North

Way down North, where the ice-locked Colville winds its way to the frozen sea, Burr MacShane sat upon the floor of his igloo and stared at the pile of red gold he had heaped onto a square of canvas. Beside him were many empty caribou-skin sacks. Slowly he thrust his fingers into the yellow-red pile, working them into the heavy metal until his hand was buried to the wrist.

Very deliberately he blew a cloud of blue smoke ceilingward. “‘Is it worth it?’ she asked, that day on the trail, ‘Up here we are missing—life.’ An’ I said I didn’t know, an’ that if I found out I would tell her the answer.” He withdrew his hand from the golden pile and meticulously tamped the ashes into the bowl of his pipe.

The petrol lamp sputtered and its flame grew dull. MacShane rose, filled the lamp, and stepping to the door stared out into the Arctic gloom. Then he returned to his seat on the floor. “Nothin’ but cold, an’ darkness, an’ snow, an’ ice, an’ damned bare peaks—an’ gold. Twenty-five years at it—twenty-five years fillin’ stinkin’ lamps, an’ cookin’ dog feed, an’ gougin’ gravel, an’ fightin’ the cold, an’ what have I got to show for it? Gold! Yellow dirt! The chips in the game! You can’t eat it. You can’t wear it. It ain’t worth a damn until it’s traded for somethin’ else. An’ what have I ever traded it for—grub, an’ petrol, an’ clothing, an’ dogs, an’ powder—so I could go an’ get more gold! I’ve played the game for twenty-five years, an’ I’ve got a lot of chips stacked up. I’ve hit the trail when other men holed up, an’ I’ve lived when they died like flies. I’ve beat the damned North! It’s played all its cards, an’ it’s through. It’s tried to freeze me with its strong cold—an’ it couldn’t. It’s tried to starve me in its barrens, an’ drown me in its rivers, an’ drive me mad with its silence, an’ its darkness, an’ its flashin’ aurora. It’s done its damndest—an’ I’ve laughed at the worst it could do! It fought for its gold, but I beat it—an’ ripped the gold from the guts of its creeks. Twenty-five years—livin’ like an Eskimo—like a dog—an’ all for little sacks of yellow dirt hid away in iron safes!

“‘Is it worth it?’ she asked. I didn’t know, then. But, I know—now. I promised to tell her the answer. It took me quite a while to learn it. A man can beat the North. But he can’t beat—love. Yes—that’s what it is—love. There ain’t no use of a man’s chasin’ the devil around the stump tryin’ to fool himself. He might as well come right out with it. Bill Ames was right. I wonder how the hell he knew? I didn’t know, myself—then. Bill’s smarter than he looks to be. What I’d ought to done the minute I saw her there on the trail, was to swing my dogs around an’ head ’em hell-bent back into the North—then I could have gone on for twenty-five more years pilin’ up my foolish gold. But—God, I’m glad I didn’t!”

Very deliberately Burr MacShane refilled the caribou-skin sacks from the yellow-red pile on the canvas. When he had finished, he put a huge batch of dog feed to cook, and then, methodically, he moved about the little igloo selecting various articles which he made up into a trail pack. “You’re a fool!” warned an inner voice, “She thinks you poisoned her. She hates you.”

MacShane argued aloud: “She knows better, by now.”

“But, she don’t love you.”

“Maybe not—but, she will. Sometimes, in her eyes, I could see—they glowed sort of soft, an’ dark, an’ dreamy. Damn it! Bill Ames said she would—an’ he ought to know!”

“But, there’s red gold in the gravel. You haven’t scratched it yet.”

“To hell with the red gold! I found it, didn’t I? It is there—just as I figured it.”

“You haven’t taken out your thousand dollars to the pan, yet.”

“If I get her—she’ll weigh up a million to the pan.”

The inner voice was persistent: “You’ll be tied down. What’ll you do when the long trail calls? There will be times when you will want to roam.”

“God, ain’t I roamed enough? But, if the long trail calls, we’ll harness the dogs an’ roam double.”

“It’s only February. The snow is deep. Wait till spring.”

“I’ve waited too long, now. It seems like—I can hear her callin’ me. An’ I ain’t seen the snow in twenty-five years that could stop me—with a toboggan.”

His trail pack made up, MacShane sat beside the stove and smoked until his dog food had cooked, and when it was done he lashed it onto his toboggan and harnessed his dogs.

“Wait till tomorrow,” urged the inner voice, “It’s nearly midnight.”

“Midnight, or noon, what’s the difference in this God-forsaken land? It’s all dark, anyhow. You might as well shut up. You lose. My hunch says ‘go now!’ An’ I’m ridin’ my hunch.”

At Shungnak where MacShane arrived four days later, he entered the saloon where a dozen men were assembled. “If you want to go where you can shovel more gold out of the gravel in a day than you can here in a year, just follow my back trail,” he announced. “It’s red gold—under the big rock slide west of the igloo. There’s a stove an’ considerable grub an’ some robes left in the igloo, an’ a good sled, an’ a half a ton of powder. You’re welcome to ’em if you want ’em. But you better hit out before my trail snows under or you’ll never find it.”

The men looked at each other, and grinned. “No, thanks, Stranger, we don’t like gravel as rich as all that. It’s too heavy to shovel.”

The witticism of the miner produced its roar of laughter, and MacShane shrugged, indifferently: “All right, boys, don’t hurt your backs none. So long.”

“Who is he?” asked someone, when the door had closed behind MacShane.

The proprietor answered: “Oh, he’s be’n up on the Colville fer years, proddin’ around in the gravel. He’s be’n there too long. They git that way after a while. He wouldn’t even come after his own grub. Used to send the Kobuks for it. The only times I ever see him was when he went down to Nome last spring, an’ when he come back. He was batty then. Bet agin John Johnson’s dogs, even money, an’ then bet on them Gordon dogs. I give him ten-to-one, an’ he took two hundred of it. When he came back through, he stopped in for to get his dust. I guess it was more gold than he ever seen before or heard tell of, an’ now he thinks he’s shovelled it out of the gravel.”

“Don’t know as he was so damn batty—bettin’ on them Gordon dogs,” opined the man who objected to heavy gravel, “They win, didn’t they?”

“Sure they win, all right. But, it was a fool bet, at that. Who the hell ever heard of them dogs?”

“Maybe he had.”

“Hell! He didn’t even know they was a race! An’ way up where he hung out he couldn’t hear nothin’ about nothin’.”

“Maybe it was a hunch. A man ought to ride a hunch. I’ve got a kind of a hunch I’d maybe ought to hit out on his back trail. He might not be so damn batty. An’ I never seen no red gold.”

The proprietor grinned: “That’s what folks always does when they make a big strike—go off an’ leave it, an’ tell the first bunch of strangers right where to go an’ locate it. This here specimen made his real good by colorin’ it red. I guess your hunch ain’t workin’ very strong, an’ I got one that beats it all to hell. It says we ort to start a game of stud.”

The miner laughed: “You win,” he agreed, “Your hunch is strongest. Let’s ride it!”

Out on the trail MacShane grinned as he mushed up the Kobuk. “The only stampede I ever tried to start—an’ she fizzled. Men are fools!”

Instead of following down the Alatna to its mouth and up the Koyukuk, he cut northeastward across the heads of John River, Wild Creek, and North Fork, and two weeks later struck Myrtle Creek almost at its headwaters, and swung his dogs down stream. One after another he passed the deserted cabins that told the story of the creek’s abandonment. What if the Gordons had gone, too? It was slow trailing, and he was very tired. The short noonday twilight had faded into night, and overhead the stars twinkled in cold brilliance. He knew he ought to camp, but doggedly pushed on. An hour later as he rounded a bend a dull square of light showed through the frosted pane of a cabin. MacShane’s heart was pounding wildly as he urged on his dogs. It was the Gordon claim! There, rearing its black bulk out of the snow, was a boiler. But—it was cold! The door of the cabin opened, and MacShane paused as his eyes drank in the figure of the girl who stood framed in the doorway. It was she—the one woman in all the world—his woman! She was peering at him through the gloom. The next instant the door closed with a bang. The figure was gone.

MacShane frowned. Why was the boiler cold? Where was Gordon? And why had the girl slammed the door? The hospitality of the people of the Koyukuk was proverbial throughout all the North.

Slowly he advanced to the door. Should he call to her? Should he tell her who he was? And why he had come? He paused before the closed door. No, not yet, he decided. Then, purposely gruffening his voice, he called, loudly.

With the coming of February Lou Gordon completed her plan for the future. As soon as the spring thaws hardened the surface of the snow she would hit the trail—the long trail to the unknown Colville, and there, somewhere in those Arctic wastes she would find Huloimee Tilakum. Oh, why had she not interpreted the look she had often surprised in his eyes? Why had she remained blind to its meaning? She knew, now. There, in the night it had come to her—the night she had reached for her rifle—to be rid, forever, of the eyes that glowed in the dark. And there, in the high North, they two should find life—life, and love, and happiness.

She would sell her dogs in Bettles—all but the twelve great race dogs which she would keep for a trail team. And then she would hit straight up the Alatna, and cross to the Kobuk, and there she would find the Eskimos who had carried the supplies to Huloimee Tilakum through the long years of his exile in the land of red gold.

If only Dalzene had forgotten her. Maybe he would not dare to risk a trip to Myrtle even for the purpose of carrying out his threat, when he knew that the hand of every man upon the Koyukuk was against him. But, she dismissed this hope, as she recalled the terrible gleam of his eyes as the threat was uttered. No, Dalzene would come—sometime. She prayed that his coming should be delayed until after the snow hardened in the spring. But, Dalzene had a toboggan!

One evening soon after she had returned from feeding her dogs the sound of a voice startled her. It was a man urging on tired dogs. Stepping to the doorway she peered into the gloom. There he stood upon the creek, looking at her. For a long moment she scrutinized him as well as the starlight would permit. He was a bearded man. His shoulders drooped slightly. He was tired. He had come from the direction of Nolan, but he was no man of Nolan, that she knew. Nor was it Dalzene. She would instantly have recognized the burly form of the hooch-runner. Who was he? And why did he stand and stare at her without speaking. Possibly, some confederate of Dalzene, who had been sent ahead to see if the coast were clear. Dalzene would not risk his life lightly. With terror in her heart she slammed the door, and shot the heavy bar that she had contrived after the death of her father. Then, rifle in hand she seated herself on the edge of her bunk, and waited.

The man was approaching the door. She could hear his footsteps crunching the packed snow. The footsteps ceased and a moment later a voice called from the darkness:

“Hello, in there! Can I stop for the night?”

For a moment the girl hesitated, but only for a moment. Here was a trail-weary man, stumbling in the night upon the only cabin on the whole creek that afforded warmth and comfort, and she must refuse him! Outside, the man awaited his reply, and with an effort the girl steeled herself to violate tradition and deny him the comfort he asked.

“No. I’m sorry, but—I’m all alone. My father—isn’t here.” Instantly she regretted the words. What if the man were a confederate of Dalzene, and Dalzene should find that she was alone? “I—I expect him back anytime,” she added, as an after-thought. “You can camp in the wood house. It is dry in there, and sheltered from the wind.”

“Thanks,” answered the voice, “I will.”

She heard his footsteps recede from the cabin, a few moments elapsed and she heard his voice urging the dogs up the slope from the creek. Later she breathed against a frost-coated pane of the window, and when a tiny spot had cleared, she peeped out. The man was carrying an armful of spruce boughs into the wood house. He returned for another huge armful which he spread on top of the snow upon the sheltered side of the building for his dogs. “No friend of Dalzene would do that!” exclaimed the girl, under her breath, and turning to the stove, she slipped a caribou steak into the frying pan, and brewed a pot of strong tea. When the steak was done, she took the pan and the teapot and opening the door called to the man: “Here is some tea, and steak. Better get them while they’re hot!” And, as his figure emerged from the wood house, she once more slammed the door. She heard him come for the food, and return to the wood house. Then she blew out her lamp and went to bed, with her rifle within reach of her hand.

When she awoke next morning and once more cleared a space on the pane and looked out the man had gone. She could see his trail where it led off down the creek.

After breakfast she fed her dogs and as she returned from the corral was attracted by the peculiar actions of Skookum, who was rushing into the wood house and out again, with short dashes down the trail of the departed traveler, evincing evidences of excitement and delight. He bounded to her side, looked into her face, and again raced off to the wood house. What did it mean? Skookum was no fool puppy to caper about in this manner. He was the most sedate and indifferent of dogs. Half in wonder the girl followed him to the wood house, where she found him sniffing about the pile of boughs upon which the man had made his bed. A little square of white paper attracted her attention. It was a page torn from a small note book and pinned to the wood house door by means of a sliver. There was pencil writing upon the paper, and carrying it into the cabin she held it close to the lamp, and began to read the awkwardly scribbled words. But, at the first sentence a cry escaped her lips, as with trembling fingers she turned the scrap of paper over and stared at the signature. For a moment she stood motionless her face paling and flushing as the hot blood surged from her wildly pounding heart. Turning the paper her eyes devoured the words in feverish haste:

The last word was heavily underscored, and at the bottom of the paper were the words “Huloimee Tilakum.”

With a wild, sobbing cry, the girl crushed the paper in her palm and thrust it into the bosom of her shirt. The next moment she was fastening on her snowshoes, and shutting Skookum in the cabin, she struck off down the creek, following the toboggan trail that was but a few hours old.

“He came to me! He came to me!” over and over she repeated the words as her feet fairly flew over the snow. “He came to me—and I didn’t know him! It was his beard! He does love me. We neither of us knew it, then. We were like little children groping in the dark. He will camp at the cabin eight miles down—waiting for dad to come home. Poor old dad, he’s home, now—and happy. And I will be happy, oh, so happy—with him! We will both be happy, and together we can laugh at the long night, and the strong cold.” She paused abruptly and glanced back. “What if he should go on to Bettles? A hundred miles, and I haven’t a bite to eat nor a blanket!” She smiled, and resumed her pace. “I can overtake him. He has got to break trail for his dogs.”

Rounding a sharp bend of the creek she came face to face with a dog outfit, mushing up stream. The outfit halted and two men stood staring at her. And in that instant the blood froze in her veins. The larger of the two was Jake Dalzene! And he was eyeing her with a fatuous, grinning leer. The eyes of his companion were harder—frankly appraising.