Colorado Jim Part 27

He prepared a meal and, despite his lack of appet.i.te, managed to consume it. Then he took the ax and the rip-saw and made for a bunch of trees higher up the hill. All day the noise of chopping and sawing broke the silence. By the evening, after a day of feverish and unremitting toil, he had fashioned a satisfactory sled.

Sleep came to him then--the deep dreamless sleep of exhaustion. But he awakened early, and began to pack the sled with sufficient food for the long journey. The six fierce brutes that remained were fed and harnessed, and he again ran over the details of his load to a.s.sure himself that nothing was missing. At the last moment he remembered the washing-pan and shovel, and placed them with the other miscellaneous articles.

He had no dog-whip, but calculated he could mush the dogs without that. He gave one glance at the shack, emitted a fierce torrent of oaths, and pushed the sled into action.

They went down the incline at a terrific rate and b.u.mped on to the river.

Yonder lay Dawson and D'Arcy. Whatever happened, he meant to get D'Arcy, if it meant taking the Pole _en route_. Out of this antic.i.p.ation he derived some grain of pleasure--and he needed it to leaven the misery in his soul. His hand moved to the revolver in the pocket of the big bearskin coat, only to be withdrawn before he touched it.

"Nope--not that way," he muttered grimly, "but with my two hands."

CHAPTER XV

THE QUEST

It was a weary and travel-stained man that drove a dog-sled into Dawson a fortnight later. The team was like the "musher," lean and wild-eyed, after their four hundred miles of merciless driving. Through wind and snow this man had kept the trail. Sleep became a thing unknown during the latter stages of the journey. He expected to find D'Arcy in Dawson--and the desire to meet D'Arcy had grown into a craving. He had half killed the dogs and himself in this mad journey, but the incentive was tremendous.

How he missed her! Despite her soul-withering confession, he found himself building up visions of her in his brain. Life had become suddenly hopelessly blank, brightened by one thing--the desire for retribution upon the head of the man who had smashed his idol.

Man, sled, and dogs went hurtling down the street--a black ma.s.s in the falling snow. He handed them over to a man at the Yukon Hotel and mixed with the crowd in the gaming saloon. No one seemed to know anything about D'Arcy, so he inquired for Hanky Brown. Hanky was at length run to earth in a dance-hall.

"Gosh, it's Colorado Jim!"

The latter hurled at him the question that obsessed him.

"Where's D'Arcy?"

"D'Arcy? Who in h.e.l.l is D'---- Gee, I got you. You won't find D'Arcy in Dawson. He's up in Endicott somewhere."

Jim's face fell. Endicott was north of the Chandalar River. It meant another journey of five hundred miles back beyond the place where he had come.

"You're certain, Hanky?"

"Sure. Ask Tony." He turned round and beckoned a man from the back of the hall.

"'Member that swell guy they called D'Arcy--didn't he go with Lonagon and Shanks on that Northern trip?"

"Yep. Struck a rich streak up there--so I heered. Why, what's wrong?"

"Nothin'," said Jim. "I was just kinder anxious to see him. I guess I'll get along."

Hanky was gazing at him curiously. He felt that something was wrong, but couldn't lay his finger on the trouble.

"You ain't going up to Endicott?"

"Maybe I am."

"It's sure a h.e.l.l of a journey just now, and you ain't likely to find that man among them hills."

"I'll find him all right, Hanky. Are you clearing out next spring?"

"Yes. Gotta quarter share in '26 below' on Black Creek. We sold out yesterday to the Syndicate. The missus'll be crazed when she hears. And how about you?"

"No luck. I don't think I was born lucky, Hank. I used to think so----"

Hanky shook his head and pointed to the untasted spirit in Jim's mug.

"Drink up!"

Jim quaffed the vile spirit and fastened the chin-strap of his cap.

"Jim, don't go to Endicott."

"Eh?"

"Don't. You're looking ugly, boy, and things are done sudden-like when you're that way."

Jim gave a harsh laugh and his eyes flashed madly. Then he stopped, biting off the laugh with a snap of his teeth.

"There are some crimes for which there ain't no punishment but one, Hanky.

There's no power on this earth, bar death, that'll stop me from gitting D'Arcy. If I don't come back before the break-up you can take it that he saw me coming before I got him."

He thrust his hands into the big mittens strung to his shoulders, and nodding grimly went through the door. Ten minutes later he was cracking the new dog-whip over the backs of his yelping team, and mounting the high bank heading for the North once more.

There is nothing more exciting than a manhunt when the pursuer is convinced that his cause is just, and the punishment he intends to inflict well-merited. Jim, peering through the blinding snow, saw in imagination the man he sought, all unconscious of the swift justice that was coming to him from out of the wilderness. This was man's law, whatever the written law might be. Not for one instant did his determination waver or his conviction falter. D'Arcy had partaken of forbidden fruit--partaken of it consciously, without regard for any suffering it might cause to others--and D'Arcy must pay the penalty!

It was a primitive argument and one that appealed to pa.s.sions, but he was in many respects still a primitive man, with primitive ideas of right and justice. That law was good enough. It had served through all his experience of Western life, and would serve now!

The storm developed in fury, but still he drove the howling, unwilling dogs into the teeth of it. Icicles were hanging from his two weeks' growth of beard, and thick snow covered him from head to foot. Extraordinary luck favored him, for the snags and pitfalls were innumerable, and any deviation from the old obliterated trail might launch the whole outfit down into an abyss. Fortunately he struck the river again without such a catastrophe happening.

The snow ceased to fall and the sky cleared. The red rim of the sun peeped over the horizon, flooding the landscape with translucent light.

Before him lay the snow-clad Yukon, broad and gigantic, running between its high wooded banks, contrary to all precedents, Northwards.

Amid the maze of peaks and valleys, high up on the Endicott Mountains, a strange affray was taking place. In a small hut, sandwiched between two perpendicular ice-walls, three men crouched at holes newly bored through the log sides. They were D'Arcy and his two companions, Lonagon and Shanks.

It was Lonagon who had first struck gold in this desolate region, late in the summer, whilst engaged in hunting caribou. Shanks had gone in with him on a fifty-fifty basis, but both lacked the wherewithal to finance a trip so far North. Against their desire they were obliged to take in a third person. D'Arcy, having a.s.sured himself that Lonagon was no liar, put up the money to buy food and gear and joined in. The idea was to thaw out the frozen pay dirt all through the winter, and to wash it when the creek ran again. Unlike the claims nearer Dawson, it made small appeal to the big Capitalized Syndicate. Lonagon was of opinion that more gold could be washed out in one season than the Syndicate would be willing to pay as purchase price.

Lonagon's optimism had been vindicated. The pay streak seemed to run along the whole length of creek.

"It sure goes to the North Pole!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Shanks gleefully.

D'Arcy realized that he had struck a good proposition. They built the rough hut and commenced their awful task. Day by day the dump of excavated pay dirt grew larger. They tested it at times to find the yield of gold ever-increasing. At nights they sat and talked of the future. Shanks and Lonagon were for running a big hotel in San Francisco. That seemed to be their highest ideal, and nothing could shift them from it.

The fact that each of them would in all probability possess little short of a million dollars made no difference whatever. They were set on a drinking-place--where one could get drink any hour of the night without having to knock folks up, or even to get out of bed for it!

D'Arcy was planning for a life of absolute luxury. He had been poor from birth--the worst poverty of all, coupled as it was with social prominence.