MacMillan & Co., Ltd.
1906
Copyright, 1899,
by Hamlin Garland.
Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1899. Reprinted January,
1906.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Coming of the Ships 3
II. Outfitting 11
III. On the Stage Road 21
IV. In Camp at Quesnelle 33
V. The Blue Rat 37
VI. The Beginning of the Long Trail 45
VII. The Blackwater Divide 53
VIII. We swim the Nechaco 63
IX. First Crossing of the Bulkley 73
X. Down the Bulkley Valley 81
XI. Hazleton. Midway on the Trail 97
XII. Crossing the Big Divide 107
XIII. The Silent Forests 119
XIV. The Great Stikeen Divide 131
XV. In the Cold Green Mountains 139
XVI. The Passing of the Beans 151
XVII. The Wolves and the Vultures Assemble 163
XVIII. At Last the Stikeen 175
XIX. The Goldseekers' Camp at Glenora 185
XX. Great News at Wrangell 195
XXI. The Rush to Atlin Lake 207
XXII. Atlin Lake and the Gold Fields 217
XXIII. The End of the Trail 231
XXIV. Homeward Bound 241
XXV. Ladrone travels in State 251
XXVI. The Goldseekers reach the Golden River 259
POEMS
Anticipation 1
Where the Desert flames with Furnace Heat 2
The Cow-boy 9
From Plain to Peak 19
Momentous Hour 31
A Wish 32
The Gift of Water 35
Mounting 35
The Eagle Trail 36
Moon on the Plain 43
The Whooping Crane 51
The Loon 51
Yet still we rode 61
The Gaunt Gray Wolf 79
Abandoned on the Trail 80
Do you fear the Wind? 95
Siwash Graves 105
Line up, Brave Boys 106
A Child of the Sun 117
In the Grass 118
The Faithful Broncos 129
The Whistling Marmot 130
The Clouds 137
The Great Stikeen Divide 138
The Ute Lover 147
Devil's Club 150
In the Cold Green Mountains 150
The Long Trail 159
The Greeting of the Roses 161
The Vulture 172
Campfires 173
The Footstep in the Desert 182
So this is the End of the Trail to him 190
The Toil of the Trail 193
The Goldseekers 205
The Coast Range of Alaska 215
The Freeman of the Hills 229
The Voice of the Maple Tree 230
A Girl on the Trail 239
O the Fierce Delight 249
The Lure of the Desert 258
This out of All will remain 262
Here the Trail ends 263
ANTICIPATION
I will wash my brain in the splendid breeze,
I will lay my cheek to the northern sun,
I will drink the breath of the mossy trees,
And the clouds shall meet me one by one.
I will fling the scholar's pen aside,
And grasp once more the bronco's rein,
And I will ride and ride and ride,
Till the rain is snow, and the seed is grain.
The way is long and cold and lone--
But I go.
It leads where pines forever moan
Their weight of snow,
Yet I go.
There are voices in the wind that call,
There are hands that beckon to the plain;
I must journey where the trees grow tall,
And the lonely heron clamors in the rain.
Where the desert flames with furnace heat,
I have trod.
Where the horned toad's tiny feet
In a land
Of burning sand
Leave a mark,
I have ridden in the noon and in the dark.
Now I go to see the snows,
Where the mossy mountains rise
Wild and bleak--and the rose
And pink of morning fill the skies
With a color that is singing,
And the lights
Of polar nights
Utter cries
As they sweep from star to star,
Swinging, ringing,
Where the sunless middays are.
THE TRAIL OF THE GOLDSEEKERS
CHAPTER I
COMING OF THE SHIPS
I
A little over a year ago a small steamer swung to at a Seattle wharf,
and emptied a flood of eager passengers upon the dock. It was an
obscure craft, making infrequent trips round the Aleutian Islands
(which form the farthest western point of the United States) to the
mouth of a practically unknown river called the Yukon, which empties
into the ocean near the post of St. Michaels, on the northwestern
coast of Alaska.
The passengers on this boat were not distinguished citizens, nor fair
to look upon. They were roughly dressed, and some of them were pale
and worn as if with long sickness or exhausting toil. Yet this ship
and these passengers startled the whole English-speaking world. Swift
as electricity could fly, the magical word GOLD went forth like a
brazen eagle across the continent to turn the faces of millions of
earth's toilers toward a region which, up to that time, had been
unknown or of ill report. For this ship contained a million dollars
in gold: these seedy passengers carried great bags of nuggets and
bottles of shining dust which they had burned, at risk of their
lives, out of the perpetually frozen ground, so far in the north that
the winter had no sun and the summer midnight had no dusk.
The world was instantly filled with the stories of these men and of
their tons of bullion. There was a moment of arrested attention--then
the listeners smiled and nodded knowingly to each other, and went
about their daily affairs.
But other ships similarly laden crept laggardly through the gates of
Puget Sound, bringing other miners with bags and bottles, and then
the world believed. Thereafter the journals of all Christendom had to
do with the "Klondike" and "The Golden River." Men could not hear
enough or read enough of the mysterious Northwest.
In less than ten days after the landing of the second ship, all
trains westward-bound across America were heavily laden with
fiery-hearted adventurers, who set their faces to the new Eldorado
with exultant confidence, resolute to do and dare.
Miners from Colorado and cow-boys from Montana met and mingled with
civil engineers and tailors from New York City, and adventurous
merchants from Chicago set shoulder to shoemakers from Lynn. All
kinds and conditions of prospectors swarmed upon the boats at
Seattle, Vancouver, and other coast cities. Some entered upon new
routes to the gold fields, which were now known to be far in the
Yukon Valley, while others took the already well-known route by way
of St. Michaels, and thence up the sinuous and sinister stream whose
waters began on the eastern slope of the glacial peaks just inland
from Juneau, and swept to the north and west for more than two
thousand miles. It was understood that this way was long and hard and
cold, yet thousands eagerly embarked on keels of all designs and of
all conditions of unseaworthiness. By far the greater number
assaulted the mountain passes of Skagway.
As the autumn came on, the certainty of the gold deposits deepened;
but the tales of savage cliffs, of snow-walled trails, of swift and
icy rivers, grew more numerous, more definite, and more appalling.
Weak-hearted Jasons dropped out and returned to warn their friends of
the dread powers to be encountered in the northern mountains.
As the uncertainties of the river route and the sufferings and toils
of the Chilcoot and the White Pass became known, the adventurers cast
about to find other ways of reaching the gold fields, which had come
now to be called "The Klondike," because of the extreme richness of a
small river of that name which entered the Yukon, well on toward the
Arctic Circle.
From this attempt to avoid the perils of other routes, much talk
arose of the Dalton Trail, the Taku Trail, the Stikeen Route, the
Telegraph Route, and the Edmonton Overland Trail. Every town within
two thousand miles of the Klondike River advertised itself as "the
point of departure for the gold fields," and set forth the special
advantages of its entrance way, crying out meanwhile against the
cruel mendacity of those who dared to suggest other and "more
dangerous and costly" ways.
The winter was spent in urging these claims, and thousands of men
planned to try some one or the other of these "side-doors." The
movement overland seemed about to surpass the wonderful
transcontinental march of miners in '49 and '50, and those who loved
the trail for its own sake and were eager to explore an unknown
country hesitated only between the two trails which were entirely
overland. One of these led from Edmonton to the head-waters of the
Pelly, the other started from the Canadian Pacific Railway at
Ashcroft and made its tortuous way northward between the great
glacial coast range on the left and the lateral spurs of the
Continental Divide on the east.
The promoters of each of these routes spoke of the beautiful valleys
to be crossed, of the lovely streams filled with fish, of the game
and fruit. Each was called "the poor man's route," because with a few
ponies and a gun the prospector could traverse the entire distance
during the summer, "arriving on the banks of the Yukon, not merely
browned and hearty, but a veteran of the trail."
It was pointed out also that the Ashcroft Route led directly across
several great gold districts and that the adventurer could combine
business and pleasure on the trip by examining the Ominica country,
the Kisgagash Mountains, the Peace River, and the upper waters of the
Stikeen. These places were all spoken of as if they were close
beside the trail and easy of access, and the prediction was freely
made that a flood of men would sweep up this valley such as had never
been known in the history of goldseeking.
As the winter wore on this prediction seemed about to be realized. In
every town in the West, in every factory in the East, men were
organizing parties of exploration. Grub stakers by the hundred were
outfitted, a vast army was ready to march in the early spring, when a
new interest suddenly appeared--a new army sprang into being.
Against the greed for gold arose the lust of battle. WAR came to
change the current of popular interest. The newspapers called home
their reporters in the North and sent them into the South, the Dakota
cow-boys just ready to join the ranks of the goldseekers entered the
army of the United States, finding in its Southern campaigns an
outlet to their undying passion for adventure; while the factory
hands who had organized themselves into a goldseeking company turned
themselves into a squad of military volunteers. For the time the gold
of the North was forgotten in the war of the South.
II
However, there were those not so profoundly interested in the war or
whose arrangements had been completed before the actual outbreak of
cannon-shot, and would not be turned aside. An immense army still
pushed on to the north. This I joined on the 20th day of April,
leaving my home in Wisconsin, bound for the overland trail and
bearing a joyous heart. I believed that I was about to see and take
part in a most picturesque and impressive movement across the
wilderness. I believed it to be the last great march of the kind
which could ever come in America, so rapidly were the wild places
being settled up. I wished, therefore, to take part in this tramp of
the goldseekers, to be one of them, and record their deeds. I wished
to return to the wilderness also, to forget books and theories of art
and social problems, and come again face to face with the great free
spaces of woods and skies and streams. I was not a goldseeker, but a
nature hunter, and I was eager to enter this, the wildest region yet
remaining in Northern America. I willingly and with joy took the long
way round, the hard way through.
THE COW-BOY
Of rough rude stock this saddle sprite
Is grosser grown with savage things.
Inured to storms, his fierce delight
Is lawless as the beasts he swings
His swift rope over.--Libidinous, obscene,
Careless of dust and dirt, serene,
He faces snows in calm disdain,
Or makes his bed down in the rain.
CHAPTER II
OUTFITTING
We went to sleep while the train was rushing past the lonely
settler's shacks on the Minnesota Prairies. When we woke we found
ourselves far out upon the great plains of Canada. The morning was
cold and rainy, and there were long lines of snow in the swales of
the limitless sod, which was silent, dun, and still, with a majesty
of arrested motion like a polar ocean. It was like Dakota as I saw it
in 1881. When it was a treeless desolate expanse, swept by owls and
hawks, cut by feet of wild cattle, unmarred and unadorned of man. The
clouds ragged, forbidding, and gloomy swept southward as if with a
duty to perform. No green thing appeared, all was gray and sombre,
and the horizon lines were hid in the cold white mist. Spring was
just coming on.
Our car, which was a tourist sleeper, was filled with goldseekers,
some of them bound for the Stikeen River, some for Skagway. While a
few like myself had set out for Teslin Lake by way of "The Prairie
Route." There were women going to join their husbands at Dawson City,
and young girls on their way to Vancouver and Seattle, and whole
families emigrating to Washington.
By the middle of the forenoon we were pretty well acquainted, and
knowing that two long days were before us, we set ourselves to the
task of passing the time. The women cooked their meals on the range
in the forward part of the car, or attended to the toilets of the
children, quite as regularly as in their own homes; while the men,
having no duties to perform, played cards, or talked endlessly
concerning their prospects in the Northwest, and when weary of this,
joined in singing topical songs.
No one knew his neighbor's name, and, for the most part, no one
cared. All were in mountaineer dress, with rifles, revolvers, and
boxes of cartridges, and the sight of a flock of antelopes developed
in each man a frenzy of desire to have a shot at them. It was a wild
ride, and all day we climbed over low swells, passing little lakes
covered with geese and brant, practically the only living things.
Late in the afternoon we entered upon the Selkirks, where no life
was.
These mountains I had long wished to see, and they were in no sense a
disappointment. Desolate, death-haunted, they pushed their white
domes into the blue sky in savage grandeur. The little snow-covered
towns seemed to cower at their feet like timid animals lost in the
immensity of the forest. All day we rode among these heights, and at
night we went to sleep feeling the chill of their desolate presence.
We reached Ashcroft (which was the beginning of the long trail) at
sunrise. The town lay low on the sand, a spatter of little frame
buildings, mainly saloons and lodging houses, and resembled an
ordinary cow-town in the Western States.
Rivers of dust were flowing in the streets as we debarked from the
train. The land seemed dry as ashes, and the hills which rose near
resembled those of Montana or Colorado. The little hotel swarmed with
the rudest and crudest types of men; not dangerous men, only
thoughtless and profane teamsters and cow-boys, who drank thirstily
and ate like wolves. They spat on the floor while at the table,
leaning on their elbows gracelessly. In the bar-room they drank and
chewed tobacco, and talked in loud voices upon nothing at all.
Down on the flats along the railway a dozen camps of Klondikers were
set exposed to the dust and burning sun. The sidewalks swarmed with
outfitters. Everywhere about us the talk of teamsters and cattle men
went on, concerning regions of which I had never heard. Men spoke of
Hat Creek, the Chilcoten country, Soda Creek, Lake La Hache, and
Lilloat. Chinamen in long boots, much too large for them, came and
went sombrely, buying gold sacks and picks. They were mining quietly
on the upper waters of the Fraser, and were popularly supposed to be
getting rich.
The townspeople were possessed of thrift quite American in quality,
and were making the most of the rush over the trail. "The grass is
improving each day," they said to the goldseekers, who were disposed
to feel that the townsmen were anything but disinterested, especially
the hotel keepers. Among the outfitters of course the chief
beneficiaries were the horse dealers, and every corral swarmed with
mangy little cayuses, thin, hairy, and wild-eyed; while on the
fences, in silent meditation or low-voiced conferences, the intending
purchasers sat in rows like dyspeptic ravens. The wind storm
continued, filling the houses with dust and making life intolerable
in the camps below the town. But the crowds moved to and fro
restlessly on the one wooden sidewalk, outfitting busily. The
costumes were as various as the fancies of the men, but laced boots
and cow-boy hats predominated.
As I talked with some of the more thoughtful and conscientious
citizens, I found them taking a very serious view of our trip into
the interior. "It is a mighty hard and long road," they said, "and a
lot of those fellows who have never tried a trail of this kind will
find it anything but a picnic excursion." They had known a few men
who had been as far as Hazleton, and the tales of rain, flies, and
mosquitoes which these adventurers brought back with them, they
repeated in confidential whispers.
However, I had determined to go, and had prepared myself for every
emergency. I had designed an insect-proof tent, and was provided with
a rubber mattress, a down sleeping-bag, rain-proof clothing, and
stout shoes. I purchased, as did many of the others, two bills of
goods from the Hudson Bay Company, to be delivered at Hazleton on the
Skeena, and at Glenora on the Stikeen. Even with this arrangement it
was necessary to carry every crumb of food, in one case three hundred
and sixty miles, and in the other case four hundred miles. However,
the first two hundred and twenty miles would be in the nature of a
practice march, for the trail ran through a country with occasional
ranches where feed could be obtained. We planned to start with four
horses, taking on others as we needed them. And for one week we
scrutinized the ponies swarming around the corrals, in an attempt to
find two packhorses that would not give out on the trail, or buck
their packs off at the start.
"We do not intend to be bothered with a lot of mean broncos," I said,
and would not permit myself to be deceived. Before many days had
passed, we had acquired the reputation of men who thoroughly knew
what they wanted. At least, it became known that we would not buy
wild cayuses at an exorbitant price.
All the week long we saw men starting out with sore-backed or blind
or weak or mean broncos, and heard many stories of their troubles and
trials. The trail was said to be littered for fifty miles with all
kinds of supplies.
One evening, as I stood on the porch of the hotel, I saw a man riding
a spirited dapple-gray horse up the street. As I watched the splendid
fling of his fore-feet, the proud carriage of his head, the splendid
nostrils, the deep intelligent eyes, I said: "There is my horse! I
wonder if he is for sale."
A bystander remarked, "He's coming to see you, and you can have the
horse if you want it."
The rider drew rein, and I went out to meet him. After looking the
horse all over, with a subtle show of not being in haste, I asked,
"How much will you take for him?"
"Fifty dollars," he replied, and I knew by the tone of his voice that
he would not take less.
I hemmed and hawed a decent interval, examining every limb meanwhile;
finally I said, "Get off your horse."
With a certain sadness the man complied. I placed in his hand a
fifty-dollar bill, and took the horse by the bridle. "What is his
name?"
"I call him Prince."
"He shall be called Prince Ladrone," I said to Burton, as I led the
horse away.
Each moment increased my joy and pride in my dapple-gray gelding. I
could scarcely convince myself of my good fortune, and concluded
there must be something the matter with the horse. I was afraid of
some trick, some meanness, for almost all mountain horses are
"streaky," but I could discover nothing. He was quick on his feet as
a cat, listened to every word that was spoken to him, and obeyed as
instantly and as cheerfully as a dog. He took up his feet at request,
he stood over in the stall at a touch, and took the bit readily (a
severe test). In every way he seemed to be exactly the horse I had
been waiting for. I became quite satisfied of his value the following
morning, when his former owner said to me, in a voice of sadness,
"Now treat him well, won't you?"
"He shall have the best there is," I replied.
My partner, meanwhile, had rustled together three packhorses, which
were guaranteed to be kind and gentle, and so at last we were ready
to make a trial. It was a beautiful day for a start, sunny, silent,
warm, with great floating clouds filling the sky.
We had tried our tent, and it was pronounced a "jim-cracker-jack" by
all who saw it, and exciting almost as much comment among the natives
as my Anderson pack-saddles. Our "truck" was ready on the platform of
the storehouse, and the dealer in horses had agreed to pack the
animals in order to show that they were "as represented." The whole
town turned out to see the fun. The first horse began bucking before
the pack-saddle was fairly on, to the vast amusement of the
bystanders.
"That will do for that beast," I remarked, and he was led away.
"Bring up your other candidate."
The next horse seemed to be gentle enough, but when one of the men
took off his bandanna and began binding it round the pony's head, I
interrupted.
"That'll do," I said; "I know that trick. I don't want a horse whose
eyes have to be blinded. Take him away."
This left us as we were before, with the exception of Ladrone. An
Indian standing near said to Burton, "I have gentle horse, no buck,
all same like dog."
"All right," said partner, with a sigh, "let's see him."
The "dam Siwash" proved to be more reliable than his white detractor.
His horses turned out to be gentle and strong, and we made a bargain
without noise. At last it seemed we might be able to get away.
"To-morrow morning," said I to Burton, "if nothing further
intervenes, we hit the trail a resounding whack."
All around us similar preparations were going on. Half-breeds were
breaking wild ponies, cow-boys were packing, roping, and instructing
the tenderfoot, the stores swarmed with would-be miners fitting out,
while other outfits already supplied were crawling up the distant
hill like loosely articulated canvas-colored worms. Outfits from
Spokane and other southern towns began to drop down into the valley,
and every train from the East brought other prospectors to stand
dazed and wondering before the squalid little camp. Each day, each
hour, increased the general eagerness to get away.
FROM PLAIN TO PEAK
From hot low sands aflame with heat,
From crackling cedars dripping odorous gum,
I ride to set my burning feet
On heights whence Uncompagre's waters hum,
From rock to rock, and run
As white as wool.
My panting horse sniffs on the breeze
The water smell, too faint for me to know;
But I can see afar the trees,
Which tell of grasses where the asters blow,
And columbines and clover bending low
Are honey-full.
I catch the gleam of snow-fields, bright
As burnished shields of tempered steel,
And round each sovereign lonely height
I watch the storm-clouds vault and reel,
Heavy with hail and trailing
Veils of sleet.
"Hurrah, my faithful! soon you shall plunge
Your burning nostril to the bit in snow;
Soon you shall rest where foam-white waters lunge
From cliff to cliff, and you shall know
No more of hunger or the flame of sand
Or windless desert's heat!"
CHAPTER III
ON THE STAGE ROAD
On the third day of May, after a whole forenoon of packing and
"fussing," we made our start and passed successfully over some
fourteen miles of the road. It was warm and beautiful, and we felt
greatly relieved to escape from the dry and dusty town with its
conscienceless horse jockeys and its bibulous teamsters.
As we mounted the white-hot road which climbed sharply to the
northeast, we could scarcely restrain a shout of exultation. It was
perfect weather. We rode good horses, we had chosen our companions,
and before us lay a thousand miles of trail, and the mysterious gold
fields of the far-off Yukon. For two hundred and twenty miles the
road ran nearly north toward the town of Quesnelle, which was the
trading camp for the Caribou Mining Company. This highway was filled
with heavy teams, and stage houses were frequent. We might have gone
by the river trail, but as the grass was yet young, many of the
outfits decided to keep to the stage road.
We made our first camp beside the dusty road near the stage barn, in
which we housed our horses. A beautiful stream came down from the
hills near us. A little farther up the road a big and hairy
Californian, with two half-breed assistants, was struggling with
twenty-five wild cayuses. Two or three campfires sparkled near.
There was a vivid charm in the scene. The poplars were in tender
leaf. The moon, round and brilliant, was rising just above the
mountains to the east, as we made our bed and went to sleep with the
singing of the stream in our ears.
While we were cooking our breakfast the next morning the big
Californian sauntered by, looking at our little folding stove, our
tent, our new-fangled pack-saddles, and our luxurious beds, and
remarked:--
"I reckon you fellers are just out on a kind of little hunting trip."
We resented the tone of derision in his voice, and I replied:--
"We are bound for Teslin Lake. We shall be glad to see you any time
during the coming fall."
He never caught up with us again.
We climbed steadily all the next day with the wind roaring over our
heads in the pines. It grew much colder and the snow covered the
near-by hills. The road was full of trampers on their way to the
mines at Quesnelle and Stanley. I will not call them _tramps_, for
every man who goes afoot in this land is entitled to a certain
measure of respect. We camped at night just outside the little
village called Clinton, which was not unlike a town in Vermont, and
was established during the Caribou rush in '66. It lay in a lovely
valley beside a swift, clear stream. The sward was deliciously green
where we set our tent.
Thus far Burton had wrestled rather unsuccessfully with the
crystallized eggs and evaporated potatoes which made up a part of our
outfit. "I don't seem to get just the right twist on 'em," he said.
"You'll have plenty of chance to experiment," I remarked. However,
the bacon was good and so was the graham bread which he turned out
piping hot from the little oven of our folding stove.
Leaving Clinton we entered upon a lonely region, a waste of wooded
ridges breaking illimitably upon the sky. The air sharpened as we
rose, till it seemed like March instead of April, and our overcoats
were grateful.
Somewhere near the middle of the forenoon, as we were jogging along,
I saw a deer standing just at the edge of the road and looking across
it, as if in fear of its blazing publicity. It seemed for a moment as
if he were an optical illusion, so beautiful, so shapely, and so
palpitant was he. I had no desire to shoot him, but, turning to
Burton, called in a low voice, "See that deer."
He replied, "Where is your gun?"
Now under my knee I carried a new rifle with a quantity of smokeless
cartridges, steel-jacketed and soft-nosed, and yet I was disposed to
argue the matter. "See here, Burton, it will be bloody business if we
kill that deer. We couldn't eat all of it; you wouldn't want to skin
it; I couldn't. You'd get your hands all bloody and the memory of
that beautiful creature would not be pleasant. Therefore I stand for
letting him go."
Burton looked thoughtful. "Well, we might sell it or give it away."
Meanwhile the deer saw us, but seemed not to be apprehensive. Perhaps
it was a thought-reading deer, and knew that we meant it no harm. As
Burton spoke, it turned, silent as a shadow, and running to the crest
of the hill stood for a moment outlined like a figure of bronze
against the sky, then disappeared into the forest. He was so much a
part of nature that the horses gave no sign of having seen him at
all.
At a point a few miles beyond Clinton most of the pack trains turned
sharply to the left to the Fraser River, where the grass was reported
to be much better. We determined to continue on the stage road,
however, and thereafter met but few outfits. The road was by no means
empty, however. We met, from time to time, great blue or red wagons
drawn by four or six horses, moving with pleasant jangle of bells and
the crack of great whips. The drivers looked down at us curiously and
somewhat haughtily from their high seats, as if to say, "We know
where we are going--do you know as much?"
The landscape grew ever wilder, and the foliage each day spring-like.
We were on a high hilly plateau between Hat Creek and the valley of
Lake La Hache. We passed lakes surrounded by ghostly dead trees,
which looked as though the water had poisoned them. There were no
ranches of any extent on these hills. The trail continued to be
filled with tramping miners; several seemed to be without bedding or
food. Some drove little pack animals laden with blankets, and all
walked like fiends, pressing forward doggedly, hour after hour. Many
of them were Italians, and one group which we overtook went along
killing robins for food. They were a merry and dramatic lot, making
the silent forests echo with their chatter.
I headed my train on Ladrone, who led the way with a fine stately
tread, his deep brown eyes alight with intelligence, his sensitive
ears attentive to every word. He had impressed me already by his
learning and gentleness, but when one of my packhorses ran around
him, entangling me in the lead rope, pulling me to the ground, the
final test of his quality came. I expected to be kicked into shreds.
But Ladrone stopped instantly, and looking down at me inquiringly,
waited for me to scramble out from beneath his feet and drag the
saddle up to its place.
With heart filled with gratitude, I patted him on the nose, and said,
"Old boy, if you carry me through to Teslin Lake, I will take care of
you for the rest of your days."
At about noon the next day we came down off the high plateau, with
its cold and snow, and camped in a sunny sward near a splendid ranch
where lambs were at play on the green grass. Blackbirds were calling,
and we heard our first crane bugling high in the sky. From the
loneliness and desolation of the high country, with its sparse road
houses, we were now surrounded by sunny fields mellow with thirty
seasons' ploughing.
The ride was very beautiful. Just the sort of thing we had been
hoping for. All day we skirted fine lakes with grassy shores. Cranes,
ducks, and geese filled every pond, the voice of spring in their
brazen throats.
Once a large flight of crane went sweeping by high in the sky, a
royal, swift scythe reaping the clouds. I called to them in their own
tongue, and they answered. I called again and again, and they began
to waver and talk among themselves; and at last, having decided that
this voice from below should be heeded, they broke rank and commenced
sweeping round and round in great circles, seeking the lost one whose
cry rose from afar. Baffled and angered, they rearranged themselves
at last in long regular lines, and swept on into the north.
We camped on this, the sixth day, beside a fine stream which came
from a lake, and here we encountered our first mosquitoes. Big, black
fellows they were, with a lazy, droning sound quite different from
any I had ever heard. However, they froze up early and did not bother
us very much.
At the one hundred and fifty-nine mile house, which was a stage
tavern, we began to hear other bogie stories of the trail. We were
assured that horses were often poisoned by eating a certain plant,
and that the mud and streams were terrible. Flies were a never ending
torment. All these I regarded as the croakings of men who had never
had courage to go over the trail, and who exaggerated the accounts
they had heard from others.
We were jogging along now some fifteen or twenty miles a day,
thoroughly enjoying the trip. The sky was radiant, the aspens were
putting forth transparent yellow leaves. On the grassy slopes some
splendid yellow flowers quite new to me waved in the warm but strong
breeze. On the ninth day we reached Soda Creek, which is situated on
the Fraser River, at a point where the muddy stream is deep sunk in
the wooded hills.
The town was a single row of ramshackle buildings, not unlike a small
Missouri River town. The citizens, so far as visible, formed a queer
collection of old men addicted to rum. They all came out to admire
Ladrone and to criticise my pack-saddle, and as they stood about
spitting and giving wise instances, they reminded me of the Jurors in
Mark Twain's "Puddin Head Wilson."
One old man tottered up to my side to inquire, "Cap, where you
going?"
"To Teslin Lake," I replied.
"Good Lord, think of it," said he. "Do you ever expect to get there?
It is a terrible trip, my son, a terrible trip."
At this point a large number of the outfits crossed to the opposite
side of the river and took the trail which kept up the west bank of
the river. We, however, kept the stage road which ran on the high
ground of the eastern bank, forming a most beautiful drive. The river
was in full view all the time, with endless vista of blue hills above
and the shimmering water with radiant foliage below.
Aside from the stage road and some few ranches on the river bottom,
we were now in the wilderness. On our right rolled a wide wild sea
of hills and forests, breaking at last on the great gold range. To
the west, a still wilder country reaching to the impassable east
range. On this, our eighth day out, we had our second sight of big
game. In the night I was awakened by Burton, calling in excited
whisper, "There's a bear outside."
It was cold, I was sleepy, my bed was very comfortable, and I did not
wish to be disturbed. I merely growled, "Let him alone."
But Burton, putting his head out of the door of the tent, grew still
more interested. "There is a bear out there eating those mutton
bones. Where's the gun?"
I was nearly sinking off to sleep once more and I muttered, "Don't
bother me; the gun is in the corner of the tent." Burton began
snapping the lever of the gun impatiently and whispering something
about not being able to put the cartridge in. He was accustomed to
the old-fashioned Winchester, but had not tried these.
"Put it right in the top," I wearily said, "put it right in the top."
"I have," he replied; "but I can't get it _in_ or out!"
Meanwhile I had become sufficiently awake to take a mild interest in
the matter. I rose and looked out. As I saw a long, black, lean
creature muzzling at something on the ground, I began to get excited
myself.
"I guess we better let him go, hadn't we?" said Burton.
"Well, yes, as the cartridge is stuck in the gun; and so long as he
lets us alone I think we had better let him alone, especially as his
hide is worth nothing at this season of the year, and he is too thin
to make steak."
The situation was getting comic, but probably it is well that the
cartridge failed to go in. Burton stuck his head out of the tent,
gave a sharp yell, and the huge creature vanished in the dark of the
forest. The whole adventure came about naturally. The smell of our
frying meat had gone far up over the hills to our right and off into
the great wilderness, alluring this lean hungry beast out of his den.
Doubtless if Burton had been able to fire a shot into his woolly
hide, we should have had a rare "mix up" of bear, tent, men,
mattresses, and blankets.
Mosquitoes increased, and, strange to say, they seemed to like the
shade. They were all of the big, black, lazy variety. We came upon
flights of humming-birds. I was rather tired of the saddle, and of
the slow jog, jog, jog. But at last there came an hour which made the
trouble worth while. When our camp was set, our fire lighted, our
supper eaten, and we could stretch out and watch the sun go down over
the hills beyond the river, then the day seemed well spent. At such
an hour we grew reminiscent of old days, and out of our talk an
occasional verse naturally rose.
MOMENTOUS HOUR
A coyote wailing in the yellow dawn,
A mountain land that stretches on and on,
And ceases not till in the skies
Vast peaks of rosy snow arise,
Like walls of plainsman's paradise.
I cannot tell why this is so;
I cannot say, I do not know
Why wind and wolf and yellow sky,
And grassy mesa, square and high,
Possess such power to satisfy.
But so it is. Deep in the grass
I lie and hear the winds' feet pass;
And all forgot is maid and man,
And hope and set ambitious plan
Are lost as though they ne'er began.
A WISH
All day and many days I rode,
My horse's head set toward the sea;
And as I rode a longing came to me
That I might keep the sunset road,
Riding my horse right on and on,
O'ertake the day still lagging at the west,
And so reach boyhood from the dawn,
And be with all the days at rest.
For then the odor of the growing wheat,
The flare of sumach on the hills,
The touch of grasses to my feet
Would cure my brain of all its ills,--
Would fill my heart so full of joy
That no stern lines could fret my face.
There would I be forever boy,
Lit by the sky's unfailing grace.
CHAPTER IV
IN CAMP AT QUESNELLE
We came into Quesnelle about three o'clock of the eleventh day out.
From a high point which overlooked the two rivers, we could see great
ridges rolling in waves of deep blue against the sky to the
northwest. Over these our slender little trail ran. The wind was in
the south, roaring up the river, and green grass was springing on the
slopes.
Quesnelle we found to be a little town on a high, smooth slope above
the Fraser. We overtook many prospectors like ourselves camped on the
river bank waiting to cross.
Here also telegraph bulletins concerning the Spanish war, dated
London, Hong Kong, and Madrid, hung on the walls of the post-office.
They were very brief and left plenty of room for imagination and
discussion.
Here I took a pony and a dog-cart and jogged away toward the
long-famous Caribou Mining district next day, for the purpose of
inspecting a mine belonging to some friends of mine. The ride was
very desolate and lonely, a steady climb all the way, through
fire-devastated forests, toward the great peaks. Snow lay in the
roadside ditches. Butterflies were fluttering about, and in the high
hills I saw many toads crawling over the snowbanks, a singular sight
to me. They were silent, perhaps from cold.
Strange to say, this ride called up in my mind visions of the hot
sands, and the sun-lit buttes and valleys of Arizona and Montana, and
I wrote several verses as I jogged along in the pony-cart.
When I returned to camp two days later, I found Burton ready and
eager to move. The town swarmed with goldseekers pausing here to rest
and fill their parflêches. On the opposite side of the river others
could be seen in camp, or already moving out over the trail, which
left the river and climbed at once into the high ridges dark with
pines in the west.
As I sat with my partner at night talking of the start the next day,
I began to feel not a fear but a certain respect for that narrow
little path which was not an arm's span in width, but which was
nearly eight hundred miles in length. "From this point, Burton, it is
business. Our practice march is finished."
The stories of flies and mosquitoes gave me more trouble than
anything else, but a surveyor who had had much experience in this
Northwestern country recommended the use of oil of pennyroyal, mixed
with lard or vaseline. "It will keep the mosquitoes and most of the
flies away," he said. "I know, for I have tried it. You can't wear a
net, at least I never could. It is too warm, and then it is always in
your way. You are in no danger from beasts, but you will curse the
day you set out on this trail on account of the insects. It is the
worst mosquito country in the world."
THE GIFT OF WATER
"Is water nigh?"
The plainsmen cry,
As they meet and pass in the desert grass.
With finger tip
Across the lip
I ask the sombre Navajo.
The brown man smiles and answers "Sho!"[1]
With fingers high, he signs the miles
To the desert spring,
And so we pass in the dry dead grass,
Brothers in bond of the water's ring.
[Footnote 1: Listen. Your attention.]
MOUNTING
I mount and mount toward the sky,
The eagle's heart is mine,
I ride to put the clouds a-by
Where silver lakelets shine.
The roaring streams wax white with snow,
The eagle's nest draws near,
The blue sky widens, hid peaks glow,
The air is frosty clear.
_And so from cliff to cliff I rise,_
_The eagle's heart is mine;_
_Above me ever broadning skies,_
_Below the rivers shine._
THE EAGLE TRAIL
From rock-built nest,
The mother eagle, with a threatning tongue,
Utters a warning scream. Her shrill voice rings
Wild as the snow-topped crags she sits among;
While hovering with her quivering wings
Her hungry brood, with eyes ablaze
She watches every shadow. The water calls
Far, far below. The sun's red rays
Ascend the icy, iron walls,
And leap beyond the mountains in the west,
And over the trail and the eagle's nest
The clear night falls.
CHAPTER V
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BLUE RAT
_Camp Twelve_
Next morning as we took the boat--which was filled with horses wild
and restless--I had a moment of exultation to think we had left the
way of tin cans and whiskey bottles, and were now about to enter upon
the actual trail. The horses gave us a great deal of trouble on the
boat, but we managed to get across safely without damage to any part
of our outfit.
Here began our acquaintance with the Blue Rat. It had become evident
to me during our stay in Quesnelle that we needed one more horse to
make sure of having provisions sufficient to carry us over the three
hundred and sixty miles which lay between the Fraser and our next
eating-place on the Skeena. Horses, however, were very scarce, and it
was not until late in the day that we heard of a man who had a pony
to sell. The name of this man was Dippy.
He was a German, and had a hare-lip and a most seductive gentleness
of voice. I gladly make him historical. He sold me the Blue Rat, and
gave me a chance to study a new type of horse.
Herr Dippy was not a Washington Irving sort of Dutchman; he conformed
rather to the modern New York tradesman. He was small, candid, and
smooth, very smooth, of speech. He said: "Yes, the pony is gentle. He
can be rode or packed, but you better lead him for a day or two till
he gets quiet."
I had not seen the pony, but my partner had crossed to the west side
of the Fraser River, and had reported him to be a "nice little pony,
round and fat and gentle." On that I had rested. Mr. Dippy joined us
at the ferry and waited around to finish the trade. I presumed he
intended to cross and deliver the pony, which was in a corral on the
west side, but he lisped out a hurried excuse. "The ferry is not
coming back for to-day and so--"
Well, I paid him the money on the strength of my side partner's
report; besides, it was Hobson's choice.
Mr. Dippy took the twenty-five dollars eagerly and vanished into
obscurity. We passed to the wild side of the Fraser and entered upon
a long and intimate study of the Blue Rat. He shucked out of the log
stable a smooth, round, lithe-bodied little cayuse of a blue-gray
color. He looked like a child's toy, but seemed sturdy and of good
condition. His foretop was "banged," and he had the air of a
mischievous, resolute boy. His eyes were big and black, and he
studied us with tranquil but inquiring gaze as we put the pack-saddle
on him. He was very small.
"He's not large, but he's a gentle little chap," said I, to ease my
partner of his dismay over the pony's surprising smallness.
"I believe he shrunk during the night," replied my partner. "He
seemed two sizes bigger yesterday."
We packed him with one hundred pounds of our food and lashed it all
on with rope, while the pony dozed peacefully. Once or twice I
thought I saw his ears cross; one laid back, the other set
forward,--bad signs,--but it was done so quickly I could not be sure
of it.
We packed the other horses while the blue pony stood resting one hind
leg, his eyes dreaming.
I flung the canvas cover over the bay packhorse.... Something took
place. I heard a bang, a clatter, a rattling of hoofs. I peered
around the bay and saw the blue pony performing some of the most
finished, vigorous, and varied bucking it has ever been given me to
witness. He all but threw somersaults. He stood on his upper lip. He
humped up his back till he looked like a lean cat on a graveyard
fence. He stood on his toe calks and spun like a weather-vane on a
livery stable, and when the pack exploded and the saddle slipped
under his belly, he kicked it to pieces by using both hind hoofs as
featly as a man would stroke his beard.
After calming the other horses, I faced my partner solemnly.
"Oh, by the way, partner, where did you get that nice, quiet, little
blue pony of yours?"
Partner smiled sheepishly. "The little divil. Buffalo Bill ought to
have that pony."
"Well, now," said I, restraining my laughter, "the thing to do is to
put that pack on so that it will stay. That pony will try the same
thing again, sure."
We packed him again with great care. His big, innocent black eyes
shining under his bang were a little more alert, but they showed
neither fear nor rage. We roped him in every conceivable way, and at
last stood clear and dared him to do his prettiest.
He did it. All that had gone before was merely preparatory, a
blood-warming, so to say; the real thing now took place. He stood up
on his hind legs and shot into the air, alighting on his four feet as
if to pierce the earth. He whirled like a howling dervish, grunting,
snorting--unseeing, and almost unseen in a nimbus of dust, strap
ends, and flying pine needles. His whirling undid him. We seized the
rope, and just as the pack again slid under his feet we set shoulder
to the rope and threw him. He came to earth with a thud, his legs
whirling uselessly in the air. He resembled a beetle in molasses. We
sat upon his head and discussed him.
"He is a wonder," said my partner.
We packed him again with infinite pains, and when he began bucking we
threw him again and tried to kill him. We were getting irritated. We
threw him hard, and drew his hind legs up to his head till he
grunted. When he was permitted to rise, he looked meek and small and
tired and we were both deeply remorseful. We rearranged the pack--it
was some encouragement to know he had not bucked it entirely off--and
by blindfolding him we got him started on the trail behind the
train.
"I suppose that simple-hearted Dutchman is gloating over us from
across the river," said I to partner; "but no matter, we are
victorious."
I was now quite absorbed in a study of the blue pony's psychology. He
was a new type of mean pony. His eye did not roll nor his ears fall
back. He seemed neither scared nor angry. He still looked like a
roguish, determined boy. He was alert, watchful, but not vicious. He
went off--precisely like one of those mechanical mice or turtles
which sidewalk venders operate. Once started, he could not stop till
he ran down. He seemed not to take our stern measures in bad part. He
regarded it as a fair contract, apparently, and considered that we
had won. True, he had lost both hair and skin by getting tangled in
the rope, but he laid up nothing against us, and, as he followed
meekly along behind, partner dared to say:--
"He's all right now. I presume he has been running out all winter and
is a little wild. He's satisfied now. We'll have no more trouble with
him."
Every time I looked back at the poor, humbled little chap, my heart
tingled with pity and remorse. "We were too rough," I said. "We must
be more gentle."
"Yes, he's nervous and scary; we must be careful not to give him a
sudden start. I'll lead him for a while."
An hour later, as we were going down a steep and slippery hill, the
Rat saw his chance. He passed into another spasm, opening and
shutting like a self-acting jack-knife. He bounded into the midst of
the peaceful horses, scattering them to right and to left in terror.
He turned and came up the hill to get another start. Partner took a
turn on a stump, and all unmindful of it the Rat whirled and made a
mighty spring. He reached the end of the rope and his hand-spring
became a vaulting somersault. He lay, unable to rise, spatting the
wind, breathing heavily. Such annoying energy I have never seen. We
were now mad, muddy, and very resolute. We held him down till he lay
quite still. Any well-considered, properly bred animal would have
been ground to bone dust by such wondrous acrobatic movements. He was
skinned in one or two places, the hair was scraped from his nose, his
tongue bled, but all these were mere scratches. When we repacked him
he walked off comparatively unhurt.
NOON ON THE PLAIN
The horned toad creeping along the sand,
The rattlesnake asleep beneath the sage,
Have now a subtle fatal charm.
In their sultry calm, their love of heat,
I read once more the burning page
Of nature under cloudless skies.
O pitiless and splendid land!
Mine eyelids close, my lips are dry
By force of thy hot floods of light.
Soundless as oil the wind flows by,
Mine aching brain cries out for night!
CHAPTER VI
THE BEGINNING OF THE LONG TRAIL
As we left the bank of the Fraser River we put all wheel tracks
behind. The trail turned to the west and began to climb, following an
old swath which had been cut into the black pines by an adventurous
telegraph company in 1865. Immense sums of money were put into this
venture by men who believed the ocean cable could not be laid. The
work was stopped midway by the success of Field's wonderful plan, and
all along the roadway the rusted and twisted wire lay in testimony of
the seriousness of the original design.
The trail was a white man's road. It lacked grace and charm. It cut
uselessly over hills and plunged senselessly into ravines. It was an
irritation to all of us who knew the easy swing, the circumspection,
and the labor-saving devices of an Indian trail. The telegraph line
was laid by compass, not by the stars and the peaks; it evaded
nothing; it saved distance, not labor.
My feeling of respect deepened into awe as we began to climb the
great wooded divide which lies between the Fraser and the Blackwater.
The wild forest settled around us, grim, stern, and forbidding. We
were done with civilization. Everything that was required for a home
in the cold and in the heat was bound upon our five horses. We must
carry bed, board, roof, food, and medical stores, over three hundred
and sixty miles of trail, through all that might intervene of flood
and forest.
This feeling of awe was emphasized by the coming on of the storm in
which we camped that night. We were forced to keep going until late
in order to obtain feed, and to hustle in order to get everything
under cover before the rain began to fall. We were only twelve miles
on our way, but being wet and cold and hungry, we enjoyed the full
sense of being in the wilderness. However, the robins sang from the
damp woods and the loons laughed from hidden lakes.
It rained all night, and in the morning we were forced to get out in
a cold, wet dawn. It was a grim start, dismal and portentous,
bringing the realities of the trail very close to us. While I rustled
the horses out of the wet bush, partner stirred up a capital
breakfast of bacon, evaporated potatoes, crystallized eggs, and
graham bread. He had discovered at last the exact amount of water to
use in cooking these "vegetables," and they were very good. The
potatoes tasted not unlike mashed potatoes, and together with the
eggs made a very savory and wholesome dish. With a cup of strong
coffee and some hot graham gems we got off in very good spirits
indeed.
It continued muddy, wet, and cold. I walked most of the day, leading
my horse, upon whom I had packed a part of the outfit to relieve the
other horses. There was no fun in the day, only worry and trouble. My
feet were wet, my joints stiff, and my brain weary of the monotonous
black, pine forest.
There is a great deal of work on the trail,--cooking, care of the
horses, together with almost ceaseless packing and unpacking, and the
bother of keeping the packhorses out of the mud. We were busy from
five o'clock in the morning until nine at night. There were other
outfits on the trail having a full ton of supplies, and this great
weight had to be handled four times a day. In our case the toil was
much less, but it was only by snatching time from my partner that I
was able to work on my notes and keep my diary. Had the land been
less empty of game and richer in color, I should not have minded the
toil and care taking. As it was, we were all looking forward to the
beautiful lake country which we were told lay just beyond the
Blackwater.
One tremendous fact soon impressed me. There were no returning
footsteps on this trail. All toes pointed in one way, toward the
golden North. No man knew more than his neighbor the character of the
land which lay before us.
The life of each outfit was practically the same. At about 4.30 in
the morning the campers awoke. The click-clack of axes began, and
slender columns of pale blue smoke stole softly into the air. Then
followed the noisy rustling of the horses by those set aside for that
duty. By the time the horses were "cussed into camp," the coffee was
hot, and the bacon and beans ready to be eaten. A race in packing
took place to see who should pull out first. At about seven o'clock
in the morning the outfits began to move. But here there was a
difference of method. Most of them travelled for six or seven hours
without unpacking, whereas our plan was to travel for four hours,
rest from twelve to three, and pack up and travel four hours more.
This difference in method resulted in our passing outfit after outfit
who were unable to make the same distances by their one march.
We went to bed with the robins and found it no hardship to rise with
the sparrows. As Burton got the fire going, I dressed and went out to
see if all the horses were in the bunch, and edged them along toward
the camp. I then packed up the goods, struck the tent and folded it,
and had everything ready to sling on the horses by the time breakfast
was ready.
With my rifle under my knee, my rain coat rolled behind my saddle, my
camera dangling handily, my rope coiled and lashed, I called out,
"Are we all set?"
"Oh, I guess so," Burton invariably replied.
With a last look at the camping ground to see that nothing of value
was left, we called in exactly the same way each time, "Hike, boys,
hike, hike." (Hy-ak: Chinook for "hurry up.") It was a fine thing,
and it never failed to touch me, to see them fall in, one by one. The
"Ewe-neck" just behind Ladrone, after him "Old Bill," and behind him,
groaning and taking on as if in great pain, "Major Grunt," while at
the rear, with sharp outcry, came Burton riding the blue pony, who
was quite content, as we soon learned, to carry a man weighing
seventy pounds more than his pack. He considered himself a saddle
horse, not a pack animal.
It was not an easy thing to keep a pack train like this running. As
the horses became tired of the saddle, two of them were disposed to
run off into the brush in an attempt to scrape their load from their
backs. Others fell to feeding. Sometimes Bill would attempt to pass
the bay in order to walk next Ladrone. Then they would _scrouge_
against each other like a couple of country schoolboys, to see who
should get ahead. It was necessary to watch the packs with worrysome
care to see that nothing came loose, to keep the cinches tight, and
to be sure that none of the horses were being galled by their
burdens.
We travelled for the most part alone and generally in complete
silence, for I was too far in advance to have any conversation with
my partner.
The trail continued wet, muddy, and full of slippery inclines, but we
camped on a beautiful spot on the edge of a marshy lake two or three
miles in length. As we threw up our tent and started our fire, I
heard two cranes bugling magnificently from across the marsh, and
with my field-glass I could see them striding along in the edge of
the water. The sun was getting well toward the west. All around stood
the dark and mysterious forest, out of which strange noises broke.
In answer to the bugling of the cranes, loons were wildly calling, a
flock of geese, hidden somewhere under the level blaze of the
orange-colored light of the setting sun, were holding clamorous
convention. This is one of the compensating moments of the trail. To
come out of a gloomy and forbidding wood into an open and grassy
bank, to see the sun setting across the marsh behind the most
splendid blue mountains, makes up for many weary hours of toil.
As I lay down to sleep I heard a coyote cry, and the loons answered,
and out of the cold, clear night the splendid voices of the cranes
rang triumphantly. The heavens were made as brass by their superb,
defiant notes.
THE WHOOPING CRANE
At sunset from the shadowed sedge
Of lonely lake, among the reeds,
He lifts his brazen-throated call,
And the listening cat with teeth at edge
With famine hears and heeds.
"_Come one, come all, come all, come all!_"
Is the bird's challenge bravely blown
To every beast the woodlands own.
"_My legs are long, my wings are strong,_
_I wait the answer to my threat._"
Echoing, fearless, triumphant, the cry
Disperses through the world, and yet
Only the clamorous, cloudless sky
And the wooded mountains make reply.
THE LOON
At some far time
This water sprite
A brother of the coyote must have been.
For when the sun is set,
Forth from the failing light
His harsh cries fret
The silence of the night,
And the hid wolf answers with a wailing keen.
CHAPTER VII
THE BLACKWATER DIVIDE
About noon the next day we suddenly descended to the Blackwater, a
swift stream which had been newly bridged by those ahead of us. In
this wild land streams were our only objective points; the mountains
had no names, and the monotony of the forest produced a singular
effect on our minds. Our journey at times seemed a sort of motionless
progression. Once our tent was set and our baggage arranged about us,
we lost all sense of having moved at all.
Immediately after leaving the Blackwater bridge we had a grateful
touch of an Indian trail. The telegraph route kept to the valley
flat, but an old trail turned to the right and climbed the north bank
by an easy and graceful grade which it was a joy to follow. The top
of the bench was wooded and grassy, and the smooth brown trail wound
away sinuous as a serpent under the splendid pine trees. For more
than three hours we strolled along this bank as distinguished as
those who occupy boxes at the theatre. Below us the Blackwater looped
away under a sunny sky, and far beyond, enormous and unnamed, deep
blue mountains rose, notching the western sky. The scene was so
exceedingly rich and amiable we could hardly believe it to be
without farms and villages, yet only an Indian hut or two gave
indication of human life.
After following this bank for a few miles, we turned to the right and
began to climb the high divide which lies between the Blackwater and
the Muddy, both of which are upper waters of the Fraser. Like all the
high country through which we had passed this ridge was covered with
a monotonous forest of small black pines, with very little bird or
animal life of any kind. By contrast the valley of the Blackwater
shone in our memory like a jewel.
After a hard drive we camped beside a small creek, together with
several other outfits. One of them belonged to a doctor from the
Chilcoten country. He was one of those Englishmen who are natural
plainsmen. He was always calm, cheerful, and self-contained. He took
all worry and danger as a matter of course, and did not attempt to
carry the customs of a London hotel into the camp. When an Englishman
has this temper, he makes one of the best campaigners in the world.
As I came to meet the other men on the trail, I found that some
peculiar circumstance had led to their choice of route. The doctor
had a ranch in the valley of the Fraser. One of "the Manchester boys"
had a cousin near Soda Creek. "Siwash Charley" wished to prospect on
the head-waters of the Skeena; and so in almost every case some
special excuse was given. When the truth was known, the love of
adventure had led all of us to take the telegraph route. Most of the
miners argued that they could make their entrance by horse as
cheaply, if not as quickly, as by boat. For the most part they were
young, hardy, and temperate young men of the middle condition of
American life.
One of the Manchester men had been a farmer in Connecticut, an
attendant in an insane asylum in Massachusetts, and an engineer. He
was fat when he started, and weighed two hundred and twenty pounds.
By the time we had overtaken him his trousers had begun to flap
around him. He was known as "Big Bill." His companion, Frank, was a
sinewy little fellow with no extra flesh at all,--an alert, cheery,
and vociferous boy, who made noise enough to scare all the game out
of the valley. Neither of these men had ever saddled a horse before
reaching the Chilcoten, but they developed at once into skilful
packers and rugged trailers, though they still exposed themselves
unnecessarily in order to show that they were not "tenderfeet."
"Siwash Charley" was a Montana miner who spoke Chinook fluently, and
swore in splendid rhythms on occasion. He was small, alert, seasoned
to the trail, and capable of any hardship. "The Man from Chihuahua"
was so called because he had been prospecting in Mexico. He had the
best packhorses on the trail, and cared for them like a mother. He
was small, weazened, hardy as oak, inured to every hardship, and very
wise in all things. He had led his fine little train of horses from
Chihuahua to Seattle, thence to the Thompson River, joining us at
Quesnelle. He was the typical trailer. He spoke in the Missouri
fashion, though he was a born Californian. His partner was a quiet
little man from Snohomish flats, in Washington. These outfits were
typical of scores of others, and it will be seen that they were for
the most part Americans, the group of Germans from New York City and
the English doctor being the exceptions.
There was little talk among us. We were not merely going a journey,
but going as rapidly as was prudent, and there was close attention to
business. There was something morbidly persistent in the action of
these trains. They pushed on resolutely, grimly, like blind worms
following some directing force from within. This peculiarity of
action became more noticeable day by day. We were not on the trail,
after all, to hunt, or fish, or skylark. We had set our eyes on a
distant place, and toward it our feet moved, even in sleep.
The Muddy River, which we reached late in the afternoon, was silent
as oil and very deep, while the banks, muddy and abrupt, made it a
hard stream to cross.
As we stood considering the problem, a couple of Indians appeared on
the opposite bank with a small raft, and we struck a bargain with
them to ferry our outfit. They set us across in short order, but our
horses were forced to swim. They were very much alarmed and shivered
with excitement (this being the first stream that called for
swimming), but they crossed in fine style, Ladrone leading, his neck
curving, his nostrils wide-blown. We were forced to camp in the mud
of the river bank, and the gray clouds flying overhead made the land
exceedingly dismal. The night closed in wet and cheerless.
The two Indians stopped to supper with us and ate heartily. I seized
the opportunity to talk with them, and secured from them the tragic
story of the death of the Blackwater Indians. "Siwash, he die hy-u
(great many). Hy-u die, chilens, klootchmans (women), all die. White
man no help. No send doctor. Siwash all die, white man no care belly
much."
In this simple account of the wiping out of a village of harmless
people by "the white man's disease" (small-pox), unaided by the white
man's wonderful skill, there lies one of the great tragedies of
savage life. Very few were left on the Blackwater or on the Muddy,
though a considerable village had once made the valley cheerful with
its primitive pursuits.
They were profoundly impressed by our tent and gun, and sat on their
haunches clicking their tongues again and again in admiration, saying
of the tent, "All the same lilly (little) house." I tried to tell
them of the great world to the south, and asked them a great many
questions to discover how much they knew of the people or the
mountains. They knew nothing of the plains Indians, but one of them
had heard of Vancouver and Seattle. They had not the dignity and
thinking power of the plains people, but they seemed amiable and
rather jovial.
We passed next day two adventurers tramping their way to Hazleton.
Each man carried a roll of cheap quilts, a skillet, and a cup. We
came upon them as they were taking off their shoes and stockings to
wade through a swift little river, and I realized with a sudden pang
of sympathetic pain, how distressing these streams must be to such as
go afoot, whereas I, on my fine horse, had considered them entirely
from an æsthetic point of view.
We had been on the road from Quesnelle a week, and had made nearly
one hundred miles, jogging along some fifteen miles each day,
camping, eating, sleeping, with nothing to excite us--indeed, the
trail was quiet as a country lane. A dead horse here and there warned
us to be careful how we pushed our own burden-bearers. We were deep
in the forest, with the pale blue sky filled with clouds showing only
in patches overhead. We passed successively from one swamp of black
pine to another, over ridges covered with white pine, all precisely
alike. As soon as our camp was set and fires lighted, we lost all
sense of having travelled, so similar were the surroundings of each
camp.
Partridges could be heard drumming in the lowlands. Mosquitoes were
developing by the millions, and cooking had become almost impossible
without protection. The "varments" came in relays. A small gray
variety took hold of us while it was warm, and when it became too
cold for them, the big, black, "sticky" fellows appeared
mysteriously, and hung around in the air uttering deep, bass notes
like lazy flies. The little gray fellows were singularly ferocious
and insistent in their attentions.
At last, as we were winding down the trail beneath the pines, we came
suddenly upon an Indian with a gun in the hollow of his arm. So
still, so shadowy, so neutral in color was he, that at first sight he
seemed a part of the forest, like the shaded hole of a tree. He
turned out to be a "runner," so to speak, for the ferrymen at
Tchincut Crossing, and led us down to the outlet of the lake where a
group of natives with their slim canoes sat waiting to set us over.
An hour's brisk work and we rose to the fine grassy eastern slope
overlooking the lake.
We rose on our stirrups with shouts of joy. We had reached the land
of our dreams! Here was the trailers' heaven! Wooded promontories,
around which the wavelets sparkled, pushed out into the deep, clear
flood. Great mountains rose in the background, lonely, untouched by
man's all-desolating hand, while all about us lay suave slopes
clothed with most beautiful pea-vine, just beginning to ripple in the
wind, and beyond lay level meadows lit by little ponds filled with
wildfowl. There was just forest enough to lend mystery to these
meadows, and to shut from our eager gaze the beauties of other and
still more entrancing glades. The most exacting hunter or trailer
could not desire more perfect conditions for camping. It was God's
own country after the gloomy monotony of the barren pine forest, and
needed only a passing deer or a band of elk to be a poem as well as a
picture.
All day we skirted this glorious lake, and at night we camped on its
shores. The horses were as happy as their masters, feeding in plenty
on sweet herbage for the first time in long days.
Late in the day we passed the largest Indian village we had yet seen.
It was situated on Stony Creek, which came from Tatchick Lake and
emptied into Tchincut Lake. The shallows flickered with the passing
of trout, and the natives were busy catching and drying them. As we
rode amid the curing sheds, the children raised a loud clamor, and
the women laughed and called from house to house, "Oh, see the white
men!" We were a circus parade to them.
Their opportunities for earning money are scant, and they live upon a
very monotonous diet of fish and possibly dried venison and berries.
Except at favorable points like Stony Creek, where a small stream
leads from one lake to another, there are no villages because there
are no fish.
I shall not soon forget the shining vistas through which we rode that
day, nor the meadows which possessed all the allurement and mystery
which the word "savanna" has always had with me. It was like going
back to the prairies of Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, as they were
sixty years ago, except in this case the elk and the deer were
absent.
YET STILL WE RODE
We wallowed deep in mud and sand;
We swam swift streams that roared in wrath;
They stood at guard in that lone land,
Like dragons in the slender path.
Yet still we rode right on and on,
And shook our clenched hands at the sky.
We dared the frost at early dawn,
And the dread tempest sweeping by.
It was not all so dark. Now and again
The robin, singing loud and long,
Made wildness tame, and lit the rain
With sudden sunshine with his song.
Wild roses filled the air with grace,
The shooting-star swung like a bell
From bended stem, and all the place
Was like to heaven after hell.
CHAPTER VIII
WE SWIM THE NECHACO
Here was perfection of camping, but no allurement could turn the
goldseekers aside. Some of them remained for a day, a few for two
days, but not one forgot for a moment that he was on his way to the
Klondike River sixteen hundred miles away. In my enthusiasm I
proposed to camp for a week, but my partner, who was "out for gold
instid o' daisies, 'guessed' we'd better be moving." He could not
bear to see any one pass us, and that was the feeling of every man on
the trail. Each seemed to fear that the gold might all be claimed
before he arrived. With a sigh I turned my back on this glorious
region and took up the forward march.
All the next day we skirted the shores of Tatchick Lake, coming late
in the afternoon to the Nechaco River, a deep, rapid stream which
rose far to our left in the snowy peaks of the coast range. All day
the sky to the east had a brazen glow, as if a great fire were raging
there, but toward night the wind changed and swept it away. The trail
was dusty for the first time, and the flies venomous. Late in the
afternoon we pitched camp, setting our tent securely, expecting rain.
Before we went to sleep the drops began to drum on the tent roof, a
pleasant sound after the burning dust of the trail. The two trampers
kept abreast of us nearly all day, but they began to show fatigue and
hunger, and a look of almost sullen desperation had settled on their
faces.
As we came down next day to where the swift Nechaco met the Endako
rushing out of Fraser Lake, we found the most dangerous flood we had
yet crossed. A couple of white men were calking a large ferry-boat,
but as it was not yet seaworthy and as they had no cable, the horses
must swim. I dreaded to see them enter this chill, gray stream, for
not only was it wide and swift, but the two currents coming together
made the landing confusing to the horses as well as to ourselves.
Rain was at hand and we had no time to waste.
The horses knew that some hard swimming was expected of them and
would gladly have turned back if they could. We surrounded them with
furious outcry and at last Ladrone sprang in and struck for the
nearest point opposite, with that intelligence which marks the bronco
horse. The others followed readily. Two of the poorer ones labored
heavily, but all touched shore in good order.
The rain began to fall sharply and we were forced to camp on the
opposite bank as swiftly as possible, in order to get out of the
storm. We worked hard and long to put everything under cover and were
muddy and tired at the end of it. At last the tent was up, the outfit
covered with waterproof canvas, the fire blazing and our bread
baking. In pitching our camp we had plenty of assistance at the
hands of several Indian boys from a near-by village, who hung about,
eager to lend a hand, in the hope of getting a cup of coffee and a
piece of bread in payment. The streaming rain seemed to have no more
effect upon them than on a loon. The conditions were all strangely
similar to those at the Muddy River.
Night closed in swiftly. Through the dark we could hear the low swish
of the rising river, and Burton, with a sly twinkle in his eye,
remarked, "For a semi-arid country, this is a pretty wet rain."
In planning the trip, I had written to him saying: "The trail runs
for the most part though a semi-arid country, somewhat like eastern
Washington."
It rained all the next day and we were forced to remain in camp,
which was dismal business; but we made the best of it, doing some
mending of clothes and tackle during the long hours.
We were visited by all the Indians from Old Fort Fraser, which was
only a mile away. They sat about our blazing fire laughing and
chattering like a group of girls, discussing our characters minutely,
and trying to get at our reasons for going on such a journey.
One of them who spoke a little English said, after looking over my
traps: "You boss, you ty-ee, you belly rich man. Why you come?"
This being interpreted meant, "You have a great many splendid things,
you are rich. Now, why do you come away out here in this poor Siwash
country?"
I tried to convey to him that I wished to see the mountains and to
get acquainted with the people. He then asked, "More white men come?"
Throwing my hands in the air and spreading my fingers many times, I
exclaimed, "Hy-u white man, hy-u!" Whereat they all clicked their
tongues and looked at each other in astonishment. They could not
understand why this sudden flood of white people should pour into
their country. This I also explained in lame Chinook: "We go klap
Pilchickamin (gold). White man hears say Hy-u Pilchickamin there (I
pointed to the north). White man heap like Pilchickamin, so he
comes."
All the afternoon and early evening little boys came and went on the
swift river in their canoes, singing wild, hauntingly musical boating
songs. They had no horses, but assembled in their canoes, racing and
betting precisely as the Cheyenne lads run horses at sunset in the
valley of the Lamedeer. All about the village the grass was rich and
sweet, uncropped by any animal, for these poor fishermen do not
aspire to the wonderful wealth of owning a horse. They had heard that
cattle were coming over the trail and all inquired, "Spose when
Moos-Moos come?" They knew that milk and butter were good things, and
some of them had hopes of owning a cow sometime.
They had tiny little gardens in sheltered places on the sunny slopes,
wherein a few potatoes were planted; for the rest they hunt and fish
and trap in winter and trade skins for meat and flour and coffee, and
so live. How they endure the winters in such wretched houses, it is
impossible to say. There was a lone white man living on the site of
the old fort, as agent of the Hudson Bay Company. He kept a small
stock of clothing and groceries and traded for "skins," as the
Indians all call pelts. They count in skins. So many skins will buy a
rifle, so many more will secure a sack of flour.
The storekeeper told me that the two trampers had arrived there a few
days before without money and without food. "I gave 'em some flour
and sent 'em on," he said. "The Siwashes will take care of them, but
it ain't right. What the cussed idiots mean by setting out on such a
journey I can't understand. Why, one tramp came in here early in the
spring who couldn't speak English, and who left Quesnelle without
even a blanket or an axe. Fact! And yet the Lord seems to take care
of these fools. You wouldn't believe it, but that fellow picked up an
axe and a blanket the first day out. But he'd a died only for the
Indians. They won't let even a white man starve to death. I helped
him out with some flour and he went on. They all rush on. Seems like
they was just crazy to get to Dawson--couldn't sleep without dreamin'
of it."
I was almost as eager to get on as the tramps, but Burton went about
his work regularly as a clock. I wrote, yawned, stirred the big
campfire, gazed at the clouds, talked with the Indians, and so passed
the day. I began to be disturbed, for I knew the power of a rain on
the trail. It transforms it, makes it ferocious. The path that has
charmed and wooed, becomes uncertain, treacherous, gloomy, and
engulfing. Creeks become rivers, rivers impassable torrents, and
marshes bottomless abysses. Pits of quicksand develop in most
unexpected places. Driven from smooth lake margins, the trailers'
ponies are forced to climb ledges of rock, and to rattle over long
slides of shale. In places the threadlike way itself becomes an
aqueduct for a rushing overflow of water.
At such times the man on the trail feels the grim power of Nature.
She has no pity, no consideration. She sets mud, torrents, rocks,
cold, mist, to check and chill him, to devour him. Over him he has no
roof, under him no pavement. Never for an instant is he free from the
pressure of the elements. Sullen streams lie athwart his road like
dragons, and in a land like this, where snowy peaks rise on all
sides, rain meant sudden and enormous floods of icy water.
It was still drizzling on the third day, but we packed and pushed on,
though the hills were slippery and the creeks swollen. Water was
everywhere, but the sun came out, lighting the woods into radiant
greens and purples. Robins and sparrows sang ecstatically, and
violets, dandelions, and various kinds of berries were in odorous
bloom. A vine with a blue flower, new to me, attracted my attention,
also a yellow blossom of the cowslip variety. This latter had a form
not unlike a wild sunflower.
Here for the first time I heard a bird singing a song quite new to
me. He was a thrushlike little fellow, very shy and difficult to see
as he sat poised on the tip of a black pine in the deep forest. His
note was a clear cling-ling, like the ringing of a steel triangle.
_Chingaling, chingaling_, one called near at hand, and then farther
off another answered, _ching, ching, chingaling-aling_, with immense
vim, power, and vociferation.
Burton, who had spent many years in the mighty forests of Washington,
said: "That little chap is familiar to me. Away in the pines where
there is no other bird I used to hear his voice. No matter how dark
it was, I could always tell when morning was coming by his note, and
on cloudy days I could always tell when the sunset was coming by
hearing him call."
To me his phrase was not unlike the metallic ringing cry of a sort of
blackbird which I heard in the torrid plazas of Mexico. He was very
difficult to distinguish, for the reason that he sat so high in the
tree and was so wary. He was very shy of approach. He was a plump,
trim little fellow of a plain brown color, not unlike a small robin.
There was another cheerful little bird, new to me also, which uttered
an amusing phrase in two keys, something like _tee tay, tee tay, tee
tay_, one note sustained high and long, followed by another given on
a lower key. It was not unlike to the sound made by a boy with a
tuning pipe. This, Burton said, was also a familiar sound in the
depths of the great Washington firs. These two cheery birds kept us
company in the gloomy, black-pine forest, when we sorely needed
solace of some kind.
Fraser Lake was also very charming, romantic enough to be the scene
of Cooper's best novels. The water was deliciously clear and cool,
and from the farther shore great mountains rose in successive sweeps
of dark green foothills. At this time we felt well satisfied with
ourselves and the trip. With a gleam in his eyes Burton said, "This
is the kind of thing our folks think we're doing all the time."
RELENTLESS NATURE
She laid her rivers to snare us,
She set her snows to chill,
Her clouds had the cunning of vultures,
Her plants were charged to kill.
The glooms of her forests benumbed us,
On the slime of her ledges we sprawled;
But we set our feet to the northward,
And crawled and crawled and crawled!
We defied her, and cursed her, and shouted:
"To hell with your rain and your snow.
Our minds we have set on a journey,
And despite of your anger we go!"
CHAPTER IX
THE FIRST CROSSING OF THE BULKLEY
We were now following a chain of lakes to the source of the Endako,
one of the chief northwest sources of the Fraser, and were surrounded
by tumultuous ridges covered with a seamless robe of pine forests.
For hundreds of miles on either hand lay an absolutely untracked
wilderness. In a land like this the trail always follows a
water-course, either ascending or descending it; so for some days we
followed the edges of these lakes and the banks of the connecting
streams, toiling over sharp hills and plunging into steep ravines,
over a trail belly-deep in mud and water and through a wood empty of
life.
These were hard days. We travelled for many hours through a burnt-out
tract filled with twisted, blackened uprooted trees in the wake of
fire and hurricane. From this tangled desolation I received the
suggestion of some verses which I call "The Song of the North Wind."
The wind and the fire worked together. If the wind precedes, he
prepares the way for his brother fire, and in return the fire weakens
the trees to the wind.
We had settled into a dull routine, and the worst feature of each
day's work was the drag, drag of slow hours on the trail. We could
not hurry, and we were forced to watch our horses with unremitting
care in order to nurse them over the hard spots, or, rather, the soft
spots, in the trail. We were climbing rapidly and expected soon to
pass from the watershed of the Fraser into that of the Skeena.
We passed a horse cold in death, with his head flung up as if he had
been fighting the wolves in his final death agony. It was a grim
sight. Another beast stood abandoned beside the trail, gazing at us
reproachfully, infinite pathos in his eyes. He seemed not to have the
energy to turn his head, but stood as if propped upon his legs, his
ribs showing with horrible plainness a tragic dejection in every
muscle and limb.
The feed was fairly good, our horses were feeling well, and curiously
enough the mosquitoes had quite left us. We overtook and passed a
number of outfits camped beside a splendid rushing stream.
On Burns' Lake we came suddenly upon a settlement of quite sizable
Indian houses with beautiful pasturage about. The village contained
twenty-five or thirty families of carrier Indians, and was musical
with the plaintive boat-songs of the young people. How long these
native races have lived here no one can tell, but their mark on the
land is almost imperceptible. They are not of those who mar the
landscape.
On the first of June we topped the divide between the two mighty
watersheds. Behind us lay the Fraser, before us the Skeena. The
majestic coast range rose like a wall of snow far away to the
northwest, while a near-by lake, filling the foreground, reflected
the blue ridges of the middle distance--a magnificent spread of wild
landscape. It made me wish to abandon the trail and push out into the
unexplored.
From this point we began to descend toward the Bulkley, which is the
most easterly fork of the Skeena. Soon after starting on our downward
path we came to a fork in the trail. One trail, newly blazed, led to
the right and seemed to be the one to take. We started upon it, but
found it dangerously muddy, and so returned to the main trail which
seemed to be more numerously travelled. Afterward we wished we had
taken the other, for we got one of our horses into the quicksand and
worked for more than three hours in the attempt to get him out. A
horse is a strange animal. He is counted intelligent, and so he is if
he happens to be a bronco or a mule. But in proportion as he is a
thoroughbred, he seems to lose power to take care of himself--loses
heart. Our Ewe-neck bay had a trace of racer in him, and being
weakened by poor food, it was his bad luck to slip over the bank into
a quicksand creek. Having found himself helpless he instantly gave up
heart and lay out with a piteous expression of resignation in his big
brown eyes. We tugged and lifted and rolled him around from one
position to another, each more dangerous than the first, all to no
result.
While I held him up from drowning, my partner "brushed in" around him
so that he _could_ not become submerged. We tried hitching the other
horses to him in order to drag him out, but as they were
saddle-horses, and had never set shoulder to a collar in their
lives, they refused to pull even enough to take the proverbial
setting hen off the nest.
Up to this time I had felt no need of company on the trail, and for
the most part we had travelled alone. But I now developed a poignant
desire to hear the tinkle of a bell on the back trail, for there is
no "funny business" about losing a packhorse in the midst of a wild
country. His value is not represented by the twenty-five dollars
which you originally paid for him. Sometimes his life is worth all
you can give for him.
After some three hours of toil (the horse getting weaker all the
time), I looked around once more with despairing gaze, and caught
sight of a bunch of horses across the valley flat. In this country
there were no horses except such as the goldseeker owned, and this
bunch of horses meant a camp of trailers. Leaping to my saddle, I
galloped across the spongy marsh to hailing distance.
My cries for help brought two of the men running with spades to help
us. The four of us together lifted the old horse out of the pit more
dead than alive. We fell to and rubbed his legs to restore
circulation. Later we blanketed him and turned him loose upon the
grass. In a short time he was nearly as well as ever.
It was a sorrowful experience, for a fallen horse is a horse in ruins
and makes a most woful appeal upon one's sympathies. I went to bed
tired out, stiff and sore from pulling on the rope, my hands
blistered, my nerves shaken.
As I was sinking off to sleep I heard a wolf howl, as though he
mourned the loss of a feast.
We had been warned that the Bulkley River was a bad stream to
cross,--in fact, the road-gang had cut a new trail in order to avoid
it,--that is to say, they kept to the right around the sharp elbow
which the river makes at this point, whereas the old trail cut
directly across the elbow, making two crossings. At the point where
the new trail led to the right we held a council of war to determine
whether to keep to the old trail, and so save several days' travel,
or to turn to the right and avoid the difficult crossing. The new
trail was reported to be exceedingly miry, and that determined the
matter--we concluded to make the short cut.
We descended to the Bulkley through clouds of mosquitoes and endless
sloughs of mud. The river was out of its banks, and its quicksand
flats were exceedingly dangerous to our pack animals, although the
river itself at this point was a small and sluggish stream.
It took us exactly five hours of most exhausting toil to cross the
river and its flat. We worked like beavers, we sweated like hired
men, wading up to our knees in water, and covered with mud, brushing
in a road over the quicksand for the horses to walk. The Ewe-necked
bay was fairly crazy with fear of the mud, and it was necessary to
lead him over every foot of the way. We went into camp for the first
time too late to eat by daylight. It became necessary for us to use a
candle inside the tent at about eleven o'clock.
The horses were exhausted, and crazy for feed. It was a struggle to
get them unpacked, so eager were they to forage. Ladrone, always
faithful, touched my heart by his patience and gentleness, and his
reliance upon me. I again heard a gray wolf howl as I was sinking off
to sleep.
THE GAUNT GRAY WOLF
O a shadowy beast is the gaunt gray wolf!
And his feet fall soft on a carpet of spines;
Where the night shuts quick and the winds are cold
He haunts the deeps of the northern pines.
His eyes are eager, his teeth are keen,
As he slips at night through the bush like a snake,
Crouching and cringing, straight into the wind,
To leap with a grin on the fawn in the brake.
He falls like a cat on the mother grouse
Brooding her young in the wind-bent weeds,
Or listens to heed with a start of greed
The bittern booming from river reeds.
He's the symbol of hunger the whole earth through,
His spectre sits at the door or cave,
And the homeless hear with a thrill of fear
The sound of his wind-swept voice on the air.
ABANDONED ON THE TRAIL
A poor old horse with down-cast mien and sad wild eyes,
Stood by the lonely trail--and oh!
He was so piteous lean.
He seemed to look a mild surprise
At all mankind that we should treat him so.
How hardily he struggled up the trail
And through the streams
All men should know.
Yet now abandoned to the wolf, his waiting foe,
He stood in silence, as an old man dreams.
And as his master left him, this he seemed to say:
"You leave me helpless by the path;
I do not curse you, but I pray
Defend me from the wolves' wild wrath!"
And yet his master rode away!
CHAPTER X
DOWN THE BULKLEY VALLEY
As we rose to the top of the divide which lies between the two
crossings of the Bulkley, a magnificent view of the coast range again
lightened the horizon. In the foreground a lovely lake lay. On the
shore of this lake stood a single Indian shack occupied by a
half-dozen children and an old woman. They were all wretchedly
clothed in graceless rags, and formed a bitter and depressing
contrast to the magnificence of nature.
One of the lads could talk a little Chinook mixed with English.
"How far is it to the ford?" I asked of him.
"White man say, mebbe-so six, mebbe-so nine mile."
Knowing the Indian's vague idea of miles, I said:--
"How _long_ before we reach the ford? Sit-kum sun?" which is to say
noon.
He shook his head.
"Klip sun come. Me go-hyak make canoe. Me felly."
By which he meant: "You will arrive at the ford by sunset. I will
hurry on and build a raft and ferry you over the stream."
With an axe and a sack of dried fish on his back and a poor old
shot-gun in his arm, he led the way down the trail at a slapping
pace. He kept with us till dinner-time, however, in order to get some
bread and coffee.
Like the _Jicarilla_ Apaches, these people have discovered the
virtues of the inner bark of the black pine. All along the trail were
trees from which wayfarers had lunched, leaving a great strip of the
white inner wood exposed.
"Man heap dry--this muck-a-muck heap good," said the young fellow, as
he handed me a long strip to taste. It was cool and sweet to the
tongue, and on a hot day would undoubtedly quench thirst. The boy
took it from the tree by means of a chisel-shaped iron after the
heavy outer bark has been hewed away by the axe.
All along the trail were tree trunks whereon some loitering young
Siwash had delineated a human face by a few deft and powerful strokes
of the axe, the sculptural planes of cheeks, brow, and chin being
indicated broadly but with truth and decision. Often by some old camp
a tree would bear on a planed surface the rude pictographs, so that
those coming after could read the number, size, sex, and success at
hunting of those who had gone before. There is something Japanese, it
seems to me, in this natural taste for carving among all the
Northwest people.
All about us was now riotous June. The season was incredibly warm and
forward, considering the latitude. Strawberries were in bloom, birds
were singing, wild roses appeared in miles and in millions, plum and
cherry trees were white with blossoms--in fact, the splendor and
radiance of Iowa in June. A beautiful lake occupied our left nearly
all day.
As we arrived at the second crossing of the Bulkley about six
o'clock, our young Indian met us with a sorrowful face.
"Stick go in chuck. No canoe. Walk stick."
A big cottonwood log had fallen across the stream and lay
half-submerged and quivering in the rushing river. Over this log a
half-dozen men were passing like ants, wet with sweat, "bucking"
their outfits across. The poor Siwash was out of a job and
exceedingly sorrowful.
"This is the kind of picnic we didn't expect," said one of the young
men, as I rode up to see what progress they were making.
We took our turn at crossing the tree trunk, which was submerged
nearly a foot deep with water running at mill-race speed, and resumed
the trail, following running water most of the way over a very good
path. Once again we had a few hours' positive enjoyment, with no
sense of being in a sub-arctic country. We could hardly convince
ourselves that we were in latitude 54. The only peculiarity which I
never quite forgot was the extreme length of the day. At 10.30 at
night it was still light enough to write. No sooner did it get dark
on one side of the hut than it began to lighten on the other. The
weather was gloriously cool, crisp, and invigorating, and whenever we
had sound soil under our feet we were happy.
The country was getting each hour more superbly mountainous. Great
snowy peaks rose on all sides. The coast range, lofty, roseate, dim,
and far, loomed ever in the west, but on our right a group of other
giants assembled, white and stern. A part of the time we threaded our
way through fire-devastated forests of fir, and then as suddenly
burst out into tracts of wild roses with beautiful open spaces of
waving pea-vine on which our horses fed ravenously.
We were forced to throw up our tent at every meal, so intolerable had
the mosquitoes become. Here for the first time our horses were
severely troubled by myriads of little black flies. They were small,
but resembled our common house flies in shape, and were exceedingly
venomous. They filled the horses' ears, and their sting produced
minute swellings all over the necks and breasts of the poor animals.
Had it not been for our pennyroyal and bacon grease, the bay horse
would have been eaten raw.
We overtook the trampers again at Chock Lake. They were thin, their
legs making sharp creases in their trouser legs--I could see that as
I neared them. They were walking desperately, reeling from side to
side with weakness. There was no more smiling on their faces. One
man, the smaller, had the countenance of a wolf, pinched in round the
nose. His bony jaw was thrust forward resolutely. The taller man was
limping painfully because of a shoe which had gone to one side. Their
packs were light, but their almost incessant change of position gave
evidence of pain and great weariness.
I drew near to ask how they were getting along. The tall man, with a
look of wistful sadness like that of a hungry dog, said, "Not very
well."
"How are you off for grub?"
"Nothing left but some beans and a mere handful of flour."
I invited them to a "square meal" a few miles farther on, and in
order to help them forward I took one of their packs on my horse. I
inferred that they would take turns at the remaining pack and so keep
pace with us, for we were dropping steadily now--down, down through
the most beautiful savannas, with fine spring brooks rushing from the
mountain's side. Flowers increased; the days grew warmer; it began to
feel like summer. The mountains grew ever mightier, looming cloudlike
at sunset, bearing glaciers on their shoulders. We were almost
completely happy--but alas, the mosquitoes! Their hum silenced the
songs of the birds; their feet made the mountains of no avail. The
otherwise beautiful land became a restless hell for the unprotected
man or beast. It was impossible to eat or sleep without some defence,
and our pennyroyal salve was invaluable. It enabled us to travel with
some degree of comfort, where others suffered martyrdom.
At noon Burton made up a heavy mess, in expectation of the trampers,
who had fallen a little behind. The small man came into view first,
for he had abandoned his fellow-traveller. This angered me, and I was
minded to cast the little sneak out of camp, but his pinched and
hungry face helped me to put up with him. I gave him a smart lecture
and said, "I supposed you intended to help the other man, or I
wouldn't have relieved you of a pound."
The other toiler turned up soon, limping, and staggering with
weakness. When dinner was ready, they came to the call like a couple
of starving dogs. The small man had no politeness left. He gorged
himself like a wolf. He fairly snapped the food down his throat. The
tall man, by great effort, contrived to display some knowledge of
better manners. As they ate, I studied them. They were blotched by
mosquito bites and tanned to a leather brown. Their thin hands were
like claws, their doubled knees seemed about to pierce their trouser
legs.
"Yes," said the taller man, "the mosquitoes nearly eat us up. We can
only sleep in the middle of the day, or from about two o'clock in the
morning till sunrise. We walk late in the evening--till nine or
ten--and then sit in the smoke till it gets cold enough to drive away
the mosquitoes. Then we try to sleep. But the trouble is, when it is
cold enough to keep them off, it's too cold for us to sleep."
"What did you do during the late rains?" I inquired.
"Oh, we kept moving most of the time. At night we camped under a fir
tree by the trail and dried off. The mosquitoes didn't bother us so
much then. We were wet nearly all the time."
I tried to get at his point of view, his justification for such
senseless action, but could only discover a sort of blind belief
that something would help him pull through. He had gone to the
Caribou mines to find work, and, failing, had pushed on toward
Hazleton with a dim hope of working his way to Teslin Lake and to the
Klondike. He started with forty pounds of provisions and three or
four dollars in his pocket. He was now dead broke, and his provisions
almost gone.
Meanwhile, the smaller man made no sign of hearing a word. He ate and
ate, till my friend looked at me with a comical wink. We fed him
staples--beans, graham bread, and coffee--and he slowly but surely
reached the bottom of every dish. He did not fill up, he simply
"wiped out" the cooked food. The tall man was not far behind him.
As he talked, I imagined the life they had led. At first the trail
was good, and they were able to make twenty miles each day. The
weather was dry and warm, and sleeping was not impossible. They
camped close beside the trail when they grew tired--I had seen and
recognized their camping-places all along. But the rains came on, and
they were forced to walk all day through the wet shrubs with the
water dripping from their ragged garments. They camped at night
beneath the firs (for the ground is always dry under a fir), where a
fire is easily built. There they hung over the flame, drying their
clothing and their rapidly weakening shoes. The mosquitoes swarmed
upon them bloodily in the shelter and warmth of the trees, for they
had no netting or tent. Their meals were composed of tea, a few
hastily stewed beans, and a poor quality of sticky camp bread. Their
sleep was broken and fitful. They were either too hot or too cold,
and the mosquitoes gave way only when the frost made slumber
difficult. In the morning they awoke to the necessity of putting on
their wet shoes, and taking the muddy trail, to travel as long as
they could stagger forward.
In addition to all this, they had no maps, and knew nothing of their
whereabouts or how far it was to a human habitation. Their only
comfort lay in the passing of outfits like mine. From such as I, they
"rustled food" and clothing. The small man did not even thank us for
the meal; he sat himself down for a smoke and communed with his
stomach. The tall man was plainly worsted. His voice had a plaintive
droop. His shoe gnawed into his foot, and his pack was visibly
heavier than that of his companion.
We were two weeks behind our schedule, and our own flour sack was not
much bigger than a sachet-bag, but we gave them some rice and part of
our beans and oatmeal, and they moved away.
We were approaching sea-level, following the Bulkley, which flows in
a northwesterly direction and enters the great Skeena River at right
angles, just below its three forks. Each hour the peaks seemed to
assemble and uplift. The days were at their maximum, the sun set
shortly after eight, but it was light until nearly eleven. At midday
the sun was fairly hot, but the wind swept down from the mountains
cool and refreshing. I shall not soon forget those radiant meadows,
over which the far mountains blazed in almost intolerable splendor;
it was too perfect to endure. Like the light of the sun lingering on
the high peaks with most magical beauty, it passed away to be seen no
more.
In the midst of these grandeurs we lost one of our horses. Whenever a
horse breaks away from his fellows on the trail, it is pretty safe to
infer he has "hit the back track." As I went out to round up the
horses, "Major Grunt" was nowhere to be found. He had strayed from
the bunch and we inferred had started back over the trail. We trailed
him till we met one of the trampers, who assured us that no horse had
passed him in the night, for he had been camped within six feet of
the path.
Up to this time there had been no returning footsteps, and it was
easy to follow the horse so long as he kept to the trail, but the
tramper's report was positive--no horse had passed him. We turned
back and began searching the thickets around the camp.
We toiled all day, not merely because the horse was exceedingly
valuable to us, but also for the reason that he had a rope attached
to his neck and I was afraid he might become entangled in the fallen
timber and so starve to death.
The tall tramper, who had been definitely abandoned by his partner,
was a sad spectacle. He was blotched by mosquito bites, thin and weak
with hunger, and his clothes hung in tatters. He had just about
reached the limit of his courage, and though we were uncertain of our
horses, and our food was nearly exhausted, we gave him all the rice
we had and some fruit and sent him on his way.
Night came, and still no signs of "Major Grunt." It began to look as
though some one had ridden him away and we should be forced to go on
without him. This losing of a horse is one of the accidents which
make the trail so uncertain. We were exceedingly anxious to get on.
There was an oppressive warmth in the air, and flies and mosquitoes
were the worst we had ever seen. Altogether this was a dark day on
our calendar.
After we had secured ourselves in our tents that night the sound of
the savage insects without was like the roaring of a far-off
hailstorm. The horses rolled in the dirt, snorted, wheeled madly,
stamped, shook their heads, and flung themselves again and again on
the ground, giving every evidence of the most terrible suffering. "If
this is to continue," I said to my partner, "I shall quit, and either
kill all my horses or ship them out of the country. I will not have
them eaten alive in this way."
It was impossible to go outside to attend to them. Nothing could be
done but sit in gloomy silence and listen to the drumming of their
frantic feet on the turf as they battled against their invisible
foes. At last, led by old Ladrone, they started off at a hobbling
gallop up the trail.
"Well, we are in for it now," I remarked, as the footsteps died away.
"They've hit the back trail, and we'll have another day's hard work
to catch 'em and bring 'em back. However, there's no use worrying.
The mosquitoes would eat us alive if we went out now. We might just
as well go to sleep and wait till morning." Sleep was difficult under
the circumstances, but we dozed off at last.
As we took their trail in the cool of the next morning, we found the
horses had taken the back trail till they reached an open hillside,
and had climbed to the very edge of the timber. There they were all
in a bunch, with the exception of "Major Grunt," of whom we had no
trace.
With a mind filled with distressing pictures of the lost horse
entangled in his rope, and lying flat on his side hidden among the
fallen tree trunks, there to struggle and starve, I reluctantly gave
orders for a start, with intent to send an Indian back to search for
him.
After two hours' smart travel we came suddenly upon the little Indian
village of Morricetown, which is built beside a narrow cañon through
which the Bulkley rushes with tremendous speed. Here high on the
level grassy bank we camped, quite secure from mosquitoes, and
surrounded by the curious natives, who showed us where to find wood
and water, and brought us the most beautiful spring salmon, and
potatoes so tender and fine that the skin could be rubbed from them
with the thumb. They were exactly like new potatoes in the States.
Out of this, it may be well understood, we had a most satisfying
dinner. Summer was in full tide. Pieplant was two feet high, and
strawberries were almost ripe.
Calling the men of the village around me, I explained in
Pigeon-English and worse Chinook that I had lost a horse, and that I
would give five dollars to the man who would bring him to me. They
all listened attentively, filled with joy at a chance to earn so much
money. At last the chief man of the village, a very good-looking
fellow of twenty-five or thirty, said to me: "All light, me go, me
fetch 'um. You stop here. Mebbe-so, klip-sun, I come bling horse."
His confidence relieved us of anxiety, and we had a very pleasant day
of it, digesting our bountiful meal of salmon and potatoes, and
mending up our clothing. We were now pretty ragged and very brown,
but in excellent health.
Late in the afternoon a gang of road-cutters (who had been sent out
by the towns interested in the route) came into town from Hazleton,
and I had a talk with the boss, a very decent fellow, who gave a grim
report of the trail beyond. He said: "Nobody knows anything about
that trail. Jim Deacon, the head-man of our party when we left
Hazleton, was only about seventy miles out, and cutting fallen timber
like a man chopping cord wood, and sending back for more help. We are
now going back to bridge and corduroy the places we had no time to
fix as we came."
Morricetown was a superb spot, and Burton was much inclined to stay
right there and prospect the near-by mountains. So far as a mere
casual observer could determine, this country offers every inducement
to prospectors. It is possible to grow potatoes, hay, and oats,
together with various small fruits, in this valley, and if gold
should ever be discovered in the rushing mountain streams, it would
be easy to sustain a camp and feed it well.
Long before sunset an Indian came up to us and smilingly said, "You
hoss--come." And a few minutes later the young ty-ee came riding into
town leading "Major Grunt," well as ever, but a little sullen. He had
taken the back trail till he came to a narrow and insecure bridge.
There he had turned up the stream, going deeper and deeper into the
"stick," as the Siwash called the forest. I paid the reward gladly,
and Major took his place among the other horses with no sign of joy.
DO YOU FEAR THE WIND?
Do you fear the force of the wind,
The slash of the rain?
Go face them and fight them,
Be savage again.
Go hungry and cold like the wolf,
Go wade like the crane.
The palms of your hands will thicken,
The skin of your cheek will tan,
You'll grow ragged and weary and swarthy,
But you'll walk like a man!
CHAPTER XI
HAZLETON. MIDWAY ON THE TRAIL
We were now but thirty miles from Hazleton, where our second bill of
supplies was waiting for us, and we were eager to push on. Taking the
advice of the road-gang we crossed the frail suspension bridge (which
the Indians had most ingeniously constructed out of logs and pieces
of old telegraph wire) and started down the west side of the river.
Every ravine was filled by mountain streams' foam--white with speed.
We descended all day and the weather grew more and more summer-like
each mile. Ripe strawberries lured us from the warm banks. For the
first time we came upon great groves of red cedar under which the
trail ran very muddy and very slippery by reason of the hard roots of
the cedars which never decay. Creeks that seemed to me a good field
for placer mining came down from the left, but no one stopped to do
more than pan a little gravel from a cut bank or a bar.
At about two o'clock of the second day we came to the Indian village
of Hagellgate, which stands on the high bank overhanging the roaring
river just before it empties into the Skeena. Here we got news of the
tramp who had fallen in exhaustion and was being cared for by the
Indians.
Descending swiftly we came to the bank of the river, which was wide,
tremendously swift and deep and cold. Rival Indian ferry companies
bid for our custom, each man extolling his boat at the expense of the
"old canoe--no good" of his rivals.
The canoes were like those to be seen all along the coast, that is to
say they had been hollowed from cottonwood or pine trees and
afterward steamed and spread by means of hot water to meet the
maker's idea of the proper line of grace and speed. They were really
beautiful and sat the water almost as gracefully as the birch-bark
canoe of the Chippewas. At each end they rose into a sort of neck,
which terminated often in a head carved to resemble a deer or some
fabled animal. Some of them had white bands encircling the throat of
this figurehead. Their paddles were short and broad, but light and
strong.
These canoes are very seaworthy. As they were driven across the swift
waters, they danced on the waves like leaves, and the boatmen bent to
their oars with almost desperate energy and with most excited outcry.
Therein is expressed a mighty difference between the Siwash and the
plains Indian. The Cheyenne, the Sioux, conceal effort, or fear, or
enthusiasm. These little people chattered and whooped at each other
like monkeys. Upon hearing them for the first time I imagined they
were losing control of the boat. Judging from their accent they were
shrieking phrases like these:--
"Quick, quick! Dig in deep, Joe. Scratch now, we're going
down--whoop! Hay, now! All together--swing her, dog-gone ye--SWING
HER! Now straight--keep her straight! Can't ye see that eddy? Whoop,
whoop! Let out a link or two, you spindle-armed child. Now _quick_ or
we're lost!"
While the other men seemed to reply in kind: "Oh, rats, we're a
makin' it. Head her toward that bush. Don't get scared--trust
me--I'll sling her ashore!"
A plains Indian, under similar circumstances, would have strained
every muscle till his bones cracked, before permitting himself to
show effort or excitement.
With all their confusion and chatter these little people were always
masters of the situation. They came out right, no matter how savage
the river, and the Bulkley at this point was savage. Every drop of
water was in motion. It had no eddies, no slack water. Its momentum
was terrific. In crossing, the boatmen were obliged to pole their
canoes far up beyond the point at which they meant to land; then, at
the word, they swung into the rushing current and pulled like fiends
for the opposite shore. Their broad paddles dipped so rapidly they
resembled paddle-wheels. They kept the craft head-on to the current,
and did not attempt to charge the bank directly, but swung-to
broadside. In this way they led our horses safely across, and came up
smiling each time.
We found Hazleton to be a small village composed mainly of Indians,
with a big Hudson Bay post at its centre. It was situated on a lovely
green flat, but a few feet above the Skeena, which was a majestic
flood at this point. There were some ten or fifteen outfits camped
in and about the village, resting and getting ready for the last half
of the trail. Some of the would-be miners had come up the river in
the little Hudson Bay steamer, which makes two or three trips a year,
and were waiting for her next trip in order to go down again.
The town was filled with gloomy stories of the trail. No one knew its
condition. In fact, it had not been travelled in seventeen years,
except by the Indians on foot with their packs of furs. The road
party was ahead, but toiling hard and hurrying to open a way for us.
As I now reread all the advance literature of this "prairie route," I
perceived how skilfully every detail with regard to the last half of
the trail had been slurred over. We had been led into a sort of sack,
and the string was tied behind us.
The Hudson Bay agent said to me with perfect frankness, "There's no
one in this village, except one or two Indians, who's ever been over
the trail, or who can give you any information concerning it." He
furthermore said, "A large number of these fellows who are starting
in on this trip with their poor little cayuses will never reach the
Stikeen River, and might better stop right here."
Feed was scarce here as everywhere, and we were forced to camp on the
trail, some two miles above the town. In going to and from our tent
we passed the Indian burial ground, which was very curious and
interesting to me. It was a veritable little city of the dead, with
streets of tiny, gayly painted little houses in which the silent and
motionless ones had been laid in their last sleep. Each tomb was a
shelter, a roof, and a tomb, and upon each the builder had lavished
his highest skill in ornament. They were all vivid with paint and
carving and lattice work. Each builder seemed trying to outdo his
neighbor in making a cheerful habitation for his dead.
More curious still, in each house were the things which the dead had
particularly loved. In one, a trunk contained all of a girl's
much-prized clothing. A complete set of dishes was visible in
another, while in a third I saw a wash-stand, bowl, pitcher, and
mirror. There was something deeply touching to me in all this. They
are so poor, their lives are so bare of comforts, that the
consecration of these articles to the dead seemed a greater sacrifice
than we, who count ourselves civilized, would make. Each chair, or
table, or coat, or pair of shoes, costs many skins. The set of
furniture meant many hard journeys in the cold, long days of
trailing, trapping, and packing. The clothing had a high money value,
yet it remained undisturbed. I saw one day a woman and two young
girls halt to look timidly in at the window of a newly erected tomb,
but only for a moment; and then, in a panic of fear and awe, they
hurried away.
The days which followed were cold and gloomy, quite in keeping with
the grim tales of the trail. Bodies of horses and mules, drowned in
the attempt to cross the Skeena, were reported passing the wharf at
the post. The wife of a retired Indian agent, who claimed to have
been over the route many years ago, was interviewed by my partner.
After saying that it was a terrible trail, she sententiously ended
with these words, "Gentlemen, you may consider yourselves
explorers."
I halted a very intelligent Indian who came riding by our camp. "How
far to Teslin Lake?" I asked.
He mused. "Maybe so forty days, maybe so thirty days. Me think forty
days."
"Good feed? Hy-u muck-a-muck?"
He looked at me in silence and his face grew a little graver. "Ha--lo
muck-a-muck (no feed). Long time no glass. Hy-yu stick (woods). Hy-u
river--all day swim."
Turning to Burton, I said, "Here we get at the truth of it. This man
has no reason for lying. We need another horse, and we need fifty
pounds more flour."
One by one the outfits behind us came dropping down into Hazleton in
long trains of weary horses, some of them in very bad condition. Many
of the goldseekers determined to "quit." They sold their horses as
best they could to the Indians (who were glad to buy them), and hired
canoes to take them to the coast, intent to catch one of the steamers
which ply to and fro between Skagway and Seattle.
But one by one, with tinkling bells and sharp outcry of drivers,
other outfits passed us, cheerily calling: "Good luck! See you
later," all bound for the "gold belt." Gloomy skies continued to fill
the imaginative ones with forebodings, and all day they could be seen
in groups about the village discussing ways and means. Quarrels broke
out, and parties disbanded in discouragement and bitterness. The road
to the golden river seemed to grow longer, and the precious sand more
elusive, from day to day. Here at Hazleton, where they had hoped to
reach a gold region, nothing was doing. Those who had visited the
Kisgagash Mountains to the north were lukewarm in their reports, and
no one felt like stopping to explore. The cry was, "On to Dawson."
Here in Hazleton I came upon the lame tramp. He had secured lodging
in an empty shack and was being helped to food by some citizens in
the town for whom he was doing a little work. Seeing me pass he
called to me and began to inquire about the trail.
I read in the gleam of his eye an insane resolution to push forward.
This I set about to check. "If you wish to commit suicide, start on
this trail. The four hundred miles you have been over is a summer
picnic excursion compared to that which is now to follow. My advice
to you is to stay right where you are until the next Hudson Bay
steamer comes by, then go to the captain and tell him just how you
are situated, and ask him to carry you down to the coast. You are
insane to think for a moment of attempting the four hundred miles of
unknown trail between here and Glenora, especially without a cent in
your pocket and no grub. You have no right to burden the other
outfits with your needs."
This plain talk seemed to affect him and he looked aggrieved. "But
what can I do? I have no money and no work."
I replied in effect: "Whatever you do, you can't afford to enter upon
this trail, and you can't expect men who are already short of grub to
feed and take care of you. There's a chance for you to work your way
back to the coast on the Hudson Bay steamer. There's only starvation
on the trail."
As I walked away he called after me, but I refused to return. I had
the feeling in spite of all I had said that he would attempt to
rustle a little grub and make his start on the trail. The whole
goldseeking movement was, in a way, a craze; he was simply an extreme
development of it.
It seemed necessary to break camp in order not to be eaten up by the
Siwash dogs, whose peculiarities grew upon me daily. They were indeed
strange beasts. They seemed to have no youth. I never saw them play;
even the puppies were grave and sedate. They were never in a hurry
and were not afraid. They got out of our way with the least possible
exertion, looking meekly reproachful or snarling threateningly at us.
They were ever watchful. No matter how apparently deep their slumber,
they saw every falling crumb, they knew where we had hung our fish,
and were ready as we turned our backs to make away with it. It was
impossible to leave anything eatable for a single instant. Nothing
but the sleight of hand of a conjurer could equal the mystery of
their stealing.
After buying a fourth pack animal and reshoeing all our horses, we
got our outfit into shape for the long, hard drive which lay before
us. Every ounce of superfluous weight, every tool, every article not
absolutely essential, was discarded and its place filled with food.
We stripped ourselves like men going into battle, and on the third
day lined up for Teslin Lake, six hundred miles to the north.
SIWASH GRAVES
Here in their tiny gayly painted homes
They sleep, these small dead people of the streams,
Their names unknown, their deeds forgot,
Their by-gone battles lost in dreams.
A few short days and we who laugh
Will be as still, will lie as low
As utterly in dark as they who rot
Here where the roses blow.
They fought, and loved, and toiled, and died,
As all men do, and all men must.
Of what avail? we at the end
Fall quite as shapelessly to dust.
LINE UP, BRAVE BOYS
The packs are on, the cinches tight,
The patient horses wait,
Upon the grass the frost lies white,
The dawn is gray and late.
The leader's cry rings sharp and clear,
The campfires smoulder low;
Before us lies a shallow mere,
Beyond, the mountain snow.
"_Line up, Billy, line up, boys,_
_The east is gray with coming day,_
_We must away, we cannot stay._
_Hy-o, hy-ak, brave boys!_"
Five hundred miles behind us lie,
As many more ahead,
Through mud and mire on mountains high
Our weary feet must tread.
So one by one, with loyal mind,
The horses swing to place,
The strong in lead, the weak behind,
In patient plodding grace.
"_Hy-o, Buckskin, brave boy, Joe!_
_The sun is high,_
_The hid loons cry:_
_Hy-ak--away! Hy-o!_"
CHAPTER XII
CROSSING THE BIG DIVIDE
Our stay at Hazleton in some measure removed the charm of the first
view. The people were all so miserably poor, and the hosts of
howling, hungry dogs made each day more distressing. The mountains
remained splendid to the last; and as we made our start I looked back
upon them with undiminished pleasure.
We pitched tent at night just below the ford, and opposite another
Indian village in which a most mournful medicine song was going on,
timed to the beating of drums. Dogs joined with the mourning of the
people with cries of almost human anguish, to which the beat of the
passionless drum added solemnity, and a sort of inexorable marching
rhythm. It seemed to announce pestilence and flood, and made the
beautiful earth a place of hunger and despair.
I was awakened in the early dawn by a singular cry repeated again and
again on the farther side of the river. It seemed the voice of a
woman uttering in wailing; chant the most piercing agony of
despairing love. It ceased as the sun arose and was heard no more. It
was difficult to imagine such anguish in the bustle of the bright
morning. It seemed as though it must have been an illusion--a dream
of tragedy.
In the course of an hour's travel we came down to the sandy bottom of
the river, whereon a half-dozen fine canoes were beached and waiting
for us. The skilful natives set us across very easily, although it
was the maddest and wildest of all the rivers we had yet seen. We
crossed the main river just above the point at which the west fork
enters. The horses were obliged to swim nearly half a mile, and some
of them would not have reached the other shore had it not been for
the Indians, who held their heads out of water from the sterns of the
canoes, and so landed them safely on the bar just opposite the little
village called Kispyox, which is also the Indian name of the west
fork.
The trail made off up the eastern bank of this river, which was as
charming as any stream ever imagined by a poet. The water was
gray-green in color, swift and active. It looped away in most
splendid curves, through opulent bottom lands, filled with wild
roses, geranium plants, and berry blooms. Openings alternated with
beautiful woodlands and grassy meadows, while over and beyond all
rose the ever present mountains of the coast range, deep blue and
snow-capped.
There was no strangeness in the flora--on the contrary, everything
seemed familiar. Hazel bushes, poplars, pines, all growth was
amazingly luxuriant. The trail was an Indian path, graceful and full
of swinging curves. We had passed beyond the telegraph wire of the
old trail.
Early in the afternoon we passed some five or six outfits camped on a
beautiful grassy bank overlooking the river, and forming a most
satisfying picture. The bells on the grazing horses were tinkling,
and from sparkling fires, thin columns of smoke arose. Some of the
young men were bathing, while others were washing their shirts in the
sunny stream. There was a cheerful sound of whistling and rattling of
tinware mingled with the sound of axes. Nothing could be more jocund,
more typical, of the young men and the trail. It was one of the few
pleasant camps of the long journey.
It was raining when we awoke, but before noon it cleared sufficiently
to allow us to pack. We started at one, though the bushes were loaded
with water, and had we not been well clothed in waterproof, we should
have been drenched to the bone. We rode for four hours over a good
trail, dodging wet branches in the pouring rain. It lightened at
five, and we went into camp quite dry and comfortable.
We unpacked near an Indian ranch belonging to an old man and his
wife, who came up at once to see us. They were good-looking, rugged
old souls, like powerful Japanese. They could not speak Chinook, and
we could not get much out of them. The old wife toted a monstrous big
salmon up the hill to sell to us, but we had more fish than we could
eat, and were forced to decline. There was a beautiful spring just
back of the cabin, and the old man seemed to take pleasure in having
us get our water from it. Neither did he object to our horses feeding
about his house, where there was very excellent grass. It was a
charming camping-place, wild flowers made the trail radiant even in
the midst of rain. The wild roses grew in clumps of sprays as high
as a horse's head.
Just before we determined to camp we had passed three or four outfits
grouped together on the sward on the left bank of the river. As we
rode by, one of the men had called to me saying: "You had better
camp. It is thirty miles from here to feed." To this I had merely
nodded, giving it little attention; but now as we sat around our
campfire, Burton brought the matter up again: "If it is thirty miles
to feed, we will have to get off early to-morrow morning and make as
big a drive as we can, while the horses are fresh, and then make the
latter part of the run on empty stomachs."
"Oh, I think they were just talking for our special benefit," I
replied.
"No, they were in earnest. One of them came out to see me. He said he
got his pointer from the mule train ahead of us. Feed is going to be
very scarce, and the next run is fully thirty miles."
I insisted it could not be possible that we should go at once from
the luxuriant pea-vine and bluejoint into a thirty-mile stretch of
country where nothing grew. "There must be breaks in the forest where
we can graze our horses."
It rained all night and in the morning it seemed as if it had settled
into a week's downpour. However, we were quite comfortable with
plenty of fresh salmon, and were not troubled except with the thought
of the mud which would result from this rainstorm. We were falling
steadily behind our schedule each day, but the horses were feeding
and gaining strength--"And when we hit the trail, we will hit it
hard," I said to Burton.
It was Sunday. The day was perfectly quiet and peaceful, like a rainy
Sunday in the States. The old Indian below kept to his house all day,
not visiting us. It is probable that he was a Catholic. The dogs came
about us occasionally; strange, solemn creatures that they are, they
had the persistence of hunger and the silence of burglars.
It was raining when we awoke Monday morning, but we were now restless
to get under way. We could not afford to spend another day waiting in
the rain. It was gloomy business in camp, and at the first sign of
lightening sky we packed up and started promptly at twelve o'clock.
That ride was the sternest we had yet experienced. It was like
swimming in a sea of green water. The branches sloshed us with
blinding raindrops. The mud spurted under our horses' hoofs, the sky
was gray and drizzled moisture, and as we rose we plunged into ever
deepening forests. We left behind us all hazel bushes, alders, wild
roses, and grasses. Moss was on every leaf and stump: the forest
became savage, sinister and silent, not a living thing but ourselves
moved or uttered voice.
This world grew oppressive with its unbroken clear greens, its
dripping branches, its rotting trees; its snake-like roots half
buried in the earth convinced me that our warning was well-born. At
last we came into upper heights where no blade of grass grew, and we
pushed on desperately, on and on, hour after hour. We began to suffer
with the horses, being hungry and cold ourselves. We plunged into
bottomless mudholes, slid down slippery slopes of slate, and leaped
innumerable fallen logs of fir. The sky had no more pity than the
mossy ground and the desolate forest. It was a mocking land, a land
of green things, but not a blade of grass: only austere trees and
noxious weeds.
During the day we met an old man so loaded down I could not tell
whether he was man, woman, or beast. A sort of cap or wide cloth band
went across his head, concealing his forehead. His huge pack loomed
over his shoulders, and as he walked, using two paddles as canes, he
seemed some anomalous four-footed beast of burden.
As he saw us he threw off his pack to rest and stood erect, a sturdy
man of sixty, with short bristling hair framing a kindly resolute
face. He was very light-hearted. He shook hands with me, saying,
"Kla-how-ya," in answer to my, "Kla-how-ya six," which is to say,
"How are you, friend?" He smiled, pointed to his pack, and said,
"Hy-u skin." His season had been successful and he was going now to
sell his catch. A couple of dogs just behind carried each twenty
pounds on their backs. We were eating lunch, and I invited him to sit
and eat. He took a seat and began to parcel out the food in two
piles.
"He has a companion coming," I said to my partner. In a few moments a
boy of fourteen or fifteen came up, carrying a pack that would test
the strength of a powerful white man. He, too, threw off his load and
at a word from the old man took a seat at the table. They shared
exactly alike. It was evident that they were father and son.
A few miles farther on we met another family, two men, a woman, a
boy, and six dogs, all laden in proportion. They were all handsomer
than the Siwashes of the Fraser River. They came from the head-waters
of the Nasse, they said. They could speak but little Chinook and no
English at all. When I asked in Chinook, "How far is it to feed for
our horses?" the woman looked first at our thin animals, then at us,
and shook her head sorrowfully; then lifting her hands in the most
dramatic gesture she half whispered, "Si-ah, si-ah!" That is to say,
"Far, very far!"
Both these old people seemed very kind to their dogs, which were fat
and sleek and not related to those I had seen in Hazleton. When the
old man spoke to them, his voice was gentle and encouraging. At the
word they all took up the line of march and went off down the hill
toward the Hudson Bay store, there to remain during the summer. We
pushed on, convinced by the old woman's manner that our long trail
was to be a gloomy one.
Night began to settle over us at last, adding the final touches of
uncertainty and horror to the gloom. We pushed on with necessary
cruelty, forcing the tired horses to their utmost, searching every
ravine and every slope for a feed; but only ferns and strange green
poisonous plants could be seen. We were angling up the side of the
great ridge which separated the west fork of the Skeena River from
the middle fork. It was evident that we must cross this high divide
and descend into the valley of the middle fork before we could hope
to feed our horses.
However, just as darkness was beginning to come on, we came to an
almost impassable slough in the trail, where a small stream descended
into a little flat marsh and morass. This had been used as a
camping-place by others, and we decided to camp, because to travel,
even in the twilight, was dangerous to life and limb.
It was a gloomy and depressing place to spend the night. There was
scarcely level ground enough to receive our camp. The wood was soggy
and green. In order to reach the marsh we were forced to lead our
horses one by one through a dangerous mudhole, and once through this
they entered upon a quaking bog, out of which grew tufts of grass
which had been gnawed to the roots by the animals which had preceded
them; only a rank bottom of dead leaves of last year's growth was
left for our tired horses. I was deeply anxious for fear they would
crowd into the central bog in their efforts to reach the uncropped
green blades which grew out of reach in the edge of the water. They
were ravenous with hunger after eight hours of hard labor.
Our clothing was wet to the inner threads, and we were tired and
muddy also, but our thoughts were on the horses rather than upon
ourselves. We soon had a fire going and some hot supper, and by ten
o'clock were stretched out in our beds for the night.
I have never in my life experienced a gloomier or more distressing
camp on the trail. My bed was dry and warm, but I could not forget
our tired horses grubbing about in the chilly night on that desolate
marsh.
A CHILD OF THE SUN
Give me the sun and the sky,
The wide sky. Let it blaze with light,
Let it burn with heat--I care not.
The sun is the blood of my heart,
The wind of the plain my breath.
No woodsman am I. My eyes are set
For the wide low lines. The level rim
Of the prairie land is mine.
The semi-gloom of the pointed firs,
The sleeping darks of the mountain spruce,
Are prison and poison to such as I.
In the forest I long for the rose of the plain,
In the dark of the firs I die.
IN THE GRASS
O to lie in long grasses!
O to dream of the plain!
Where the west wind sings as it passes
A weird and unceasing refrain;
Where the rank grass wallows and tosses,
And the plains' ring dazzles the eye;
Where hardly a silver cloud bosses
The flashing steel arch of the sky.
To watch the gay gulls as they flutter
Like snowflakes and fall down the sky,
To swoop in the deeps of the hollows,
Where the crow's-foot tosses awry;
And gnats in the lee of the thickets
Are swirling like waltzers in glee
To the harsh, shrill creak of the crickets
And the song of the lark and the bee.
O far-off plains of my west land!
O lands of winds and the free,
Swift deer--my mist-clad plain!
From my bed in the heart of the forest,
From the clasp and the girdle of pain
Your light through my darkness passes;
To your meadows in dreaming I fly
To plunge in the deeps of your grasses,
To bask in the light of your sky!
CHAPTER XIII
THE SILENT FORESTS OF THE DREAD SKEENA
We were awake early and our first thought was of our horses. They
were quite safe and cropping away on the dry stalks with patient
diligence. We saddled up and pushed on, for food was to be had only
in the valley, whose blue and white walls we could see far ahead of
us. After nearly six hours' travel we came out of the forest, out
into the valley of the middle fork of the Skeena, into sunlight and
grass in abundance, where we camped till the following morning,
giving the horses time to recuperate.
We were done with smiling valleys--that I now perceived. We were
coming nearer to the sub-arctic country, grim and desolate. The view
was magnificent, but the land seemed empty and silent except of
mosquitoes, of which there were uncounted millions. On our right just
across the river rose the white peaks of the Kisgagash Mountains.
Snow was still lying in the gullies only a few rods above us.
The horses fed right royally and soon forgot the dearth of the big
divide. As we were saddling up to move the following morning, several
outfits came trailing down into the valley, glad as we had been of
the splendid field of grass. They were led by a grizzled old
American, who cursed the country with fine fervor.
"I can stand any kind of a country," said he, "except one where
there's no feed. And as near's I can find out we're in fer hell's own
time fer feed till we reach them prairies they tell about."
After leaving this flat, we had the Kuldo (a swift and powerful
river) to cross, but we found an old Indian and a girl camped on the
opposite side waiting for us. The daughter, a comely child about
sixteen years of age, wore a calico dress and "store" shoes. She was
a self-contained little creature, and clearly in command of the boat,
and very efficient. It was no child's play to put the light canoe
across such a stream, but the old man, with much shouting and under
command of the girl, succeeded in crossing six times, carrying us and
our baggage. As we were being put across for the last time it became
necessary for some one to pull the canoe through the shallow water,
and the little girl, without hesitation, leaped out regardless of new
shoes, and tugged at the rope while the old man poled at the stern,
and so we were landed.
As a recognition of her resolution I presented her with a dollar,
which I tried to make her understand was her own, and not to be given
to her father. Up to that moment she had been very shy and rather
sullen, but my present seemed to change her opinion of us, and she
became more genial at once. She was short and sturdy, and her little
footsteps in the trail were strangely suggestive of civilization.
After leaving the river we rose sharply for about three miles. This
brought us to the first notice on the trail which was signed by the
road-gang, an ambiguous scrawl to the effect that feed was to be very
scarce for a long, long way, and that we should feed our horses
before going forward. The mystery of the sign lay in the fact that no
feed was in sight, and if it referred back to the flat, then it was
in the nature of an Irish bull.
There was a fork in the trail here, and another notice informed us
that the trail to the right ran to the Indian village of Kuldo. Rain
threatened, and as it was late and no feed promised, I determined to
camp. Turning to the right down a tremendously steep path (the horses
sliding on their haunches), we came to an old Indian fishing village
built on a green shelf high above the roaring water of the Skeena.
The people all came rushing out to see us, curious but very
hospitable. Some of the children began plucking grasses for the
horses, but being unaccustomed to animals of any kind, not one would
approach within reach of them. I tried, by patting Ladrone and
putting his head over my shoulder, to show them how gentle he was,
but they only smiled and laughed as much as to say, "Yes, that is all
right for _you_, but we are afraid." They were all very good-looking,
smiling folk, but poorly dressed. They seemed eager to show us where
the best grass grew, demanded nothing of us, begged nothing, and did
not attempt to overcharge us. There were some eight or ten families
in the cañon, and their houses were wretched shacks, mere lodges of
slabs with vents in the peak. So far as they could, they conformed to
the ways of white men.
Here they dwell by this rushing river in the midst of a gloomy and
trackless forest, far removed from any other people of any sort. They
were but a handful of human souls. As they spoke little Chinook and
almost no English, it was difficult to converse with them. They had
lost the sign language or seemed not to use it. Their village was
built here because the cañon below offered a capital place for
fishing and trapping, and the principal duty of the men was to watch
the salmon trap dancing far below. For the rest they hunt wild
animals and sell furs to the Hudson Bay Company at Hazleton, which is
their metropolis.
They led us to the edge of the village and showed us where the
road-gang had set their tent, and we soon had a fire going in our
little stove, which was the amazement and delight of a circle of men,
women, and children, but they were not intrusive and asked for
nothing.
Later in the evening the old man and the girl who had helped to ferry
us across the Kuldo came down the hill and joined the circle of our
visitors.
She smiled as we greeted her and so did the father, who assured me he
was the ty-ee (boss) of the village, which he seemed to be.
After our supper we distributed some fruit among the children, and
among the old women some hot coffee with sugar, which was a keen
delight to them. Our desire to be friendly was deeply appreciated by
these poor people, and our wish to do them good was greater than our
means. The way was long before us and we could not afford to give
away our supplies. How they live in winter I cannot understand;
probably they go down the river to Hazleton.
I began to dread the dark green dripping firs which seemed to
encompass us like some vast army. They chilled me, oppressed me.
Moreover, I was lame in every joint from the toil of crossing rivers,
climbing steep hills, and dragging at cinches. I had walked down
every hill and in most cases on the sharp upward slopes in order to
relieve Ladrone of my weight.
As we climbed back to our muddy path next day, we were filled with
dark forebodings of the days to come. We climbed all day, keeping the
bench high above the river. The land continued silent. It was a
wilderness of firs and spruce pines. It was like a forest of bronze.
Nothing but a few rose bushes and some leek-like plants rose from the
mossy floor, on which the sun fell, weak and pale, in rare places. No
beast or bird uttered sound save a fishing eagle swinging through the
cañon above the roaring water.
In the gloom the voice of the stream became a raucous roar. On every
side cold and white and pitiless the snowy peaks lifted above the
serrate rim of the forest.
Life was scant here. In all the mighty spread of forest between the
continental divide on the east and the coast range at the west there
are few living things, and these few necessarily centre in the warm
openings on the banks of the streams where the sunlight falls or in
the high valleys above the firs. There are no serpents and no
insects.
As we mounted day by day we crossed dozens of swift little streams
cold and gray with silt. Our rate of speed was very low. One of our
horses became very weak and ill, evidently poisoned, and we were
forced to stop often to rest him. All the horses were weakening day
by day.
Toward the middle of the third day, after crossing a stream which
came from the left, the trail turned as if to leave the Skeena
behind. We were mighty well pleased and climbed sharply and with
great care of our horses till we reached a little meadow at the
summit, very tired and disheartened, for the view showed only other
peaks and endless waves of spruce and fir. We rode on under drizzling
skies and dripping trees. There was little sunshine and long lines of
heavily weighted gray clouds came crawling up the valley from the sea
to break in cold rain over the summits.
The horses again grew hungry and weak, and it was necessary to use
great care in crossing the streams. We were lame and sore with the
toil of the day, and what was more depressing found ourselves once
more upon the banks of the Skeena, where only an occasional bunch of
bluejoint could be found. The constant strain of watching the horses
and guiding them through the mud began to tell on us both. There was
now no moment of ease, no hour of enjoyment. We had set ourselves
grimly to the task of bringing our horses through alive. We no longer
rode, we toiled in silence, leading our saddle-horses on which we
had packed a part of our outfit to relieve the sick and starving
packhorses.
On the fourth day we took a westward shoot from the river, and
following the course of a small stream again climbed heavily up the
slope. Our horses were now so weak we could only climb a few rods at
a time without rest. But at last, just as night began to fall, we
came upon a splendid patch of bluejoint, knee-deep and rich. It was
high on the mountain side, on a slope so steep that the horses could
not lie down, so steep that it was almost impossible to set our tent.
We could not persuade ourselves to pass it, however, and so made the
best of it. Everywhere we could see white mountains, to the south, to
the west, to the east.
"Now we have left the Skeena Valley," said Burton.
"Yes, we have seen the last of the Skeena," I replied, "and I'm glad
of it. I never want to see that gray-green flood again."
A part of the time that evening we spent in picking the thorns of
devil's-club out of our hands. This strange plant I had not seen
before, and do not care to see it again. In plunging through the
mudholes we spasmodically clutched these spiny things. Ladrone nipped
steadily at the bunch of leaves which grew at the top of the twisted
stalk. Again we plunged down into the cold green forest, following a
stream whose current ran to the northeast. This brought us once again
to the bank of the dreaded Skeena. The trail was "punishing," and the
horses plunged and lunged all day through the mud, over logs, stones,
and roots. Our nerves quivered with the torture of piloting our
mistrusted desperate horses through these awful pitfalls. We were
still in the region of ferns and devil's-club.
We allowed no feed to escape us. At any hour of the day, whenever we
found a bunch of grass, no matter if it were not bigger than a broom,
we stopped for the horses to graze it and so we kept them on their
feet.
At five o'clock in the afternoon we climbed to a low, marshy lake
where an Indian hunter was camped. He said we would find feed on
another lake some miles up, and we pushed on, wallowing through mud
and water of innumerable streams, each moment in danger of leaving a
horse behind. I walked nearly all day, for it was torture to me as
well as to Ladrone to ride him over such a trail. Three of our horses
now showed signs of poisoning, two of them walked with a sprawling
action of the fore legs, their eyes big and glassy. One was too weak
to carry anything more than his pack-saddle, and our going had a sort
of sullen desperation in it. Our camps were on the muddy ground,
without comfort or convenience.
Next morning, as I swung into the saddle and started at the head of
my train, Ladrone threw out his nose with a sharp indrawn squeal of
pain. At first I paid little attention to it, but it came again--and
then I noticed a weakness in his limbs. I dismounted and examined him
carefully. He, too, was poisoned and attacked by spasms. It was a
sorrowful thing to see my proud gray reduced to this condition. His
eyes were dilated and glassy and his joints were weak. We could not
stop, we could not wait, we must push on to feed and open ground; and
so leading him carefully I resumed our slow march.
But at last, just when it seemed as though we could not go any
farther with our suffering animals, we came out of the poisonous
forest upon a broad grassy bottom where a stream was flowing to the
northwest. We raised a shout of joy, for it seemed this must be a
branch of the Nasse. If so, we were surely out of the clutches of the
Skeena. This bottom was the first dry and level ground we had seen
since leaving the west fork, and the sun shone. "Old man, the worst
of our trail is over," I shouted to my partner. "The land looks more
open to the north. We're coming to that plateau they told us of."
Oh, how sweet, fine, and sunny the short dry grass seemed to us after
our long toilsome stay in the sub-aqueous gloom of the Skeena
forests! We seemed about to return to the birds and the flowers.
Ladrone was very ill, but I fed him some salt mixed with lard, and
after a doze in the sun he began to nibble grass with the others, and
at last stretched out on the warm dry sward to let the glorious sun
soak into his blood. It was a joyous thing to us to see the faithful
ones revelling in the healing sunlight, their stomachs filled at last
with sweet rich forage. We were dirty, ragged, and lame, and our
hands were calloused and seamed with dirt, but we were strong and
hearty.
We were high in the mountains here. Those little marshy lakes and
slow streams showed that we were on a divide, and to our minds could
be no other than the head-waters of the Nasse, which has a watershed
of its own to the sea. We believed the worst of our trip to be over.
THE FAITHFUL BRONCOS
They go to certain death--to freeze,
To grope their way through blinding snow,
To starve beneath the northern trees--
Their curse on us who made them go!
They trust and we betray the trust;
They humbly look to us for keep.
The rifle crumbles them to dust,
And we--have hardly grace to weep
As they line up to die.
THE WHISTLING MARMOT
On mountains cold and bold and high,
Where only golden eagles fly,
He builds his home against the sky.
Above the clouds he sits and whines,
The morning sun about him shines;
Rivers loop below in shining lines.
No wolf or cat may find him there,
That winged corsair of the air,
The eagle, is his only care.
He sees the pink snows slide away,
He sees his little ones at play,
And peace fills out each summer day.
In winter, safe within his nest,
He eats his winter store with zest,
And takes his young ones to his breast.
CHAPTER XIV
THE GREAT STIKEEN DIVIDE
At about eight o'clock the next morning, as we were about to line up
for our journey, two men came romping down the trail, carrying packs
on their backs and taking long strides. They were "hitting the high
places in the scenery," and seemed to be entirely absorbed in the
work. I hailed them and they turned out to be two young men from
Duluth, Minnesota. They were without hats, very brown, very hairy,
and very much disgusted with the country.
For an hour we discussed the situation. They were the first white men
we had met on the entire journey, almost the only returning
footsteps, and were able to give us a little information of the
trail, but only for a distance of about forty miles; beyond this they
had not ventured.
"We left our outfits back here on a little lake--maybe you saw our
Indian guide--and struck out ahead to see if we could find those
splendid prairies they were telling us about, where the caribou and
the moose were so thick you couldn't miss 'em. We've been forty miles
up the trail. It's all a climb, and the very worst yet. You'll come
finally to a high snowy divide with nothing but mountains on every
side. There _is_ no prairie; it's all a lie, and we're going back to
Hazleton to go around by way of Skagway. Have you any idea where we
are?"
"Why, certainly; we're in British Columbia."
"But where? On what stream?"
"Oh, that is a detail," I replied. "I consider the little camp on
which we are camped one of the head-waters of the Nasse; but we're
not on the Telegraph Trail at all. We're more nearly in line with the
old Dease Lake Trail."
"Why is it, do you suppose, that the road-gang ahead of us haven't
left a single sign, not even a word as to where we are?"
"Maybe they can't write," said my partner.
"Perhaps they don't know where they are at, themselves," said I.
"Well, that's exactly the way it looks to me."
"Are there any outfits ahead of us?"
"Yes, old Bob Borlan's about two days up the slope with his train of
mules, working like a slave to get through. They're all getting short
of grub and losing a good many horses. You'll have to work your way
through with great care, or you'll lose a horse or two in getting
from here to the divide."
"Well, this won't do. So-long, boys," said one of the young fellows,
and they started off with immense vigor, followed by their handsome
dogs, and we lined up once more with stern faces, knowing now that a
terrible trail for at least one hundred miles was before us. There
was no thought of retreat, however. We had set our feet to this
journey, and we determined to go.
After a few hours' travel we came upon the grassy shore of another
little lake, where the bells of several outfits were tinkling
merrily. On the bank of a swift little river setting out of the lake,
a couple of tents stood, and shirts were flapping from the limbs of
near-by willows. The owners were "The Man from Chihuahua," his
partner, the blacksmith, and the two young men from Manchester, New
Hampshire, who had started from Ashcroft as markedly tenderfoot as
any men could be. They had been lambasted and worried into perfect
efficiency as packers and trailers, and were entitled to
respect--even the respect of "The Man from Chihuahua."
They greeted us with jovial outcry.
"Hullo, strangers! Where ye think you're goin'?"
"Goin' crazy," replied Burton.
"You look it," said Bill.
"By God, we was all sure crazy when we started on this damn trail,"
remarked the old man. He was in bad humor on account of his horses,
two of which were suffering from poisoning. When anything touched his
horses, he was "plum irritable."
He came up to me very soberly. "Have you any idee where we're at?"
"Yes--we're on the head-waters of the Nasse."
"Are we on the Telegraph Trail?"
"No; as near as I can make out we're away to the right of the
telegraph crossing."
Thereupon we compared maps. "It's mighty little use to look at
maps--they're all drew by guess--an'--by God, anyway," said the old
fellow, as he ran his grimy forefinger over the red line which
represented the trail. "We've been a slantin' hellwards ever since we
crossed the Skeeny--I figure it we're on the old Dease Lake Trail."
To this we all agreed at last, but our course thereafter was by no
means clear.
"If we took the old Dease Lake Trail we're three hundred miles from
Telegraph Creek yit--an' somebody's goin' to be hungry before we get
in," said the old trailer. "I'd like to camp here for a few days and
feed up my horses, but it ain't safe--we got 'o keep movin'. We've
been on this damn trail long enough, and besides grub is gittin'
lighter all the time."
"What do you think of the trail?" asked Burton.
"I've been on the trail all my life," he replied, "an' I never was in
such a pizen, empty no-count country in my life. Wasn't that big
divide hell? Did ye ever see the beat of that fer a barren? No more
grass than a cellar. Might as well camp in a cistern. I wish I could
lay hands on the feller that called this 'The Prairie Route'--they'd
sure be a dog-fight right here."
The old man expressed the feeling of those of us who were too shy and
delicate of speech to do it justice, and we led him on to most
satisfying blasphemy of the land and the road-gang.
"Yes, there's that road-gang sent out to put this trail into
shape--what have they done? You'd think they couldn't read or
write--not a word to help us out."
Partner and I remained in camp all the afternoon and all the next
day, although our travelling companions packed up and moved out the
next morning. We felt the need of a day's freedom from worry, and our
horses needed feed and sunshine.
Oh, the splendor of the sun, the fresh green grass, the rippling
water of the river, the beautiful lake! And what joy it was to see
our horses feed and sleep. They looked distressingly thin and poor
without their saddles. Ladrone was still weak in the ankle joints and
the arch had gone out of his neck, while faithful Bill, who never
murmured or complained, had a glassy stare in his eyes, the lingering
effects of poisoning. The wind rose in the afternoon, bringing to us
a sound of moaning tree-tops, and somehow it seemed to be an augury
of better things--seemed to prophesy a fairer and dryer country to
the north of us. The singing of the leaves went to my heart with a
hint of home, and I remembered with a start how absolutely windless
the sullen forest of the Skeena had been.
Near by a dam was built across the river, and a fishing trap made out
of willows was set in the current. Piles of caribou hair showed that
the Indians found game in the autumn. We took time to explore some
old fishing huts filled with curious things,--skins, toboggans,
dog-collars, cedar ropes, and many other traps of small value to
anybody. Most curious of all we found some flint-lock muskets made
exactly on the models of one hundred years ago, but dated 1883! It
seemed impossible that guns of such ancient models should be
manufactured up to the present date; but there they were all
carefully marked "London, 1883."
It was a long day of rest and regeneration. We took a bath in the
clear, cold waters of the stream, washed our clothing and hung it up
to dry, beat the mud out of our towels, and so made ready for the
onward march. We should have stayed longer, but the ebbing away of
our grub pile made us apprehensive. To return was impossible.
THE CLOUDS
Circling the mountains the gray clouds go
Heavy with storms as a mother with child,
Seeking release from their burden of snow
With calm slow motion they cross the wild--
Stately and sombre, they catch and cling
To the barren crags of the peaks in the west,
Weary with waiting, and mad for rest.
THE GREAT STIKEEN DIVIDE
A land of mountains based in hills of fir,
Empty, lone, and cold. A land of streams
Whose roaring voices drown the whirr
Of aspen leaves, and fill the heart with dreams
Of dearth and death. The peaks are stern and white
The skies above are grim and gray,
And the rivers cleave their sounding way
Through endless forests dark as night,
Toward the ocean's far-off line of spray.
CHAPTER XV
IN THE COLD GREEN MOUNTAINS
The Nasse River, like the Skeena and the Stikeen, rises in the
interior mountains, and flows in a south-westerly direction, breaking
through the coast range into the Pacific Ocean, not far from the
mouth of the Stikeen.
It is a much smaller stream than the Skeena, which is, moreover,
immensely larger than the maps show. We believed we were about to
pass from the watershed of the Nasse to the east fork of the Iskoot,
on which those far-shining prairies were said to lie, with their
flowery meadows rippling under the west wind. If we could only reach
that mystical plateau, our horses would be safe from all disease.
We crossed the Cheweax, a branch of the Nasse, and after climbing
briskly to the northeast along the main branch we swung around over a
high wooded hog-back, and made off up the valley along the north and
lesser fork. We climbed all day, both of us walking, leading our
horses, with all our goods distributed with great care over the six
horses. It was a beautiful day overhead--that was the only
compensation. We were sweaty, eaten by flies and mosquitoes, and
covered with mud. All day we sprawled over roots, rocks, and logs,
plunging into bogholes and slopping along in the running water, which
in places had turned the trail into an aqueduct. The men from Duluth
had told no lie.
After crawling upward for nearly eight hours we came upon a little
patch of bluejoint, on the high side of the hill, and there camped in
the gloom of the mossy and poisonous forest. By hard and persistent
work we ticked off nearly fifteen miles, and judging from the stream,
which grew ever swifter, we should come to a divide in the course of
fifteen or twenty miles.
The horses being packed light went along fairly well, although it was
a constant struggle to get them to go through the mud. Old Ladrone
walking behind me groaned with dismay every time we came to one of
those terrible sloughs. He seemed to plead with me, "Oh, my master,
don't send me into that dreadful hole!"
But there was no other way. It must be done, and so Burton's sharp
cry would ring out behind and our little train would go in one after
the other, plunging, splashing, groaning, struggling through.
Ladrone, seeing me walk a log by the side of the trail, would
sometimes follow me as deftly as a cat. He seemed to think his right
to avoid the mud as good as mine. But as there was always danger of
his slipping off and injuring himself, I forced him to wallow in the
mud, which was as distressing to me as to him.
The next day we started with the determination to reach the divide.
"There is no hope of grass so long as we remain in this forest," said
Burton. "We must get above timber where the sun shines to get any
feed for our horses. It is cruel, but we must push them to-day just
as long as they can stand up, or until we reach the grass."
Nothing seemed to appall or disturb my partner; he was always ready
to proceed, his voice ringing out with inflexible resolution.
It was one of the most laborious days of all our hard journey. Hour
after hour we climbed steadily up beside the roaring gray-white
little stream, up toward the far-shining snowfields, which blazed
back the sun like mirrors. The trees grew smaller, the river bed
seemed to approach us until we slumped along in the running water. At
last we burst out into the light above timber line. Around us
porcupines galloped, and whistling marmots signalled with shrill
vehemence. We were weak with fatigue and wet with icy water to the
knees, but we pushed on doggedly until we came to a little mound of
short, delicious green grass from which the snow had melted. On this
we stopped to let the horses graze. The view was magnificent, and
something wild and splendid came on the wind over the snowy peaks and
smooth grassy mounds.
We were now in the region of great snowfields, under which roared
swift streams from still higher altitudes. There were thousands of
marmots, which seemed to utter the most intense astonishment at the
inexplicable coming of these strange creatures. The snow in the
gullies had a curious bloody line which I could not account for. A
little bird high up here uttered a sweet little whistle, so sad, so
full of pleading, it almost brought tears to my eyes. In form it
resembled a horned lark, but was smaller and kept very close to the
ground.
We reached the summit at sunset, there to find only other mountains
and other enormous gulches leading downward into far blue cañons. It
was the wildest land I have ever seen. A country unmapped,
unsurveyed, and unprospected. A region which had known only an
occasional Indian hunter or trapper with his load of furs on his way
down to the river and his canoe. Desolate, without life, green and
white and flashing illimitably, the gray old peaks aligned themselves
rank on rank until lost in the mists of still wilder regions.
From this high point we could see our friends, the Manchester boys,
on the north slope two or three miles below us at timber line. Weak
in the knees, cold and wet and hungry as we were, we determined to
push down the trail over the snowfields, down to grass and water. Not
much more than forty minutes later we came out upon a comparatively
level spot of earth where grass was fairly good, and where the
wind-twisted stunted pines grew in clumps large enough to furnish
wood for our fires and a pole for our tent. The land was meshed with
roaring rills of melting snow, and all around went on the incessant
signalling of the marmots--the only cheerful sound in all the wide
green land.
We had made about twenty-three miles that day, notwithstanding
tremendous steeps and endless mudholes mid-leg deep. It was the
greatest test of endurance of our trip.
We had the good luck to scare up a ptarmigan (a sort of piebald
mountain grouse), and though nearly fainting with hunger, we held
ourselves in check until we had that bird roasted to a turn. I shall
never experience greater relief or sweeter relaxation of rest than
that I felt as I stretched out in my down sleeping bag for twelve
hours' slumber.
I considered that we were about one hundred and ninety miles from
Hazleton, and that this must certainly be the divide between the
Skeena and the Stikeen. The Manchester boys reported finding some
very good pieces of quartz on the hills, and they were all out with
spade and pick prospecting, though it seemed to me they showed but
very little enthusiasm in the search.
"I b'lieve there's gold here," said "Chihuahua," "but who's goin' to
stay here and look fer it? In the first place, you couldn't work fer
mor'n 'bout three months in the year, and it 'ud take ye the other
nine months fer to git yer grub in. Them hills look to me to be
mineralized, but I ain't honin' to camp here."
This seemed to be the general feeling of all the other prospectors,
and I did not hear that any one else went so far even as to dig a
hole.
As near as I could judge there seemed to be three varieties of
"varmints" galloping around over the grassy slopes of this high
country. The largest of these, a gray and brown creature with a
tawny, bristling mane, I took to be a porcupine. Next in size were
the giant whistlers, who sat up like old men and signalled, like one
boy to another. And last and least, and more numerous than all, were
the smaller "chucks" resembling prairie dogs. These animals together
with the ptarmigan made up the inhabitants of these lofty slopes.
I searched every green place on the mountains far and near with my
field-glasses, but saw no sheep, caribou, or moose, although one or
two were reported to have been killed by others on the trail. The
ptarmigan lived in the matted patches of willow. There were a great
many of them, and they helped out our monotonous diet very
opportunely. They moved about in pairs, the cock very loyal to the
hen in time of danger; but not even this loyalty could save him.
Hunger such as ours considered itself very humane in stopping short
of the slaughter of the mother bird. The cock was easily
distinguished by reason of his party-colored plumage and his pink
eyes.
We spent the next forenoon in camp to let our horses feed up, and
incidentally to rest our own weary bones. All the forenoon great,
gray clouds crushed against the divide behind us, flinging themselves
in rage against the rocks like hungry vultures baffled in their
chase. We exulted over their impotence. "We are done with you, you
storms of the Skeena--we're out of your reach at last!"
We were confirmed in this belief as we rode down the trail, which was
fairly pleasant except for short periods, when the clouds leaped the
snowy walls behind and scattered drizzles of rain over us. Later the
clouds thickened, the sky became completely overcast, and my
exultation changed to dismay, and we camped at night as desolate as
ever, in the rain, and by the side of a little marsh on which the
horses could feed only by wading fetlock deep in the water. We were
wet to the skin, and muddy and tired.
I could no longer deceive myself. Our journey had become a grim race
with the wolf. Our food grew each day scantier, and we were forced to
move each day and every day, no matter what the sky or trail might
be. Going over our food carefully that night, we calculated that we
had enough to last us ten days, and if we were within one hundred and
fifty miles of the Skeena, and if no accident befell us, we would be
able to pull in without great suffering.
But accidents on the trail are common. It is so easy to lose a couple
of horses, we were liable to delay and to accident, and the chances
were against us rather than in our favor. It seemed as though the
trail would never mend. We were dropping rapidly down through dwarf
pines, down into endless forests of gloom again. We had splashed,
slipped, and tumbled down the trail to this point with three horses
weak and sick. The rain had increased, and all the brightness of the
morning on the high mountain had passed away. For hours we had walked
without a word except to our horses, and now night was falling in
thick, cold rain. As I plodded along I saw in vision and with great
longing the plains, whose heat and light seemed paradise by contrast.
The next day was the Fourth of July, and such a day! It rained all
the forenoon, cold, persistent, drizzling rain. We hung around the
campfire waiting for some let-up to the incessant downpour. We
discussed the situation. I said: "Now, if the stream in the cañon
below us runs to the left, it will be the east fork of the Iskoot,
and we will then be within about one hundred miles of Glenora. If it
runs to the right, Heaven only knows where we are."
The horses, chilled with the rain, came off the sloppy marsh to stand
under the trees, and old Ladrone edged close to the big fire to share
its warmth. This caused us to bring in the other horses and put them
close to the fire under the big branches of the fir tree. It was
deeply pathetic to watch the poor worn animals, all life and spirit
gone out of them, standing about the fire with drooping heads and
half-closed eyes. Perhaps they dreamed, like us, of the beautiful,
warm, grassy hills of the south.
THE UTE LOVER
Beneath the burning brazen sky,
The yellowed tepes stand.
Not far away a singing river
Sets through the sand.
Within the shadow of a lonely elm tree
The tired ponies keep.
The wild land, throbbing with the sun's hot magic,
Is rapt as sleep.
From out a clump of scanty willows
A low wail floats.
The endless repetition of a lover's
Melancholy notes;
So sad, so sweet, so elemental,
All lover's pain
Seems borne upon its sobbing cadence--
The love-song of the plain.
From frenzied cry forever falling,
To the wind's wild moan,
It seems the voice of anguish calling
Alone! alone!
Caught from the winds forever moaning
On the plain,
Wrought from the agonies of woman
In maternal pain,
It holds within its simple measure
All death of joy,
Breathed though it be by smiling maiden
Or lithe brown boy.
It hath this magic, sad though its cadence
And short refrain;
It helps the exiled people of the mountain
Endure the plain;
For when at night the stars aglitter
Defy the moon,
The maiden listens, leans to seek her lover
Where waters croon.
Flute on, O lithe and tuneful Utah,
Reply brown jade;
There are no other joys secure to either
Man or maid.
Soon you are old and heavy hearted,
Lost to mirth;
While on you lies the white man's gory
Greed of earth.
Strange that to me that burning desert
Seems so dear.
The endless sky and lonely mesa,
Flat and drear,
Calls me, calls me as the flute of Utah
Calls his mate--
This wild, sad, sunny, brazen country,
Hot as hate.
Again the glittering sky uplifts star-blazing;
Again the stream
From out the far-off snowy mountains
Sings through my dream;
And on the air I hear the flute-voice calling
The lover's croon,
And see the listening, longing maiden
Lit by the moon.
DEVIL'S CLUB
It is a sprawling, hateful thing,
Thorny and twisted like a snake,
Writhing to work a mischief, in the brake
It stands at menace, in its cling
Is danger and a venomed sting.
It grows on green and slimy slopes,
It is a thing of shades and slums,
For passing feet it wildly gropes,
And loops to catch all feet that run
Seeking a path to sky and sun.
IN THE COLD GREEN MOUNTAINS
In the cold green mountains where the savage torrents roared,
And the clouds were gray above us,
And the fishing eagle soared,
Where no grass waved, where no robins cried,
There our horses starved and died,
In the cold green mountains.
In the cold green mountains,
Nothing grew but moss and trees,
Water dripped and sludgy streamlets
Trapped our horses by the knees.
Where we slipped, slid, and lunged,
Mired down and wildly plunged
Toward the cold green mountains!
CHAPTER XVI
THE PASSING OF THE BEANS
At noon, the rain slacking a little, we determined to pack up, and
with such cheer as we could called out, "Line up, boys--line up!"
starting on our way down the trail.
After making about eight miles we came upon a number of outfits
camped on the bank of the river. As I rode along on my gray horse,
for the trail there allowed me to ride, I passed a man seated
gloomily at the mouth of his tent. To him I called with an assumption
of jocularity I did not feel, "Stranger, where are you bound for?"
He replied, "The North Pole."
"Do you expect to get there?"
"Sure," he replied.
Riding on I met others beside the trail, and all wore a similar look
of almost sullen gravity. They were not disposed to joke with me, and
perceiving something to be wrong, I passed on without further remark.
When we came down to the bank of the stream, behold it ran to the
right. And I could have sat me down and blasphemed with the rest. I
now understood the gloom of the others. _We were still in the valley
of the inexorable Skeena._ It could be nothing else; this tremendous
stream running to our right could be no other than the head-waters of
that ferocious flood which no surveyor has located. It is immensely
larger and longer than any map shows.
We crossed the branch without much trouble, and found some beautiful
bluejoint-grass on the opposite bank, into which we joyfully turned
our horses. When they had filled their stomachs, we packed up and
pushed on about two miles, overtaking the Manchester boys on the
side-hill in a tract of dead, burned-out timber, a cheerless spot.
In speaking about the surly answer I had received from the man on the
banks of the river, I said: "I wonder why those men are camped there?
They must have been there for several days."
Partner replied: "They are all out of grub and are waiting for some
one to come by to whack-up with 'em. One of the fellows came out and
talked with me and said he had nothing left but beans, and tried to
buy some flour of me."
This opened up an entirely new line of thought. I understood now that
what I had taken for sullenness was the dejection of despair. The way
was growing gloomy and dark to them. They, too, were racing with the
wolf.
We had one short moment of relief next day as we entered a lovely
little meadow and camped for noon. The sun shone warm, the grass was
thick and sweet. It was like late April in the central West--cool,
fragrant, silent. Aisles of peaks stretched behind us and before us.
We were still high in the mountains, and the country was less wooded
and more open. But we left this beautiful spot and entered again on a
morass. It was a day of torture to man and beast. The land continued
silent. There were no toads, no butterflies, no insects of any kind,
except a few mosquitoes, no crickets, no singing thing. I have never
seen a land so empty of life. We had left even the whistling marmots
entirely behind us.
We travelled now four outfits together, with some twenty-five horses.
Part of the time I led with Ladrone, part of the time "The Man from
Chihuahua" took the lead, with his fine strong bays. If a horse got
down we all swarmed around and lifted him out, and when any question
of the trail came up we held "conferences of the powers."
We continued for the most part up a wide mossy and grassy river
bottom covered with water. We waded for miles in water to our ankles,
crossing hundreds of deep little rivulets. Occasionally a horse went
down into a hole and had to be "snailed out," and we were wet and
covered with mud all day. It was a new sort of trail and a terror.
The mountains on each side were very stately and impressive, but we
could pay little attention to views when our horses were miring down
at every step.
We could not agree about the river. Some were inclined to the belief
that it was a branch of the Stikeen, the old man was sure it was
"Skeeny." We were troubled by a new sort of fly, a little
orange-colored fellow whose habits were similar to those of the
little black fiends of the Bulkley Valley. They were very poisonous
indeed, and made our ears swell up enormously--the itching and
burning was well-nigh intolerable. We saw no life at all save one
grouse hen guarding her young. A paradise for game it seemed, but no
game. A beautiful grassy, marshy, and empty land. We passed over one
low divide after another with immense snowy peaks thickening all
around us. For the first time in over two hundred miles we were all
able to ride. Whistling marmots and grouse again abounded. We had a
bird at every meal. The wind was cool and the sky was magnificent,
and for the first time in many days we were able to take off our hats
and face the wind in exultation.
Toward night, however, mosquitoes became troublesome in their
assaults, covering the horses in solid masses. Strange to say, none
of them, not even Ladrone, seemed to mind them in the least. We felt
sure now of having left the Skeena forever. One day we passed over a
beautiful little spot of dry ground, which filled us with delight; it
seemed as though we had reached the prairies of the pamphlets. We
camped there for noon, and though the mosquitoes were terrific we
were all chortling with joy. The horses found grass in plenty and
plucked up spirits amazingly. We were deceived. In half an hour we
were in the mud again.
The whole country for miles and miles in every direction was a series
of high open valleys almost entirely above timber line. These
valleys formed the starting-points of innumerable small streams which
fell away into the Iskoot on the left, the Stikeen on the north, the
Skeena on the east and south. These valleys were covered with grass
and moss intermingled, and vast tracts were flooded with water from
four to eight inches deep, through which we were forced to slop hour
after hour, and riding was practically impossible.
As we were plodding along silently one day a dainty white gull came
lilting through the air and was greeted with cries of joy by the
weary drivers. More than one of them could "smell the salt water." In
imagination they saw this bird following the steamer up the Stikeen
to the first south fork, thence to meet us. It seemed only a short
ride down the valley to the city of Glenora and the post-office.
Each day we drove above timber line, and at noon were forced to
rustle the dead dwarf pine for fire. The marshes were green and
filled with exquisite flowers and mosses, little white and purple
bells, some of them the most beautiful turquoise-green rising from
tufts of verdure like mignonette. I observed also a sort of crocus
and some cheery little buttercups. The ride would have been
magnificent had it not been for the spongy, sloppy marsh through
which our horses toiled. As it was, we felt a certain breadth and
grandeur in it surpassing anything we had hitherto seen. Our three
outfits with some score of horses went winding through the wide,
green, treeless valleys with tinkle of bells and sharp cry of
drivers. The trail was difficult to follow, because in the open
ground each man before us had to take his own course, and there were
few signs to mark the line the road-gang had taken.
It was impossible to tell where we were, but I was certain we were
upon the head-waters of some one of the many forks of the great
Stikeen River. Marmots and a sort of little prairie dog continued
plentiful, but there was no other life. The days were bright and
cool, resplendent with sun and rich in grass.
Some of the goldseekers fired a salute with shotted guns when, poised
on the mountain side, they looked down upon a stream flowing to the
northwest. But the joy was short-lived. The descent of this
mountain's side was by all odds the most terrible piece of trail we
had yet found. It led down the north slope, and was oozy and slippery
with the melting snow. It dropped in short zigzags down through a
grove of tangled, gnarled, and savage cedars and pines, whose roots
were like iron and filled with spurs that were sharp as chisels. The
horses, sliding upon their haunches and unable to turn themselves in
the mud, crashed into the tangled pines and were in danger of being
torn to pieces. For more than an hour we slid and slewed through this
horrible jungle of savage trees, and when we came out below we had
two horses badly snagged in the feet, but Ladrone was uninjured.
We now crossed and recrossed the little stream, which dropped into a
deep cañon running still to the northwest. After descending for some
hours we took a trail which branched sharply to the northeast, and
climbed heavily to a most beautiful camping-spot between the peaks,
with good grass, and water, and wood all around us.
We were still uncertain of our whereabouts, but all the boys were
fairly jubilant. "This would be a splendid camp for a few weeks,"
said partner.
That night as the sun set in incommunicable splendor over the snowy
peaks to the west the empty land seemed left behind. We went to sleep
with the sound of a near-by mountain stream in our ears, and the
voice of an eagle sounding somewhere on the high cliffs.
The next day we crossed another divide and entered another valley
running north. Being confident that this _was_ the Stikeen, we camped
early and put our little house up. It was raining a little. We had
descended again to the aspens and clumps of wild roses. It was good
to see their lovely faces once more after our long stay in the wild,
cold valleys of the upper lands. The whole country seemed drier, and
the vegetation quite different. Indeed, it resembled some of the
Colorado valleys, but was less barren on the bottoms. There were
still no insects, no crickets, no bugs, and very few birds of any
kind.
All along the way on the white surface of the blazed trees were
messages left by those who had gone before us. Some of them were
profane assaults upon the road-gang. Others were pathetic inquiries:
"Where in hell are we?"--"How is this for a prairie route?"--"What
river is this, anyhow?" To these pencillings others had added
facetious replies. There were also warnings and signs to help us keep
out of the mud.
We followed the same stream all day. Whether the Iskoot or not we did
not know. The signs of lower altitude thickened. Wild roses met us
again, and strawberry blossoms starred the sunny slopes. The grass
was dry and ripe, and the horses did not relish it after their long
stay in the juicy meadows above. We had been wet every day for nearly
three weeks, and did not mind moisture now, but my shoes were rapidly
going to pieces, and my last pair of trousers was frazzled to the
knees.
Nearly every outfit had lame horses like our old bay, hobbling along
bravely. Our grub was getting very light, which was a good thing for
the horses; but we had an occasional grouse to fry, and so as long as
our flour held out we were well fed.
It became warmer each day, and some little weazened berries appeared
on the hillsides, the first we had seen, and they tasted mighty good
after months of bacon and beans. We were taking some pleasure in the
trip again, and had it not been for the sores on our horses' feet and
our scant larder we should have been quite at ease. Our course now
lay parallel to a range of peaks on our right, which we figured to be
the Hotailub Mountains. This settled the question of our position on
the map--we were on the third and not the first south fork of the
Stikeen and were a long way still from Telegraph Creek.
THE LONG TRAIL
We tunnelled miles of silent pines,
Dark forests where the stillness was so deep
The scared wind walked a tip-toe on the spines,
And the restless aspen seemed to sleep.
We threaded aisles of dripping fir;
We climbed toward mountains dim and far,
Where snow forever shines and shines,
And only winds and waters are.
Red streams came down from hillsides crissed and crossed
With fallen firs; but on a sudden, lo!
A silver lakelet bound and barred
With sunset's clouds reflected far below.
These lakes so lonely were, so still and cool,
They burned as bright as burnished steel;
The shadowed pine branch in the pool
Was no less vivid than the real.
We crossed the great divide and saw
The sun-lit valleys far below us wind;
Before us opened cloudless sky; the raw,
Gray rain swept close behind.
We saw great glaciers grind themselves to foam;
We trod the moose's lofty home,
And heard, high on the yellow hills,
The wildcat clamor of his ills.
The way grew grimmer day by day,
The weeks to months stretched on and on;
And hunger kept, not far away,
A never failing watch at dawn.
We lost all reckoning of season and of time;
Sometimes it seemed the bitter breeze
Of icy March brought fog and rain,
And next November tempests shook the trees.
It was a wild and lonely ride.
Save the hid loon's mocking cry,
Or marmot on the mountain side,
The earth was silent as the sky.
All day through sunless forest aisles,
On cold dark moss our horses trod;
It was so lonely there for miles and miles,
The land seemed lost to God.
Our horses cut by rocks; by brambles torn,
Staggered onward, stiff and sore;
Or broken, bruised, and saddle-worn,
Fell in the sloughs to rise no more.
Yet still we rode right on and on,
And shook our clenched hands at the clouds,
Daring the winds of early dawn,
And the dread torrent roaring loud.
So long we rode, so hard, so far,
We seemed condemned by stern decree
To ride until the morning star
Should sink forever in the sea.
Yet now, when all is past, I dream
Of every mountain's shining cap.
I long to hear again the stream
Roar through the foam-white granite gap.
The pains recede. The joys draw near.
The splendors of great Nature's face
Make me forget all need, all fear,
And the long journey grows in grace.
THE GREETING OF THE ROSES
We had been long in mountain snow,
In valleys bleak, and broad, and bare,
Where only moss and willows grow,
And no bird wings the silent air.
And so when on our downward way,
Wild roses met us, we were glad;
They were so girlish fair, so gay,
It seemed the sun had made them mad.
CHAPTER XVII
THE WOLVES AND THE VULTURES ASSEMBLE
About noon of the fiftieth day out, we came down to the bank of a
tremendously swift stream which we called the third south fork. On a
broken paddle stuck in the sand we found this notice: "The trail
crosses here. Swim horses from the bar. It is supposed to be about
ninety miles to Telegraph Creek.--(Signed) The Mules."
We were bitterly disappointed to find ourselves so far from our
destination, and began once more to calculate on the length of time
it would take us to get out of the wilderness.
Partner showed me the flour-sack which he held in one brawny fist. "I
believe the dern thing leaks," said he, and together we went over our
store of food. We found ourselves with an extra supply of sugar,
condensed cream, and other things which our friends the Manchester
boys needed, while they were able to spare us a little flour. There
was a tacit agreement that we should travel together and stand
together. Accordingly we began to plan for the crossing of this swift
and dangerous stream. A couple of canoes were found cached in the
bushes, and these would enable us to set our goods across, while we
forced our horses to swim from a big bar in the stream above.
While we were discussing these thing around our fires at night,
another tramper, thin and weak, came into camp. He was a little man
with a curly red beard, and was exceedingly chipper and jocular for
one in his condition. He had been out of food for some days, and had
been living on squirrels, ground-hogs, and such other small deer as
he could kill and roast along his way. He brought word of
considerable suffering among the outfits behind us, reporting "The
Dutchman" to be entirely out of beans and flour, while others had
lost so many of their horses that all were in danger of starving to
death in the mountains.
As he warmed up on coffee and beans, he became very amusing.
He was hairy and ragged, but neat, and his face showed a certain
delicacy of physique. He, too, was a marked example of the craze to
"get somewhere where gold is." He broke off suddenly in the midst of
his story to exclaim with great energy: "I want to do two things, go
back and get my boy away from my wife, and break the back of my
brother-in-law. He made all the trouble."
Once and again he said, "I'm going to find the gold up here or lay my
bones on the hills."
In the midst of these intense phrases he whistled gayly or broke off
to attend to his cooking. He told of his hard experiences, with pride
and joy, and said, "Isn't it lucky I caught you just here?" and
seemed willing to talk all night.
In the morning I went over to the campfire to see if he were still
with us. He was sitting in his scanty bed before the fire, mending
his trousers. "I've just got to put a patch on right now or my
knee'll be through," he explained. He had a neat little kit of
materials and everything was in order. "I haven't time to turn the
edges of the patch under," he went on. "It ought to be done--you
can't make a durable patch unless you do. This 'housewife' my wife
made me when we was first married. I was peddlin' then in eastern
Oregon. If it hadn't been for her brother--oh, I'll smash his face
in, some day"--he held up the other trouser leg: "See that patch?
Ain't that a daisy?--that's the way I ought to do. Say, looks like I
ought to rustle enough grub out of all these outfits to last me into
Glenora, don't it?"
We came down gracefully--we could not withstand such prattle. The
blacksmith turned in some beans, the boys from Manchester divided
their scanty store of flour and bacon, I brought some salt, some
sugar, and some oatmeal, and as the small man put it away he chirped
and chuckled like a cricket. His thanks were mere words, his voice
was calm. He accepted our aid as a matter of course. No perfectly
reasonable man would ever take such frightful chances as this absurd
little ass set his face to without fear. He hummed a little tune as
he packed his outfit into his shoulder-straps. "I ought to rattle
into Glenora on this grub, hadn't I?" he said.
At last he was ready to be ferried across the river, which was swift
and dangerous. Burton set him across, and as he was about to depart I
gave him a letter to post and a half-dollar to pay postage. My name
was written on the corner of the envelope. He knew me then and said,
"I've a good mind to stay right with you; I'm something of a writer
myself."
I hastened to say that he could reach Glenora two or three days in
advance of us, for the reason that we were bothered with a lame
horse. In reality, we were getting very short of provisions and were
even then on rations. "I think you'll overtake the Borland outfit," I
said. "If you don't, and you need help, camp by the road till we come
up and we'll all share as long as there's anything to share. But you
are in good trim and have as much grub as we have, so you'd better
spin along."
He "hit the trail" with a hearty joy that promised well, and I never
saw him again. His cheery smile and unshrinking cheek carried him
through a journey that appalled old packers with tents, plenty of
grub, and good horses. To me he was simply a strongly accentuated
type of the goldseeker--insanely persistent; blind to all danger,
deaf to all warning, and doomed to failure at the start.
The next day opened cold and foggy, but we entered upon a hard day's
work. Burton became the chief canoeman, while one of the Manchester
boys, stripped to the undershirt, sat in the bow to pull at the
paddle "all same Siwash." Burton's skill and good judgment enabled us
to cross without losing so much as a buckle. Some of our poor lame
horses had a hard struggle in the icy current. At about 4 P.M. we
were able to line up in the trail on the opposite side. We pressed on
up to the higher valleys in hopes of finding better feed, and camped
in the rain about two miles from the ford. The wind came from the
northwest with a suggestion of autumn in its uneasy movement. The
boys were now exceedingly anxious to get into the gold country. They
began to feel most acutely the passing of the summer. In the camp at
night the talk was upon the condition of Telegraph Creek and the
Teslin Lake Trail.
Rain, rain, rain! It seemed as though no day could pass without rain.
And as I woke I heard the patter of fine drops on our tent roof. The
old man cursed the weather most eloquently, expressing the general
feeling of the whole company. However, we saddled up and pushed on,
much delayed by the lame horses.
At about twelve o'clock I missed my partner's voice and looking about
saw only two of the packhorses following. Hitching those beside the
trail, I returned to find Burton seated beside the lame horse, which
could not cross the slough. I examined the horse's foot and found a
thin stream of arterial blood spouting out.
"That ends it, Burton," I said. "I had hoped to bring all my horses
through, but this old fellow is out of the race. It is a question now
either of leaving him beside the trail with a notice to have him
brought forward or of shooting him out of hand."
To this partner gravely agreed, but said, "It's going to be pretty
hard lines to shoot that faithful old chap."
"Yes," I replied, "I confess I haven't the courage to face him with
a rifle after all these weeks of faithful service. But it must be
done. You remember that horse back there with a hole in his flank and
his head flung up? We mustn't leave this old fellow to be a prey to
the wolves. Now if you'll kill him you can set your price on the
service. Anything at all I will pay. Did you ever kill a horse?"
Partner was honest. "Yes, once. He was old and sick and I believed it
better to put him out of his suffering than to let him drag on."
"That settles it, partner," said I. "Your hands are already imbued
with gore--it must be done."
He rose with a sigh. "All right. Lead him out into the thicket."
I handed him the gun (into which I had shoved two steel-jacketed
bullets, the kind that will kill a grizzly bear), and took the old
horse by the halter. "Come, boy," I said, "it's hard, but it's the
only merciful thing." The old horse looked at me with such serene
trust and confidence, my courage almost failed me. His big brown eyes
were so full of sorrow and patient endurance. With some urging he
followed me into the thicket a little aside from the trail. Turning
away I mounted Ladrone in order that I might not see what happened.
There was a crack of a rifle in the bush--the sound of a heavy body
falling, and a moment later Burton returned with a coiled rope in his
hand and a look of trouble on his face. The horses lined up again
with one empty place and an extra saddle topping the pony's pack. It
was a sorrowful thing to do, but there was no better way. As I rode
on, looking back occasionally to see that my train was following, my
heart ached to think of the toil the poor old horse had
undergone--only to meet death in the bush at the hands of his master.
Relieved of our wounded horse we made good time and repassed before
nine o'clock several outfits that had overhauled us during our
trouble. We rose higher and higher, and came at last into a grassy
country and to a series of small lakes, which were undoubtedly the
source of the second fork of the Stikeen. But as we had lost so much
time during the day, we pushed on with all our vigor for a couple of
hours and camped about nine o'clock of a beautiful evening, with a
magnificent sky arching us as if with a prophecy of better times
ahead.
The horses were now travelling very light, and our food supply was
reduced to a few pounds of flour and bread--we had no game and
no berries. Beans were all gone and our bacon reduced to the last
shred. We had come to expect rain every day of our lives, and were
feeling a little the effects of our scanty diet of bread and
bacon--hill-climbing was coming to be laborious. However, the way led
downward most of the time, and we were able to rack along at a very
good pace even on an empty stomach.
During the latter part of the second day the trail led along a high
ridge, a sort of hog-back overlooking a small river valley on our
left, and bringing into view an immense blue cañon far ahead of us.
"There lies the Stikeen," I called to Burton. "We're on the second
south fork, which we follow to the Stikeen, thence to the left to
Telegraph Creek." I began to compose doggerel verses to express our
exultation.
We were very tired and glad when we reached a camping-place. We could
not stop on this high ridge for lack of water, although the feed was
very good. We were forced to plod on and on until we at last
descended into the valley of a little stream which crossed our path.
The ground had been much trampled, but as rain was falling and
darkness coming on, there was nothing to do but camp.
Out of our last bit of bacon grease and bread and tea we made our
supper. While we were camping, "The Wild Dutchman," a stalwart young
fellow we had seen once or twice on the trail, came by with a very
sour visage. He went into camp near, and came over to see us. He
said: "I hain't had no pread for more dan a veek. I've nuttin' put
peans. If you can, let me haf a biscuit. By Gott, how goot dat vould
taste."
I yielded up a small loaf and encouraged him as best I could: "As I
figure it, we are within thirty-five miles of Telegraph Creek; I've
kept a careful diary of our travel. If we've passed over the Dease
Lake Trail, which is probably about four hundred miles from Hazleton
to Glenora, we must be now within thirty-five miles of Telegraph
Creek."
I was not half so sure of this as I made him think; but it gave him a
great deal of comfort, and he went off very much enlivened.
Sunday and no sun! It was raining when we awoke and the mosquitoes
were stickier than ever. Our grub was nearly gone, our horses thin
and weak, and the journey uncertain. All ill things seemed to
assemble like vultures to do us harm. The world was a grim place that
day. It was a question whether we were not still on the third south
fork instead of the second south fork, in which case we were at least
one hundred miles from our supplies. If we were forced to cross the
main Stikeen and go down on the other side, it might be even farther.
The men behind us were all suffering, and some of them were sure to
have a hard time if such weather continued. At the same time I felt
comparatively sure of our ground.
We were ragged, dirty, lame, unshaven, and unshorn--we were fighting
from morning till night. The trail became more discouraging each
moment that the rain continued to fall. There was little conversation
even between partner and myself. For many days we had moved in
perfect silence for the most part, though no gloom or sullenness
appeared in Burton's face. We were now lined up once more, taking the
trail without a word save the sharp outcry of the drivers hurrying
the horses forward, or the tinkle of the bells on the lead horse of
the train.
THE VULTURE
He wings a slow and watchful flight,
His neck is bare, his eyes are bright,
His plumage fits the starless night.
He sits at feast where cattle lie
Withering in ashen alkali,
And gorges till he scarce can fly.
But he is kingly on the breeze!
On rigid wing, in careless ease,
A soundless bark on viewless seas.
Piercing the purple storm cloud, he makes
The sun his neighbor, and shakes
His wrinkled neck in mock dismay,
And swings his slow, contemptuous way
Above the hot red lightning's play.
Monarch of cloudland--yet a ghoul of prey.
CAMPFIRES
1. _Popple_
A river curves like a bended bow,
And over it winds of summer lightly blow;
Two boys are feeding a flame with bark
Of the pungent popple. Hark!
They are uttering dreams. "I
Will go hunt gold toward the western sky,"
Says the older lad; "I know it is there,
For the rainbow shows just where
It is. I'll go camping, and take a pan,
And shovel gold, when I'm a man."
2. _Sage Brush_
The burning day draws near its end,
And on the plain a man and his friend
Sit feeding an odorous sage-brush fire.
A lofty butte like a funeral pyre,
With the sun atop, looms high
In the cloudless, windless, saffron sky.
A snake sleeps under a grease-wood plant;
A horned toad snaps at a passing ant;
The plain is void as a polar floe,
And the limitless sky has a furnace glow.
The men are gaunt and shaggy and gray,
And their childhood river is far away;
The gold still hides at the rainbow's tip,
Yet the wanderer speaks with a resolute lip.
"I will seek till I find--or till I die,"
He mutters, and lifts his clenched hand high,
And puts behind him love and wife,
And the quiet round of a farmer's life.
3. _Pine_
The dark day ends in a bitter night.
The mighty mountains cold, and white,
And stern as avarice, still hide their gold
Deep in wild cañons fold on fold,
Both men are old, and one is grown
As gray as the snows around him sown.
He hovers over a fire of pine,
Spicy and cheering; toward the line
Of the towering peaks he lifts his eyes.
"I'd rather have a boy with shining hair,
To bear my name, than all your share
Of earth's red gold," he said;
And died, a loveless, childless man,
Before the morning light began.
CHAPTER XVIII
AT LAST THE STIKEEN
About the middle of the afternoon of the fifty-eighth day we topped a
low divide, and came in sight of the Stikeen River. Our hearts
thrilled with pleasure as we looked far over the deep blue and
purple-green spread of valley, dim with mist, in which a little
silver ribbon of water could be seen.
After weeks of rain, as if to make amend for useless severity, the
sun came out, a fresh westerly breeze sprang up, and the sky filled
with glowing clouds flooded with tender light. The bloom of fireweed
almost concealed the devastation of flame in the fallen firs, and the
grim forest seemed a royal road over which we could pass as over a
carpet--winter seemed far away.
But all this was delusion. Beneath us lay a thousand quagmires. The
forest was filled with impenetrable jungles and hidden streams,
ridges sullen and silent were to be crossed, and the snow was close
at hand. Across this valley an eagle might sweep with joy, but the
pack trains must crawl in mud and mire through long hours of torture.
We spent but a moment here, and then with grim resolution called out,
"Line up, boys, line up!" and struck down upon the last two days of
our long journey.
On the following noon we topped another rise, and came unmistakably
in sight of the Stikeen River lying deep in its rocky cañon. We had
ridden all the morning in a pelting rain, slashed by wet trees,
plunging through bogs and sliding down ravines, and when we saw the
valley just before us we raised a cheer. It seemed we could hear the
hotel bells ringing far below.
But when we had tumbled down into the big cañon near the water's
edge, we found ourselves in scarcely better condition than before. We
were trapped with no feed for our horses, and no way to cross the
river, which was roaring mad by reason of the heavy rains, a swift
and terrible flood, impossible to swim. Men were camped all along the
bank, out of food like ourselves, and ragged and worn and weary. They
had formed a little street of camps. Borland, the leader of the big
mule train, was there, calm and efficient as ever. "The Wilson
Outfit," "The Man from Chihuahua," "Throw-me-feet," and the
Manchester boys were also included in the group. "The Dutchman" came
sliding down just behind us.
After a scanty dinner of bacon grease and bread we turned our horses
out on the flat by the river, and joined the little village. Borland
said: "We've been here for a day and a half, tryin' to induce that
damn ferryman to come over, and now we're waitin' for reënforcements.
Let's try it again, numbers will bring 'em."
Thereupon we marched out solemnly upon the bank (some ten or fifteen
of us) and howled like a pack of wolves.
For two hours we clamored, alternating the Ute war-whoop with the
Swiss yodel. It was truly cacophonous, but it produced results.
Minute figures came to the brow of the hill opposite, and looked at
us like cautious cockroaches and then went away. At last two shadowy
beetles crawled down the zigzag trail to the ferry-boat, and began
bailing her out. Ultimately three men, sweating, scared, and
tremulous, swung a clumsy scow upon the sand at our feet. It was no
child's play to cross that stream. Together with one of "The Little
Dutchmen," and a representation from "The Mule Outfit," I stepped
into the boat and it was swung off into the savage swirl of gray
water. We failed of landing the first time. I did not wonder at the
ferryman's nervousness, as I felt the heave and rush of the whirling
savage flood.
At the "ratty" little town of Telegraph Creek we purchased beans at
fifteen cents a pound, bacon at thirty-five cents, and flour at ten
cents, and laden with these necessaries hurried back to the hungry
hordes on the opposite side of the river. That night "The Little
Dutchman" did nothing but cook and eat to make up for lost time.
Every face wore a smile.
The next morning Burton and one or two other men from the outfits
took the horses back up the trail to find feed, while the rest of us
remained in camp to be ready for the boats. Late in the afternoon we
heard far down the river a steamer whistling for Telegraph Creek,
and everybody began packing truck down to the river where the boat
was expected to land. Word was sent back over the trail to the boys
herding the horses, and every man was in a tremor of apprehension
lest the herders should not hear the boat and bring the horses down
in time to get off on it.
It was punishing work packing our stuff down the sloppy path to the
river bank, but we buckled to it hard, and in the course of a couple
of hours had all snug and ready for embarkation.
There was great excitement among the outfits, and every man was
hurrying and worrying to get away. It was known that charges would be
high, and each of us felt in his pocket to see how many dollars he
had left. The steamboat company had us between fire and water and
could charge whatever it pleased. Some of the poor prospectors gave
up their last dollar to cross this river toward which they had
journeyed so long.
The boys came sliding down the trail wildly excited, driving the
horses before them, and by 5.30 we were all packed on the boat, one
hundred and twenty horses and some two dozen men. We were a seedy and
careworn lot, in vivid contrast with the smartly uniformed purser of
the boat. The rates were exorbitant, but there was nothing to do but
to pay them. However, Borland and I, acting as committee, brought
such pressure to bear upon the purser that he "threw in" a dinner,
and there was a joyous rush for the table when this good news was
announced. For the first time in nearly three months we were able to
sit down to a fairly good meal with clean nice tableware, with pie
and pudding to end the meal. It seemed as though we had reached
civilization. The boat was handsomely built, and quite new and
capacious, too, for it held our horses without serious crowding. I
was especially anxious about Ladrone, but was able to get him into a
very nice place away from the engines and in no danger of being
kicked by a vicious mule.
We drifted down the river past Telegraph Creek without stopping, and
late at night laid by at Glenora and unloaded in the crisp, cool
dusk. As we came off the boat with our horses we were met by a crowd
of cynical loafers who called to us out of the dark, "What in hell
you fellows think you're doing?" We were regarded as wildly insane
for having come over so long and tedious a route.
We erected our tents, and went into camp beside our horses on the
bank near the dock. It was too late to move farther that night. We
fed our beasts upon hay at five cents a pound,--poor hay at
that,--and they were forced to stand exposed to the searching river
wind.
As for ourselves, we were filled with dismay by the hopeless dulness
of the town. Instead of being the hustling, rushing gold camp we had
expected to find, it came to light as a little town of tents and
shanties, filled with men who had practically given up the Teslin
Lake Route as a bad job. The government trail was incomplete, the
wagon road only built halfway, and the railroad--of which we had
heard so much talk--had been abandoned altogether.
As I slipped the saddle and bridle from Ladrone next day and turned
him out upon the river bottom for a two weeks' rest, my heart was
very light. The long trail was over. No more mud, rocks, stumps, and
roots for Ladrone. Away the other poor animals streamed down the
trail, many of them lame, all of them poor and weak, and some of them
still crazed by the poisonous plants of the cold green mountains
through which they had passed.
This ended the worst of the toil, the torment of the trail. It had no
dangers, but it abounded in worriments and disappointments. As I look
back upon it now I suffer, because I see my horses standing
ankle-deep in water on barren marshes or crowding round the fire
chilled and weak, in endless rain. If our faces looked haggard and
worn, it was because of the never ending anxiety concerning the
faithful animals who trusted in us to find them food and shelter.
Otherwise we suffered little, slept perfectly dry and warm every
night, and ate three meals each day: true, the meals grew scanty and
monotonous, but we did not go hungry.
The trail was a disappointment to me, not because it was long and
crossed mountains, but because it ran through a barren, monotonous,
silent, gloomy, and rainy country. It ceased to interest me. It had
almost no wild animal life, which I love to hear and see. Its lakes
and rivers were for the most part cold and sullen, and its forests
sombre and depressing. The only pleasant places after leaving
Hazleton were the high valleys above timber line. They were
magnificent, although wet and marshy to traverse.
As a route to reach the gold fields of Teslin Lake and the Yukon it
is absurd and foolish. It will never be used again for that purpose.
Should mines develop on the high divides between the Skeena, Iskoot,
and Stikeen, it may possibly be used again from Hazleton; otherwise
it will be given back to the Indians and their dogs.
THE FOOTSTEP IN THE DESERT
A man put love forth from his heart,
And rode across the desert far away.
"Woman shall have no place nor part
In my lone life," men heard him say.
He rode right on. The level rim
Of the barren plain grew low and wide;
It seemed to taunt and beckon him,
To ride right on and fiercely ride.
One day he rode a well-worn path,
And lo! even in that far land
He saw (and cursed in gusty wrath)
A woman's footprint in the sand.
Sharply he drew the swinging rein,
And hanging from his saddle bow
Gazed long and silently--cursed again,
Then turned as if to go.
"For love will seize you at the end,
Fear loneliness--fear sickness, too,
For they will teach you wisdom, friend."
Yet he rode on as madmen do.
He built a cabin by a sounding stream,
He digged in cañons dark and deep,
And ever the waters caused a dream
And the face of woman broke his sleep.
It was a slender little mark,
And the man had lived alone so long
Within the cañon's noise and dark,
The footprint moved him like a song.
It spoke to him of women in the East,
Of girls in silken robes, with shining hair,
And talked of those who sat at feast,
While sweet-eyed laughter filled the air.
And more. A hundred visions rose,
He saw his mother's knotted hands
Ply round thick-knitted homely hose,
Her thoughts with him in desert lands.
A smiling wife, in bib and cap,
Moved busily from chair to chair,
Or sat with apples in her lap,
Content with sweet domestic care.
_All these his curse had put away,_
_All these were his no more to hold;_
_He had his cañon cold and gray,_
_He had his little heaps of gold._
CHAPTER XIX
THE GOLDSEEKERS' CAMP AT GLENORA
Glenora, like Telegraph Creek, was a village of tents and shacks.
Previous to the opening of the year it had been an old Hudson Bay
trading-post at the head of navigation on the Stikeen River, but
during April and May it had been turned into a swarming camp of
goldseekers on their way to Teslin Lake by way of the much-advertised
"Stikeen Route" to the Yukon.
A couple of months before our arrival nearly five thousand people had
been encamped on the river flat; but one disappointment had followed
another, the government road had been abandoned, the pack trail had
proved a menace, and as a result the camp had thinned away, and when
we of the Long Trail began to drop into town Glenora contained less
than five hundred people, including tradesmen and mechanics.
The journey of those who accompanied me on the Long Trail was by no
means ended. It was indeed only half done. There remained more than
one hundred and seventy miles of pack trail before the head of
navigation on the Yukon could be reached. I turned aside. My partner
went on.
In order to enter the head-waters of the Pelly it was necessary to
traverse four hundred miles of trail, over which a year's provision
for each man must be carried. Food was reported to be "a dollar a
pound" at Teslin Lake and winter was coming on. To set face toward
any of these regions meant the most careful preparation or certain
death.
The weather was cold and bleak, and each night the boys assembled
around the big campfire to discuss the situation. They reported the
country full of people eager to get away. Everybody seemed studying
the problem of what to do and how to do it. Some were for going to
the head-waters of the Pelly, others advocated the Nisutlin, and
others still thought it a good plan to prospect on the head-waters of
the Tooya, from which excellent reports were coming in.
Hour after hour they debated, argued, and agreed. In the midst of it
all Burton remained cool and unhurried. Sitting in our tent, which
flapped and quivered in the sounding southern wind, we discussed the
question of future action. I determined to leave him here with four
of the horses and a thousand pounds of grub with which to enter the
gold country; for my partner was a miner, not a literary man.
It had been my intention to go with him to Teslin Lake, there to
build a boat and float down the river to Dawson; but I was six weeks
behind my schedule, the trail was reported to be bad, and the water
in the Hotalinqua very low, making boating slow and hazardous.
Therefore I concluded to join the stream of goldseekers who were
pushing down toward the coast to go in by way of Skagway.
There was a feeling in the air on the third day after going into camp
which suggested the coming of autumn. Some of the boys began to dread
the desolate north, out of which the snows would soon begin to sweep.
It took courage to set face into that wild land with winter coming
on, and yet many of them were ready to do it. The Manchester boys and
Burton formed a "side-partnership," and faced a year of bacon and
beans without visible sign of dismay.
The ominous cold deepened a little every night. It seemed like
October as the sun went down. Around us on every side the mountain
peaks cut the sky keen as the edge of a sword, and the wind howled up
the river gusty and wild.
A little group of tents sprang up around our own and every day was
full of quiet enjoyment. We were all living very high, with plenty of
berries and an occasional piece of fresh beef. Steel-head salmon were
running and were a drug in the market.
The talk of the Pelly River grew excited as a report came in
detailing a strike, and all sorts of outfits began to sift out along
the trail toward Teslin Lake. The rain ceased at last and the days
grew very pleasant with the wind again in the south, roaring up the
river all day long with great power, reminding me of the equatorial
currents which sweep over Illinois and Wisconsin in September. We had
nothing now to trouble us but the question of moving out into the
gold country.
One by one the other misguided ones of the Long Trail came dropping
into camp to meet the general depression and stagnation. They were
brown, ragged, long-haired, and for the most part silent with dismay.
Some of them celebrated their escape by getting drunk, but mainly
they were too serious-minded to waste time or substance. Some of them
had expended their last dollar on the trail and were forced to sell
their horses for money to take them out of the country. Some of the
partnerships went to pieces for other causes. Long-smouldering
dissensions burst into flame. "The Swedes" divided and so did "The
Dutchman," the more resolute of them keeping on the main trail while
others took the trail to the coast or returned to the States.
Meanwhile, Ladrone and his fellows were rejoicing like ourselves in
fairly abundant food and in continuous rest. The old gray began to
look a little more like his own proud self. As I went out to see him
he came up to me to be curried and nosed about me, begging for salt.
His trust in me made him doubly dear, and I took great joy in
thinking that he, at least, was not doomed to freeze or starve in
this savage country which has no mercy and no hope for horses.
There was great excitement on the first Sunday following our going
into camp, when the whistle of a steamer announced the coming of the
mail. It produced as much movement as an election or a bear fight. We
all ran to the bank to see her struggle with the current, gaining
headway only inch by inch. She was a small stern-wheeler, not unlike
the boats which run on the upper Missouri. We all followed her down
to the Hudson Bay post, like a lot of small boys at a circus, to see
her unload. This was excitement enough for one day, and we returned
to camp feeling that we were once more in touch with civilization.
Among the first of those who met us on our arrival was a German, who
was watching some horses and some supplies in a big tent close by the
river bank. While pitching my tent on that first day he came over to
see me, and after a few words of greeting said quietly, but with
feeling, "I am glad you've come, it was so lonesome here." We were
very busy, but I think we were reasonably kind to him in the days
that followed. He often came over of an evening and stood about the
fire, and although I did not seek to entertain him, I am glad to say
I answered him civilly; Burton was even social.
I recall these things with a certain degree of feeling, because not
less than a week later this poor fellow was discovered by one of our
company swinging from the crosstree of the tent, a ghastly corpse.
There was something inexplicable in the deed. No one could account
for it. He seemed not to be a man of deep feeling. And one of the
last things he uttered in my hearing was a coarse jest which I did
not like and to which I made no reply.
In his pocket the coroner found a letter wherein he had written,
"Bury me right here where I failed, here on the bank of the river."
It contained also a message to his wife and children in the States.
There were tragic splashes of red on the trail, murder, and violent
death by animals and by swift waters. Now here at the end of the
trail was a suicide.
So this is the end of the trail to him--
To swing at the tail of a rope and die;
Making a chapter gray and grim,
Adding a ghost to the midnight sky?
He toiled for days on the icy way,
He slept at night on the wind-swept snow;
Now here he hangs in the morning's gray,
A grisly shape by the river's flow.
It was just two weeks later when I put the bridle and saddle on
Ladrone and rode him down the trail. His heart was light as mine, and
he had gained some part of his firm, proud, leaping walk. He had
confidence in the earth once more. This was the first firm stretch of
road he had trod for many weeks. He was now to take the boat for the
outside world.
There was an element of sadness in the parting between Ladrone and
the train he had led for so many miles. As we saddled up for the last
time he stood waiting. The horses had fared together for ninety days.
They had "lined up" nearly two hundred times, and now for the last
time I called out: "Line up, boys! Line up! Heke! Heke!"
Ladrone swung into the trail. Behind him came "Barney," next "Major,"
then sturdy "Bay Bill," and lastly "Nibbles," the pony. For the last
time they were to follow their swift gray leader, who was going
south to live at ease, while they must begin again the ascent of the
trail.
Ladrone whinnied piteously for his mates as I led him aboard the
steamer, but they did not answer. They were patiently waiting their
master's signal. Never again would they set eyes on the stately gray
leader who was bound to most adventurous things. Never again would
they see the green grass come on the hills.
I had a feeling that I could go on living this way, leading a pack
train across the country indefinitely. It seemed somehow as though
this way of life, this routine, must continue. I had a deep interest
in the four horses, and it was not without a feeling of guilt that I
saw them move away on their last trail. At bottom the end of every
horse is tragic. Death comes sooner or later, but death here in this
country, so cold and bleak and pitiless to all animals, seems somehow
closer, more inevitable, more cruel, and flings over every animal the
shadow of immediate tragedy. There was something approaching crime in
bringing a horse over that trail for a thousand miles only to turn
him loose at the end, or to sell him to some man who would work him
to the point of death, and then shoot him or turn him out to freeze.
As the time came when I must return to the south and to the tame, the
settled, the quiet, I experienced a profound feeling of regret, of
longing for the wild and lonely. I looked up at the shining green and
white mountains and they allured me still, notwithstanding all the
toil and discomfort of the journey just completed. The wind from the
south, damp and cool, the great river gliding with rushing roar to
meet the sea, had a distinct and wonderful charm from which I rent
myself with distinct effort.
THE TOIL OF THE TRAIL
What have I gained by the toil of the trail?
I know and know well.
I have found once again the lore I had lost
In the loud city's hell.
I have broadened my hand to the cinch and the axe,
I have laid my flesh to the rain;
I was hunter and trailer and guide;
I have touched the most primitive wildness again.
I have threaded the wild with the stealth of the deer,
No eagle is freer than I;
No mountain can thwart me, no torrent appall,
I defy the stern sky.
So long as I live these joys will remain,
I have touched the most primitive wildness again.
CHAPTER XX
GREAT NEWS AT WRANGELL
Boat after boat had come up, stopped for a night, and dropped down
the river again, carrying from ten to twenty of the goldseekers who
had determined to quit or to try some other way in; and at last the
time had come for me to say good-by to Burton and all those who had
determined to keep on to Teslin Lake. I had helped them buy and sack
and weigh their supplies, and they were ready to line up once more.
As I led Ladrone down toward the boat, he called again for his
fellows, but only strangers made reply. After stowing him safely away
and giving him feed, I returned to the deck in order to wave my hat
to Burton.
In accordance with his peculiar, undemonstrative temperament, he
stood for a few moments in silence, with his hands folded behind his
back, then, with a final wave of the hand, turned on his heel and
returned to his work.
Farewells and advice more or less jocular rang across the rail of the
boat between some ten or fifteen of us who had hit the new trail and
those on shore.
"Good-by, boys; see you at Dawson."
"We'll beat you in yet," called Bill. "Don't over-work."
"Let us know if you strike it!" shouted Frank.
"All right; you do the same," I replied.
As the boat swung out into the stream, and the little group on the
bank faded swiftly away, I confess to a little dimness of the eyes. I
thought of the hardships toward which my uncomplaining partner was
headed, and it seemed to me Nature was conspiring to crush him.
The trip down the river was exceedingly interesting. The stream grew
narrower as we approached the coast range, and became at last very
dangerous for a heavy boat such as the _Strathcona_ was. We were
forced to lay by at last, some fifty miles down, on account of the
terrific wind which roared in through the gap, making the steering of
the big boat through the cañon very difficult.
At the point where we lay for the night a small creek came in.
Steel-headed salmon were running, and the creek was literally lined
with bear tracks of great size, as far up as we penetrated. These
bears are said to be a sort of brown fishing bear of enormous bulk,
as large as polar bears, and when the salmon are spawning in the
upper waters of the coast rivers, they become so fat they can hardly
move. Certainly I have never been in a country where bear signs were
so plentiful. The wood was an almost impassable tangle of vines and
undergrowth, and the thought of really finding a bear was appalling.
The Stikeen breaks directly through the coast range at right angles,
like a battering-ram. Immense glaciers were on either side. One
tremendous river of ice came down on our right, presenting a face
wall apparently hundreds of feet in height and some miles in width. I
should have enjoyed exploring this glacier, which is said to be one
of the greatest on the coast.
The next day our captain, a bold and reckless man, carried us through
to Wrangell by _walking_ his boat over the sand bars on its
paddle-wheel. I was exceedingly nervous, because if for any reason we
had become stuck in mid river, it would have been impossible to feed
Ladrone or to take him ashore except by means of another steamer.
However, all things worked together to bring us safely through, and
in the afternoon of the second day we entered an utterly different
world--the warm, wet coast country. The air was moist, the grasses
and tall ferns were luxuriant, and the forest trees immense. Out into
a sun-bright bay we swept with a feeling of being in safe waters once
more, and rounded-to about sunset at a point on the island just above
a frowzy little town. This was Wrangell Island and the town was Fort
Wrangell, one of the oldest stations on the coast.
I had placed my horse under bond intending to send him through to
Vancouver to be taken care of by the Hudson Bay Company. He was still
a Canadian horse and so must remain upon the wharf over night. As he
was very restless and uneasy, I camped down beside him on the
planks.
I lay for a long time listening to the waters flowing under me and
looking at the gray-blue sky, across which stars shot like distant
rockets dying out in the deeps of the heavens in silence. An odious
smell rose from the bay as the tide went out, a seal bawled in the
distance, fishes flopped about in the pools beneath me, and a man
playing a violin somewhere in the village added a melancholy note. I
could hear the boys crying, "All about the war," and Ladrone
continued restless and eager. Several times in the night, when he
woke me with his trampling, I called to him, and hearing my voice he
became quiet.
I took breakfast at a twenty-five cent "joint," where I washed out of
a tin basin in an ill-smelling area. After breakfast I grappled with
the customs man and secured the papers which made Ladrone an American
horse, free to eat grass wherever it could be found under the stars
and stripes. I started immediately to lead him to pasture, and this
was an interesting and memorable experience.
There are no streets, that is to say no roads, in Wrangell. There are
no carriages and no horses, not even donkeys. Therefore it was
necessary for Ladrone to walk the perilous wooden sidewalks after me.
This he did with all the dignity of a county judge, and at last we
came upon grass, knee deep, rich and juicy.
Our passage through the street created a great sensation. Little
children ran to the gates to look upon us. "There goes a horsie,"
they shouted. An old man stopped me on the street and asked me where
I was taking "T'old 'orse." I told him I had already ridden him over
a thousand miles and now he was travelling with me back to God's
country. He looked at me in amazement, and walked off tapping his
forehead as a sign that I must certainly "have wheels."
As I watched Ladrone at his feed an old Indian woman came along and
smiled with amiable interest. At last she said, pointing to the other
side of the village, "Over there muck-a-muck, hy-u muck-a-muck." She
wished to see the horse eating the best grass there was to be had on
the island.
A little later three or four native children came down the hill and
were so amazed and so alarmed at the sight of this great beast
feeding beside the walk that they burst into loud outcry and ran
desperately away. They were not accustomed to horses. To them he was
quite as savage in appearance as a polar bear.
In a short time everybody in the town knew of the old gray horse and
his owner. I furnished a splendid topic for humorous conversation
during the dull hours of the day.
Here again I came upon other gaunt and rusty-coated men from the Long
Trail. They could be recognized at a glance by reason of their sombre
faces and their undecided action. They could scarcely bring
themselves to such ignominious return from a fruitless trip on which
they had started with so much elation, and yet they hesitated about
attempting any further adventure to the north, mainly because their
horses had sold for so little and their expenses had been so great.
Many of them were nearly broken. In the days that followed they
discussed the matter in subdued voices, sitting in the sun on the
great wharf, sombrely looking out upon the bay.
On the third day a steamer came in from the north, buzzing with the
news of another great strike not far from Skagway. Juneau, Dyea, as
well as Skagway itself, were said to be almost deserted. Men were
leaving the White Pass Railway in hundreds, and a number of the hands
on the steamer herself had deserted under the excitement. Mingling
with the passengers we eagerly extracted every drop of information
possible. No one knew much about it, but they said all they knew and
a good part of what they had heard, and when the boat swung round and
disappeared in the moonlight, she left the goldseekers exultant and
tremulous on the wharf.
They were now aflame with desire to take part in this new stampede,
which seemed to be within their slender means, and I, being one of
them and eager to see such a "stampede," took a final session with
the customs collector, and prepared to board the next boat.
I arranged with Duncan McKinnon to have my old horse taken care of in
his lot. I dug wells for him so that he should not lack for water,
and treated him to a dish of salt, and just at sunset said good-by to
him with another twinge of sadness and turned toward the wharf. He
looked very lonely and sad standing there with drooping head in the
midst of the stumps of his pasture lot. However, there was plenty of
feed and half a dozen men volunteered to keep an eye on him.
"Don't worry, mon," said Donald McLane. "He'll be gettin' fat and
strong on the juicy grass, whilst you're a-heavin' out the
gold-dust."
There were about ten of us who lined up to the purser's window of the
little steamer which came along that night and purchased second-class
passage. The boat was very properly named the _Utopia_, and was so
crowded with other goldseekers from down the coast, that we of the
Long Trail were forced to put our beds on the floor of the little
saloon in the stern of the boat which was called the "social room."
We were all second-class, and we all lay down in rows on the carpet,
covering every foot of space. Each man rolled up in his own blankets,
and I was the object of considerable remark by reason of my mattress,
which gave me as good a bed as the vessel afforded.
There was a great deal of noise on the boat, and its passengers, both
men and women, were not of the highest type. There were several
stowaways, and some of the women were not very nice as to their
actions, and, rightly or wrongly, were treated with scant respect by
the men, who were loud and vulgar for the most part. Sleep was
difficult in the turmoil.
Though second-class passengers, strange to say, we came first at
table and were very well fed. The boat ran entirely inside a long row
of islands, and the water was smooth as a river. The mountains grew
each moment more splendid as we neared Skagway, and the ride was most
enjoyable. Whales and sharks interested us on the way. The women came
to light next day, and on the whole were much better than I had
inferred from the two or three who were the source of disturbance the
night before. The men were not of much interest; they seemed petty
and without character for the most part.
At Juneau we came into a still more mountainous country, and for the
rest of the way the scenery was magnificent. Vast rivers of ice came
curving down absolutely out of the clouds which hid the summits of
the mountains--came curving in splendid lines down to the very
water's edge. The sea was chill and gray, and as we entered the mouth
of Lynn Canal a raw swift wind swept by, making us shiver with cold.
The grim bronze-green mountains' sides formed a most impressive but
forbidding scene.
It was nine o'clock the next morning as we swung to and unloaded
ourselves upon one of the long wharves which run out from the town of
Skagway toward the deep water. We found the town exceedingly quiet.
Half the men had gone to the new strike. Stores were being tended by
women, some small shops were closed entirely, and nearly every
business firm had sent representatives into the new gold fields,
which we now found to be on Atlin Lake.
It was difficult to believe that this wharf a few months before had
been the scene of a bloody tragedy which involved the shooting of
"Soapy Smith," the renowned robber and desperado. On the contrary, it
seemed quite like any other town of its size in the States. The air
was warm and delightful in midday, but toward night the piercing
wind swept down from the high mountains, making an overcoat
necessary.
A few men had returned from this new district, and were full of
enthusiasm concerning the prospects. Their reports increased the
almost universal desire to have a part in the stampede. The Iowa boys
from the Long Trail wasted no time, but set about their own plans for
getting in. They expected to reach the creek by sheer force and
awkwardness.
They had determined to try the "cut-off," which left the wagon road
and took off up the east fork of the Skagway River. Nearly three
hundred people had already set out on this trail, and the boys felt
sure of "making it all right--all right," though it led over a great
glacier and into an unmapped region of swift streams. "After the
Telegraph Trail," said Doc, "we're not easily scared."
It seemed to me a desperate chance, and I was not ready to enter upon
such a trip with only such grub and clothing as could be carried upon
my back; but it was the last throw of the dice for these young
fellows. They had very little money left, and could not afford to
hire pack trains; but by making a swift dash into the country, each
hoped to get a claim. How they expected to hold it or use it after
they got it, they were unable to say; but as they were out for gold,
and here was a chance (even though it were but the slightest chance
in the world) to secure a location, they accepted it with the sublime
audacity of youth and ignorance. They saddled themselves with their
packs, and with a cheery wave of the hand said "Good-by and good
luck" and marched away in single file.
Just a week later I went round to see if any news of them had
returned to their bunk house. I found their names on the register.
They had failed. One of them set forth their condition of purse and
mind by writing: "Dave Walters, Boone, Iowa. Busted and going home."
THE GOLDSEEKERS
I saw these dreamers of dreams go by,
I trod in their footsteps a space;
Each marched with his eyes on the sky,
Each passed with a light on his face.
They came from the hopeless and sad,
They faced the future and gold;
Some the tooth of want's wolf had made mad,
And some at the forge had grown old.
Behind them these serfs of the tool
The rags of their service had flung;
No longer of fortune the fool,
This word from each bearded lip rung:
"Once more I'm a man, I am free!
No man is my master, I say;
To-morrow I fail, it may be--
No matter, I'm freeman to-day."
They go to a toil that is sure,
To despair and hunger and cold;
Their sickness no warning can cure,
They are mad with a longing for gold.
The light will fade from each eye,
The smile from each face;
They will curse the impassible sky,
And the earth when the snow torrents race.
Some will sink by the way and be laid
In the frost of the desolate earth;
And some will return to a maid,
Empty of hand as at birth.
_But this out of all will remain,_
_They have lived and have tossed;_
_So much in the game will be gain,_
_Though the gold of the dice has been lost._
CHAPTER XXI
THE RUSH TO ATLIN LAKE
It took me longer to get under way, for I had determined to take at
least thirty days' provisions for myself and a newspaper man who
joined me here. Our supplies, together with tent, tools, and
clothing, made a considerable outfit. However, in a few days we were
ready to move, and when I again took my place at the head of a little
pack train it seemed quite in the natural order of things.
We left late in the day with intent to camp at the little village of
White Pass, which was the end of the wagon road and some twelve miles
away. We moved out of town along a road lined with refuse,
camp-bottoms, ruined cabins, tin cans, and broken bottles,--all the
unsightly debris of the rush of May and June. A part of the way had
been corduroyed, for which I was exceedingly grateful, for the
Skagway River roared savagely under our feet, while on either side of
the roadway at other points I could see abysses of mud which, in the
growing darkness, were sufficiently menacing.
Our course was a northerly one. We were ascending the ever narrowing
cañon of the river at a gentle grade, with snowy mountains in vista.
We arrived at White Pass at about ten o'clock at night. A little
town is springing up there, confident of being an important station
on the railroad which was already built to that point.
Thus far the journey had been easy and simple, but immediately after
leaving White Pass we entered upon an exceedingly stony road, filled
with sharp rock which had been blasted from the railway above us.
Upon reaching the end of the wagon road, and entering upon the trail,
we came upon the Way of Death. The waters reeked with carrion. The
breeze was the breath of carrion, and all nature was made indecent
and disgusting by the presence of carcasses. Within the distance of
fifteen miles we passed more than two thousand dead horses. It was a
cruel land, a land filled with the record of men's merciless greed.
Nature herself was cold, majestic, and grand. The trail rough, hard,
and rocky. The horses labored hard under their heavy burdens, though
the floor they trod was always firm.
Just at the summit in the gray mist, where a bulbous granite ridge
cut blackly and lonesomely against the sky, we overtook a flock of
turkeys being driven by a one-armed man with a singularly appropriate
Scotch cap on his head. The birds sat on the bleak gray rocks in the
gathering dusk with the suggestion of being utterly at the end of the
world. Their feathers were blown awry by the merciless wind and they
looked weary, disconsolate, and bewildered. Their faint, sad gobbling
was like the talk of sick people lost in a desert. They were on their
way to Dawson City to their death and they seemed to know it.
We camped at the Halfway House, a big tent surrounded by the most
diabolical landscape of high peaks lost in mist, with near-by slopes
of gray rocks scantily covered with yellow-green grass. All was bare,
wild, desolate, and drear. The wind continued to whirl down over the
divide, carrying torn gray masses of vapor which cast a gloomy half
light across the gruesome little meadow covered with rotting
carcasses and crates of bones which filled the air with odor of
disease and death.
Within the tent, which flopped and creaked in the wind, we huddled
about the cook-stove in the light of a lantern, listening to the loud
talk of a couple of packers who were discussing their business with
enormous enthusiasm. Happily they grew sleepy at last and peace
settled upon us. I unrolled my sleeping bag and slept dreamlessly
until the "Russian nobleman," who did the cooking, waked me.
Morning broke bleak and desolate. Mysterious clouds which hid the
peaks were still streaming wildly down the cañon. We got away at
last, leaving behind us that sad little meadow and its gruesome
lakes, and began the slow and toilsome descent over slippery ledges
of rock, among endless rows of rotting carcasses, over poisonous
streams and through desolate, fire-marked, and ghastly forests of
small pines. Everywhere were the traces of the furious flood of
humankind that had broken over this height in the early spring.
Wreckage of sleighs, abandoned tackle, heaps of camp refuse,
clothing, and most eloquent of all the pathway itself, worn into the
pitiless iron ledges, made it possible for me to realize something of
the scene.
Down there in the gully, on the sullen drift of snow, the winter
trail could still be seen like an unclean ribbon and here, where the
shrivelled hides of horses lay thick, wound the summer pathway. Up
yonder summit, lock-stepped like a file of convicts, with tongues
protruding and breath roaring from their distended throats, thousands
of men had climbed with killing burdens on their backs, mad to reach
the great inland river and the gold belt. Like the men of the Long
Trail, they, too, had no time to find the gold under their feet.
It was terrible to see how on every slippery ledge the ranks of
horses had broken like waves to fall in heaps like rows of seaweed,
tumbled, contorted, and grinning. Their dried skins had taken on the
color of the soil, so that I sometimes set foot upon them without
realizing what they were. Many of them had saddles on and nearly all
had lead-ropes. Some of them had even been tied to trees and left to
starve.
In all this could be read the merciless greed and impracticability of
these goldseekers. Men who had never driven a horse in their lives,
and had no idea what an animal could do, or what he required to eat,
loaded their outfits upon some poor patient beast and drove him
without feed until, weakened and insecure of foot, he slipped and
fell on some one of these cruel ledges of flinty rock.
The business of packing, however, had at last fallen into less cruel
or at least more judicial hands, and though the trail was filled
with long pack trains going and coming, they were for the most part
well taken care of. We met many long trains of packhorses returning
empty from Bennett Lake. They were followed by shouting drivers who
clattered along on packhorses wherever the trail would permit.
One train carried four immense trunks--just behind the trunks,
mounted astride of one of the best horses, rode a bold-faced,
handsome white woman followed by a huge negress. The white woman had
made her pile by dancing a shameless dance in the dissolute dens of
Dawson City, and was on her way to Paris or New York for a "good
time." The reports of the hotel keepers made her out to be
unspeakably vile. The negress was quite decent by contrast.
At Log Cabin we came in sight of the British flag which marks the
boundary line of United States territory, where a camp of mounted
police and the British customs officer are located. It was a drear
season even in midsummer, a land of naked ledges and cold white
peaks. A few small pine trees furnished logs for the cabins and wood
for their fires. The government offices were located in tents.
I found the officers most courteous, and the customs fair. The
treatment given me at Log Cabin was in marked contrast with the
exactions of my own government at Wrangell. All goods were unloaded
before the inspector's tent and quickly examined. The miner suffered
very little delay.
A number of badly maimed packhorses were running about on the
American side. I was told that the police had stopped them by reason
of their sore backs. If a man came to the line with horses overloaded
or suffering, he was made to strip the saddles from their backs.
"You can't cross this line with animals like that," was the stern
sentence in many cases. This humanity, as unexpected as it was
pleasing, deserves the best word of praise of which I am capable.
At last we left behind us all these wrecks of horseflesh, these
poisonous streams, and came down upon Lake Bennett, where the water
was considered safe to drink, and where the eye could see something
besides death-spotted ledges of savage rocks.
The town was a double row of tents, and log huts set close to the
beach whereon boats were building and saws and hammers were uttering
a cheerful chorus. Long trains of packhorses filled the streets. The
wharfs swarmed with men loading chickens, pigs, vegetables,
furniture, boxes of dry-goods, stoves, and every other conceivable
domestic utensil into big square barges, which were rigged with tall
strong masts bearing most primitive sails. It was a busy scene, but
of course very quiet as compared with the activity of May, June, and
July.
These barges appealed to me very strongly. They were in some cases
floating homes, a combination of mover's wagon and river boat. Many
of them contained women and children, with accompanying cats and
canary birds. In every face was a look of exultant faith in the
venture. They were bound for Dawson City. The men for Atlin were
setting forth in rowboats, or were waiting for the little steamers
which had begun to ply between Bennett City and the new gold fields.
I set my little tent, which was about as big as a dog kennel, and
crawled into it early, in order to be shielded from the winds, which
grew keen as sword blades as the sun sank behind the western
mountains. The sky was like November, and I wondered where Burton was
encamped. I would have given a great deal to have had him with me on
this trip.
THE COAST RANGE OF ALASKA
The wind roars up from the angry sea
With a message of warning and haste to me.
It bids me go where the asters blow,
And the sun-flower waves in the sunset glow.
From the granite mountains the glaciers crawl,
In snow-white spray the waters fall.
The bay is white with the crested waves,
And ever the sea wind ramps and raves.
I hate this cold, bleak northern land,
I fear its snow-flecked harborless strand--
I fly to the south as a homing dove,
Back to the land of corn I love.
And never again shall I set my feet
Where the snow and the sea and the mountains meet.
CHAPTER XXII
ATLIN LAKE AND THE GOLD FIELDS
There is nothing drearier than camping on the edge of civilization
like this, where one is surrounded by ill smells, invaded by streams
of foul dust, and deprived of wood and clear water. I was exceedingly
eager to get away, especially as the wind continued cold and very
searching. It was a long dull day of waiting.
At last the boat came in and we trooped aboard--a queer mixture of
men and bundles. The boat itself was a mere scow with an upright
engine in the centre and a stern-wheel tacked on the outside. There
were no staterooms, of course, and almost no bunks. The interior
resembled a lumberman's shanty.
We moved off towing a big scow laden with police supplies for Tagish
House. The wind was very high and pushed steadily behind, or we would
not have gone faster than a walk. We had some eight or ten
passengers, all bound for the new gold fields, and these together
with their baggage and tools filled the boat to the utmost corner.
The feeling of elation among these men reminded me of the great land
boom of Dakota in 1883, in which I took a part. There was something
fine and free and primitive in it all.
We cooked our supper on the boat's stove, furnishing our own food
from the supplies we were taking in with us. The ride promised to be
very fine. We made off down the narrow lake, which lies between two
walls of high bleak mountains, but far in the distance more alluring
ranges arose. There was no sign of mineral in the near-by peaks.
Late in the afternoon the wind became so high and the captain of our
boat so timid, we were forced to lay by for the night and so swung
around under a point, seeking shelter from the wind, which became
each moment more furious. I made my bed down on the roof of the boat
and went to sleep looking at the drifting clouds overhead. Once or
twice during the night when I awoke I heard the howling blast
sweeping by with increasing power.
All the next day we loitered on Bennett Lake--the wind roaring
without ceasing, and the white-caps running like hares. We drifted at
last into a cove and there lay in shelter till six o'clock at night.
The sky was clear and the few clouds were gloriously bright and cool
and fleecy.
We met several canoes of goldseekers on their return who shouted
doleful warnings at us and cursed the worthlessness of the district
to which we were bound. They all looked exceedingly dirty, ragged,
and sour of visage. At the same time, however, boat after boat went
sailing down past us on their way to Atlin and Dawson. They drove
straight before the wind, and for the most part experienced little
danger, all of which seemed to us to emphasize the unnecessary
timidity of our own captain.
There was a charm in this wild spot, but we were too impatient to
enjoy it. There were men on board who felt that they were being
cheated of a chance to get a gold mine, and when the wind began to
fall we fired up and started down the lake. As deep night came on I
made my bed on the roof again and went to sleep with the flying
sparks lining the sky overhead. I was in some danger of being set on
fire, but I preferred sleeping there to sleeping on the floor inside
the boat, where the reek of tobacco smoke was sickening.
When I awoke we were driving straight up Tagish Lake, a beautiful,
clear, green and blue spread of rippling water with lofty and boldly
outlined peaks on each side. The lake ran from southeast to northwest
and was much larger than any map shows. We drove steadily for ten
hours up this magnificent water with ever increasing splendor of
scenery, arriving about sunset at Taku City, which we found to be a
little group of tents at the head of Taku arm.
Innumerable boats of every design fringed the shore. Men were coming
and men were going, producing a bewildering clash of opinions with
respect to the value of the mines. A few of these to whom we spoke
said, "It's all a fake," and others were equally certain it was "All
right."
A short portage was necessary to reach Atlin Lake, and taking a part
of our baggage upon our shoulders we hired the remainder packed on
horses and within an hour were moving up the smooth path under the
small black pines, across the low ridge which separates the two
lakes. At the top of this ridge we were able to look out over the
magnificent spread of Atlin Lake, which was more beautiful in every
way than Tagish or Taku. It is, in fact, one of the most beautiful
lakes I have ever seen.
Far to the southeast it spread until it was lost to view among the
bases of the gigantic glacier-laden mountains of the coast range. To
the left--that is to the north--it seemed to divide, enclosing a
splendid dome-shaped solitary mountain, one fork moving to the east,
the other to the west. Its end could not be determined by the eye in
either direction. Its width was approximately about ten miles.
At the end of the trail we found an enterprising Canadian with a
naphtha launch ready to ferry us across to Atlin City, but were
forced to wait for some one who had gone back to Taku for a second
load.
While we were waiting, the engineer, who was a round-faced and rather
green boy, fell under the influences of a large, plump, and very
talkative lady who made the portage just behind us. She so absorbed
and fascinated the lad that he let the engine run itself into some
cramp of piston or wheel. There was a sudden crunching sound and the
propeller stopped. The boy minimized the accident, but the captain
upon arrival told us it would be necessary to unload from the boat
while the engine was being repaired.
It was now getting dark, and as it was pretty evident that the
repairs on the boat would take a large part of the night, we camped
where we were. The talkative lady, whom the irreverent called "the
glass front," occupied a tent which belonged to the captain of the
launch and the rest of us made our beds down under the big trees.
A big fire was built and around this we sat, doing more or less
talking. There was an old Tennesseean in the party from Dawson, who
talked interminably. He told us of his troubles, trials, and
victories in Dawson: how he had been successful, how he had fallen
ill, and how his life had been saved by a good old miner who gave him
an opportunity to work over his dump. Sick as he was he was able in a
few days to find gold enough to take him out of the country to a
doctor. He was now on his way back to his claim and professed to be
very sceptical of Atlin and every other country except Dawson.
The plump lady developed exceedingly kittenish manners late in the
evening, and invited the whole company to share her tent. A singular
type of woman, capable of most ladylike manners and having
astonishingly sensible moments, but inexpressibly silly most of the
time. She was really a powerful, self-confident, and shrewd woman,
but preferred to seem young and helpless. Altogether the company was
sufficiently curious. There was a young civil engineer from New York
City, a land boomer from Skagway, an Irishman from Juneau, a
representative of a New York paper, one or two nondescripts from the
States, and one or two prospectors from Quebec. The night was cold
and beautiful and my partner and I, by going sufficiently far away
from the old Tennesseean and the plump lady, were able to sleep
soundly until sunrise.
The next morning we hired a large unpainted skiff and by working very
hard ourselves in addition to paying full fare we reached camp at
about ten o'clock in the morning. Atlin City was also a clump of
tents half hidden in the trees on the beach of the lake near the
mouth of Pine Creek. The lake was surpassingly beautiful under the
morning sun.
A crowd of sullen, profane, and grimy men were lounging around,
cursing the commissioners and the police. The beach was fringed with
rowboats and canoes, like a New England fishing village, and all day
long men were loading themselves into these boats, hungry, tired, and
weary, hastening back to Skagway or the coast; while others, fresh,
buoyant, and hopeful, came gliding in.
To those who came, the sullen and disappointed ones who were about to
go uttered approbrious cries: "See the damn fools come! What d'you
think you're doin'? On a fishin' excursion?"
We went into camp on the water front, and hour after hour men laden
with packs tramped ceaselessly to and fro along the pathway just
below our door. I was now chief cook and bottle washer, my partner,
who was entirely unaccustomed to work of this kind, having the status
of a boarder.
The lake was a constant joy to us. As the sun sank the glacial
mountains to the southwest became most royal in their robes of purple
and silver. The sky filled with crimson and saffron clouds which the
lake reflected like a mirror. The little rocky islands drowsed in the
mist like some strange monsters sleeping on the bosom of the water.
The men were filthy and profane for the most part, and made enjoyment
of nature almost impossible. Many of them were of the rudest and most
uninteresting types, nomads--almost tramps. They had nothing of the
epic qualities which belong to the mountaineers and natural miners of
the Rocky Mountains. Many of them were loafers and ne'er-do-wells
from Skagway and other towns of the coast.
We had a gold pan, a spade, and a pick. Therefore early the next
morning we flung a little pack of grub over our shoulders and set
forth to test the claims which were situated upon Pine Creek, a
stream which entered Lake Atlin near the camp. It was said to be
eighteen miles long and Discovery claim was some eight miles up.
We traced our way up the creek as far as Discovery and back, panning
dirt at various places with resulting colors in some cases. The trail
was full of men racking to and fro with heavy loads on their backs.
They moved in little trains of four or five or six men, some going
out of the country, others coming in--about an equal number each way.
Everything along the creek was staked, and our test work resulted in
nothing more than gaining information with regard to what was going
on.
The camps on the hills at night swarmed with men in hot debate. The
majority believed the camps to be a failure, and loud discussions
resounded from the trees as partner and I sat at supper. The
town-site men were very nervous. The camps were decreasing in
population, and the tone was one of general foreboding.
The campfires flamed all along the lake walk, and the talk of each
group could be overheard by any one who listened. Altercations went
on with clangorous fury. Almost every party was in division. Some
enthusiastic individual had made a find, or had seen some one else
who had. His cackle reached other groups, and out of the dark hulking
figures loomed to listen or to throw in hot missiles of profanity.
Phrases multiplied, mingling inextricably.
"Morgan claims thirty cents to the pan ... good creek claim ... his
sluice is about ready ... a clean-up last night ... I don't believe
it.... No, Sir, I wouldn't give a hundred dollars for the whole damn
moose pasture.... Well, it's good enough for me.... I tell you it's
rotten, the whole damn cheese.... You've got to stand in with the
police or you can't get...." and so on and on unendingly, without
coherence. I went to sleep only when the sound of the wordy warfare
died away.
I permitted myself a day of rest. Borrowing a boat next day, we went
out upon the water and up to the mouth of Pine Creek, where we panned
some dirt to amuse ourselves. The lake was like liquid glass, the
bottom visible at an enormous depth. It made me think of the
marvellous water of McDonald Lake in the Kalispels. I steered the
boat (with a long-handled spade) and so was able to look about me and
absorb at ease the wonderful beauty of this unbroken and unhewn
wilderness. The clouds were resplendent, and in every direction the
lake vistas were ideally beautiful and constantly changing.
Toward night the sky grew thick and heavy with clouds. The water of
the lake was like molten jewels, ruby and amethyst. The boat seemed
floating in some strange, ethereal substance hitherto unknown to
man--translucent and iridescent. The mountains loomed like dim purple
pillars at the western gate of the world, and the rays of the
half-hidden sun plunging athwart these sentinels sank deep into the
shining flood. Later the sky cleared, and the inverted mountains in
the lake were scarcely less vivid than those which rose into the sky.
The next day I spent with gold pan and camera, working my way up
Spruce Creek, a branch of Pine. I found men cheerily at work getting
out sluice boxes and digging ditches. I panned everywhere, but did
not get much in the way of colors, but the creek seemed to grow
better as I went up, and promised very rich returns. I came back
rushing, making five miles just inside an hour, hungry and tired.
The crowded camp thinned out. The faint-hearted ones who had no
courage to sweat for gold sailed away. Others went out upon their
claims to build cabins and lay sluices. I found them whip-sawing
lumber, building cabins, and digging ditches. Each day the news grew
more encouraging, each day brought the discovery of a new creek or a
lake. Men came back in swarms and reporting finds on "Lake Surprise,"
a newly discovered big body of water, and at last came the report of
surprising discoveries in the benches high above the creek.
In the camp one night I heard a couple of men talking around a
campfire near me. One of them said: "Why, you know old Sperry was
digging on the ridge just above Discovery and I came along and see
him up there. And I said, 'Hullo, uncle, what you doin', diggin' your
grave?' And the old feller said, 'You just wait a few minutes and
I'll show ye.' Well, sir, he filled up a sack o' dirt and toted it
down to the creek, and I went along with him to see him wash it out,
and say, he took $3.25 out of one pan of that dirt, and $1.85 out of
the other pan. Well, that knocked me. I says, 'Uncle, you're all
right.' And then I made tracks for a bench claim next him. Well,
about that time everybody began to hustle for bench claims, and now
you can't get one anywhere near him."
At another camp, a packer was telling of an immense nugget that had
been discovered somewhere on the upper waters of Birch Creek. "And
say, fellers, you know there is another lake up there pretty near as
big as Atlin. They are calling it Lake Surprise. I heard a feller say
a few days ago there was a big lake up there and I thought he meant a
lake six or eight miles long. On the very high ground next to Birch,
you can look down over that lake and I bet it's sixty miles long. It
must reach nearly to Teslin Lake." There was something pretty fine in
the thought of being in a country where lakes sixty miles long were
being discovered and set forth on the maps of the world. Up to this
time Atlin Lake itself was unmapped. To an unpractical man like
myself it was reward enough to feel the thrill of excitement which
comes with such discoveries.
However, I was not a goldseeker, and when I determined to give up any
further pursuit of mining and to delegate it entirely to my partner,
I experienced a feeling of relief. I determined to "stick to my
last," notwithstanding the fascination which I felt in the sight of
placer gold. Quartz mining has never had the slightest attraction for
me, but to see the gold washed out of the sand, to see it appear
bright and shining in the black sand in the bottom of the pan, is
really worth while. It is first-hand contact with Nature's stores of
wealth.
I went up to Discovery for the last time with my camera slung over my
shoulder, and my note-book in hand to take a final survey of the
miners and to hear for the last time their exultant talk. I found
them exceedingly cheerful, even buoyant.
The men who had gone in with ten days' provisions, the tenderfoot
miners, the men "with a cigarette and a sandwich," had gone out.
Those who remained were men who knew their business and were resolute
and self-sustaining.
There was a crowd of such men around the land-office tents and many
filings were made. Nearly every man had his little phial of gold to
show. No one was loud, but every one seemed to be quietly confident
and replied to my questions in a low voice, "Well, you can safely say
the country is all right."
The day was fine like September in Wisconsin. The lake as I walked
back to it was very alluring. My mind returned again and again to
the things I had left behind for so long. My correspondence, my
books, my friends, all the literary interests of my life, began to
reassert their dominion over me. For some time I had realized that
this was almost an ideal spot for camping or mining. Just over in the
wild country toward Teslin Lake, herds of caribou were grazing. Moose
and bear were being killed daily, rich and unknown streams were
waiting for the gold pan, the pick and the shovel, but--it was not
for me! I was ready to return--eager to return.
THE FREEMAN OF THE HILLS
I have no master but the wind,
My only liege the sun;
All bonds and ties I leave behind,
Free as the wolf I run.
My master wind is passionless,
He neither chides nor charms;
He fans me or he freezes me,
And helps are quick as harms.
He never turns to injure me,
And when his voice is high
I crouch behind a rock and see
His storm of snows go by.
He too is subject of the sun,
As all things earthly are,
Where'er he flies, where'er I run,
We know our kingly star.
THE VOICE OF THE MAPLE TREE
I am worn with the dull-green spires of fir,
I am tired of endless talk of gold,
I long for the cricket's cheery whirr,
And the song that the maples sang of old.
O the beauty and learning and light
That lie in the leaves of the level lands!
They shake my heart in the deep of the night,
They call me and bless me with calm, cool hands.
_Sing, O leaves of the maple tree,_
_I hear your voice by the savage sea,_
_Hear and hasten to home and thee!_
CHAPTER XXIII
THE END OF THE TRAIL
The day on which I crossed the lake to Taku City was most glorious. A
September haze lay on the mountains, whose high slopes, orange, ruby,
and golden-green, allured with almost irresistible attraction.
Although the clouds were gathering in the east, the sunset was
superb. Taku arm seemed a river of gold sweeping between gates of
purple. As the darkness came on, a long creeping line of fire crept
up a near-by mountain's side, and from time to time, as it reached
some great pine, it flamed to the clouds like a mighty geyser of
red-hot lava. It was splendid but terrible to witness.
The next day was a long, long wait for the steamer. I now had in my
pocket just twelve dollars, but possessed a return ticket on one of
the boats. This ticket was not good on any other boat, and naturally
I felt considerable anxiety for fear it would not turn up. My dinner
consisted of moose steak, potatoes, and bread, and was most
thoroughly enjoyed.
At last the steamer came, but it was not the one on which I had
secured passage, and as it took almost my last dollar to pay for deck
passage thereon, I lived on some small cakes of my own baking, which
I carried in a bag. I was now in a sad predicament unless I should
connect at Lake Bennett with some one who would carry my outfit back
to Skagway on credit. I ate my stale cakes and drank lake water, and
thus fooled the little Jap steward out of two dollars. It was a sad
business, but unavoidable.
The lake being smooth, the trip consumed but thirteen hours, and we
arrived at Bennett Lake late at night. Hoisting my bed and luggage to
my shoulder, I went up on the side-hill like a stray dog, and made my
bed down on the sand beside a cart, near a shack. The wind, cold and
damp, swept over the mountains with a roar. I was afraid the owners
of the cart might discover me there, and order me to seek a bed
elsewhere. Dogs sniffed around me during the night, but on the whole
I slept very well. I could feel the sand blowing over me in the wild
gusts of wind which relented not in all my stay at Bennett City.
I spent literally the last cent I had on a scanty breakfast, and
then, in company with Doctor G. (a fellow prospector), started on my
return to the coast over the far-famed Chilcoot Pass.
At 9 A.M. we took the little ferry for the head of Lindernan Lake.
The doctor paid my fare. The boat, a wabbly craft, was crowded with
returning Klondikers, many of whom were full of importance and talk
of their wealth; while others, sick and worn, with a wistful gleam in
their eyes, seemed eager to get back to civilization and medical
care. There were some women, also, who had made a fortune in
dance-houses and were now bound for New York and Paris, where dresses
could be had in the latest styles and in any quantities.
My travelling mate, the doctor, was a tall and vigorous man from
Winnipeg, accustomed to a plainsman's life, hardy and resolute. He
said, "We ought to make Dyea to-day." I said in reply, "Very well, we
can try."
It was ten o'clock when we left the little boat and hit the trail,
which was thirty miles long, and passed over the summit three
thousand six hundred feet above the sea. The doctor's pace was
tremendous, and we soon left every one else behind.
I carried my big coat and camera, which hindered me not a little. For
the first part of the journey the doctor preceded me, his broad
shoulders keeping off the powerful wind and driving mist, which grew
thicker as we rose among the ragged cliffs beside a roaring stream.
That walk was a grim experience. Until two o'clock we climbed
resolutely along a rough, rocky, and wooded trail, with the heavy
mist driving into our faces. The road led up a rugged cañon and over
a fairly good wagon road until somewhere about twelve o'clock. Then
the foot trail deflected to the left, and climbed sharply over
slippery ledges, along banks of ancient snows in which carcasses of
horses lay embedded, and across many rushing little streams. The way
grew grimmer each step. At last we came to Crater Lake, and from that
point on it was a singular and sinister land of grassless crags
swathed in mist. Nothing could be seen at this point but a desolate,
flat expanse of barren sands over which gray-green streams wandered
in confusion, coming from darkness and vanishing in obscurity.
Strange shapes showed in the gray dusk of the Crater. It was like a
landscape in hell. It seemed to be the end of the earth, where no
life had ever been or could long exist.
Across this flat to its farther wall we took our way, facing the
roaring wind now heavy with clouds of rain. At last we stood in the
mighty notch of the summit, through which the wind rushed as though
hurrying to some far-off, deep-hidden vacuum in the world. The peaks
of the mountains were lost in clouds out of which water fell in
vicious slashes.
The mist set the imagination free. The pinnacles around us were like
those which top the Valley of Desolation. We seemed each moment about
to plunge into ladderless abysses. Nothing ever imagined by Poe or
Doré could be more singular, more sinister, than these summits in
such a light, in such a storm. It might serve as the scene for an
exiled devil. The picture of Beelzebub perched on one of those gray,
dimly seen crags, his form outlined in the mist, would shake the
heart. I thought of "Peer Gynt" wandering in the high home of the
Trolls. Crags beetled beyond crags, and nothing could be heard but
the wild waters roaring in the obscure depths beneath our feet. There
was no sky, no level place, no growing thing, no bird or beast,--only
crates of bones to show where some heartless master had pushed a
faithful horse up these terrible heights to his death.
And here--just here in a world of crags and mist--I heard a shout of
laughter, and then bursting upon my sight, strong-limbed, erect, and
full-bosomed, appeared a girl. Her face was like a rain-wet rose--a
splendid, unexpected flower set in this dim and gray and desolate
place. Fearlessly she fronted me to ask the way, a laugh upon her
lips, her big gray eyes confident of man's chivalry, modest and
sincere. I had been so long among rude men and their coarse consorts
that this fair woman lit the mist as if with sudden sunshine--just a
moment and was gone. There were others with her, but they passed
unnoticed. There in the gloom, like a stately pink rose, I set the
Girl of the Mist.
Sheep Camp was the end of the worst portion of the trail. I had now
crossed both the famed passes, much improved of course. They are no
longer dangerous (a woman in good health can cross them easily), but
they are grim and grievous ways. They reek of cruelty and every
association that is coarse and hard. They possess a peculiar value to
me in that they throw into fadeless splendor the wealth, the calm,
the golden sunlight which lay upon the proud beauty of Atlin Lake.
The last hours of the trip formed a supreme test of endurance. At
Sheep Camp, a wet and desolate shanty town, eight miles from Dyea, we
came upon stages just starting over our road. But as they were all
open carriages, and we were both wet with perspiration and rain, and
hungry and tired, we refused to book passage.
"To ride eight miles in an open wagon would mean a case of pneumonia
to me," I said.
"Quite right," said the doctor, and we pulled out down the road at a
smart clip.
The rain had ceased, but the air was raw and the sky gray, and I was
very tired, and those eight miles stretched out like a rubber string.
Night fell before we had passed over half the road, which lay for the
most part down the flat along the Chilcoot River. In fact, we crossed
this stream again and again. In places there were bridges, but most
of the crossings were fords where it was necessary to wade through
the icy water above our shoe tops. Our legs, numb and weary, threw
off this chill with greater pain each time. As the night fell we
could only see the footpath by the dim shine of its surface patted
smooth by the moccasined feet of the Indian packers. At last I walked
with a sort of mechanical action which was dependent on my
subconscious will. There was nothing else to do but to go through.
The doctor was a better walker than I. His long legs had more reach
as well as greater endurance. Nevertheless he admitted being about as
tired as ever in his life.
At last, when it seemed as though I could not wade any more of those
icy streams and continue to walk, we came in sight of the electric
lights on the wharfs of Dyea, sparkling like jewels against the gray
night. Their radiant promise helped over the last mile miraculously.
We were wet to the knees and covered with mud as we entered upon the
straggling street of the decaying town. We stopped in at the first
restaurant to get something hot to eat, but found ourselves almost
too tired to enjoy even pea soup. But it warmed us up a little, and
keeping on down the street we came at last to a hotel of very
comfortable accommodations. We ordered a fire built to dry our
clothing, and staggered up the stairs.
That ended the goldseekers' trail for me. Henceforward I intended to
ride--nevertheless I was pleased to think I could still walk thirty
miles in eleven hours through a rain storm, and over a summit three
thousand six hundred feet in height. The city had not entirely eaten
the heart out of my body.
We arose from a dreamless sleep, somewhat sore, but in amazingly good
trim considering our condition the night before, and made our way
into our muddy clothing with grim resolution. After breakfast we took
a small steamer which ran to Skagway, where we spent the day
arranging to take the steamer to the south. We felt quite at home in
Skagway now, and Chicago seemed not very far away. Having made
connection with my bankers I stretched out in my twenty-five cent
bunk with the assurance of a gold king.
Here the long trail took a turn. I had been among the miners and
hunters for four months. I had been one of them. I had lived the
essentials of their lives, and had been able to catch from them some
hint of their outlook on life. They were a disappointment to me in
some ways. They seemed like mechanisms. They moved as if drawn by
some great magnet whose centre was Dawson City. They appeared to
drift on and in toward that human maelstrom going irresolutely to
their ruin. They did not seem to me strong men--on the contrary, they
seemed weak men--or men strong with one insane purpose. They set
their faces toward the golden north, and went on and on through every
obstacle like men dreaming, like somnambulists--bending their backs
to the most crushing burdens, their faces distorted with effort. "On
to Dawson!" "To the Klondike!" That was all they knew.
I overtook them in the Fraser River Valley, I found them in Hazleton.
They were setting sail at Bennett, tugging oars on the Hotalinqua,
and hundreds of them were landing every day at Dawson, there to stand
with lax jaws waiting for something to turn up--lost among thousands
of their kind swarming in with the same insane purpose.
Skagway was to me a sad place. On either side rose green mountains
covered with crawling glaciers. Between these stern walls, a cold and
violent wind roared ceaselessly from the sea gates through which the
ships drive hurriedly. All these grim presences depressed me. I
longed for release from them. I waited with impatience the coming of
the steamer which was to rescue me from the merciless beach.
At last it came, and its hoarse boom thrilled the heart of many a
homesick man like myself. We had not much to put aboard, and when I
climbed the gang-plank it was with a feeling of fortunate escape.
A GIRL ON THE TRAIL
A flutter of skirts in the dapple of leaves on the trees,
The sound of a small, happy voice on the breeze,
The print of a slim little foot on the trail,
And the miners rejoice as they hammer with picks in
the vale.
For fairer than gold is the face of a maid,
And sovereign as stars the light of her eyes;
For women alone were the long trenches laid;
For women alone they defy the stern skies.
These toilers are grimy, and hairy, and dun
With the wear of the wind, the scorch of the sun;
But their picks fall slack, their foul tongues are mute--
As the maiden goes by these earthworms salute!
CHAPTER XXIV
HOMEWARD BOUND
The steamer was crowded with men who had also made the turn at the
end of the trail. There were groups of prospectors (disappointed and
sour) from Copper River, where neither copper nor gold had been
found. There were miners sick and broken who had failed on the
Tanana, and others, emaciated and eager-eyed, from Dawson City going
out with a part of the proceeds of the year's work to see their wives
and children. There were a few who considered themselves great
capitalists, and were on their way to spend the winter in luxury in
the Eastern cities, and there were grub stakers who had squandered
their employers' money in drink and gaming.
None of them interested me very greatly. I was worn out with the
filth and greed and foolishness of many of these men. They were
commonplace citizens, turned into stampeders without experience or
skill.
One of the most successful men on the boat had been a truckman in the
streets of Tacoma, and was now the silly possessor of a one-third
interest in some great mines on the Klondike River. He told every one
of his great deeds, and what he was worth. He let us know how big
his house was, and how much he paid for his piano. He was not a bad
man, he was merely a cheap man, and was followed about by a gang of
heelers to whom drink was luxury and vice an entertainment. These
parasites slapped the teamster on the shoulder and listened to every
empty phrase he uttered, as though his gold had made of him something
sacred and omniscient.
I had no interest in him till being persuaded to play the fiddle he
sat in the "social room," and sawed away on "Honest John," "The
Devil's Dream," "Haste to the Wedding," and "The Fisher's Hornpipe."
He lost all sense of being a millionnaire, and returned to his
simple, unsophisticated self. The others cheered him because he had
gold. I cheered him because he was a good old "corduroy fiddler."
Again we passed between the lofty blue-black and bronze-green walls
of Lynn Canal. The sea was cold, placid, and gray. The mist cut the
mountains at the shoulder. Vast glaciers came sweeping down from the
dread mystery of the upper heights. Lower still lines of running
water white as silver came leaping down from cliff to cliff--slender,
broken of line, nearly perpendicular--to fall at last into the gray
hell of the sea.
It was a sullen land which menaced as with lowering brows and
clenched fists. A landscape without delicacy of detail or warmth or
variety of color--a land demanding young, cheerful men. It was no
place for the old or for women.
As we neared Wrangell the next afternoon I tackled the purser about
carrying my horse. He had no room, so I left the boat in order to
wait for another with better accommodations for Ladrone.
Almost the first man I met on the wharf was Donald.
"How's the horse?" I queried.
"Gude!--fat and sassy. There's no a fence in a' the town can hold
him. He jumped into Colonel Crittendon's garden patch, and there's a
dollar to pay for the cauliflower he ate, and he broke down a fence
by the church, ye've to fix that up--but he's in gude trim himsel'."
"Tell 'm to send in their bills," I replied with vast relief. "Has he
been much trouble to you?"
"Verra leetle except to drive into the lot at night. I had but to go
down where he was feeding and soon as he heard me comin' he made for
the lot--he knew quite as well as I did what was wanted of him. He's
a canny old boy."
As I walked out to find the horse I discovered his paths everywhere.
He had made himself entirely at home. He owned the village and was
able to walk any sidewalk in town. Everybody knew his habits. He
drank in a certain place, and walked a certain round of daily
feeding. The children all cried out at me: "Goin' to find the horsie?
He's over by the church." A darky woman smiled from the door of a
cabin and said, "You ole hoss lookin' mighty fine dese days."
When I came to him I was delighted and amused. He had taken on some
fat and a great deal of dirt. He had also acquired an aldermanic
paunch which quite destroyed his natural symmetry of body, but he
was well and strong and lively. He seemed to recognize me, and as I
put the rope about his neck and fell to in the effort to make him
clean once more, he seemed glad of my presence.
That day began my attempt to get away. I carted out my feed and
saddles, and when all was ready I sat on the pier and watched the
burnished water of the bay for the dim speck which a steamer makes in
rounding the distant island. At last the cry arose, "A steamer from
the north!" I hurried for Ladrone, and as I passed with the horse the
citizens smiled incredulously and asked, "Goin' to take the horse
with you, eh?"
The boys and girls came out to say good-by to the horse on whose back
they had ridden. Ladrone followed me most trustfully, looking
straight ahead, his feet clumping loudly on the boards of the walk.
Hitching him on the wharf I lugged and heaved and got everything in
readiness.
In vain! The steamer had no place for my horse and I was forced to
walk him back and turn him loose once more upon the grass. I renewed
my watching. The next steamer did not touch at the same wharf.
Therefore I carted all my goods, feed, hay, and general plunder,
around to the other wharf. As I toiled to and fro the citizens began
to smile very broadly. I worked like a hired man in harvest. At last,
horse, feed, and baggage were once more ready. When the next boat
came in I timidly approached the purser.
No, he had no place for me but would take my horse! Once more I led
Ladrone back to pasture and the citizens laughed most unconcealedly.
They laid bets on my next attempt. In McKinnon's store I was greeted
as a permanent citizen of Fort Wrangell. I began to grow nervous on
my own account. Was I to remain forever in Wrangell? The bay was most
beautiful, but the town was wretched. It became each day more
unendurable to me. I searched the waters of the bay thereafter, with
gaze that grew really anxious. I sat for hours late at night holding
my horse and glaring out into the night in the hope to see the lights
of a steamer appear round the high hills of the coast.
At last the _Forallen_, a great barnyard of a ship, came in. I met
the captain. I paid my fare. I got my contract and ticket, and
leading Ladrone into the hoisting box I stepped aside.
The old boy was quiet while I stood near, but when the whistle
sounded and the sling rose in air leaving me below, his big eyes
flashed with fear and dismay. He struggled furiously for a moment and
then was quiet. A moment later he dropped into the hold and was safe.
He thought himself in a barn once more, and when I came hurrying down
the stairway he whinnied. He seized the hay I put before him and
thereafter was quite at home.
The steamer had a score of mules and work horses on board, but they
occupied stalls on the upper deck, leaving Ladrone aristocratically
alone in his big, well-ventilated barn, and there three times each
day I went to feed and water him. I rubbed him with hay till his coat
began to glimmer in the light and planned what I could do to help
him through a storm. Fortunately the ocean was perfectly smooth even
across the entrance to Queen Charlotte's Sound, where the open sea
enters and the big swells are sometimes felt. Ladrone never knew he
was moving at all.
The mate of the boat took unusual interest in the horse because of
his deeds and my care of him.
Meanwhile I was hearing from time to time of my fellow-sufferers on
the Long Trail. It was reported in Wrangell that some of the
unfortunates were still on the snowy divide between the Skeena and
the Stikeen. That terrible trail will not soon be forgotten by any
one who traversed it.
On the fifth day we entered Seattle and once more the sling-box
opened its doors for Ladrone. This time he struggled not at all. He
seemed to say: "I know this thing. I tried it once and it didn't hurt
me--I'm not afraid."
Now this horse belongs to the wild country. He was born on the
bunch-grass hills of British Columbia and he had never seen a
street-car in his life. Engines he knew something about, but not
much. Steamboats and ferries he knew a great deal about; but all the
strange monsters and diabolical noises of a city street were new to
him, and it was with some apprehension that I took his rein to lead
him down to the freight depot and his car.
Again this wonderful horse amazed me. He pointed his alert and
quivering ears at me and followed with never so much as a single
start or shying bound. He seemed to reason that as I had led him
through many dangers safely I could still be trusted. Around us huge
trucks rattled, electric cars clanged, railway engines whizzed and
screamed, but Ladrone never so much as tightened the rein; and when
in the dark of the chute (which led to the door of the car) he put
his soft nose against me to make sure I was still with him, my heart
grew so tender that I would not have left him behind for a thousand
dollars.
I put him in a roomy box-car and bedded him knee-deep in clean yellow
straw. I padded the hitching pole with his blanket, moistened his
hay, and put some bran before him. Then I nailed him in and took my
leave of him with some nervous dread, for the worst part of his
journey was before him. He must cross three great mountain ranges and
ride eight days, over more than two thousand miles of railway. I
could not well go with him, but I planned to overhaul him at Spokane
and see how he was coming on.
I did not sleep much that night. I recalled how the great forest
trees were blazing last year when I rode over this same track. I
thought of the sparks flying from the engine, and how easy it would
be for a single cinder to fall in the door and set all that dry straw
ablaze. I was tired and my mind conjured up such dire images as men
dream of after indigestible dinners.
O THE FIERCE DELIGHT
O the fierce delight, the passion
That comes from the wild,
Where the rains and the snows go over,
And man is a child.
Go, set your face to the open,
And lay your breast to the blast,
When the pines are rocking and groaning,
And the rent clouds tumble past.
Go swim the streams of the mountains,
Where the gray-white waters are mad,
Go set your foot on the summit,
And shout and be glad!
CHAPTER XXV
LADRONE TRAVELS IN STATE
With a little leisure to walk about and talk with the citizens of
Seattle, I became aware of a great change since the year before. The
boom of the goldseeker was over. The talk was more upon the Spanish
war; the business of outfitting was no longer paramount; the reckless
hurrah, the splendid exultation, were gone. Men were sailing to the
north, but they embarked, methodically, in business fashion.
It is safe to say that the north will never again witness such a
furious rush of men as that which took place between August, '97, and
June, '98. Gold is still there, and it will continue to be sought,
but the attention of the people is directed elsewhere. In Seattle, as
all along the line, the talk a year ago had been almost entirely on
gold hunting. Every storekeeper advertised Klondike goods, but these
signs were now rusty and faded. The fever was over, the reign of the
humdrum was restored.
Taking the train next day, I passed Ladrone in the night somewhere,
and as I looked from my window at the great fires blazing in the
forest, my fear of his burning came upon me again. At Spokane I
waited with great anxiety for him to arrive. At last the train drew
in and I hurried to his car. The door was closed, and as I nervously
forced it open he whinnied with that glad chuckling a gentle horse
uses toward his master. He had plenty of hay, but was hot and
thirsty, and I hurried at risk of life and limb to bring him cool
water. His eyes seemed to shine with delight as he saw me coming with
the big bucket of cool drink. Leaving him a tub of water, I bade him
good-by once more and started him for Helena, five hundred miles
away.
At Missoula, the following evening, I rushed into the ticket office
and shouted, "Where is '54'?"
The clerk knew me and smilingly extended his hand.
"How de do? She has just pulled out. The horse is all OK. We gave him
fresh water and feed."
I thanked him and returned to my train.
Reaching Livingston in the early morning I was forced to wait nearly
all day for the train. This was no hardship, however, for it enabled
me to return once more to the plain. All the old familiar presences
were there. The splendid sweep of brown, smooth hills, the glory of
clear sky, the crisp exhilarating air, appealed to me with great
power after my long stay in the cold, green mountains of the north.
I walked out a few miles from the town over the grass brittle and
hot, from which the clapping grasshoppers rose in swarms, and
dropping down on the point of a mesa I relived again in drowse the
joys of other days. It was plain to me that goldseeking in the Rocky
Mountains was marvellously simple and easy compared to even the best
sections of the Northwest, and the long journey of the Forty-niners
was not only incredibly more splendid and dramatic, but had the
allurement of a land of eternal summer beyond the final great range.
The long trail I had just passed was not only grim and monotonous,
but led toward an ever increasing ferocity of cold and darkness to
the arctic circle and the silence of death.
When the train came crawling down the pink and purple slopes of the
hills at sunset that night, I was ready for my horse. Bridle in hand
I raced after the big car while it was being drawn up into the
freight yards. As I galloped I held excited controversy with the head
brakeman. I asked that the car be sent to the platform. He objected.
I insisted and the car was thrown in. I entered, and while Ladrone
whinnied glad welcome I knocked out some bars, bridled him, and said,
"Come, boy, now for a gambol." He followed me without the slightest
hesitation out on the platform and down the steep slope to the
ground. There I mounted him without waiting for saddle and away we
flew.
He was gay as a bird. His neck arched and his eyes and ears were
quick as squirrels. We galloped down to the Yellowstone River and
once more he thrust his dusty nozzle deep into the clear mountain
water. Then away he raced until our fifteen minutes were up. I was
glad to quit. He was too active for me to enjoy riding without a
saddle. Right up to the door of the car he trotted, seeming to
understand that his journey was not yet finished. He entered
unhesitatingly and took his place. I battened down the bars, nailed
the doors into place, filled his tub with cold water, mixed him a
bran mash, and once more he rolled away. I sent him on this time,
however, with perfect confidence. He was actually getting fat on his
prison fare, and was too wise to allow himself to be bruised by the
jolting of the cars.
The bystanders seeing a horse travelling in such splendid loneliness
asked, "Runnin' horse?" and I (to cover my folly) replied evasively,
"He can run a little for good money." This satisfied every one that
he was a sprinter and quite explained his private car.
At Bismarck I found myself once more ahead of "54" and waited all day
for the horse to appear. As the time of the train drew near I
borrowed a huge water pail and tugged a supply of water out beside
the track and there sat for three hours, expecting the train each
moment. At last it came, but Ladrone was not there. His car was
missing. I rushed into the office of the operator: "Where's the horse
in '13,238'?" I asked.
"I don't know," answered the agent, in the tone of one who didn't
care.
Visions of Ladrone side-tracked somewhere and perishing for want of
air and water filled my mind. I waxed warm.
"That horse must be found at once," I said. The clerks and operators
wearily looked out of the window. The idea of any one being so
concerned about a horse was to them insanity or worse. I insisted. I
banged my fist on the table. At last one of the young men yawned
languidly, looked at me with dim eyes, and as one brain-cell
coalesced with another seemed to mature an idea. He said:--
"Rheinhart had a horse this morning on his extra."
"Did he--maybe that's the one." They discussed this probability with
lazy indifference. At last they condescended to include me in their
conversation.
I insisted on their telegraphing till they found that horse, and with
an air of distress and saint-like patience the agent wrote out a
telegram and sent it. Thereafter he could not see me; nevertheless I
persisted. I returned to the office each quarter of an hour to ask if
an answer had come to the telegram. At last it came. Ladrone was
ahead and would arrive in St. Paul nearly twelve hours before me. I
then telegraphed the officers of the road to see that he did not
suffer and composed myself as well as I could for the long wait.
At St. Paul I hurried to the freight office and found the horse had
been put in a stable. I sought the stable, and there, among the big
dray horses, looking small and trim as a racer, was the lost horse,
eating merrily on some good Minnesota timothy. He was just as much at
ease there as in the car or the boat or on the marshes of the Skeena
valley, but he was still a half-day's ride from his final home.
I bustled about filling up another car. Again for the last time I
sweated and tugged getting feed, water, and bedding. Again the
railway hands marvelled and looked askance. Again some one said,
"Does it pay to bring a horse like that so far?"
"Pay!" I shouted, thoroughly disgusted, "does it pay to feed a dog
for ten years? Does it pay to ride a bicycle? Does it pay to bring up
a child? Pay--no; it does not pay. I'm amusing myself. You drink beer
because you like to, you use tobacco--I squander my money on a
horse." I said a good deal more than the case demanded, being hot and
dusty and tired and--I had broken loose. The clerk escaped through a
side door.
Once more I closed the bars on the gray and saw him wheeled out into
the grinding, jolting tangle of cars where the engines cried out like
some untamable flesh-eating monsters. The light was falling, the
smoke thickening, and it was easy to imagine a tragic fate for the
patient and lonely horse.
Delay in getting the car made me lose my train and I was obliged to
take a late train which did not stop at my home. I was still paying
for my horse out of my own bone and sinew. At last the luscious green
hills, the thick grasses, the tall corn-shocks and the portly
hay-stacks of my native valley came in view and they never looked so
abundant, so generous, so entirely sufficing to man and beast as now
in returning from a land of cold green forests, sparse grass, and icy
streams.
At ten o'clock another huge freight train rolled in, Ladrone's car
was side-tracked and sent to the chute. For the last time he felt the
jolt of the car. In a few minutes I had his car opened and a plank
laid.
"Come, boy!" I called. "This is home."
He followed me as before, so readily, so trustingly, my heart
responded to his affection. I swung to the saddle. With neck arched
high and with a proud and lofty stride he left the door of his prison
behind him. His fame had spread through the village. On every corner
stood the citizens to see him pass.
As I opened the door to the barn I said to him:--
"Enter! Your days of thirst, of hunger, of cruel exposure to rain and
snow are over. Here is food that shall not fail," and he seemed to
understand.
It might seem absurd if I were to give expression to the relief and
deep pleasure it gave me to put that horse into that familiar stall.
He had been with me more than four thousand miles. He had carried me
through hundreds of icy streams and over snow fields. He had
responded to every word and obeyed every command. He had suffered
from cold and hunger and poison. He had walked logs and wallowed
through quicksands. He had helped me up enormous mountains and I had
guided him down dangerous declivities. His faithful heart had never
failed even in days of direst need, and now he shall live amid plenty
and have no care so long as he lives. It does not pay,--that is
sure,--but after all what does pay?
THE LURE OF THE DESERT
I lie in my blanket, alone, alone!
Hearing the voice of the roaring rain,
And my heart is moved by the wind's low moan
To wander the wastes of the wind-worn plain,
Searching for something--I cannot tell--
The face of a woman, the love of a child--
Or only the rain-wet prairie swell
Or the savage woodland wide and wild.
I must go away--I know not where!
Lured by voices that cry and cry,
Drawn by fingers that clutch my hair,
Called to the mountains bleak and high,
Led to the mesas hot and bare.
O God! How my heart's blood wakes and thrills
To the cry of the wind, the lure of the hills.
I'll follow you, follow you far;
Ye voices of winds, and rain and sky,
To the peaks that shatter the evening star.
Wealth, honor, wife, child--all
I have in the city's keep,
I loose and forget when ye call and call
And the desert winds around me sweep.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE GOLDSEEKERS REACH THE GOLDEN RIVER
The goldseekers are still seeking. I withdrew, but they went on. In
the warmth and security of my study, surrounded by the peace and
comfort of my native Coolly, I thought of them as they went toiling
over the trail, still toward the north. It was easy for me to imagine
their daily life. The Manchester boys and Burton, my partner, left
Glenora with ten horses and more than two thousand pounds of
supplies.
Twice each day this immense load had to be handled; sometimes in
order to rest and graze the ponies, every sack and box had to be
taken down and lifted up to their lashings again four times each day.
This meant toil. It meant also constant worry and care while the
train was in motion. Three times each day a campfire was built and
coffee and beans prepared.
However, the weather continued fair, my partner wrote me, and they
arrived at Teslin Lake in September, after being a month on the road,
and there set about building a boat to carry them down the river.
Here the horses were sold, and I know it must have been a sad moment
for Burton to say good-by to his faithful brutes. But there was no
help for it. There was no more thought of going to the head-waters
of the Pelly and no more use for the horses. Indeed, the gold-hunters
abandoned all thought of the Nisutlin and the Hotalinqua. They were
fairly in the grasp of the tremendous current which seemed to get
ever swifter as it approached the mouth of the Klondike River. They
were mad to reach the pool wherein all the rest of the world was
fishing. Nothing less would satisfy them.
At last they cast loose from the shore and started down the river,
straight into the north. Each hour, each mile, became a menace. Day
by day they drifted while the spitting snows fell hissing into the
cold water, and ice formed around the keel of the boat at night. They
passed men camped and panning dirt, but continued resolute, halting
only "to pass the good word."
It grew cold with appalling rapidity and the sun fell away to the
south with desolating speed. The skies darkened and lowered as the
days shortened. All signs of life except those of other argonauts
disappeared. The river filled with drifting ice, and each night
landing became more difficult.
At last the winter came. The river closed up like an iron trap, and
before they knew it they were caught in the jam of ice and fighting
for their lives. They landed on a wooded island after a desperate
struggle and went into camp with the thermometer thirty below zero.
But what of that? They were now in the gold belt. After six months of
incessant toil, of hope deferred, they were at last on the spot
toward which they had struggled.
All around them was the overflow from the Klondike. Their desire to
go farther was checked. They had reached the counter current--the
back-water--and were satisfied.
Leaving to others the task of building a permanent camp, my sturdy
partner, a couple of days later, started prospecting in company with
two others whom he had selected to represent the other outfit. The
thermometer was fifty-six degrees below zero, and yet for seven days,
with less than six hours' sleep, without a tent, those devoted idiots
hunted the sands of a near-by creek for gold, and really staked
claims.
On the way back one of the men grew sleepy and would have lain down
to die except for the vigorous treatment of Burton, who mauled him
and dragged him about and rubbed him with snow until his blood began
to circulate once more. In attempting to walk on the river, which was
again in motion, Burton fell through, wetting one leg above the knee.
It was still more than thirty degrees below zero, but what of that?
He merely kept going.
They reached the bank opposite the camp late on the seventh day, but
were unable to cross the moving ice. For the eighth night they
"danced around the fire as usual," not daring to sleep for fear of
freezing. They literally frosted on one side while scorching at the
fire on the other, turning like so many roasting pigs before the
blaze. The river solidified during the night and they crossed to the
camp to eat and sleep in safety.
A couple of weeks later they determined to move down the river to a
new stampede in Thistle Creek. Once more these indomitable souls
left their warm cabin, took up their beds and nearly two thousand
pounds of outfit and toiled down the river still farther into the
terrible north. The chronicle of this trip by Burton is of
mathematical brevity: "On 20th concluded to move. Took four days.
Very cold. Ther. down to 45 below. Froze one toe. Got claim--now
building cabin. Expect to begin singeing in a few days."
The toil, the suffering, the monotonous food, the lack of fire, he
did not dwell upon, but singeing, that is to say burning down through
the eternally frozen ground, was to begin at once. To singe a hole
into the soil ten or fifteen feet deep in the midst of the sunless
seventy of the arctic circle is no light task, but these men will do
it; if hardihood and honest toil are of any avail they will all share
in the precious sand whose shine has lured them through all the dark
days of the long trail, calling with such power that nothing could
stay them or turn them aside.
If they fail, well--
This out of all will remain,
They have lived and have tossed.
So much of the game will be gain,
Though the gold of the dice has been lost.
HERE THE TRAIL ENDS
Here the trail ends--Here by a river
So swifter, and darker, and colder
Than any we crossed on our long, long way.
Steady, Dan, steady. Ho, there, my dapple,
You first from the saddle shall slip and be free.
Now go, you are clear from command of a master;
Go wade in the grasses, go munch at the grain.
I love you, my faithful, but all is now over;
Ended the comradeship held 'twixt us twain.
I go to the river and the wide lands beyond it,
You go to the pasture, and death claims us all.
_For here the trail ends!_
_Here the trail ends!_
Draw near with the broncos.
Slip the hitch, loose the cinches,
Slide the saw-bucks away from each worn, weary back.
We are done with the axe, the camp, and the kettle;
Strike hand to each cayuse and send him away.
Let them go where the roses and grasses are growing,
To the meadows that slope to the warm western sea.
No more shall they serve us; no more shall they suffer
The sting of the lash, the heat of the day.
Soon they will go to a winterless haven,
To the haven of beasts where none may enslave.
_For here the trail ends_.
_Here the trail ends._
Never again shall the far-shining mountains allure us,
No more shall the icy mad torrents appall.
Fold up the sling ropes, coil down the cinches,
Cache the saddles, and put the brown bridles away.
Not one of the roses of Navajo silver,
Not even a spur shall we save from the rust.
Put away the worn tent-cloth, let the red people have it;
We are done with all shelter, we are done with the gun.
Not so much as a pine branch, not even a willow
Shall swing in the air 'twixt us and our God.
Naked and lone we cross the wide ferry,
Bare to the cold, the dark and the rain.
_For here the trail ends._
_Here the trail ends._ Here by the landing
I wait the last boat, the slow silent one.
We each go alone--no man with another,
Each into the gloom of the swift black flood--
Boys, it is hard, but here we must scatter;
The gray boatman waits, and I--I go first.
All is dark over there where the dim boat is rocking--
But that is no matter! No man need to fear;
For clearly we're told the powers that lead us
Shall govern the game to the end of the day.
_Good-by--here the trail ends!_
* * * * *
WORKS BY
GILBERT PARKER
16mo. Cloth. Each, $1.25.
PIERRE AND HIS PEOPLE.
WHEN VALMOND CAME TO PONTIAC.
AN ADVENTURER OF THE NORTH.
A ROMANY OF THE SNOWS.
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--_St. James Gazette._
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--_Daily Telegraph,_ London.
PUBLISHED BY
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