The Trail of the Goldseekers Part 21

Here the long trail took a turn. I had been among the miners and hunters for four months. I had been one of them. I had lived the essentials of their lives, and had been able to catch from them some hint of their outlook on life. They were a disappointment to me in some ways. They seemed like mechanisms. They moved as if drawn by some great magnet whose centre was Dawson City. They appeared to drift on and in toward that human maelstrom going irresolutely to their ruin. They did not seem to me strong men--on the contrary, they seemed weak men--or men strong with one insane purpose. They set their faces toward the golden north, and went on and on through every obstacle like men dreaming, like somnambulists--bending their backs to the most crushing burdens, their faces distorted with effort. "On to Dawson!" "To the Klondike!" That was all they knew.

I overtook them in the Fraser River Valley, I found them in Hazleton.

They were setting sail at Bennett, tugging oars on the Hotalinqua, and hundreds of them were landing every day at Dawson, there to stand with lax jaws waiting for something to turn up--lost among thousands of their kind swarming in with the same insane purpose.

Skagway was to me a sad place. On either side rose green mountains covered with crawling glaciers. Between these stern walls, a cold and violent wind roared ceaselessly from the sea gates through which the ships drive hurriedly. All these grim presences depressed me. I longed for release from them. I waited with impatience the coming of the steamer which was to rescue me from the merciless beach.

At last it came, and its hoa.r.s.e boom thrilled the heart of many a homesick man like myself. We had not much to put aboard, and when I climbed the gang-plank it was with a feeling of fortunate escape.

A GIRL ON THE TRAIL

A flutter of skirts in the dapple of leaves on the trees, The sound of a small, happy voice on the breeze, The print of a slim little foot on the trail, And the miners rejoice as they hammer with picks in the vale.

For fairer than gold is the face of a maid, And sovereign as stars the light of her eyes; For women alone were the long trenches laid; For women alone they defy the stern skies.

These toilers are grimy, and hairy, and dun With the wear of the wind, the scorch of the sun; But their picks fall slack, their foul tongues are mute-- As the maiden goes by these earthworms salute!

CHAPTER XXIV

HOMEWARD BOUND

The steamer was crowded with men who had also made the turn at the end of the trail. There were groups of prospectors (disappointed and sour) from Copper River, where neither copper nor gold had been found. There were miners sick and broken who had failed on the Tanana, and others, emaciated and eager-eyed, from Dawson City going out with a part of the proceeds of the year's work to see their wives and children. There were a few who considered themselves great capitalists, and were on their way to spend the winter in luxury in the Eastern cities, and there were grub stakers who had squandered their employers' money in drink and gaming.

None of them interested me very greatly. I was worn out with the filth and greed and foolishness of many of these men. They were commonplace citizens, turned into stampeders without experience or skill.

One of the most successful men on the boat had been a truckman in the streets of Tacoma, and was now the silly possessor of a one-third interest in some great mines on the Klondike River. He told every one of his great deeds, and what he was worth. He let us know how big his house was, and how much he paid for his piano. He was not a bad man, he was merely a cheap man, and was followed about by a gang of heelers to whom drink was luxury and vice an entertainment. These parasites slapped the teamster on the shoulder and listened to every empty phrase he uttered, as though his gold had made of him something sacred and omniscient.

I had no interest in him till being persuaded to play the fiddle he sat in the "social room," and sawed away on "Honest John," "The Devil's Dream," "Haste to the Wedding," and "The Fisher's Hornpipe."

He lost all sense of being a millionnaire, and returned to his simple, unsophisticated self. The others cheered him because he had gold. I cheered him because he was a good old "corduroy fiddler."

Again we pa.s.sed between the lofty blue-black and bronze-green walls of Lynn Ca.n.a.l. The sea was cold, placid, and gray. The mist cut the mountains at the shoulder. Vast glaciers came sweeping down from the dread mystery of the upper heights. Lower still lines of running water white as silver came leaping down from cliff to cliff--slender, broken of line, nearly perpendicular--to fall at last into the gray h.e.l.l of the sea.

It was a sullen land which menaced as with lowering brows and clenched fists. A landscape without delicacy of detail or warmth or variety of color--a land demanding young, cheerful men. It was no place for the old or for women.

As we neared Wrangell the next afternoon I tackled the purser about carrying my horse. He had no room, so I left the boat in order to wait for another with better accommodations for Ladrone.

Almost the first man I met on the wharf was Donald.

"How's the horse?" I queried.

"Gude!--fat and sa.s.sy. There's no a fence in a' the town can hold him. He jumped into Colonel Crittendon's garden patch, and there's a dollar to pay for the cauliflower he ate, and he broke down a fence by the church, ye've to fix that up--but he's in gude trim himsel'."

"Tell 'm to send in their bills," I replied with vast relief. "Has he been much trouble to you?"

"Verra leetle except to drive into the lot at night. I had but to go down where he was feeding and soon as he heard me comin' he made for the lot--he knew quite as well as I did what was wanted of him. He's a canny old boy."

As I walked out to find the horse I discovered his paths everywhere.

He had made himself entirely at home. He owned the village and was able to walk any sidewalk in town. Everybody knew his habits. He drank in a certain place, and walked a certain round of daily feeding. The children all cried out at me: "Goin' to find the horsie?

He's over by the church." A darky woman smiled from the door of a cabin and said, "You ole hoss lookin' mighty fine dese days."

When I came to him I was delighted and amused. He had taken on some fat and a great deal of dirt. He had also acquired an aldermanic paunch which quite destroyed his natural symmetry of body, but he was well and strong and lively. He seemed to recognize me, and as I put the rope about his neck and fell to in the effort to make him clean once more, he seemed glad of my presence.

That day began my attempt to get away. I carted out my feed and saddles, and when all was ready I sat on the pier and watched the burnished water of the bay for the dim speck which a steamer makes in rounding the distant island. At last the cry arose, "A steamer from the north!" I hurried for Ladrone, and as I pa.s.sed with the horse the citizens smiled incredulously and asked, "Goin' to take the horse with you, eh?"

The boys and girls came out to say good-by to the horse on whose back they had ridden. Ladrone followed me most trustfully, looking straight ahead, his feet clumping loudly on the boards of the walk.

Hitching him on the wharf I lugged and heaved and got everything in readiness.

In vain! The steamer had no place for my horse and I was forced to walk him back and turn him loose once more upon the gra.s.s. I renewed my watching. The next steamer did not touch at the same wharf.

Therefore I carted all my goods, feed, hay, and general plunder, around to the other wharf. As I toiled to and fro the citizens began to smile very broadly. I worked like a hired man in harvest. At last, horse, feed, and baggage were once more ready. When the next boat came in I timidly approached the purser.

No, he had no place for me but would take my horse! Once more I led Ladrone back to pasture and the citizens laughed most unconcealedly.

They laid bets on my next attempt. In McKinnon's store I was greeted as a permanent citizen of Fort Wrangell. I began to grow nervous on my own account. Was I to remain forever in Wrangell? The bay was most beautiful, but the town was wretched. It became each day more unendurable to me. I searched the waters of the bay thereafter, with gaze that grew really anxious. I sat for hours late at night holding my horse and glaring out into the night in the hope to see the lights of a steamer appear round the high hills of the coast.

At last the _Forallen_, a great barnyard of a ship, came in. I met the captain. I paid my fare. I got my contract and ticket, and leading Ladrone into the hoisting box I stepped aside.

The old boy was quiet while I stood near, but when the whistle sounded and the sling rose in air leaving me below, his big eyes flashed with fear and dismay. He struggled furiously for a moment and then was quiet. A moment later he dropped into the hold and was safe.

He thought himself in a barn once more, and when I came hurrying down the stairway he whinnied. He seized the hay I put before him and thereafter was quite at home.

The steamer had a score of mules and work horses on board, but they occupied stalls on the upper deck, leaving Ladrone aristocratically alone in his big, well-ventilated barn, and there three times each day I went to feed and water him. I rubbed him with hay till his coat began to glimmer in the light and planned what I could do to help him through a storm. Fortunately the ocean was perfectly smooth even across the entrance to Queen Charlotte's Sound, where the open sea enters and the big swells are sometimes felt. Ladrone never knew he was moving at all.

The mate of the boat took unusual interest in the horse because of his deeds and my care of him.

Meanwhile I was hearing from time to time of my fellow-sufferers on the Long Trail. It was reported in Wrangell that some of the unfortunates were still on the snowy divide between the Skeena and the Stikeen. That terrible trail will not soon be forgotten by any one who traversed it.

On the fifth day we entered Seattle and once more the sling-box opened its doors for Ladrone. This time he struggled not at all. He seemed to say: "I know this thing. I tried it once and it didn't hurt me--I'm not afraid."

Now this horse belongs to the wild country. He was born on the bunch-gra.s.s hills of British Columbia and he had never seen a street-car in his life. Engines he knew something about, but not much. Steamboats and ferries he knew a great deal about; but all the strange monsters and diabolical noises of a city street were new to him, and it was with some apprehension that I took his rein to lead him down to the freight depot and his car.

Again this wonderful horse amazed me. He pointed his alert and quivering ears at me and followed with never so much as a single start or shying bound. He seemed to reason that as I had led him through many dangers safely I could still be trusted. Around us huge trucks rattled, electric cars clanged, railway engines whizzed and screamed, but Ladrone never so much as tightened the rein; and when in the dark of the chute (which led to the door of the car) he put his soft nose against me to make sure I was still with him, my heart grew so tender that I would not have left him behind for a thousand dollars.

I put him in a roomy box-car and bedded him knee-deep in clean yellow straw. I padded the hitching pole with his blanket, moistened his hay, and put some bran before him. Then I nailed him in and took my leave of him with some nervous dread, for the worst part of his journey was before him. He must cross three great mountain ranges and ride eight days, over more than two thousand miles of railway. I could not well go with him, but I planned to overhaul him at Spokane and see how he was coming on.

I did not sleep much that night. I recalled how the great forest trees were blazing last year when I rode over this same track. I thought of the sparks flying from the engine, and how easy it would be for a single cinder to fall in the door and set all that dry straw ablaze. I was tired and my mind conjured up such dire images as men dream of after indigestible dinners.

O THE FIERCE DELIGHT