The Great Gold Rush Part 25

"Say! have these claims been transferred?" asked Hugh.

"Yes, each has been sold to James C. Beecher, barrister, of Dawson."

"And the consideration?"

"One dollar."

"Which would not buy a meal in Dawson!"

Sick and beaten, John and Hugh stepped aside; George and Frank pa.s.sed to the slaughter. Their friends waited for them. The time to wait was not long--the second two being even more quickly disposed of than the first.

They went home, and ate a meal. Even Frank was reduced to seriousness, his only possible return to cheerfulness being when he said, "He! he! I told you it was time Uncle Sam came and took Canada!" John Berwick felt himself prompted to say "Amen."

They early sought repose, but about nine in the evening John arose and dressed himself. He had slept but four hours when he suddenly awakened.

Something called him to action. Hugh awakened too, and asked the time.

He, then, also arose, as did the others. No one explained why he was dressing, or what he intended to do. Without words each knew they were going to the city--the call was on them to enter the haunts of men--to speak of their wrongs and to be heard!

They had tea, and set out over the trail called after the great Alaska Commercial Company, who built it to the city. The flowers that bloomed by the wayside drew the eyes of John, who, even in this hour of disappointment and anger, was alive to the beauties of nature. The dog-roses, great in size and delicate in colour, greeted him as old friends, and carried his mind to England and to Alice.

The atmosphere of Dawson was latent with strong emotion. There was no noise. A malamoot howled, and those hearing him shuddered. Men stood in groups and talked; their tones were low, their eyes alert. But in the Borealis Saloon Joseph Andrews jumped upon the bar and addressed the house. That he suspended the dance, which brought the proprietor many hundreds of dollars daily, was overlooked in the face of national disaster; for these men of Dawson had become as a nation--united and distinctive.

John Berwick and his friends were drawn by the voice that came through the door of Dawson's most popular rendezvous. Straining to look over the heads and shoulders in front of them, they saw a man, red in face, through the strain of his oratory, standing on the bar and gesticulating. A crowd of eager men listened to him intently.

"I tell you fellows from South Africa that the Government of this here country has got that of Paul Kruger done to a finish. Oom Paul is a genius at grafting; but where does he figure, with his coa.r.s.e schemes of dynamite monopolies, in comparison with the liquor-law handed out by the gang of thugs and highway robbers who run this country? I tell you the Octopus and his liquor-permit system has got Paul Kruger beaten to death. Permit system! permit system! permit system! nothing! Graft, graft, graft! that's what it is, graft! The Octopus tells the good ladies down East that he doesn't approve of the liquor traffic; that he won't allow any liquor to go into this country unless by special permit from him! But what are these permits? They're handed out in ten thousand gallon blocks, and there's enough whisky in Dawson City, and on the way here, to float a battleship. And who gets the permits? His own pals and the Jews. Jews, gentlemen, Jews! and the _quid pro quo_ is a contribution to this same Octopus's electioneering fund. Here, gentlemen, under a surface-showing of morality and pink-tea temperance, are true fissure veins of graft, a.s.saying high in craft and subtlety.

Men of the Yukon, are we going to stand for it? Have we got to stand for it? There are fifty thousand of us, gentlemen! Are we yelping coyotes or are we men?" The speaker paused, that his words might sink in. His audience answered with a yell; and then were hushed again.

"But after all, this liquor business is only a marker on the rest, only a token. Dominion Creek hillsides--Dominion Creek hillsides--is where Poo-Bah, our own Octopus's own 'Man-Friday,' has got in his fine work!

Orders came from Ottawa that these claims were to be thrown open, and posters were printed and stuck up saying the time was July 14th. Then, when the twelfth came round, somebody finds a mistake was made, and the proper date is the twelfth. We rush the creek, gentlemen, and stake--what? Nothing!--we get nothing! There are fifty thousand of us, gentlemen, and every man has two rifles and a shot-gun. Are we going to stand for it?"

"No," was the general shout.

"We've all been over the Pa.s.ses and we've run chances--big chances; most of us have had a handshake with death, cold grimy death! Can't we shake hands once again? Are we men, or only mangy malamoots?" He paused; but there was no cheer at this moment. They were all too eager for him to continue.

"What is our situation, gentlemen? Look at our situation! We're two thousand miles from nowhere, and those two thousand miles are mountains--snow and glaciers! Talk about Napoleon's retreat from Moscow!

That was just a game of ping-pong compared to marching an army across country from back East to the Yukon! just a little lally-gag. The White Pa.s.s, and the Chilkoot Pa.s.s, and the mouth of the Yukon, belong to Uncle Sam...."

At the mention of "Uncle Sam" a great cheer went up--a mighty shout.

"Uncle Sam! Hurrah for Uncle Sam! he won't tax our gold!"

"No, no, gentlemen--the Republic of the North!--a Republic of the North!--we can work out the mines before trouble can come to us," said the speaker.

"The Klondike Free State! The Klondike Free State!" shouted a man. The crowd took up the cry. Chaos reigned.

John Berwick, who had pushed his way through the crowd, sprang upon the bar beside Joseph Andrews the orator. He raised his hand for silence.

CHAPTER XXIII

REVOLUTION

"Is a man's life to be mere existence--breathing, and the eating of food with hours of repose; or is it to be striving after some ideal, whether of ambition or duty? Strife, surely! Man spends his life in toil; the results of his labour represent his life. Imagine for one moment that we are standing upon Dawson's Dome." The audience began to cough and shuffle. This exordium was unusual. The men seemed restless, and then, as if with an unanimous impulse, they appeared to settle to attention.

John went on, "We turn our faces to the north and view a ma.s.s of gorgeous colouring--the shield of the day that is past and the herald of the day that is to come. To the south and east and west this beauty is reflected in blended tints, sinking into valleys purple and silent.

Whence came these valleys? They mark the erosion of ages: as a day is to a thousand years, so is the life of man on earth to the time the hand of G.o.d has been at work carving the original plain. And what are the fruits of His labour? One of them is gold: gold that you and I may win.

During the ages when the land where most of us were born was under ice the work went on: the rains fell and flowed to the sea; and out of all those ages of preparation and waiting one result appears to us, and that is gold."

There was an interruption or two; but the bulk of the audience clamoured for silence, and got it.

"G.o.d is just. He who robs a man of the results of his labour is a murderer to this extent that he takes a portion of his realized life. I need not remind you, my friends, of our labours in reaching this land, and the sacrifices we have made. Some of us have mortgaged our homes, even sold our all, to make this effort. Many of us have spent the best years of our adult life in this quest of nature's treasure, and in the hour of consummation have been robbed--robbed of our efforts. The result of those years has been torn from us, callously, brutally. Such corruption can only be remedied in one way. 'Thou shalt not kill,' is the Divine decree."

"But we have to get justice."

There came from the audience words of earnest agreement. The harangue of Joseph Andrews had awakened the frenzy of the crowd. The tones and the serious presence of John Berwick appealed to their minds, while his argument wakened the thought of moral right, and, far better than rhetoric could do, steeled their resolves.

John told simply, briefly, the history of gold-mining in Australia, and of the many times corruption had wrecked individual fortunes. Justice, primarily, had to do with the rights of the individual. Countless lives had been lost in the past ages to establish that principle. The conditions in the Klondike were now worse than any that had troubled Australia; but there--as in the Klondike--the distance between the mining-fields and the seat of Government had been too great, and modes of communication too slow, to bring effective remedies. The agents of betterment found the diggings depleted, and the wrongs complained of now irreparable. But there need not be any shedding of blood, that fact he emphasized. What they must do was organize, and so win thousands to their cause against the hundreds under the orders of the established--and ineffective--authorities.

"But we need a head, a strong heart, to rule," John was saying.

"You're the man!" a voice shouted. "You're the man!" a hundred echoed.

"Parson Jack, Parson Jack! I knew he had something in him." Through the uncertain light John could distinguish Long Shorty.

So it happened that Berwick became the head of the revolutionists. As he sprang down from the bar the excited men crushed round him. He whispered a rendezvous to a dozen of the most eager, "Dawson's Dome, to-morrow, noon."

That night Smoothbore paced his room. The scandal of the Dominion Creek hillsides was known to him, and he speculated on its being the last straw on the back of that patient camel, the honest prospector. There was a knock on the door. He told the new-comer to enter. It was Sergeant Galbraith in civilian clothes.

"There was a meeting in the Borealis, to-night, sir. Joseph Andrews was talking."

"Did he say much?"

"A little more than usual, sir."

"Did he stir them up?"

"They did a lot of yelling."

"They always do when he talks. Anything else?"

"There was another speaker, sir."

"Who?"

"Don't know, sir."

"But you have charge of the Secret Service. You placed a man on his trail?"