Connie Morgan in the Fur Country Part 4

"That's prob'ly why he come away," answered Waseche, dryly.

"But he's going back--he's going with me. We're going to hit the trail for Dawson tomorrow, and hit across the mountains by way of Bonnet Plume Pa.s.s, and outfit at Fort Norman on the Mackenzie, and then strike out for the eastern end of Great Bear Lake, and the barren grounds. We're going to trap the rest of the winter and next summer we're going to prospect and figure on starting a trading post. We've got it all worked out."

"Oh, jest like that, eh? It ort to be right smart of a little ja'nt.

With nothin' between Dawson an' Fort Norman--an' nothin' beyond."

"We might make another strike. And if we don't we can trap."

"Yup, that's a great idee--that trappin'. If you both work like a dog all winter out in them there barren lands, an' freeze an' starve, an'

have good luck with your traps, you'd ort to clean up as much as two dollars a day."

"But look at the country we'd see! And the fun we'd have!"

"Ain't they country enough to see here in Alaska? An' as fer fun--some folks idee of humour gits me! Who ever heard of anyone goin' 'leven hundred miles into nowheres for to have fun? I tell you, son, I've know'd stampedes to start on mighty slim information, but never as slim as what you've got. I read your book, an' all them old parties had to go on was the stories of some Injuns--an' the whole mess of 'em's be'n dead most two hundred years! An' I think the book's a fake, anyhow--'cause I don't believe gold's been invented that long! No, sir, take it from me, it's the dog-gonedest wild goose chase ever undertook by anyone--but, at that--if it wasn't for this game laig of mine, I b'lieve I'd go 'long!"

After dinner Connie started to overhaul his trail outfit while Waseche looked on. After a while the man rose, and put on his mackinaw.

"I've got to go back to the office," he said. "Me an' Roarin' Mike O'Reilly has got to tackle that mail."

Connie shot his big partner a long, sidewise glance. "He must be some rough bird to earn a name like that over on the Tanana."

"Rough as pig iron," answered Waseche solemnly. "He eats 'em alive, Roarin' does."

"What--pancakes?"

"Yup--pancakes, an' grizzlies. Roarin' Mike, he takes 'em as they come.

Didn't you see him lay holt of your wolf-dog?"

"Yes," answered the boy, as solemn as an owl. "And I don't like folks to be so rough with Leloo."

"He promised he wouldn't hurt your dog when we seen you comin' up the hill."

"It's a good thing you've got him where you can keep your eye on him. If he ever gets loose he's liable to run the crew off the works."

"Yup. I'll watch out for that. He's a stenographer. It's claimed he kin spell--better'n what I kin. An' when he gits a letter wrote down, it kin be read without a jury."

"I think you've picked a winner, at that, Waseche. I was watching him when he put out his hand to touch Leloo. He would rather have shoved it into the fire. There's something to him, even if the names did get mixed on the package when they s.h.i.+pped him in. I suppose that somewhere over on the Tanana there's a big, red-eyed, double-fisted roughneck charging around among the construction camps packing a name like 'Nellie.'"

Waseche grinned. "Percival Lafollette, to be exact. I furnished the Roarin' Mike O'Reilly part, along with a full an' complete outfit of men's wearin' apparel. When he gets to where he can live up to the Roarin' Mike name, he can discard it an' take back his own. Might's well give the boy a chanct. Cain thought he'd put it over on me, 'count of my movin' my office where he'd have to waller acrost the crick to it. But I'll fool him good an' proper. The kid's a lunger, an' the first thing to do is to git him started in to feelin' like a man. I figured they was somethin' to him when I first seen him. If they wasn't, how did he get up here in the middle of Alaska an' winter comin' on--an' nothin'

between him an' freezin' but them hen-skin clothes? An' I was watchin', too, when he laid his hand on the dog's head. He was so scairt that the sweat was jest a-bubblin' out of him--an' yet, he retch out an' done like I done--an' believe me, I wasn't none too anxious to fool with that brute, myself. I done it to see if he would. I'm goin' to take holt an'

make a reg'lar man out of him. I figger we kin git through the office work by noon every day. If we don't, them birds over in the thinkers'

shack is in for more overtime. In the afternoons I'm goin' to keep him out in the air--that's all a lunger needs--plenty air, an' good grub.

We'll tromp around the hills and hunt. We'll be a pair to draw to--him with his busted lungs, an' me with my game laig. We was all _chechakos_ onct. They's two kinds of _chechakos_--the ones with _nerve_ an' the ones with _bra.s.s_. The ones with the real nerve is the kind that stays in the big country. But the other kind of _chechakos_--the ones with bra.s.s--the bluff an' bl.u.s.ter--the counterfeit nerve that don't fool no one but theirself--the luckiest thing that can happen to them is they should live long enough to git back to the outside where they come from--an' most of 'em's lucky if they live long enough to starve to death."

"I guess he's the first kind," opined Connie. "When I come back I expect he'll be a regular sourdough."

"When you're gone I reckon I'll jest have him move his traps up here. I won't be so lonesome, an' I can keep cases on him----"

"But--" interrupted Connie.

Waseche divined his thoughts and shook his head. "No, they ain't no danger. My lungs is made of whang leather, an' besides, he ain't no floor spitter--I watched him in the office. Even if he was it wouldn't take mor'n about a minute to break him of that."

By nightfall Connie and 'Merican Joe had the outfit all ready for the trail, and the following morning they departed at daylight, with half of Ten Bow waving good-bye, as the great silver wolf-dog swung out onto the long snow trail at the head of the team.

CHAPTER IV

BRa.s.s

It was high noon, just two weeks from the day Connie Morgan and 'Merican Joe pulled out of Ten Bow, and the two halted their dogs on the summit of Bonnet Plume Pa.s.s and gazed out over the jumbled ma.s.s of peaks and valleys and ridges that lay to the eastward. The first leg of the long snow trail, from Ten Bow to Dawson, had been covered over a well-travelled trail with road houses at convenient intervals. Over this trail with Connie's team of seven big malamutes, headed by the great ruffed wolf-dog, they had averaged forty miles a day.

At Dawson they outfitted for the trip to Fort Norman, a distance of about five hundred miles. Connie was fortunate in being able to purchase from a prospector eight Mackenzie River dogs which he presented to 'Merican Joe, much to the Indian's surprise and delight. The Alaska sled was replaced by two toboggans, and 'Merican Joe nodded approval at Connie's selection of supplies. For from now on there would be no road houses and, for the most of the way, no trail. And their course would thread the roughest country on the whole continent. Therefore, the question of outfitting was a problem to be taken seriously. Too little grub in the sub-arctic in winter means death--horrible, black-tongued, sunken-eyed death by starvation and freezing. And too much outfit means overstrain on the dogs, slower travel, and unless some of it is discarded or _cached_, it means all kinds of trouble for the trail mushers.

The surest test of a sourdough is his outfit. Connie figured the trip should take thirty-five days, which should put them into Fort Norman on the fifth of November. But Connie had been long enough in the North to take that word "should" none too literally. He knew that under very favourable conditions the trip might be made in twenty days, and he knew also that it might take fifty days. Therefore although the month was November, a very favourable month for hunting, and the country to be traversed was good game country, he did not figure his rifle for a single pound of meat. If meat were killed on the journey, well and good.

But if no meat were killed, and if they lost their way, or encountered blizzard after howling blizzard, and their journey lengthened to fifteen or twenty days beyond the estimated time, Connie was determined that it should also be well and good.

He remembered men who had been found in the spring and buried--_chechakos_, most of them who had disregarded advice, and whose outfits had been cut down to a minimum that allowed no margin of safety for delay. But some of them had been sourdoughs who had taken a chance and depended on their rifles for food--it had been the same in the end.

In the spring the men who buried them read the whole story of the wilderness tragedy in visiting their last few camps. Each day the distance between them shortened, here a dog was killed and eaten, here another, and another, until at the very last camp, half buried in the sodden ashes of the last fire, would be found the kettle with its sc.r.a.ps of moccasins and bits of dog harness shrivelled and dried--moccasin soup, the very last hopeless expedient of the doomed trail musher. And generally the grave was dug beside this fire--never far beyond it.

And so Connie added a safety margin to the regular sub-arctic standard of grub for the trail, and when the outfit pulled out of Dawson the toboggans carried three and one half pounds of grub apiece for each of the thirty-five days, which was a full half pound more than was needed, and this, together with their outfit of sleeping bags, clothing, utensils, and nine hundred pounds of dog food, totalled thirteen hundred and fifty pounds--ninety pounds to the dog, which with good dogs is a comfortable load.

The summit of the Bonnet Plume pa.s.s is a bleak place. And dreary and bleak and indescribably rugged is the country surrounding it. Connie and 'Merican Joe, seated in the lee of their toboggans, boiled a pot of tea over the little primus stove.

"We've made good time so far," said the boy. "About three hundred miles more and we'll hit Fort Norman."

'Merican Joe nodded. "Yes, but we got de luck. On dis side we ain' gon'

hav' so mooch luck. Too mooch plenty snow--plenty win'. An' tonight, mor' comin'." He indicated the sky to the northward, where, beyond the glittering white peaks, the blue faded to a sullen grey.

"You're right," answered Connie, dropping a chunk of ice into his cup of scalding tea. "And I'd sure like to make a patch of timber. These high, bare canyons are rotten places to camp in a blizzard. If you camp in the middle of 'em you've got to tie yourself down or the wind might hang you on a rock somewhere, and if you camp out of the wind against a wall, a snow cornice might bust loose and bury you forty feet deep."

'Merican Joe grinned. "You sourdough--you know. I know you sourdough w'en I seen you han'le de dogs--an' I know w'en you buy de grub. But mos' I know w'en you pack de toboggan--you ain' put all de grub on wan toboggan an' all de odder stuff on de odder toboggan----"

Connie laughed. "Lots of men have made that mistake. And then if they get separated one dies of starvation, and the other freezes to death, or if they lose one toboggan they're in the same fix."

'Merican Joe returned the dishes and stove to the pack and glanced at the sky. "I ain' t'ink we mak' de timber tonight. She git dark queek now--seven, eight mile mor' we got to camp."

"Yes," a.s.sented Connie. "And the days are getting so short that from now on we'll quit camping at noon. We'll pull once and make a day of it--anyway till we get a moon."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "In the whirling blizzard, without protection of timber, one place was as good as another to camp, and while the Indian busied himself with the dogs, Connie proceeded to dig a trench in the snow."

Drawn by Frank E. Schoonover]

To this plan the Indian readily agreed and a moment later struck out ahead as "forerunner" to break trail for the dogs. Despite the fact that there was more snow on the eastern slope, the two soon found it insufficient to check the toboggans upon the series of steep pitches and long slopes they now encountered. At the end of a mile a halt was made, Connie's dogs were turned loose to follow, both toboggans were hitched behind the Mackenzie River dogs, and while 'Merican Joe plodded ahead, Connie had all he could do at the tail rope. An hour later the wind suddenly changed and came roaring out of the north. The whole sky became overcast and stinging particles of flinty snow were driven against their faces. The storm increased in fury. The stinging particles changed to dry, powdery snow dust that whirled and eddied about them so thickly that Connie could not see the dogs from the rear of the toboggans.

Covering their noses and mouths, the two bored on through the white smother--a slow moving, ghostly procession, with the snow powder matted thick into the hairy coats of the dogs and the clothing of the mushers.

Not until darkness added to the impenetrability of the storm did 'Merican Joe halt. In the whirling blizzard, without protection of timber, one place was as good as another to camp, and while the Indian busied himself with the dogs Connie proceeded to dig a trench in the snow. This trench was as long as the toboggans, and wide enough to accommodate the two sleeping bags placed side by side. Three feet down the boy struck ice. The sleeping bags, primus stove, and part of the food were dumped into the trench. The loaded toboggans were tipped on edge, one along either side, and the heavy canvas shelter tarp was stretched over these and weighted down by doubling its edges under the toboggans. The open ends were blocked with snow, the dogs fed and left to make their own beds, and the two crawled into their snug quarters where by the light of a candle they prepared a good hot meal on the little stove and devoured it in warmth and comfort while the storm roared harmlessly over their heads.