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The God of His Fathers: Tales of the Klondyke
AT THE RAINBOW'S END
I
It was for two reasons that Montana Kid discarded his "chaps" and
Mexican spurs, and shook the dust of the Idaho ranges from his feet.
In the first place, the encroachments of a steady, sober, and sternly
moral civilization had destroyed the primeval status of the western
cattle ranges, and refined society turned the cold eye of disfavor
upon him and his ilk. In the second place, in one of its cyclopean
moments the race had arisen and shoved back its frontier several
thousand miles. Thus, with unconscious foresight, did mature society
make room for its adolescent members. True, the new territory was
mostly barren; but its several hundred thousand square miles of
frigidity at least gave breathing space to those who else would have
suffocated at home.
Montana Kid was such a one. Heading for the sea-coast, with a haste
several sheriff's posses might possibly have explained, and with more
nerve than coin of the realm, he succeeded in shipping from a Puget
Sound port, and managed to survive the contingent miseries of steerage
sea-sickness and steerage grub. He was rather sallow and drawn, but
still his own indomitable self, when he landed on the Dyea beach one
day in the spring of the year. Between the cost of dogs, grub, and
outfits, and the customs exactions of the two clashing governments, it
speedily penetrated to his understanding that the Northland was
anything save a poor man's Mecca. So he cast about him in search of
quick harvests. Between the beach and the passes were scattered many
thousands of passionate pilgrims. These pilgrims Montana Kid
proceeded to farm. At first he dealt faro in a pine-board gambling
shack; but disagreeable necessity forced him to drop a sudden period
into a man's life, and to move on up trail. Then he effected a corner
in horseshoe nails, and they circulated at par with legal tender, four
to the dollar, till an unexpected consignment of a hundred barrels or
so broke the market and forced him to disgorge his stock at a loss.
After that he located at Sheep Camp, organized the professional
packers, and jumped the freight ten cents a pound in a single day. In
token of their gratitude, the packers patronized his faro and roulette
layouts and were mulcted cheerfully of their earnings. But his
commercialism was of too lusty a growth to be long endured; so they
rushed him one night, burned his shanty, divided the bank, and headed
him up the trail with empty pockets.
Ill-luck was his running mate. He engaged with responsible parties to
run whisky across the line by way of precarious and unknown trails,
lost his Indian guides, and had the very first outfit confiscated by
the Mounted Police. Numerous other misfortunes tended to make him
bitter of heart and wanton of action, and he celebrated his arrival at
Lake Bennett by terrorizing the camp for twenty straight hours. Then
a miners' meeting took him in hand, and commanded him to make himself
scarce. He had a wholesome respect for such assemblages, and he
obeyed in such haste that he inadvertently removed himself at the
tail-end of another man's dog team. This was equivalent to
horse-stealing in a more mellow clime, so he hit only the high places
across Bennett and down Tagish, and made his first camp a full hundred
miles to the north.
Now it happened that the break of spring was at hand, and many of the
principal citizens of Dawson were travelling south on the last ice.
These he met and talked with, noted their names and possessions, and
passed on. He had a good memory, also a fair imagination; nor was
veracity one of his virtues.
II
Dawson, always eager for news, beheld Montana Kid's sled heading down
the Yukon, and went out on the ice to meet him. No, he hadn't any
newspapers; didn't know whether Durrant was hanged yet, nor who had
won the Thanksgiving game; hadn't heard whether the United States and
Spain had gone to fighting; didn't know who Dreyfus was; but O'Brien?
Hadn't they heard? O'Brien, why, he was drowned in the White Horse;
Sitka Charley the only one of the party who escaped. Joe Ladue? Both
legs frozen and amputated at the Five Fingers. And Jack Dalton?
Blown up on the "Sea Lion" with all hands. And Bettles? Wrecked on
the "Carthagina," in Seymour Narrows,--twenty survivors out of three
hundred. And Swiftwater Bill? Gone through the rotten ice of Lake
LeBarge with six female members of the opera troupe he was convoying.
Governor Walsh? Lost with all hands and eight sleds on the Thirty
Mile. Devereaux? Who was Devereaux? Oh, the courier! Shot by
Indians on Lake Marsh.
So it went. The word was passed along. Men shouldered in to ask
after friends and partners, and in turn were shouldered out, too
stunned for blasphemy. By the time Montana Kid gained the bank he was
surrounded by several hundred fur-clad miners. When he passed the
Barracks he was the centre of a procession. At the Opera House he was
the nucleus of an excited mob, each member struggling for a chance to
ask after some absent comrade. On every side he was being invited to
drink. Never before had the Klondike thus opened its arms to a
che-cha-qua. All Dawson was humming. Such a series of catastrophes
had never occurred in its history. Every man of note who had gone
south in the spring had been wiped out. The cabins vomited forth
their occupants. Wild-eyed men hurried down from the creeks and
gulches to seek out this man who had told a tale of such disaster.
The Russian half-breed wife of Bettles sought the fireplace,
inconsolable, and rocked back and forth, and ever and anon flung white
wood-ashes upon her raven hair. The flag at the Barracks flopped
dismally at half-mast. Dawson mourned its dead.
Why Montana Kid did this thing no man may know. Nor beyond the fact
that the truth was not in him, can explanation be hazarded. But for
five whole days he plunged the land in wailing and sorrow, and for
five whole days he was the only man in the Klondike. The country gave
him its best of bed and board. The saloons granted him the freedom of
their bars. Men sought him continuously. The high officials bowed
down to him for further information, and he was feasted at the
Barracks by Constantine and his brother officers. And then, one day,
Devereaux, the government courier, halted his tired dogs before the
gold commissioner's office. Dead? Who said so? Give him a moose
steak and he'd show them how dead he was. Why, Governor Walsh was in
camp on the Little Salmon, and O'Brien coming in on the first water.
Dead? Give him a moose steak and he'd show them.
And forthwith Dawson hummed. The Barracks' flag rose to the masthead,
and Bettles' wife washed herself and put on clean raiment. The
community subtly signified its desire that Montana Kid obliterate
himself from the landscape. And Montana Kid obliterated; as usual, at
the tail-end of some one else's dog team. Dawson rejoiced when he
headed down the Yukon, and wished him godspeed to the ultimate
destination of the case-hardened sinner. After that the owner of the
dogs bestirred himself, made complaint to Constantine, and from him
received the loan of a policeman.
III
With Circle City in prospect and the last ice crumbling under his
runners, Montana Kid took advantage of the lengthening days and
travelled his dogs late and early. Further, he had but little doubt
that the owner of the dogs in question had taken his trail, and he
wished to make American territory before the river broke. But by the
afternoon of the third day it became evident that he had lost in his
race with spring. The Yukon was growling and straining at its
fetters. Long detours became necessary, for the trail had begun to
fall through into the swift current beneath, while the ice, in
constant unrest, was thundering apart in great gaping fissures.
Through these and through countless airholes, the water began to sweep
across the surface of the ice, and by the time he pulled into a
woodchopper's cabin on the point of an island, the dogs were being
rushed off their feet and were swimming more often than not. He was
greeted sourly by the two residents, but he unharnessed and proceeded
to cook up.
Donald and Davy were fair specimens of frontier inefficients.
Canadian- born, city-bred Scots, in a foolish moment they had resigned
their counting-house desks, drawn upon their savings, and gone
Klondiking. And now they were feeling the rough edge of the country.
Grubless, spiritless, with a lust for home in their hearts, they had
been staked by the P. C. Company to cut wood for its steamers, with
the promise at the end of a passage home. Disregarding the
possibilities of the ice-run, they had fittingly demonstrated their
inefficiency by their choice of the island on which they located.
Montana Kid, though possessing little knowledge of the break-up of a
great river, looked about him dubiously, and cast yearning glances at
the distant bank where the towering bluffs promised immunity from all
the ice of the Northland.
After feeding himself and dogs, he lighted his pipe and strolled out
to get a better idea of the situation. The island, like all its river
brethren, stood higher at the upper end, and it was here that Donald
and Davy had built their cabin and piled many cords of wood. The far
shore was a full mile away, while between the island and the near
shore lay a back-channel perhaps a hundred yards across. At first
sight of this, Montana Kid was tempted to take his dogs and escape to
the mainland, but on closer inspection he discovered a rapid current
flooding on top. Below, the river twisted sharply to the west, and in
this turn its breast was studded by a maze of tiny islands.
"That's where she'll jam," he remarked to himself.
Half a dozen sleds, evidently bound up-stream to Dawson, were
splashing through the chill water to the tail of the island. Travel
on the river was passing from the precarious to the impossible, and it
was nip and tuck with them till they gained the island and came up the
path of the wood-choppers toward the cabin. One of them, snow-blind,
towed helplessly at the rear of a sled. Husky young fellows they
were, rough- garmented and trail-worn, yet Montana Kid had met the
breed before and knew at once that it was not his kind.
"Hello! How's things up Dawson-way?" queried the foremost, passing
his eye over Donald and Davy and settling it upon the Kid.
A first meeting in the wilderness is not characterized by formality.
The talk quickly became general, and the news of the Upper and Lower
Countries was swapped equitably back and forth. But the little the
newcomers had was soon over with, for they had wintered at Minook, a
thousand miles below, where nothing was doing. Montana Kid, however,
was fresh from Salt Water, and they annexed him while they pitched
camp, swamping him with questions concerning the outside, from which
they had been cut off for a twelvemonth.
A shrieking split, suddenly lifting itself above the general uproar on
the river, drew everybody to the bank. The surface water had
increased in depth, and the ice, assailed from above and below, was
struggling to tear itself from the grip of the shores. Fissures
reverberated into life before their eyes, and the air was filled with
multitudinous crackling, crisp and sharp, like the sound that goes up
on a clear day from the firing line.
From up the river two men were racing a dog team toward them on an
uncovered stretch of ice. But even as they looked, the pair struck
the water and began to flounder through. Behind, where their feet had
sped the moment before, the ice broke up and turned turtle. Through
this opening the river rushed out upon them to their waists, burying
the sled and swinging the dogs off at right angles in a drowning
tangle. But the men stopped their flight to give the animals a
fighting chance, and they groped hurriedly in the cold confusion,
slashing at the detaining traces with their sheath-knives. Then they
fought their way to the bank through swirling water and grinding ice,
where, foremost in leaping to the rescue among the jarring fragments,
was the Kid.
"Why, blime me, if it ain't Montana Kid!" exclaimed one of the men
whom the Kid was just placing upon his feet at the top of the bank.
He wore the scarlet tunic of the Mounted Police and jocularly raised
his right hand in salute.
"Got a warrant for you, Kid," he continued, drawing a bedraggled paper
from his breast pocket, "an' I 'ope as you'll come along peaceable."
Montana Kid looked at the chaotic river and shrugged his shoulders,
and the policeman, following his glance, smiled.
"Where are the dogs?" his companion asked.
"Gentlemen," interrupted the policeman, "this 'ere mate o' mine is
Jack Sutherland, owner of Twenty-Two Eldorado--"
"Not Sutherland of '92?" broke in the snow-blinded Minook man, groping
feebly toward him.
"The same." Sutherland gripped his hand.
"And you?"
"Oh, I'm after your time, but I remember you in my freshman year,--you
were doing P. G. work then. Boys," he called, turning half about,
"this is Sutherland, Jack Sutherland, erstwhile full-back on the
'Varsity. Come up, you gold-chasers, and fall upon him! Sutherland,
this is Greenwich,--played quarter two seasons back."
"Yes, I read of the game," Sutherland said, shaking hands. "And I
remember that big run of yours for the first touchdown."
Greenwich flushed darkly under his tanned skin and awkwardly made room
for another.
"And here's Matthews,--Berkeley man. And we've got some Eastern
cracks knocking about, too. Come up, you Princeton men! Come up!
This is Sutherland, Jack Sutherland!"
Then they fell upon him heavily, carried him into camp, and supplied
him with dry clothes and numerous mugs of black tea.
Donald and Davy, overlooked, had retired to their nightly game of
crib. Montana Kid followed them with the policeman.
"Here, get into some dry togs," he said, pulling them from out his
scanty kit. "Guess you'll have to bunk with me, too."
"Well, I say, you're a good 'un," the policeman remarked as he pulled
on the other man's socks. "Sorry I've got to take you back to Dawson,
but I only 'ope they won't be 'ard on you."
"Not so fast." The Kid smiled curiously. "We ain't under way yet.
When I go I'm going down river, and I guess the chances are you'll go
along."
"Not if I know myself--"
"Come on outside, and I'll show you, then. These damn fools,"
thrusting a thumb over his shoulder at the two Scots, "played smash
when they located here. Fill your pipe, first--this is pretty good
plug--and enjoy yourself while you can. You haven't many smokes
before you."
The policeman went with him wonderingly, while Donald and Davy dropped
their cards and followed. The Minook men noticed Montana Kid pointing
now up the river, now down, and came over.
"What's up?" Sutherland demanded.
"Nothing much." Nonchalance sat well upon the Kid. "Just a case of
raising hell and putting a chunk under. See that bend down there?
That's where she'll jam millions of tons of ice. Then she'll jam in
the bends up above, millions of tons. Upper jam breaks first, lower
jam holds, pouf!" He dramatically swept the island with his hand.
"Millions of tons," he added reflectively.
"And what of the woodpiles?" Davy questioned.
The Kid repeated his sweeping gestures and Davy wailed, "The labor of
months! It canna be! Na, na, lad, it canna be. I doot not it's a
jowk. Ay, say that it is," he appealed.
But when the Kid laughed harshly and turned on his heel, Davy flung
himself upon the piles and began frantically to toss the cordwood back
from the bank.
"Lend a hand, Donald!" he cried. "Can ye no lend a hand? 'T is the
labor of months and the passage home!"
Donald caught him by the arm and shook him, but he tore free. "Did ye
no hear, man? Millions of tons, and the island shall be sweepit
clean."
"Straighten yersel' up, man," said Donald. "It's a bit fashed ye
are."
But Davy fell upon the cordwood. Donald stalked back to the cabin,
buckled on his money belt and Davy's, and went out to the point of the
island where the ground was highest and where a huge pine towered
above its fellows.
The men before the cabin heard the ringing of his axe and smiled.
Greenwich returned from across the island with the word that they were
penned in. It was impossible to cross the back-channel. The blind
Minook man began to sing, and the rest joined in with--
"Wonder if it's true? Does it seem so to you? Seems to me he's lying--
Oh, I wonder if it's true?"
"It's ay sinfu'," Davy moaned, lifting his head and watching them
dance in the slanting rays of the sun. "And my guid wood a' going to
waste."
"Oh, I wonder if it's true,"
was flaunted back.
The noise of the river ceased suddenly. A strange calm wrapped about
them. The ice had ripped from the shores and was floating higher on
the surface of the river, which was rising. Up it came, swift and
silent, for twenty feet, till the huge cakes rubbed softly against the
crest of the bank. The tail of the island, being lower, was overrun.
Then, without effort, the white flood started down-stream. But the
sound increased with the momentum, and soon the whole island was
shaking and quivering with the shock of the grinding bergs. Under
pressure, the mighty cakes, weighing hundreds of tons, were shot into
the air like peas. The frigid anarchy increased its riot, and the men
had to shout into one another's ears to be heard. Occasionally the
racket from the back channel could be heard above the tumult. The
island shuddered with the impact of an enormous cake which drove in
squarely upon its point. It ripped a score of pines out by the roots,
then swinging around and over, lifted its muddy base from the bottom
of the river and bore down upon the cabin, slicing the bank and trees
away like a gigantic knife. It seemed barely to graze the corner of
the cabin, but the cribbed logs tilted up like matches, and the
structure, like a toy house, fell backward in ruin.
"The labor of months! The labor of months, and the passage home!"
Davy wailed, while Montana Kid and the policeman dragged him backward
from the woodpiles.
"You'll 'ave plenty o' hoppertunity all in good time for yer passage
'ome," the policeman growled, clouting him alongside the head and
sending him flying into safety.
Donald, from the top of the pine, saw the devastating berg sweep away
the cordwood and disappear down-stream. As though satisfied with this
damage, the ice-flood quickly dropped to its old level and began to
slacken its pace. The noise likewise eased down, and the others could
hear Donald shouting from his eyrie to look down-stream. As forecast,
the jam had come among the islands in the bend, and the ice was piling
up in a great barrier which stretched from shore to shore. The river
came to a standstill, and the water finding no outlet began to rise.
It rushed up till the island was awash, the men splashing around up to
their knees, and the dogs swimming to the ruins of the cabin. At this
stage it abruptly became stationary, with no perceptible rise or fall.
Montana Kid shook his head. "It's jammed above, and no more's coming
down."
"And the gamble is, which jam will break first," Sutherland added.
"Exactly," the Kid affirmed. "If the upper jam breaks first, we
haven't a chance. Nothing will stand before it."
The Minook men turned away in silence, but soon "Rumsky Ho" floated
upon the quiet air, followed by "The Orange and the Black." Room was
made in the circle for Montana Kid and the policeman, and they quickly
caught the ringing rhythm of the choruses as they drifted on from song
to song.
"Oh, Donald, will ye no lend a hand?" Davy sobbed at the foot of the
tree into which his comrade had climbed. "Oh, Donald, man, will ye no
lend a hand?" he sobbed again, his hands bleeding from vain attempts
to scale the slippery trunk.
But Donald had fixed his gaze up river, and now his voice rang out,
vibrant with fear:--
"God Almichty, here she comes!"
Standing knee-deep in the icy water, the Minook men, with Montana Kid
and the policeman, gripped hands and raised their voices in the
terrible, "Battle Hymn of the Republic." But the words were drowned
in the advancing roar.
And to Donald was vouchsafed a sight such as no man may see and live.
A great wall of white flung itself upon the island. Trees, dogs, men,
were blotted out, as though the hand of God had wiped the face of
nature clean. This much he saw, then swayed an instant longer in his
lofty perch and hurtled far out into the frozen hell.