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The God of His Fathers: Tales of the Klondyke
A DAUGHTER OF THE AURORA
"You--what you call--lazy mans, you lazy mans would desire me to haf
for wife. It is not good. Nevaire, no, nevaire, will lazy mans my
hoosband be."
Thus Joy Molineau spoke her mind to Jack Harrington, even as she had
spoken it, but more tritely and in his own tongue, to Louis Savoy the
previous night.
"Listen, Joy--"
"No, no; why moos' I listen to lazy mans? It is vaire bad, you hang
rount, make visitation to my cabin, and do nothing. How you get grub
for the famine? Why haf not you the dust? Odder mans haf plentee."
"But I work hard, Joy. Never a day am I not on trail or up creek.
Even now have I just come off. My dogs are yet tired. Other men have
luck and find plenty of gold; but I--I have no luck."
"Ah! But when this mans with the wife which is Indian, this mans
McCormack, when him discovaire the Klondike, you go not. Odder mans
go; odder mans now rich."
"You know I was prospecting over on the head-reaches of the Tanana,"
Harrington protested, "and knew nothing of the Eldorado or Bonanza
until it was too late."
"That is deeferent; only you are--what you call way off."
"What?"
"Way off. In the--yes--in the dark. It is nevaire too late. One
vaire rich mine is there, on the creek which is Eldorado. The mans
drive the stake and him go 'way. No odddr mans know what of him
become. The mans, him which drive the stake, is nevaire no more.
Sixty days no mans on that claim file the papaire. Then odder mans,
plentee odder mans--what you call--jump that claim. Then they race, O
so queek, like the wind, to file the papaire. Him be vaire rich. Him
get grub for famine."
Harrington hid the major portion of his interest.
"When's the time up?" he asked. "What claim is it?"
"So I speak Louis Savoy last night," she continued, ignoring him.
"Him I think the winnaire."
"Hang Louis Savoy!"
"So Louis Savoy speak in my cabin last night. Him say, 'Joy, I am
strong mans. I haf good dogs. I haf long wind. I will be winnaire.
Then you will haf me for hoosband?' And I say to him, I say--"
"What'd you say?"
"I say, 'If Louis Savoy is winnaire, then will he haf me for wife.'"
"And if he don't win?"
"Then Louis Savoy, him will not be--what you call--the father of my
children."
"And if I win?"
"You winnaire? Ha! ha! Nevaire!"
Exasperating as it was, Joy Molineau's laughter was pretty to hear.
Harrington did not mind it. He had long since been broken in.
Besides, he was no exception. She had forced all her lovers to suffer
in kind. And very enticing she was just then, her lips parted, her
color heightened by the sharp kiss of the frost, her eyes vibrant with
the lure which is the greatest of all lures and which may be seen
nowhere save in woman's eyes. Her sled-dogs clustered about her in
hirsute masses, and the leader, Wolf Fang, laid his long snout softly
in her lap.
"If I do win?" Harrington pressed.
She looked from dog to lover and back again.
"What you say, Wolf Fang? If him strong mans and file the papaire,
shall we his wife become? Eh? What you say?"
Wolf Fang picked up his ears and growled at Harrington.
"It is vaire cold," she suddenly added with feminine irrelevance,
rising to her feet and straightening out the team.
Her lover looked on stolidly. She had kept him guessing from the
first time they met, and patience had been joined unto his virtues.
"Hi! Wolf Fang!" she cried, springing upon the sled as it leaped into
sudden motion. "Ai! Ya! Mush-on!"
From the corner of his eye Harrington watched her swinging down the
trail to Forty Mile. Where the road forked and crossed the river to
Fort Cudahy, she halted the dogs and turned about.
"O Mistaire Lazy Mans!" she called back. "Wolf Fang, him say yes--if
you winnaire!"
* * * * *
But somehow, as such things will, it leaked out, and all Forty Mile,
which had hitherto speculated on Joy Molineau's choice between her two
latest lovers, now hazarded bets and guesses as to which would win in
the forthcoming race. The camp divided itself into two factions, and
every effort was put forth in order that their respective favorites
might be the first in at the finish. There was a scramble for the
best dogs the country could afford, for dogs, and good ones, were
essential, above all, to success. And it meant much to the victor.
Besides the possession of a wife, the like of which had yet to be
created, it stood for a mine worth a million at least.
That fall, when news came down of McCormack's discovery on Bonanza,
all the Lower Country, Circle City and Forty Mile included, had
stampeded up the Yukon,--at least all save those who, like Jack
Harrington and Louis Savoy, were away prospecting in the west. Moose
pastures and creeks were staked indiscriminately and promiscuously;
and incidentally, one of the unlikeliest of creeks, Eldorado. Olaf
Nelson laid claim to five hundred of its linear feet, duly posted his
notice, and as duly disappeared. At that time the nearest recording
office was in the police barracks at Fort Cudahy, just across the
river from Forty Mile; but when it became bruited abroad that Eldorado
Creek was a treasure-house, it was quickly discovered that Olaf Nelson
had failed to make the down-Yukon trip to file upon his property. Men
cast hungry eyes upon the ownerless claim, where they knew a
thousand-thousand dollars waited but shovel and sluice- box. Yet they
dared not touch it; for there was a law which permitted sixty days to
lapse between the staking and the filing, during which time a claim
was immune. The whole country knew of Olaf Nelson's disappearance,
and scores of men made preparation for the jumping and for the
consequent race to Fort Cudahy.
But competition at Forty Mile was limited. With the camp devoting its
energies to the equipping either of Jack Harrington or Louis Savoy, no
man was unwise enough to enter the contest single-handed. It was a
stretch of a hundred miles to the Recorder's office, and it was
planned that the two favorites should have four relays of dogs
stationed along the trail. Naturally, the last relay was to be the
crucial one, and for these twenty-five miles their respective
partisans strove to obtain the strongest possible animals. So bitter
did the factions wax, and so high did they bid, that dogs brought
stiffer prices than ever before in the annals of the country. And, as
it chanced, this scramble for dogs turned the public eye still more
searchingly upon Joy Molineau. Not only was she the cause of it all,
but she possessed the finest sled-dog from Chilkoot to Bering Sea. As
wheel or leader, Wolf Fang had no equal. The man whose sled he led
down the last stretch was bound to win. There could be no doubt of
it. But the community had an innate sense of the fitness of things,
and not once was Joy vexed by overtures for his use. And the factions
drew consolation from the fact that if one man did not profit by him,
neither should the other.
However, since man, in the individual or in the aggregate, has been so
fashioned that he goes through life blissfully obtuse to the deeper
subtleties of his womankind, so the men of Forty Mile failed to divine
the inner deviltry of Joy Molineau. They confessed, afterward, that
they had failed to appreciate this dark-eyed daughter of the aurora,
whose father had traded furs in the country before ever they dreamed
of invading it, and who had herself first opened eyes on the
scintillant northern lights. Nay, accident of birth had not rendered
her less the woman, nor had it limited her woman's understanding of
men. They knew she played with them, but they did not know the wisdom
of her play, its deepness and its deftness. They failed to see more
than the exposed card, so that to the very last Forty Mile was in a
state of pleasant obfuscation, and it was not until she cast her final
trump that it came to reckon up the score.
Early in the week the camp turned out to start Jack Harrington and
Louis Savoy on their way. They had taken a shrewd margin of time, for
it was their wish to arrive at Olaf Nelson's claim some days previous
to the expiration of its immunity, that they might rest themselves,
and their dogs be fresh for the first relay. On the way up they found
the men of Dawson already stationing spare dog teams along the trail,
and it was manifest that little expense had been spared in view of the
millions at stake.
A couple of days after the departure of their champions, Forty Mile
began sending up their relays,--first to the seventy-five station,
then to the fifty, and last to the twenty-five. The teams for the
last stretch were magnificent, and so equally matched that the camp
discussed their relative merits for a full hour at fifty below, before
they were permitted to pull out. At the last moment Joy Molineau
dashed in among them on her sled. She drew Lon McFane, who had charge
of Harrington's team, to one side, and hardly had the first words left
her lips when it was noticed that his lower jaw dropped with a
celerity and emphasis suggestive of great things. He unhitched Wolf
Fang from her sled, put him at the head of Harrington's team, and
mushed the string of animals into the Yukon trail.
"Poor Louis Savoy!" men said; but Joy Molineau flashed her black eyes
defiantly and drove back to her father's cabin.
* * * * *
Midnight drew near on Olaf Nelson's claim. A few hundred fur-clad men
had preferred sixty below and the jumping, to the inducements of warm
cabins and comfortable bunks. Several score of them had their notices
prepared for posting and their dogs at hand. A bunch of Captain
Constantine's mounted police had been ordered on duty that fair play
might rule. The command had gone forth that no man should place a
stake till the last second of the day had ticked itself into the past.
In the northland such commands are equal to Jehovah's in the matter of
potency; the dum-dum as rapid and effective as the thunderbolt. It
was clear and cold. The aurora borealis painted palpitating color
revels on the sky. Rosy waves of cold brilliancy swept across the
zenith, while great coruscating bars of greenish white blotted out the
stars, or a Titan's hand reared mighty arches above the Pole. And at
this mighty display the wolf-dogs howled as had their ancestors of old
time.
A bearskin-coated policeman stepped prominently to the fore, watch in
hand. Men hurried among the dogs, rousing them to their feet,
untangling their traces, straightening them out. The entries came to
the mark, firmly gripping stakes and notices. They had gone over the
boundaries of the claim so often that they could now have done it
blindfolded. The policeman raised his hand. Casting off their
superfluous furs and blankets, and with a final cinching of belts,
they came to attention.
"Time!"
Sixty pairs of hands unmitted; as many pairs of moccasins gripped hard
upon the snow.
"Go!"
They shot across the wide expanse, round the four sides, sticking
notices at every corner, and down the middle where the two centre
stakes were to be planted. Then they sprang for the sleds on the
frozen bed of the creek. An anarchy of sound and motion broke out.
Sled collided with sled, and dog-team fastened upon dog-team with
bristling manes and screaming fangs. The narrow creek was glutted
with the struggling mass. Lashes and butts of dog-whips were
distributed impartially among men and brutes. And to make it of
greater moment, each participant had a bunch of comrades intent on
breaking him out of jam. But one by one, and by sheer strength, the
sleds crept out and shot from sight in the darkness of the overhanging
banks.
Jack Harrington had anticipated this crush and waited by his sled
until it untangled. Louis Savoy, aware of his rival's greater wisdom
in the matter of dog-driving, had followed his lead and also waited.
The rout had passed beyond earshot when they took the trail, and it
was not till they had travelled the ten miles or so down to Bonanza
that they came upon it, speeding along in single file, but well
bunched. There was little noise, and less chance of one passing
another at that stage. The sleds, from runner to runner, measured
sixteen inches, the trail eighteen; but the trail, packed down fully a
foot by the traffic, was like a gutter. On either side spread the
blanket of soft snow crystals. If a man turned into this in an
endeavor to pass, his dogs would wallow perforce to their bellies and
slow down to a snail's pace. So the men lay close to their leaping
sleds and waited. No alteration in position occurred down the fifteen
miles of Bonanza and Klondike to Dawson, where the Yukon was
encountered. Here the first relays waited. But here, intent to kill
their first teams, if necessary, Harrington and Savoy had had their
fresh teams placed a couple of miles beyond those of the others. In
the confusion of changing sleds they passed full half the bunch.
Perhaps thirty men were still leading them when they shot on to the
broad breast of the Yukon. Here was the tug. When the river froze in
the fall, a mile of open water had been left between two mighty jams.
This had but recently crusted, the current being swift, and now it was
as level, hard, and slippery as a dance floor. The instant they
struck this glare ice Harrington came to his knees, holding
precariously on with one hand, his whip singing fiercely among his
dogs and fearsome abjurations hurtling about their ears. The teams
spread out on the smooth surface, each straining to the uttermost.
But few men in the North could lift their dogs as did Jack Harrington.
At once he began to pull ahead, and Louis Savoy, taking the pace, hung
on desperately, his leaders running even with the tail of his rival's
sled.
Midway on the glassy stretch their relays shot out from the bank. But
Harrington did not slacken. Watching his chance when the new sled
swung in close, he leaped across, shouting as he did so and jumping up
the pace of his fresh dogs. The other driver fell off somehow. Savoy
did likewise with his relay, and the abandoned teams, swerving to
right and left, collided with the others and piled the ice with
confusion. Harrington cut out the pace; Savoy hung on. As they neared
the end of the glare ice, they swept abreast of the leading sled.
When they shot into the narrow trail between the soft snowbanks, they
led the race; and Dawson, watching by the light of the aurora, swore
that it was neatly done.
When the frost grows lusty at sixty below, men cannot long remain
without fire or excessive exercise, and live. So Harrington and Savoy
now fell to the ancient custom of "ride and run." Leaping from their
sleds, tow- thongs in hand, they ran behind till the blood resumed its
wonted channels and expelled the frost, then back to the sleds till
the heat again ebbed away. Thus, riding and running, they covered the
second and third relays. Several times, on smooth ice, Savoy spurted
his dogs, and as often failed to gain past. Strung along for five
miles in the rear, the remainder of the race strove to overtake them,
but vainly, for to Louis Savoy alone was the glory given of keeping
Jack Harrington's killing pace.
As they swung into the seventy-five-mile station, Lon McFane dashed
alongside; Wolf Fang in the lead caught Harrington's eye, and he knew
that the race was his. No team in the North could pass him on those
last twenty-five miles. And when Savoy saw Wolf Fang heading his
rival's team, he knew that he was out of the running, and he cursed
softly to himself, in the way woman is most frequently cursed. But he
still clung to the other's smoking trail, gambling on chance to the
last. And as they churned along, the day breaking in the southeast,
they marvelled in joy and sorrow at that which Joy Molineau had done.
* * * * *
Forty Mile had early crawled out of its sleeping furs and congregated
near the edge of the trail. From this point it could view the
up-Yukon course to its first bend several miles away. Here it could
also see across the river to the finish at Fort Cudahy, where the Gold
Recorder nervously awaited. Joy Molineau had taken her position
several rods back from the trail, and under the circumstances, the
rest of Forty Mile forbore interposing itself. So the space was clear
between her and the slender line of the course. Fires had been built,
and around these men wagered dust and dogs, the long odds on Wolf
Fang.
"Here they come!" shrilled an Indian boy from the top of a pine.
Up the Yukon a black speck appeared against the snow, closely followed
by a second. As these grew larger, more black specks manifested
themselves, but at a goodly distance to the rear. Gradually they
resolved themselves into dogs and sleds, and men lying flat upon them.
"Wolf Fang leads," a lieutenant of police whispered to Joy. She
smiled her interest back.
"Ten to one on Harrington!" cried a Birch Creek King, dragging out his
sack.
"The Queen, her pay you not mooch?" queried Joy.
The lieutenant shook his head.
"You have some dust, ah, how mooch?" she continued.
He exposed his sack. She gauged it with a rapid eye.
"Mebbe--say--two hundred, eh? Good. Now I give--what you call--the
tip. Covaire the bet." Joy smiled inscrutably. The lieutenant
pondered. He glanced up the trail. The two men had risen to their
knees and were lashing their dogs furiously, Harrington in the lead.
"Ten to one on Harrington!" bawled the Birch Creek King, flourishing
his sack in the lieutenant's face.
"Covaire the bet," Joy prompted.
He obeyed, shrugging his shoulders in token that he yielded, not to
the dictate of his reason, but to her charm. Joy nodded to reassure
him.
All noise ceased. Men paused in the placing of bets.
Yawing and reeling and plunging, like luggers before the wind, the
sleds swept wildly upon them. Though he still kept his leader up to
the tail of Harrington's sled, Louis Savoy's face was without hope.
Harrington's mouth was set. He looked neither to the right nor to the
left. His dogs were leaping in perfect rhythm, firm-footed, close to
the trail, and Wolf Fang, head low and unseeing, whining softly, was
leading his comrades magnificently.
Forty Mile stood breathless. Not a sound, save the roar of the
runners and the voice of the whips.
Then the clear voice of Joy Molineau rose on the air. "Ai! Ya! Wolf
Fang! Wolf Fang!"
Wolf Fang heard. He left the trail sharply, heading directly for his
mistress. The team dashed after him, and the sled poised an instant
on a single runner, then shot Harrington into the snow. Savoy was by
like a flash. Harrington pulled to his feet and watched him skimming
across the river to the Gold Recorder's. He could not help hearing
what was said.
"Ah, him do vaire well," Joy Molineau was explaining to the
lieutenant. "Him--what you call--set the pace. Yes, him set the pace
vaire well."