When a certain noise has been a companion for days and days, and is suddenly stilled, a sense of uneasiness results, as when on a steamer the throb of the engine ceasing will rouse sleepers from their slumber.
The slowing down of the torrent in Judas Creek made Berwick restless. He did not at first recognize what it was that worried him.
Joe also seemed as if he were not altogether proof against the spell; at last, he took his stare from the stove and looked around the cabin.
"I t"ink something pretty soon happen, by gosh!"
John stared at him; for Joe to volunteer a remark was unusual: it increased his employer"s apprehension.
Berwick returned to his newspaper, fascinated by its news. A party of miners had arrived in San Francis...o...b..inging much gold from some unknown region of the north. They called it the Klondike.
Would his Judas Creek Claim ever pay him for his efforts? What were his chances of fortune? Ma.s.ses of gold or mountains of dust? He was in search of fortune--with a big "F."
His thoughts naturally drifted to the girl he wanted to marry. She was the daughter of luxury and wealth. He was just a prospector, no more in the eyes of Dame Fortune than the st.u.r.dy natural by the stove: in fact, experience had led him to believe that in the mining enterprise Fortune had a partiality for such men as Joe.
Berwick had been five years at the mining game. He had drifted from one camp to another: over America, to Australia, back to America. He had possibly become something of a cynic; certainly his mind had hardened with his muscles. He dreamed dreams. What would his lady say if she received a letter, saying he was again pulling stakes, and had left Judas Creek in order to avoid being defeated? He whistled, and shrugged his strong shoulders. He did not know!
He put some practical thoughts together. The Klondike was evidently in the North, far inland, in Canada. Could he withstand great cold? Yes, he could; he could endure and do anything as any other normal strong man could; and could go anywhere that was practicable to humanity. This was not vanity, not conceit, but just healthy self-confidence.
Should he pull up stakes and leave his Judas Creek Claim to the coyotes?
As this question once more came to his mind, he was aware of the complete silence now outside, and letting his paper fall, bent his head to listen. Joe was listening also. Judas Creek was absolutely still.
Joe arose and opened the cabin door. His employer joined him there.
There was no sound from the Creek; there was no Creek.
"By gosh! dat"s funnee t"ing," Joe exclaimed.
"I certainly do not know how to account for it," said Berwick. He felt apprehensive.
They returned from the cabin door: Joe going to his seat by the stove, Berwick putting his bed in order for the night, when Joe jumped up and ran to the door again. A dull distant roar was heard.
"By gosh! By gosh! I got it! He"s a river snow-slide what"s coming.
Quick, boss--quick! Get for h.e.l.l out of dis! Pretty soon no more cabin--no windla.s.s--no, no bucket, only water! No not"ing--all gone!"
The man began hurriedly putting on his boots, and instinctively his master followed his example, inquiring as he did so,
"What"s that?"
"He"s a river snow-slide, dat"s all I know for to call him. A havalanche on wheels, all turn over--over--over! Him carry away everything, bridge, tree, dam--all sort of thing--everything go."
And as the sullen roar coming from the valley continued to increase, the appreciation of approaching danger spread from the one to the other.
Berwick made haste and scrambled into his winter garb. Joe bundled together his personal effects, and some of the more valuable of the supplies in the cabin. Berwick did the same; out of the door they sprang into the night, and up the hillside, under which their cabin was built.
Joe gave a sign when he considered they were out of danger. At once they threw down their loads and rushed back to the cabin. Grabbing another load they again sought the higher ground.
Meanwhile, the flood had broken from the canyon at the head of their little valley. The timber there had been largely cut, and over the rugged stumps the rolling ma.s.s spread, grinding, tearing up the weaker roots.
Berwick and his companion sat and watched their home going to destruction. Deliberately, it seemed, the ma.s.s of ice and water fell upon their workings. There was a loud crack as the windla.s.s went down; and then the fury of water poured into their shaft. It was but for an instant. The flood tore against their cabin. Would the cabin endure the shock?
The answer soon came. There was a rending of timber; the cabin was pushed before the ice; and then it seemed to melt away, swallowed up by the flood. The lights went out. Lower and lower it sank, till the roof was touched by the surging ice. Then that, too, went under, and nothing but a fractured log or pole was left of the little home. John shivered.
The flood fell almost as quickly as it had risen, now that its work was proved effectual. Berwick turned to look at his man. Joe was already hard at work with an axe on a fallen tree, from which the chips flew.
There was no doubt about it now. The Judas Creek venture was a failure: he could write it down as such. He had known many miners on whom Fortune had smiled; drunken swine, many of them, to whom money appealed only as a means to dissipation.
And he, to whom money--the price of his future home-happiness--meant so much!
Joe struck a match, applied it to a handful of birch-bark, and the flame sprang up.
By all the canons of his life, Berwick should have jumped into the fray and helped Joe make their camp; but, after all, it was only a little past nine o"clock.
Yes. Now he must throw up Judas Creek!
Joe laid twigs on top of the birch-bark and soon had a fire, to which he added larger sticks and logs. Then he cut down a fir-tree and made a bed, over which he spread the canvas of a tent and blankets. The night was perfectly clear, they would be warm and snug enough beside the fire.
Joe cut several more logs of wood and piled them near, after which he sat down upon the blankets, took off his boots and coat, rolled this into a pillow, and soon was asleep.
Berwick, sitting by the fire, watched far into the night. His fancy played about the flames, calling up scenes of his youth, and conceiving all manner of pictures of the miner"s life in the sub-Arctic Klondike that was to be.
CHAPTER III
THE BEGINNING OF YUKON
No more wonderful system of navigation probably exists on the globe than that of the inland pa.s.sage between Puget Sound and the Lynn Ca.n.a.l, at the head of which are the towns of Skagway and Dyea, the respective ports of the White and the Chilkoot Pa.s.ses. For ten hundred miles the steamers plying along this route run behind the great barrier of islands, beginning with that of Vancouver and ending at Point Deception.
In summer the trip is grand beyond compare; in winter it is full of gloom and awe.
As the ship travels northward the mountains grow greater, the narrow pa.s.sages narrower, till they develop as canyons, cut only by other canyon-like pa.s.sages to the sea, or by glacier-ridden valleys from the mainland, whose mighty burdens shimmer in the sunlight as they yield in torrents tributes to the parent ocean. In summer continuous light reigns in the lat.i.tude of Skagway, and the traveller entering this weird zone is moved by its uncanny beauty.
Winter was still on the land as the _Aleutian_ ploughed her way northward, and the pa.s.sengers saw the great walls of rock uplifting to the clammy mantle of low-lying clouds. Here and there Indian villages were pa.s.sed and Indian graveyards, with flags flying from the stagings, raised six or eight feet from the ground, on which reposed the deceased.
The ship called at Wrangle and unloaded freight and pa.s.sengers. "This town had a boom during the excitement of the Ca.s.siar twenty years back,"
remarked Hugh Spencer to Berwick and Bruce, as the three stood on the deck and watched the bustle between the steamer and the wharf.
"Let"s stretch our legs up the quay," said George. They went ash.o.r.e.
Squaws were sitting with baskets of their handiwork before them, doing a lively trade with the disembarked pa.s.sengers. The sales made were mostly of moccasins in beads, and bark canoes adorned with porcupine quills of brightest colours. Hugh stopped before an old squaw and picked up a pair of large mittens with gauntlet attachments. They were made of canvas and lined with red flannel.
"How much?" he inquired.
"Dollar two bits."
"Give you six bits."
"All right."
"Better take a couple of pair each, fellows; there"s nothing like them for the trail: look how big the thumbs are." So Hugh and his two companions bought the whole of the squaw"s store.