The Trail of the Goldseekers Page 10

  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 covere
d 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.