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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 10 |
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_ BOOK II. THE TRAIL CHAPTER X Our last load was safely landed in Bennett and the trail of the land was over. We had packed an outfit of four thousand pounds over a thirty-seven-mile trail and it had taken us nearly a month. For an average of fifteen hours a day we had worked for all that was in us; yet, looking back, it seems to have been more a matter of dogged persistence and patience than desperate endeavour and endurance. There is no doubt that to the great majority, the trail spelt privation, misery and suffering; but they were of the poor, deluded multitude that never should have left their ploughs, their desks and their benches. Then there were others like ourselves to whom it meant hardship, more or less extreme, but who managed to struggle along fairly well. Lastly, there was a minority to whom it was little more than discomfort. They were the seasoned veterans of the trail to whom its trials were all in the day's work. It was as if the Great White Land was putting us to the test, was weeding out the fit from the unfit, was proving itself a land of the Strong, a land for men. And indeed our party was well qualified to pass the test of the trail. The Prodigal was full of irrepressible enthusiasm, and always loaded to the muzzle with ideas. Salvation Jim was a mine of foresight and resource, while the Jam-wagon proved himself an insatiable glutton for work. Altogether we fared better than the average party. We were camped on the narrow neck of water between Lindeman and Bennett, and as hay was two hundred and fifty dollars a ton, the first thing we did was to butcher the ox. The next was to see about building a boat. We thought of whipsawing our own boards, but the timber near us was poor or thinned out, so that in the end we bought lumber, paying for it twenty cents a foot. We were all very unexpert carpenters; however, by watching others, we managed to make a decent-looking boat. These were the busy days. At Bennett the two great Cheechako armies converged, and there must have been thirty thousand people camped round the lake. The night was ablaze with countless camp-fires, the day a buzz of busy toil. Everywhere you heard the racket of hammer and saw, beheld men in feverish haste over their boat-building. There were many fine boats, but the crude makeshift effort of the amateur predominated. Some of them, indeed, had no more shape than a packing-case, and not a few resembled a coffin. Anything that would float and keep out the water was a "boat." Oh, it was good to think that from thenceforward, the swift, clear current would bear us to our goal. No more icy slush to the knee, no more putrid horse-flesh under foot, no more blinding blizzards and heart-breaking drift of snows. But the blue sky would canopy us, the gentle breezes fan us, the warm sun lock us in her arms. No more bitter freezings and sinister dawns and weary travail of mind and body. The hills would busk themselves in emerald green, the wild crocus come to gladden our eyes, the long nights glow with sunsets of theatric splendour. No wonder, in the glory of reaction, we exulted and laboured on our boat with brimming hearts. And always before us gleamed the Golden Magnet, making us chafe and rage against the stubborn ice that stayed our progress. The days were full of breezy sunshine and at all times the Eager Army watched the rotting ice with anxious eyes. In places it was fairly honeycombed now, in others corroded and splintered into silver spears. Here and there it heaved up and cracked across in gaping chasms; again it sagged down suddenly. There were sheets of surface water and stretches of greenish slush that froze faintly overnight. In large, flaming letters of red, the lake was dangerous, near to a break-up, a death trap; yet every day the reckless ones were going over it to be that much nearer the golden goal. In this game of taking desperate chances, many a wild player lost, many a foolhardy one never reached the shore. No one will ever know the number of victims claimed by these black unfathomable waters. It was the Professor who opened our eyes to the danger of crossing the lake. He and the Bank clerk quarrelled over the wisdom of delay. The Professor was positive it was quite safe. The ice was four feet thick. Go fast over the weak spots and you would be all right. He argued, fumed and ranted. They were losing precious time, time which might mean all the difference between failure and success. It was expedient to get ahead of the rabble. He, for one, was no craven; he had staked his all on this trip. He had studied the records of Arctic explorers. He thought he was no man's fool. If others were cowardly enough to hold back, he would go alone. The upshot of it was that one grey morning he took his share of the outfit and started off by himself. Said the Bank clerk, half crying: "Poor old Pondersby! In spite of the words we had, we parted the best of friends. We shook hands and I wished him all good-speed. I saw him twisting and wriggling among the patches of black and white ice. For a long time I watched him with a heavy heart. Yet he seemed to be getting along nicely, and I was beginning to think he was right and to call myself a fool. He was getting quite small in the distance, when suddenly he seemed to disappear. I got the glasses. There was a big hole in the ice, no sleigh, no Pondersby. Poor old fellow!" There were many such cases of separation on the shores of Lake Bennett. Parties who had started out on that trail as devoted chums, finished it as lifelong enemies. Tempers were ground to a razor-edge; words dropped crudely; anger flamed to meet anger. You could scarcely blame them. They did not realise that the trail demanded all that was in a man of gentleness, patience and forbearance. Poor human nature was strained and tested inexorably, and the most loving friends became the most deadly foes forevermore. One instance of this was the twins. "Say," said the Prodigal, "you ought to see Romulus and Remus. They're scrapping like cat and dog. Seems they've had a bunch of trouble right along the line--you know how the trail brings out the yellow streak in a man. Well, they're both fiery as Hades, so after a particularly warm evening they swore that as soon as they got to Bennett, they'd divvy up the stuff and each go off by his lonesome. Somehow, they patched it up when they reached here and got busy on their boat. Now it seems they've quarrelled worse than ever. Romulus is telling Remus his real name and vice-versa. They're raking up old grievances of their childhood days, and the end of it is they've once more decided to halve tip the outfit. They're mad enough to kill each other. They've even decided to cut their boat in two." It was truly so. We went and watched them. Each had a bitter determination on his face. They were sawing the boat through the middle. Afterwards, I believe, they patched up their ends and made a successful trip to Dawson. The ice was going fast. Strangers were still coming in over the trail with awful tales of its horrors. Bennett was all excitement and seething life. Thousands of ungainly boats, rafts and scows were waiting to be launched. Already craft were beginning to come through from Lindeman, rushing down the fierce torrent between the two lakes. From where we were camped we saw them pass. There were ugly rapids and a fang-like rock, against which many a luckless craft was piled up. It was the most fascinating thing in the world to watch these daring Argonauts rush the rapids, to speculate whether or not they would get through. The stroke of an oar, a few feet to right or left, meant unspeakable calamity. Poor souls! Their faces of utter despair as they landed dripping from the water and saw their precious goods disappearing in the angry foam would have moved a heart of stone. As one man said, in the bitterness of his heart: "Oh, boys, what a funny God we've got!" There was a man who came sailing through the passage with a fine boat and a rich outfit. He had lugged it over the trail at the cost of infinite toil and weariness. Now his heart was full of hope. Suddenly he was in the whirl of the current, then all at once loomed up the cruel rock. His face blanched with horror. Frantically he tried to avoid it. No use. Crash! and his frail boat splintered like matchwood. But this man was a fighter. He set his jaw. Once more he went back over that deadly trail. He bought, at great expense, a new outfit and had packers hustle it over the trail. He procured a new boat. Once more he sailed through the narrow canyon. His face was set and grim. Suddenly, like some iron Nemesis, once more loomed up the fatal rock. He struggled gallantly, but again the current seemed to grip him and throw him on that deadly fang. With another sickening crash he saw his goods sink in the seething waters. Did he give up? No! A third time he struggled, weary, heartbroken, over that trail. He had little left now, and with that little he bought his third outfit, a poor, pathetic shadow of the former ones, but enough for a desperate man. Once more he packed it over the trail, now a perfect Avernus of horror. He reached the river, and in a third poor little boat, again he sailed down the passage. There was the swift-leaping current, the ugly tusk of rock staked with wreckage. A moment, a few feet, a turn of the oar-blade, and he would have been past. But, no! The rock seemed to fascinate him as the eyes of a snake fascinate a bird. He stared at it fearfully, a look of terror and despair. Then for the third time, with a hideous crash, his frail boat was piled up in a pitiful ruin. He was beaten now. He climbed on the bank, and there, with a last look at the ugly snarl of waters, and the jagged up-thrust of that evil rock, he put a bullet smashing through his brain. * * * * * The ice was loose and broken. We were all ready to start in a few days. The mighty camp was in a ferment of excitement. Every one seemed elated beyond words. On, once more, to Eldorado! It was near midnight, but the sky, where the sun had dipped below the mountain rim, was a sea of translucent green, weirdly and wildly harmonious with the desolation of the land. On the bleak lake one could hear the lap of waves, while the high, rocky shore to the left was a black wall of shadow. I stood by the beach near our boat, all alone in the wan light, and tried to think calmly of the strange things that had happened to me. Surely there was something of Romance left in this old world yet if one would only go to seek it. Here I was, sun-browned, strong, healthy, having come through many trials and still on the edge of adventure, when I might, but for my own headstrong perversity, have yet been vegetating on the hills of Glengyle. A great exultation welled up in me, the voice of youth and ambition, the lust to conquer. I would succeed, I would wrest from the vast, lonely, mysterious North some of its treasure. I would be a conqueror. Silent and abstracted, I looked into the brooding disk of sheeny sky, my eyes dream-troubled. Then I felt a ghostly hand touch my arm, and with a great start of surprise, I turned. "Berna!" _ |
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