On the morning of the tenth day, Connie bravely shouldered his rifle and with a cheery "Good-bye, pardner" carefully closed the door behind him.
Old Boris, Mutt, and Slasher had managed to eke out a scant living by running rabbits at night, but they were little more than skin and bones, at best, and during the day lay huddled together in the sunshine near the cabin. As the boy pa.s.sed out into the cold, clear air he noticed that the dogs were gone from their accustomed place.
"That"s funny," he thought. "I wonder if they pulled out, too?" And then, as if ashamed of the thought, he jerked his shoulders erect. "Not by a long shot! Those dogs will stick with us till the end! They are no pikers! They"re _tillic.u.ms_!"
Suddenly, from far down the river, came a clear, bell-like howl, followed by a chorus of frantic yelps and savage growls.
"My dogs!" cried the boy and, gripping his rifle, made his way down the steep bank and out upon the hard crust of the river. On and on he ran, in the direction of the sounds that came from beyond a sharp, wooded bend. The ice was slippery but uneven, and studded with sharp points of frozen snow that cut cruelly into his feet through the holes of his worn _mukluks_. In his weakened condition the effort was a serious drain upon the boy"s strength, but he kept on running, stumbling, slipping--and in more places than one his footsteps were marked by dark patches of red.
Around the wooded bend he tore and there, upon the smooth ice of a backwater pool, stood a huge bull moose, which, with lowered antlers and bristling mane, fought off the savage attacks of the three dogs. Again and again the dogs charged the great animal, whose hoofs slipped clumsily upon the ice with each movement of the huge body. Round and round they circled, seeking a chance to dash in past those broad antlers, but with blazing eyes the moose faced them, turning swiftly but awkwardly, as upon an uncentred pivot, while the breath whistled through his distended nostrils and spread into frozen plumes. So intent was the great beast upon the attack of the dogs that he gave no heed to the small boy who gazed spellbound upon this battle of the wilds. For a long time Connie stood, entirely forgetful of the rifle that remained firmly clutched in his hands, and as he watched, a wave of admiration and sympathy swept over him for this huge monarch of the barren lands that, in his own fastnesses, stood at bay against the gleaming white fangs of his tormentors. Then into his brain leaped another thought--here was meat! Half a ton of good red meat that meant life to his starving partner, to himself, and to his three beloved dogs. Slowly and deliberately the boy dropped to his knee and raised his rifle. The sights wavered to the trembling of his hands and, summoning all the power that was in him, he concentrated upon the steadying of his aim.
_Bang!_ The sound of the shot rang sharp and clear through the cold air, and the moose, with a loud snort, reared upward, whirled, and fell crashing upon his side, while his powerful legs, with their sharp hoofs, thrashed and clawed at the ice. Instantly Slasher was at his throat, and old Boris and Mutt rushed blindly in, snapping and biting at the great, hairy body. Hastily jamming a fresh cartridge into his barrel, Connie sprang forward, and with muzzle held close, placed a finishing shot low down behind the point of the shoulder. But the strain upon his poorly nourished body had been too great for the boy to stand. The long run down the river and the excitement of the kill had taxed his endurance to the limit. A strange weakness seemed dragging at his limbs, pulling him down, down, down into some vast, intangible depth. Mechanically he drew the knife from its sheath and dragged himself to the body of the moose, and then, suddenly, the world went dark, and he seemed to be whirling, easily and slowly, into a place of profound silence. And almost at the same moment, around another bend of the river, from the direction of the Yukon, dashed a long, tawny dog team, and another, and another, and with a wild yell of joy, O"Brien, red whiskers ablaze in the sunlight, leaped from the foremost sled and gathered the unconscious form of the boy into his arms; while beside him, all talking at once and hampering each other"s movements in their frantic efforts to revive the boy, were Fiddle Face, and Joe, and Big Jim Sontag, and others of the men of Eagle.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "Mechanically he drew the knife from its sheath and dragged himself to the body of the moose."]
Slowly Connie Morgan opened his eyes and gazed, puzzled, into the bearded faces of the men of the North. His glance rested upon the face of O"Brien peering anxiously into his own, and strayed to the dogs of the leading team--McDougall"s dogs--and to the sleds loaded with provisions, and then, with the tears streaming from his eyes, the boy struggled to his feet and a small hand shot out and grasped the rough, hairy hand of O"Brien--_the deserter who came back!_
CHAPTER XXI
MISTER SQUIGG
It was a jovial gathering that crowded the little cabin on the Kandik where the men of the North feasted until far into the night, and told tales, and listened to wondrous adventures in the gold country. But most eagerly they listened to Connie Morgan and Waseche Bill, with their marvellous tales of the Lillimuit--and Carlson"s cans of gold.
"We"ve a yarn worth the tellin" ourself!" exclaimed the man called Joe--the man who tried to dissuade Waseche Bill and prevent Connie Morgan from venturing into the unknown. "Ye sh"d o" seen "em come! Flat on his belly a-top the sled--an" the dogs runnin" low an" true! A bunch of us was watchin" the trail f"r Black Jack Demaree an" the Ragged Falls mail: "Here he comes!" someone yells, an" way down the river we seen a speck--a speck that grow"d until it was a dog team an" a man.
_Jeerushelam_, but he was a-comin"! "Twornt no time till he was clost enough to see "twornt Black Jack. A cold day, it was--reg"lar bitin", nippin" cold--with the wind, an" the sweep o" the river. An" here come the team on the high lope, an" a-whippin" along behind "em, the lightest loaded outfit man ever seen hauled--jest a man, an" a blanket, an" two tomater cans. Flat, he laid--low to the sweep o" the wind, one arm around the cans, an" the other a-holdin" onto the sled f"r all he was worth. The man was...o...b..ien, yonder; an" up the bank he shot, fair burnin" the snow, whirled amongst us, an" piled the outfit up ag"in" Big Jim"s stockade. The nex" we know"d was a yell from Fiddle Face, here:
""It"s McDougall"s dogs!" An" before the Irishman c"d get onto his feet, Fiddle Face was a-top him with a hand at his throat. "Where"s the kid?"
he howls in O"Brien"s ear, "Where"s Sam Morgan"s boy?" Fiddle Face"s voice ain"t no gentle murmur--when he yells. But the rest of us didn"t hear it--us that was ontanglin" the dogs. F"r, in the mix-up, the cover had come off one of them tomater cans, an" there on the snow was nuggets o" _gold_--jest a-layin" there dull an" yaller, in a heap on the top o"
the snow." Joe paused, held a sputtering sulphur match to the bowl of his pipe, and, after a few deep puffs, continued: "Ye know how the sight o" raw gold, that-a-way, gets _to_ ye--when ye"ve put in the best an"
the hardest years o" yer life a-grubbin" an" a-gougin" f"r it? Ye know the feelin" that comes all to onct about yer belt line, an" how yer head feels sort o" light, an" yer face burns, an" ye want to holler, an"
laugh, an" cry all to onct? Well, that was us, a-standin" there by the stockade--all but Fiddle Face. Him an" O"Brien was a-wallerin"
grip-locked in the snow, an" Fiddle Face was a-hollerin" over an" over ag"in: "Where"s that kid? Where"s that kid?" an" all the while a-chokin"
of O"Brien so"s he couldn"t answer. Presen"ly we noticed "em an" drug "em apart. An" right then every man jack o" us forgot the gold. F"r, on a sudden, we remembered that little kid--the gameness of him--an" how he"d give us the slip an" took off alone into a country we didn"t none o" us dast to go to--way long in the fore part o" the winter. We jerked O"Brien to his feet an" hustled him into the _ho_tel, an" by that time he"d got back his wind, an" he was a-tellin", an" a-beggin" us not to lose no time, but to pack a outfit an" hit f"r a little cabin on the Kandik. "He"s there!" he hollers. "An" his pardner, too! They"re starvin". I"ve got the gold to pay f"r the grub--take it! Take it all!
Only git back to "em! I know"d we all couldn"t make it, travellin" heavy an" slow with the outfit an" a crippled man to boot."
"Big Jim Sontag goes out an" scoops up the gold where it laid _forgot_--an" then he comes back into the room an" walks straight over to where O"Brien was a-standin": "We"ll go!" says Jim, _"an" you"ll go, too_! An", if there"s a cabin, like you say, an" they"re there, why _you_ can"t spend no gold in Eagle!" Jim steps closter--so clost that his nose stops within two inches of O"Brien"s, an" his eyes a-borin"
clean through to the back of O"Brien"s head: "But if they _ain"t_ there," he says, low an" quiet like, "_then you don"t spend no gold in Eagle, neither--see?_" An" then Jim turns to us: "Who"ll go "long?" he hollers. "That there boy is Sam Morgan"s boy--we all know"d Sam Morgan!"
We sure did--an" we like to tore Jim"s roof off a-signifyin". Then, we slung our outfits together an" hit the trail. An" now, boys," Joe rose to his feet and crossed to the bunk where the Irishman sat between Connie and Waseche Bill, "it"s up to us to signify onct more." And, for the first time in his life, O"Brien, whose lot in the world had always been an obscure and a lowly one, came to know something of what it meant to have earned the regard of _men_!
The journey down the Kandik was uneventful, and four days later the reinforced outfit camped at the junction of the lesser river with the mighty Yukon. Late that night the men of the North sat about the camp fire and their talk was of rich strikes, and stampedes, and the unsung deeds of men.
Connie Morgan listened with bated breath to tales of his father. Waseche Bill learned from the lips of the men of Eagle of the boy"s escape from the hotel, and of his dash for the Lillimuit that ended, so far as the men who followed were concerned, at the foot of the snow-piled Tatonduk divide. And the men of Eagle learned of the Lillimuit, and the white Indians, and of the death of Carlson, and lastly, of the Ignatook, the steaming creek with its floor of gold.
"An" we-all ah goin" back theah, sometime," concluded Waseche. "Me an"
the kid, heah, an" O"Brien, if he"ll go--" To their surprise, O"Brien leaped to his feet:
"Ye c"n count me in!" he cried. "Foive days agone no power on earth c"d av dhrug me back into that land av th" cheerless cowld. But, now, "tis dif"runt, an" if th" sun shoines war-rum enough f"r th" loikes av ye--an" th" b"y, here--phy, ut shoines war-rum enough f"r Pathrick O"Brien--av ut river shoines at all."
"That"s what I call a man!" yelled Fiddle Face, and subsided instantly, for Waseche Bill was speaking.
"As I was goin" on to say: with us will be some of the boys from Ten Bow--McDougall, an" Dutch Henery, an" d.i.c.k Colton, an" Scotty McCollough, an" Black Jack Demaree from Ragged Falls, an"--well, how about it, boys? The gold is theah, an" me an" the kid, we aim to let ouh frien"s in on this heah strike. We"ll sho" be proud to have yo"-all jine us." With a loud cheer, the men accepted Waseche"s invitation--they had seen O"Brien"s gold.
"Jes" keep it undeh yo" hats till the time comes," cautioned Waseche.
"We-all will slip yo"-all the wehd, an" we don"t want no tinhawns, noah _chechakos_, noah pikehs along, "cause the Ignatook stampede is goin" to be a stampede of _tillic.u.ms_!"
In the morning the partners, accompanied by O"Brien, said good-bye to the men of Eagle and headed down the great river for the mouth of the Ten Bow. On the third day, only a short distance above the place where the Ten Bow trail swerved from the Yukon between two high bluffs, they came upon the camp of an Indian. The red man was travelling light. He had just come out of the hills, and with him were Waseche Bill"s dogs--the _malamutes_ whose sudden stampede had led the lost wayfarers through the narrow pa.s.s to the crest of the Kandik divide, and--Alaska!
"Wheah"d yo" get them dawgs?" asked Waseche, pointing to the _malamutes_. The Indian waved his arm in the direction of the hills, and Waseche nodded:
"Them"s _my_ dawgs--_nika komooks_."
The Indian scowled and shook his head.
"Dem Pete Mateese dog," he grunted surlily.
"Pete Mateese!" cried Connie. "Do you know Pete Mateese? Who is he? Where is he? We want to find him."
The Indian glowered sullenly.
"W"at y"u wan" Pete Mateese?" he asked.
"We want to find him. We"ve got good news for him. He"s rich--plenty gold." At the words the Indian laughed--not a mirthful laugh, but a sneering, sardonic laugh of unbelief.
"White man beeg liar--all. Pete Mateese, she Injun--breed. White man no tell Injun "bout gol". Me"be so white man steal Injun gol"."
With Irish impetuosity, O"Brien leaped forward.
"Take thot back, ye rid shpalpeen!" he cried, shaking a huge fist under the Indian"s nose. "Av ye say wan more wor-rd ag"in" th" b"y, Oi"ll choke th" gizzard out av ye befoor ye say ut!"
Waseche Bill held up a restraining hand.
"Take it easy, O"Brien, don"t le"s n.o.body huht anybody. Le"s get the straight of this heah. Primary an" fo"most, we-all want to find out if Pete Mateese _pulled out_ on Carlson, oah, did he aim to go back." At the mention of Carlson"s name the Indian turned quickly toward Waseche.
"Y"u know Carlson?" he asked. Waseche Bill nodded.
"Yeh, I did know him."
"Wher" Carlson?"
"Dead." As Waseche p.r.o.nounced the word the Indian shook his head sadly.
"Carlson good white man. All good white man dead. Sam Morgan, she dead, too."
"Sam Morgan!" exclaimed Connie. "What do you know of Sam Morgan?"
"Sam Morgan good to Injun. Me--mos" die, once--fi", seex winter "go, in de beeg snow. Sam Morgan com" "long. Hav" one small piece bacon--one small lump suet--eighteen mile--Hesitation. Me--I got no grub. Fi", seex day I ain" got no grub. Seek lak leetle baby. Sam Morgan, she mak" me eat--sam" lak heem. Den she peek me oop an" car" me--all night--all day.