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Ebook has 1060 lines and 45933 words, and 22 pages

"Soon as ever the ground froze we began to sink. In those days steam thawers wasn't dreamed of, so we slid wood down from the hills, and burned the ground with fires. It's slow work, and we didn't catch bed-rock till December, but when we did we struck it right. Four feet of ten-cent dirt was what she averaged. Big? Well, I wonder! It near drove Morrow crazy.

"'Billy, old boy, this means I'll see her next summer!'

"Whenever he mentioned her name, he spoke like a man in church or out of breath. Somehow it made me feel like takin' off my cap--forty below at that, and my ears freeze terrible willing since that winter on the Porcupine.

"That evening, when I wasn't looking, he sneaked the locket out of his shirt and stared at it, famished. Then he kissed it, if you might rehabilitate such a scandalous, hold-fast-for-the-corner performance by that name.

"'I must let her know right away,' says he. 'How can I do it?'

"He was a wise one, too. I've seen him stirring dog-feed with one hand and spouting 'Gray's Elegy' with the other. I picked up a heap of knowledge from him, for he had American history pat. One story I liked particular was concerning the origin of placer mining in this country, about a Greaser, Jason Somebody, who got the gold fever and grub-staked a mob he called the Augerknots--carpenters, I judge, from the mess they made of it. They chartered a schooner and prospected along Asy Miner, wherever that is. I never seen any boys from there, but the formation was wrong, like Texas, probably, 'cause they sort of drifted into the sheep business. Of course, that was a long ways back, before the '49 rush, but the way he told it was great.

"Well, two weeks after Windy left we worked out of that rich spot and drifted into barren ground. Instead of a fortune, we'd sunk onto the only yellow spot in the whole claim. We cross-cut in three places, and never raised a colour, but we kept gophering around till March, in hopes.

"'Why did I write that letter?' he asked one day. 'I'd give anything to stop it before it gets out. Think of her disappointment when she hears I'm broke!'

"'It means another whole season,' he says. 'I wanted to see them this summer, or bring them in next fall.'

"'Sufferin' sluice-boxes! Are you plumb daffy? Bring a woman into the Yukon--and a little baby.'

"'She'd follow me anywhere. She's awful proud; proud as a Kentucky girl can be, and those people would make your uncle Lucifer look like a cringing cripple, but she'd live in an Indian hut with me.'

"'Sure! And follerin' out the simile, nobody but a Siwash would let her. If she don't like some other feller better while you're gone, what're you scared about?'

"He never answered; just looked at me pityfyin', as much as to say, 'Well, you poor, drivelin, old polyp!'

"One day Denny, the squaw-man, drove up the creek:

"'Windy Jim is back with the mail,' says he, and we hit for camp on the run. Only fifteen mile, she is, but I was all in when we got there, keepin' up with Justus. His eyes outshone the snow-glitter and he sang--all the time he wasn't roasting me for being so slow--claimed I was active as a toad-stool. A man ain't got no license to excite hisself unless he's struck pay dirt--or got a divorce.

"'Gi'me my mail, quick!' he says to Windy, who had tinkered up a one-night stand post-office and dealt out letters, at five dollars per let.'

"'Nothing doing,' says Windy.

"'Oh, yes there is,' he replies, still smiling; 'she writes me every week.'

"'I got all there was at Dawson,' Windy give back, 'and there ain't a thing for you!'

"I consider the tragedy of this north country lies in its mail service. Uncle Sam institutes rural deliveries, so the bolomen can register poisoned arrowheads to the Igorrotes in exchange for recipes to make roulade of naval officer, but his American miners in Alaska go shy on home news for eight months every year.

"That was the last mail we had till June.

"When the river broke we cleaned up one hundred and eighty-seven dollars' worth of lovely, yellow dust, and seven hundred and thirty-five dollars in beautiful yellow bills from the post.

"The first boat down from Dawson brought mail, and I stood beside him when he got his. He shook so he held on to the purser's window. Instead of a stack of squares overrun with female chiropody, there was only one for him--a long, hungry sport, with indications of a law firm in the northwest corner. It charmed him like a rattler. He seemed scared to open it. Two or three times he tried and stopped.

"'They're dead,' thinks I; and, sure enough, when he'd looked, I knew it was so, and felt for his hand. Sympathy don't travel by word of mouth between pardners. It's the grip of the hand or the look of the eye.

"He turned, and s'help me, I never want to see the like again. His face was plumb grey and dead, like wet ashes, while his eyes scorched through, all dry and hot. Lines was sinkin' into it as I looked.

"God knows what that boy suffered the next few weeks, but he fought it out alone. She was proud, but he was prouder. Her silence hurt him the worst, of course; but what could he do? Go to her? Fine! Both of us broke and in debt. Also, there's such a thing as diggin' deep enough to scrape the varnish off of a man's self-respect, leavin' it raw and shrinking. No! He done like you or me--let her have her way. He took off the locket and hid it, and I never heard her name mentioned for a year.

"I'd been up creek for a whip-saw one day, and as I came back I heard voices in the cabin. 'Some musher out from town,' thinks I, till something in their tones made me stop in my tracks.

"I could hear the boy's voice, hoarse and throbbing, as though he dragged words out bleeding, then I heard the other one laugh--a nasty, sneering laugh that ended in a choking rattle, like a noose had tightened on his throat.

"I jumped for the door, and rounding the corner, something near took me off my feet; something that shot through the air, all pretty and knickerbockery, with a two-faced cap, and nice brown leggin's. Also, a little camera was harnessed to it by tugs. It arose, displaying the face of R. Alonzo Struthers, black and swollen, with chips stickin' in it where he'd hit the woodpile. He glared at Morrow, and his lips foamed like a crab out of water.

"'I hope I'm not intrudin', I ventures.

"When the kid seen me, he says, soft and weak, like something ailed his palate:

"'Don't let me kill him, Billy.'"

"Struthers spit, and picked splinters forth from his complexion.

"'I told you for your own good. It's common gossip,' says he. 'Everybody is laughing at you, an--'

"Then I done a leap for life for the kid, 'cause the murder light blazed up white in his face, and he moved at the man like he had something serious in view.

"'Run, you idiot!' I yells to Struthers as I jammed the youngster back into the cabin. All of a sudden the gas went out of him and he broke, hanging to me like a baby.

"'It can't be,' he whispers. 'It can't be.' He throwed hisself on to a goods' box, and buried his face in his hands. It gripes me to hear a man cry, so I went to the creek for a pail of water.

"I never heard what Struthers said, but it don't take no Nick Carter to guess.

"We was cleaned up and had our 'pokes' at the post when the first boat from Dawson smoked 'round the bend.

"Now, in them days, a man's averdupoise was his abstract of title. There was nothing said about records and patentees as long as you worked your ground; but, likewise, when you didn't work it, somebody else usually did. We had a thousand feet of as good dirt as ever laid out in the rain; but there was men around drulin' to snipe it, and I knowed it was risky to leave. However, I saw what was gnawin' at the boy, and if ever a man needed a friend and criminal lawyer, that was the time. According to the zodiac, certain persons, to the complainant unknown, had a mess of trouble comin' up and I wanted to have the bail money handy.

"We jumped camp together. I made oration to the general gnat-bitten populace, from the gang-plank, to the effect that one William P. Joyce, trap, crap, and snap shooter was due to happen back casual most any time, and any lady or gent desirous of witnessing at first hand, a shutzenfest with live targets, could be gratified by infestin' in person or by proxy, the lands, tenements, and hereditaments of me and the kid.

"'Well, we hit the Seattle docks at a canter, him headed for the postal telegraph, me for a fruit-stand. I bought a dollar's worth of everything, from cracker-jack to cantaloupe, reserving the local option of eatin' it there in whole or in part, and returning for more. First fresh fruit in three years. I reckon my proudest hour come when I found, beyond peradventure, that I hadn't forgot the 'Georgy Grind.' What? 'Georgy Grind' consists of feeding rough-hewed slabs of watermelon into your sou' sou'east corner, and squirting a stream of seeds out from the other cardinal points, without stopping or strangling.

"Next day, when I come out of it, Justus had heard from Denver. His wife had been gone a year, destination unknown. Somebody thought she went to California, so, two days later, we registered at the Palace, and the 'Frisco police begin dreaming of five thousand dollar rewards.

"It was no use, though. One day I met Struthers on Market Street, and he was scared stiff to hear that Morrow was in town. It seems he was night editor of one of the big dailies.

"'Yes, she's in New York,' he answers, looking queer, so I hurried back to the hotel.

"As I was explaining to Morrow, a woman passed us in the hall with a little boy. In the dimness, the lad mistook Justus.

"'Oh, papa, papa!" he yells, and grabs him by the knees, laughing and kicking.

"'Ah-h!' my pardner sighs, hoarse as a raven, and quicker'n light he snatched the little shaver to him, then seeing his mistake, dropped him rough. His face went grey again, and he got wabbly at the hinges, so I helped him into the parlour. He had that hungry, Yukon look, and breathed like he was wounded.

"'You come with me,' says I, 'and get your mind off of things. The eastern limited don't leave till midnight. Us to the theatre!'

"It was a swell tepee, all right. Variety house, with moving pictures, and actorbats, and two-ton soubrettes, with Barrios diamonds and hand-painted socks.

"First good show I'd seen in three years, and naturally humour broke out all over me. When joy spreads its wings in my vitals, I sound like a boy with a stick running past a picket-fence. Not so Morrow. He slopped over the sides of his seat, like he'd been spilled into the house.

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