The Trail of the Goldseekers Page 17
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!
&
nbsp; 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.