Colorado Jim Part 21

They ultimately entered the narrow, sluggish creek, and Jim beached the boat on the northern side. She saw several stakes driven in the earth, and realized that these marked the boundaries of the two claims.

They pitched the tent some distance from the claims--high up on the bank, to guard against the trickling water that ran down the bluff and into the creek.

On the morrow Jim started digging. She condescended to take a little interest in this, for the experience was novel. A lucky strike might mean freedom from this life of hardship and misery. Once back in England---- The thought was tantalizing. She watched Jim commence to drive a hole through the matted undergrowth, exhibiting surprise when the pick rang hard on the frozen earth beneath.

"Rock?" she queried.

"Nope--earth. It's froze right down for a hundred feet. Bed-rock ought to be three or four feet down. That's where the gold is--or ought to be."

"And if it isn't there?"

"Sink another hole, an' keep on doin' it till I git it."

Later in the day he reached bed-rock, at a depth of six feet from the surface. The washing-pan came into operation, and he sought eagerly for the golden dust--in vain.

"Muck!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

The next pan, and the next, produced similar results. He commenced another hole about six feet from the first, driving through fallen trees and vegetable matter that had lain there for tens of centuries. When the evening came no sign of gold had appeared. He went to the tent and partook of the meal that Angela had prepared.

"Any luck?" she asked.

"Nope, but it'll come. If not here, then somewhere else. But there's five hundred feet of frontage to be bored yet."

Angela shrugged her shoulders. He talked as though time was of no importance. She knew he would go on and on until he had achieved what he set out to do. The summer was short--a brief four months. In October down would come the winter, freezing everything solid for eight long months.

Between October 21 and November 8 the Yukon would close until the middle of May. She realized that she had, as yet, tasted but the latter end of winter. To live through the whole length of the Arctic night, away in the vast wilderness of the North, was a prospect that appalled her.

She wandered up the bank, and through the dense growth of hemlock that led to a precipitous hill. High up on its slope she stopped and surveyed the landscape. Despite the bitterness of her soul, she could not repress an exclamation of wonderment.

Stretching away in all directions was tier upon tier of snow-clad peaks, aglow with the soft radiance of the low-lying sun as it swept the horizon towards the North in its uninterrupted circuit of the heavens. The southern end of the Alaskan range seemed like an opalescent serrated bow, changing to violet through all the darker hues of the spectrum by some strange freak of the atmosphere, only to leap into glorious amber as the fringe of a cloud pa.s.sed across the origin of illumination.

Everything seemed so vast, so forbidding, it reduced her to a state of ignominy. If one desired a sense of Eternity, here it was. Time and s.p.a.ce merged into one inscrutable ent.i.ty--the Spirit of the North. She had felt that Spirit when crossing the pa.s.ses that led to the Klond.y.k.e. Here it was limned in clearer form. The everlasting peaks; the aquamarine glaciers, roaring and plunging into the sea; the vast forests sprawling across the valleys and up the bases of the mountains to some two thousand feet, virgin as they were ten thousand years ago; the noisy fiords c.u.mbered with the ice of crystal rivers, breaking the deathlike silence with ear-splitting concussions--all combined in one awe-inspiring picture of nature's incomparable handiwork.

And here under her feet were fragrant flowers, lured from the shallow covering of earth and matted creeper to last but a brief season, and then to sleep the whole long winter under the snow.

She sighed and made her way down the hill towards the tent. Beside the fire was Jim, gazing into the past. She thought her husband was like this strange immense land--cruel but magnificent, primal and alluring, yet hateful. As she approached, a similar comparison entered Jim's mind, with her as the object.

"Cold and proud as a mountain peak," he muttered. "There's no sun that can melt her, no storm that can move her. G.o.d, but she's beautiful!"

CHAPTER XI

FRUITLESS TOIL

The two claims on Red Ruin became as honeycombed as a wasp's nest. Day after day Angela watched the bare-armed, red-shirted figure at work, witnessing his failure with a set face. It became patent that the claims were bad ones, and that Red Ruin was living up to its name. All the labor of driving through matted undergrowth and frozen gravel was vain. "Hope long deferred maketh the heart sick," and it made Angela's sick. She knew that sooner or later Jim must accept the inevitable and abandon the quest--there. She hoped it would be soon. After all, failure meant the same as success--to her.

If Red Ruin failed, what else could he do but pack up and go home, as thousands of others were doing? The patched-up steamers that were now plying up the river were packed with a queer gathering of "failures" and "successes." Men who had staked all on this promising gamble were going back to the harness of civilization, sadder and wiser beings. The relatively few successful ones were making programmes for the future--a future in which an unaccustomed luxury figured prominently. Disease and famine were taking their toll of the partic.i.p.ants in the great adventure.

From all along the Yukon watershed came news of pestilence and panic.

Scurvy raged in Circle City, and a hungry mob at Forty Mile was only quelled by troopers with loaded rifles. A boat coming up-river laden with 200 belated gold-mad men and women was stopped by the Commissioner, and all but those who had foresight enough to bring a twelve-months' food supply were refused a landing, for the famine was acute.

These pitiful facts came to Angela's ears. Even money could no longer purchase food. The knowledge put a terrible weapon into her hands. If she destroyed their food supply freedom was a.s.sured. For one hour she even contemplated this means of escape. Was it not for his good too? Could he hope to win where thousands had failed? She tried to convince herself that it would be no act of treachery but one of kindness. The lie rankled in her brain. A revulsion of feeling came as she reflected upon the immediate past, for despite all her antagonism she could not but admire the indomitable will of him. Failure was written all over the two honeycombed claims, but it never daunted him. She heard the spade and ax ringing on the hard earth from early morning till late evening, and saw him swinging up the hill, a little grim, but otherwise unchanged.

She was impatiently waiting for him to confess his failure, but he never did. There was still some hundred feet of river front to be "tried out,"

and Jim calmly went on boring his monotonous holes. It was maddening to watch him.

One morning two men came poling down the creek in a flat-bottomed boat packed with gear and food. They pulled up at sight of Jim. He recognized them as the owners of two claims farther up the creek.

"Still diggin', pard?" queried one.

"Yep."

"Wal, it's sure a waste of time. There ain't no pay dirt on this yere creek. We got five hundred feet up yonder plum full of holes, and we ain't shoveled out naught but muck."

Jim stretched himself.

"'Tain't panning out up to schedule," he grunted, "but I'm going through with this bit afore I hit the trail again."

"Better cut it, Cap," said the second man. "I gotta hunch they didn't call this Red Ruin for nothin'. See here, I found six abandoned claims half a mile up. I reckon the guys who pitched that lot over were the same as did the christening of this bit of water."

Jim laughed carelessly. He had little doubt that the location was bad, but it went against his nature to quit before he had carried out his task. The first man stuck a wad of tobacco between his back teeth.

"That pardner o' yourn don't seem to take kindly to diggin'," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

Jim stared at him, and then tightened his lips.

"No need to fly off the handle, Cap. I had a pard like him once, strong on paper but liked the other fellow to do the diggin'."

"What the blazes are you talkin' about?" demanded Jim. "I ain't inviting you to give opinions. What's more, she ain't a _him_. You go to h.e.l.l--and quick about it!"

The man looked at his comrade and they both grinned. Jim put down the spade in a way that caused them to stare blankly.

"Wal, you're some joker. Pete, am I blind? It's no odds, anyway, and no offense meant, but by ginger! it's the first time I've seen a woman smoke a two-dollar cigar."

"What's that?"

Jim suddenly felt dazed as a new explanation entered his mind. He stepped down towards the boat.

"What's all this?" he inquired. "I'm kinder interested."

The first man explained.

"I bin campin' way back there. The other guys who abandoned them claims played h.e.l.l with the timber--gormandized the whole lot--must have gone in for the timber business. So I bin cuttin' spruce up there on the hill.

Wal, I often seen you drilling holes in this muck, but d.a.m.n me if I ever seen your pard put a hand to the spade. He seems to live in that darned tent. I seen him twice hiking out--to Dawson, for a jag, I guess. Didn't seem on the level to me----"

Jim's mouth twitched. He had no doubt about the veracity of this statement. Someone had been visiting Angela, and she had said nothing of it.

"Didn't know he went to Dawson," he replied evasively. "Thanks for the information. I'll sure talk to him about it."