"Keep off there!--keep back!" Shorty yelled, falling back on English after futile attempts with the little Indian he did know.
Bucks and squaws and children tottered and swayed on shaking legs and continued to surge in, their mad eyes swimming with weakness and burning with ravenous desire. A woman, moaning, staggered past Shorty and fell with spread and grasping arms on the sled. An old man followed her, panting and gasping, with trembling hands striving to cast off the sled lashings, and get at the grub-sacks beneath. A young man, with a naked knife, tried to rush in, but was flung back by Smoke. The whole ma.s.s pressed in upon them, and the fight was on.
At first Smoke and Shorty shoved and thrust and threw back. Then they used the b.u.t.t of the dog-whip and their fists on the food-mad crowd. And all this against a background of moaning and wailing women and children.
Here and there, in a dozen places, the sled-lashings were cut. Men crawled in on their bellies, regardless of a rain of kicks and blows, and tried to drag out the grub. These had to be picked up bodily and flung back. And such was their weakness that they fell continually, under the slightest pressures or shoves. Yet they made no attempt to injure the two men who defended the sled.
It was the utter weakness of the Indians that saved Smoke and Shorty from being overborne. In five minutes the wall of up-standing, on-struggling Indians had been changed to heaps of fallen ones that moaned and gibbered in the snow, and cried and sniveled as their staring, swimming eyes focused on the grub that meant life to them and that brought the slaver to their lips. And behind it all arose the wailing of the women and children.
"Shut up! Oh, shut up!" Shorty yelled, thrusting his fingers into his ears and breathing heavily from his exertions. "Ah, you would, would you!" was his cry as he lunged forward and kicked a knife from the hand of a man who, bellying through the snow, was trying to stab the lead-dog in the throat.
"This is terrible," Smoke muttered.
"I"m all het up," Shorty replied, returning from the rescue of Bright.
"I"m real sweaty. An" now what "r" we goin" to do with this ambulance outfit?"
Smoke shook his head, and then the problem was solved for him. An Indian crawled forward, his one eye fixed on Smoke instead of on the sled, and in it Smoke could see the struggle of sanity to a.s.sert itself. Shorty remembered having punched the other eye, which was already swollen shut.
The Indian raised himself on his elbow and spoke.
"Me Carluk. Me good Siwash. Me savvy Boston man plenty. Me plenty hungry. All people plenty hungry. All people no savvy Boston man. Me savvy. Me eat grub now. All people eat grub now. We buy "m grub. Got "m plenty gold. No got "m grub. Summer, salmon no come Milk River. Winter, caribou no come. No grub. Me make "m talk all people. Me tell "em plenty Boston man come Yukon. Boston man have plenty grub. Boston man like "m gold. We take "m gold, go Yukon, Boston man give "m grub. Plenty gold.
Me savvy Boston man like "m gold."
He began fumbling with wasted fingers at the draw-string of a pouch he took from his belt.
"Too much make "m noise," Shorty broke in distractedly. "You tell "m squaw, you tell "m papoose, shut "m up mouth."
Carluk turned and addressed the wailing women. Other bucks, listening, raised their voices authoritatively, and slowly the squaws stilled, and quieted the children near to them. Carluk paused from fumbling the draw-string and held up his fingers many times.
"Him people make "m die," he said.
And Smoke, following the count, knew that seventy-five of the tribe had starved to death.
"Me buy "m grub," Carluk said, as he got the pouch open and drew out a large chunk of heavy metal. Others were following his example, and on every side appeared similar chunks. Shorty stared.
"Great Jeminey!" he cried. "Copper! Raw, red copper! An" they think it"s gold!"
"Him gold," Carluk a.s.sured them confidently, his quick comprehension having caught the gist of Shorty"s exclamation.
"And the poor devils banked everything on it," Smoke muttered. "Look at it. That chunk there weighs forty pounds. They"ve got hundreds of pounds of it, and they"ve carried it when they didn"t have strength enough to drag themselves. Look here, Shorty. We"ve got to feed them."
"Huh! Sounds easy. But how about statistics? You an" me has a month"s grub, which is six meals times thirty, which is one hundred an" eighty meals. Here"s two hundred Indians, with real, full-grown appet.i.tes. How the blazes can we give "m one meal even?"
"There"s the dog-grub," Smoke answered. "A couple of hundred pounds of dried salmon ought to help out. We"ve got to do it. They"ve pinned their faith on the white man, you know."
"Sure, an" we can"t throw "m down," Shorty agreed. "An" we got two nasty jobs cut out for us, each just about twicet as nasty as the other. One of us has got to make a run of it to Mucluc an" raise a relief. The other has to stay here an" run the hospital an" most likely be eaten.
Don"t let it slip your noodle that we"ve been six days gettin" here; an"
travelin" light, an" all played out, it can"t be made back in less "n three days."
For a minute Smoke pondered the miles of the way they had come, visioning the miles in terms of time measured by his capacity for exertion. "I can get there to-morrow night," he announced.
"All right," Shorty acquiesced cheerfully. "An" I"ll stay an" be eaten."
"But I"m going to take one fish each for the dogs," Smoke explained, "and one meal for myself."
"An" you"ll sure need it if you make Mucluc to-morrow night."
Smoke, through the medium of Carluk, stated the program. "Make fires, long fires, plenty fires," he concluded. "Plenty Boston man stop Mucluc.
Boston man much good. Boston man plenty grub. Five sleeps I come back plenty grub. This man, his name Shorty, very good friend of mine. He stop here. He big boss--savvy?"
Carluk nodded and interpreted.
"All grub stop here. Shorty, he give "m grub. He boss--savvy?"
Carluk interpreted, and nods and guttural cries of agreement proceeded from the men.
Smoke remained and managed until the full swing of the arrangement was under way. Those who were able, crawled or staggered in the collecting of firewood. Long, Indian fires were built that accommodated all.
Shorty, aided by a dozen a.s.sistants, with a short club handy for the rapping of hungry knuckles, plunged into the cooking. The women devoted themselves to thawing snow in every utensil that could be mustered.
First, a tiny piece of bacon was distributed all around, and, next, a spoonful of sugar to cloy the edge of their razor appet.i.tes. Soon, on a circle of fires drawn about Shorty, many pots of beans were boiling, and he, with a wrathful eye for what he called renigers, was frying and apportioning the thinnest of flapjacks.
"Me for the big cookin"," was his farewell to Smoke. "You just keep a-hikin". Trot all the way there an" run all the way back. It"ll take you to-day an" to-morrow to get there, and you can"t be back inside of three days more. To-morrow they"ll eat the last of the dog-fish, an"
then there"ll be nary a sc.r.a.p for three days. You gotta keep a-comin", Smoke. You gotta keep a-comin"."
Though the sled was light, loaded only with six dried salmon, a couple of pounds of frozen beans and bacon, and a sleeping-robe, Smoke could not make speed. Instead of riding the sled and running the dogs, he was compelled to plod at the gee-pole. Also, a day of work had already been done, and the freshness and spring had gone out of the dogs and himself.
The long arctic twilight was on when he cleared the divide and left the Bald b.u.t.tes behind.
Down the slope better time was accomplished, and often he was able to spring on the sled for short intervals and get an exhausting six-mile clip out of the animals. Darkness caught him and fooled him in a wide-valleyed, nameless creek. Here the creek wandered in broad horseshoe curves through the flats, and here, to save time, he began short-cutting the flats instead of keeping to the creek-bed. And black dark found him back on the creek-bed feeling for the trail. After an hour of futile searching, too wise to go farther astray, he built a fire, fed each dog half a fish, and divided his own ration in half.
Rolled in his robe, ere quick sleep came he had solved the problem. The last big flat he had short-cut was the one that occurred at the forks of the creek. He had missed the trail by a mile. He was now on the main stream and below where his and Shorty"s trail crossed the valley and climbed through a small feeder to the low divide on the other side.
At the first hint of daylight he got under way, breakfastless, and wallowed a mile upstream to pick up the trail. And breakfastless, man and dogs, without a halt, for eight hours held back transversely across the series of small creeks and low divides and down Minnow Creek. By four in the afternoon, with darkness fast-set about him, he emerged on the hard-packed, running trail of Moose Creek. Fifty miles of it would end the journey. He called a rest, built a fire, threw each dog its half-salmon, and thawed and ate his pound of beans. Then he sprang on the sled, yelled, "Mush!" and the dogs went out strongly against their breast-bands.
"Hit her up, you huskies!" he cried. "Mush on! Hit her up for grub! And no grub short of Mucluc! Dig in, you wolves! Dig in!"
Midnight had gone a quarter of an hour in the Annie Mine. The main room was comfortably crowded, while roaring stoves, combined with lack of ventilation, kept the big room unsanitarily warm. The click of chips and the boisterous play at the c.r.a.ps-table furnished a monotonous background of sound to the equally monotonous rumble of men"s voices where they sat and stood about and talked in groups and twos and threes. The gold-weighers were busy at their scales, for dust was the circulating medium, and even a dollar drink of whiskey at the bar had to be paid for to the weighers.
The walls of the room were of tiered logs, the bark still on, and the c.h.i.n.king between the logs, plainly visible, was arctic moss. Through the open door that led to the dance-room came the rollicking strains of a Virginia reel, played by a piano and a fiddle. The drawing of Chinese lottery had just taken place, and the luckiest player, having cashed at the scales, was drinking up his winnings with half a dozen cronies.
The faro- and roulette-tables were busy and quiet. The draw-poker and stud-poker tables, each with its circle of onlookers, were equally quiet. At another table, a serious, concentrated game of Black Jack was on. Only from the c.r.a.ps-table came noise, as the man who played rolled the dice, full sweep, down the green amphitheater of a table in pursuit of his elusive and long-delayed point. Ever he cried: "Oh! you Joe Cotton! Come a four! Come a Joe! Little Joe! Bring home the bacon, Joe!
Joe, you Joe, you!"
Cultus George, a big strapping Circle City Indian, leaned distantly and dourly against the log wall. He was a civilized Indian, if living like a white man connotes civilization; and he was sorely offended, though the offense was of long standing. For years he had done a white man"s work, had done it alongside of white men, and often had done it better than they did. He wore the same pants they wore, the same hearty woolens and heavy shirts. He sported as good a watch as they, parted his short hair on the side, and ate the same food--bacon, beans, and flour; and yet he was denied their greatest diversion and reward; namely, whiskey. Cultus George was a money-earner. He had staked claims, and bought and sold claims. He had been grub-staked, and he had accorded grub-stakes. Just now he was a dog-musher and freighter, charging twenty-eight cents a pound for the winter haul from Sixty Mile to Mucluc--and for bacon thirty-three cents, as was the custom. His poke was fat with dust. He had the price of many drinks. Yet no barkeeper would serve him. Whiskey, the hottest, swiftest, completest gratifier of civilization, was not for him. Only by subterranean and cowardly and expensive ways could he get a drink. And he resented this invidious distinction, as he had resented it for years, deeply. And he was especially thirsty and resentful this night, while the white men he had so sedulously emulated he hated more bitterly than ever before. The white men would graciously permit him to lose his gold across their gaming-tables, but for neither love nor money could he obtain a drink across their bars. Wherefore he was very sober, and very logical, and logically sullen.
The Virginia reel in the dance-room wound to a wild close that interfered not with the three camp drunkards who snored under the piano.
"All couples promenade to the bar!" was the caller"s last cry as the music stopped. And the couples were so promenading through the wide doorway into the main room--the men in furs and moccasins, the women in soft fluffy dresses, silk stockings, and dancing-slippers--when the double storm-doors were thrust open, and Smoke Bellew staggered wearily in.
Eyes centered on him, and silence began to fall. He tried to speak, pulled off his mittens (which fell dangling from their cords), and clawed at the frozen moisture of his breath which had formed in fifty miles of running. He halted irresolutely, then went over and leaned his elbow on the end of the bar.
Only the man at the c.r.a.ps-table, without turning his head, continued to roll the dice and to cry: "Oh! you Joe! Come on, you Joe!" The gamekeeper"s gaze, fixed on Smoke, caught the player"s attention, and he, too, with suspended dice, turned and looked.
"What"s up, Smoke?" Matson, the owner of the Annie Mine, demanded.