Connie Morgan in Alaska Part 11

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Waseche Bill attacked the hard-packed snow with his axe."]

"It's an _igloo_, son--an _igloo_ buried in the snow. An' the'h's a man in the'h."

"A _man_!" cried the astonished boy.

"Yes, kid--it's Carlson. He's _dead_."

Tired as they were after a hard day on the trail, the two partners were unwilling to sleep without first making a thorough examination of the buried _igloo_. More firewood was cut, and by the light of the leaping flames Waseche Bill attacked the hard-packed snow with his axe, while Connie busied himself in removing the cakes and loose snow from the excavation. At the end of an hour a squared pa.s.sageway was completed and the two entered the _igloo_.

"He had a plenty grub, anyways," remarked Waseche, as he cast an appraising eye over the various bags of provisions piled upon the snow floor. "He didn't stahve, an' it wasn't the red death (smallpox)--I looked pa'tic'lah, fo' I went out of heah."

Connie glanced at the body which lay partially covered by a pile of robes. The man's features were calm and composed--one could have fancied him asleep, had it not been for the marble whiteness of the skin. One by one, they examined all the dead man's effects; the little Yukon stove, half filled with ashes, the bags of provisions, his "war-bag"--all were carefully scrutinized, but not a map--not even a pencil mark rewarded their search.

"He's met up with Eskimos, somewhe'h," said Waseche, examining a rudely shaped copper pan in which a bit of wicking made from frayed canvas protruded from a quant.i.ty of frozen blubber grease.

Finally the two turned to the body. The coa.r.s.e woollen shirt was open at the throat, and about the man's neck, they noticed for the first time, was a thin caribou skin thong. Cutting the thong Waseche removed from beneath the shirt a flat pouch of oiled canvas. Connie lighted the wick in the copper pan and together the two sat upon a robe and, in the guttering flare of the smoky lamp, carefully unwrapped the canvas cover.

The packet contained only a battered pocket notebook, upon whose worn leaves appeared a few rough sketches and many penciled words.

"Yo' read it, kid. I ain't no hand to read much," said Waseche, handing the book to Connie, and his eyes glowed with admiration as the boy read glibly from the tattered pages.

"Tu'n to the last page an' wo'k back," suggested Waseche.

"January tenth--" began Connie. "Why, that was nearly a year ago! He couldn't have been dead a year!" His eyes rested on the white face of Carlson.

"A yeah, or a hund'ed yeahs--it's all the same. He's froze solid as stone, an' he'll stay like that till the end of time," replied the man, gravely.

"It says," continued the boy, "'Growing weaker. For two days no fire.

Too weak. Pain gone, but cannot breathe. To-day'--That's all, it ends there."

"Noomony," laconically remarked Waseche. The preceding pages were devoted almost entirely to a record of the progress of the disease. The first notation was January third. Under the date of January fifth he wrote:

"I am afraid my time has come. If so, tell Pete Mateese the claims are staked on Ignatook--mine and his. See map in lining of _parka_. Maybe Pete is dead. He has been gone a year. He tried to go out by the Tatonduk. I can't find him. I can't find the divide. The Lillimuit has got me! They said it would--but the gold! It is here--gold, gold, gold--yellow gold--and it is all mine--mine and Pete Mateese's. But the steam! The stillness! The white, frozen forest--and the creeks that don't freeze! After Pete left _things_ came in the night. It is cold--yet my brain is on fire! I can't sleep!"

This proved to be the longest entry; the man seemed to grow rapidly weaker. When the boy finished Waseche Bill shuddered.

"The Lillimuit got him," he said slowly. "He went _marihuana_." On the next page, under the date of January sixth, the boy read:

"Made a _cache_ here in timber. Growing weaker. Tomorrow I will turn back. Mapped the back trail. _2 caches_--then the claims on Ignatook, the creek of the stinking steam. I will go out by the Kandik. I mapped that trail. It is shorter, but I must find Pete Mateese. I must tell him--the claims."

"Who is Pete Mateese? And where is Ignatook?" inquired the boy.

"Sea'ch me!" exclaimed Waseche. "I ain't neveh hea'd tell of eitheh one, an' I be'n in Alaska goin' on fo'teen yeah."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "We'ah lost, kid. It's a cinch we cain't find the divide."]

For an hour they studied Carlson's map, which they found as he had directed, concealed in the lining of his _parka_. Finally Waseche Bill looked up:

"We'ah lost, kid. It's a cinch we cain't find the divide if Carlson couldn't--he know'd the country. The thing fo' us to do is to follow Carlson's map to his camp, an' then on out by the Kandik. Neah's I c'n make out, it means about three or fo' hund'ed miles of trail--but we got to tackle it. Tomorrow we'll rest an' hunt up the _cache_--Carlson's past needin' it now. We sho' got hea'h jest in time!"

CHAPTER XI

ON THE DEAD MAN'S LONELY TRAIL

Connie Morgan pushed aside the flap of his sleeping bag and blinked sleepily into the blue-gray Arctic dawn. Far to the north-west, the thin rays of the belated winter sun pinked the edges of the ice G.o.d's chiselled peaks where the great white range guarded grimly the secrets of the man-feared Lillimuit.

The boy closed his eyes and pressed his face close against the warm fleece. Was it all a dream, he wondered vaguely--the crashing wall of the canyon--the trail of the white death--the blazing aurora--the search for the Tatonduk pa.s.s--the buried _igloo_, and the man who died? Were these things real? Or, was he still following the trail of Waseche Bill, with the unknown Lillimuit before him, and the men of Eagle behind?

Again his eyes opened and he chuckled aloud as he thought of the man called Joe, and Fiddle Face, and big Jim Sontag, and the others in the hotel at Eagle. It was not a dream. There, by the fire, was Waseche, the coffeepot was boiling with a low bubbly sound, and beyond was the round-topped _igloo_, its white side scarred by the sled-blocked entrance to the tunnel.

"What's so funny?" grinned Waseche as, frying pan in hand, he turned at the sound of the boy's laughter. "This heah mess we ah into ain't no joke, fah's I c'n see. Whateveh yo' laughin' at, anyhow?"

The boy wriggled from his sleeping bag and joined the man by the fireside, where the preparation of breakfast was well under way.

"Oh, nothing--I was just wondering what they thought, next morning--the men back in Eagle, who wouldn't let me come to you."

"Me'be it w'd be'n betteh if yo' hadn't of," answered the man, with a glance toward the towering snow peaks.

"Well, it _wouldn't_!" flashed the boy; "and, you bet, it would take more than just saying so to hold me back! You know you're glad I came--Anyway, I _did_ come, and I'd rather be _lost_ here, with you, than own the best claim on Ten Bow, and go it alone. You and I are going to beat the Lillimuit, pardner, and even Carlson couldn't do that!"

"No, he couldn't," agreed the man, eyeing the boy proudly. "An' theh's plenty othehs, too, that's tried it. Some come back--but, mostly, they didn't. Carlson, in theh--he was a _man_--he died huntin' up his pahdneh. I wondeh how much of a strike they made oveh on this heah Ignatook?"

"It must be something _big_. The notebook said there was lots and lots of gold----"

"Yeh--an' it said they was creeks that don't freeze--an' frozen fohests--an' things that come in the night--an' steam. Yo' see, kid, Carlson was too long alone. It's boun' to get a man--the big, white country is--if he stays too long from his kind. It gets 'em with its flashin', hissin' lights, an' the roah of shiftin' ice--but, most of all, with its silence--the dead, awful stillness of the land of frozen things. It gets 'em in heah"--he pointed significantly to his forehead.

"Somethin' goes wrong, sometimes all of a sudden--sometimes gradual--but, it's all the same--they might betteh died.

"But, come on, let's eat, an' then hunt up Carlson's _cache_. I sho'

hope he was all theah when he made that map, 'cause, if he wasn't, yo'

an' me is in fo' a hahd winteh. Rampsin' th'ough the Lillimuit followin'

a crazy man's map ain't no Sunday school picnic--not what yo' c'n notice--an' when we-all come to the end of the trail, we'll know we be'n somewheahs."

The _cache_ was easily located near the centre of the thicket. It was a rude crotch and pole affair, elevated beyond reach of prowling animals.

A couple of blows from Waseche's axe brought the structure crashing into the snow, and they proceeded to cut the lashings of the caribou skins that served as tarpaulins.

"Theah's meat a plenty wheah he come from. Look at them quahte's of caribou, an' the hides."

"He didn't need to go to so much trouble with his _cache_. There is nothing here to bother it."

"How about the foxes--an' wolves, too? Wheah theah's caribou theah's wolves. An' how about his dawgs?"

"That's so!" exclaimed Connie. "I wonder what became of the dogs? And where is his sled?"

"Sled's undeh the snow, somewheahs--dawgs, too, me'be--'less they pulled out. It's owin' to what kind they was. _Malamutes_ would of tu'ned wolf, an' when they found they couldn't bust the _cache_, they'd of hit out fo' the caribou heahd. Hudson Bays an' Mackenzie Riveh dawgs w'd done sim'lah, only they'd stahved to death tryin' it. An' mongrels, they'd of jest humped up an' died wheah they happen' to be standin'."