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The Trail of '98: A Northland Romance, a novel by Robert W. Service |
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Book 2. The Trail - Chapter 9 |
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_ BOOK II. THE TRAIL CHAPTER IX I stared at the man a moment, for little had I expected so gracious a reception. "Mush on, there," he repeated truculently; "you're not wanted 'round here. Mush! Pretty darned smart." I felt myself grow suddenly, savagely angry. I measured the man for a moment and determined I could handle him. "I want," I said soberly, "to see the body of my old friend." "You do, do you? Well, you darned well won't. Besides, there ain't no body here." "You're a liar!" I observed. "But it's no use wasting words on you. I'm going on anyhow." With that I gripped him suddenly and threw him sideways with some force. One of the tent ropes took away his feet violently, and there on the snow he sprawled, glowering at me with evil eyes. "Now," said I, "I've got a gun, and if you try any monkey business, I'll fix you so quick you won't know what's happened." The bluff worked. He gathered himself up and followed me into the tent, looking the picture of malevolent impotence. On the ground lay a longish object covered with a blanket. With a strange feeling of reluctant horror I lifted the covering. Beneath it lay the body of the old man. He was lying on his back, and had not been squeezed out of all human semblance like so many of the others. Nevertheless, he was ghastly enough, with his bluish face and wide bulging eyes. What had worn his fingers to the bone so? He must have made a desperate struggle with his bare hands to dig himself out. I will never forget those torn, nailless fingers. I felt around his waist. Ha! the money belt was gone! "Winklestein," I said, turning suddenly on the little Jew, "this man had two thousand dollars on him. What have you done with it?" He started violently. A look of fear came into his eyes. It died away, and his face was convulsed with rage. "He did not," he screamed; "he didn't have a red cent. He's no more than an old pauper I was taking in to play the fiddle. He owes me, curse him! And who are you anyways, you blasted meddler, that accuses a decent man of being a body robber?" "I was this dead man's friend. I'm still his granddaughter's friend. I'm going to see justice done. This man had two thousand dollars in a gold belt round his waist. It belongs to the girl now. You've got to give it up, Winklestein, or by----" "Prove it, prove it!" he spluttered. "You're a liar; she's a liar; you're all a pack of liars, trying to blackmail a decent man. He had no money, I say! He had no money, and if ever he said so, he's a liar." "Oh, you vile wretch!" I cried. "It's you that's lying. I've a mind to choke your dirty throat. But I'll hound you till I make you cough up that money. Where's Berna?" Suddenly he had become quietly malicious. "Find her," he jibed; "find her for yourself. And take yourself out of my sight as quickly as you please." I saw he had me over a barrel, so, with a parting threat, I left him. A tent nearby was being run as a restaurant, and there I had a cup of coffee. Of the man who kept it, a fat, humorous cockney, I made enquiries regarding the girl. Yes, he knew her. She was living in yonder tent with Madam Winklestein. "They sy she's tykin' on horful baht th' old man, pore kid!" I thanked him, gulped down my coffee, and made for the tent. The flap was down, but I rapped on the canvas, and presently the dark face of Madam appeared. When she saw me, it grew darker. "What d'you want?" she demanded. "I want to see Berna," I said. "Then you can't. Can't you hear her? Isn't that enough?" Surely I could hear a very low, pitiful sound coming from the tent, something between a sob and a moan, like the wailing of an Indian woman over her dead, only infinitely subdued and anguished. I was shocked, awed, immeasurably grieved. "Thank you," I said; "I'm sorry. I don't want to intrude on her in her hour of affliction. I'll come again." "All right," she laughed tauntingly; "come again." I had failed. I thought of turning back, then I thought I might as well see what I could of the far-famed Chikoot, so once more I struck out. The faces of the hundreds I met were the same faces I had passed by the thousand, stamped with the seal of the trail, seamed with lines of suffering, wan with fatigue, blank with despair. There was the same desperate hurry, the same indifference to calamity, the same grim stoical endurance. A snowstorm was raging on the summit of the Chikoot and the snow was drifting, covering the thousands of caches to the depth of ten and fifteen feet. I stood on the summit of that nearly perpendicular ascent they call the "Scales." Steps had been cut in the icy steep, and up these men were straining, each with a huge pack on his back. They could only go in single file. It was the famous "Human Chain." At regular distances, platforms had been cut beside the trail, where the exhausted ones might leave the ranks and rest; but if a worn-out climber reeled and crawled into one of the shelters, quickly the line closed up and none gave him a glance. The men wore ice-creepers, so that their feet would clutch the slippery surface. Many of them had staffs, and all were bent nigh double under their burdens. They did not speak, their lips were grimly sealed, their eyes fixed and stern. They bowed their heads to thwart the buffetings of the storm-wind, but every way they turned it seemed to meet them. The snow lay thick on their shoulders and covered their breasts. On their beards the spiked icicles glistened. As they moved up step by step, it seemed as if their feet were made of lead, so heavily did they lift them. And the resting-places by the trail were never empty. You saw them in the canyon at the trail top, staggering in the wind that seemed to blow every way at once. You saw them blindly groping for the caches they had made but yesterday and now fathoms deep under the snowdrift. You saw them descending swiftly, dizzily, leaning back on their staffs, for the down trail was like a slide. In a moment they were lost to sight, but to-morrow they would come again, and to-morrow and to-morrow, the men of the Chilcoot. The Trail of Travail--surely it was all epitomised in the tribulations of that stark ascent. From my eyrie on its blizzard-beaten crest I could see the Human Chain drag upward link by link, and every link a man. And as he climbed that pitiless treadmill, on each man's face there could be deciphered the palimpsest of his soul. Oh, what a drama it was, and what a stage! The Trail of '98--high courage, frenzied fear, despotic greed, unflinching sacrifice. But over all--its hunger and its hope, its passion and its pain--triumphed the dauntless spirit of the Pathfinder--the mighty Pioneer. [Illustration: "No," she said firmly, "you can't see the girl"] Then I knew, I knew. These silent, patient, toiling ones were the Conquerors of the Great White Land; the Men of the High North, the Brotherhood of the Arctic Wild. No saga will ever glorify their deeds, no epic make them immortal. Their names will be written in the snows that melt and vanish at the smile of Spring; but in their works will they live, and their indomitable spirit will be as a beacon-light, shining down the dim corridors of Eternity. * * * * * I slept at a bunkhouse that night, and next morning I again made a call at the tent within which lay Berna. Again Madam, in a gaudy wrapper, answered my call, but this time, to my surprise, she was quite pleasant. "No," she said firmly, "you can't see the girl. She's all prostrated. We've given her a sleeping powder and she's asleep now. But she's mighty sick. We've sent for a doctor." There was indeed nothing to be done. With a heavy heart I thanked her, expressed my regrets and went away. What had got into me, I wondered, that I was so distressed about the girl. I thought of her continually, with tenderness and longing. I had seen so little of her, yet that little had meant so much. I took a sad pleasure in recalling her to mind in varying aspects; always she appeared different to me somehow. I could get no definite idea of her; ever was there something baffling, mysterious, half revealed. To me there was in her, beauty, charm, every ideal quality. Yet must my eyes have been anointed, for others passed her by without a second glance. Oh, I was young and foolish, maybe; but I had never before known a girl that appealed to me, and it was very, very sweet. So I went back to the restaurant and gave the fat cockney a note which he promised to deliver into her own hands. I wrote: "Dear Berna: I cannot tell you how deeply grieved I am over your grandfather's death, and how I sympathise with you in your sorrow. I came over from the other trail to see you, but you were too ill. Now I must go back at once. If I could only have said a word to comfort you! I feel terribly about it. Then once more I struck out for Bennett. _ |
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