SNOWDRIFT

A Story of the Land of the Strong Cold

By JAMES B. HENDRYX

Author of

"The Gold Girl," "The Gun Brand," "The Texan,"
"Prairie Flowers," "The Promise," etc.

A.L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with G.P. Putnam's Sons
Printed in U.S.A.

Copyright, 1922
BY
JAMES B. HENDRYX

By James B. Hendryx

This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers
G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London

The Knickerbocker Press, New York

CONTENTS

SNOWDRIFT

A PROLOGUE

I

Murdo MacFarlane, the Hudson's Bay Company's trader at Lashing Water post, laid aside his book and glanced across the stove at his wife who had paused in her sewing to hold up for inspection a very tiny shirt of soft wool.

"I tell you it's there! It's bound to be there," he announced with conviction. "Just waitin' for the man that's man enough to go an' get it."

Margot nodded abstractedly and deftly snipped a thread that dangled from a seam of a little sleeve. She had heard this same statement many times during the three years of their married life, and she smiled to herself as Molaire, her father, who was the Company's factor at Lashing Water, laid aside his well thumbed invoice with a snort of disgust. She knew her two men well, did Margot, and she could anticipate almost word for word the heated argument that was bound to follow. Without rising she motioned to Tom Shirts, the Company Indian,

to light the great swinging lamp. And as the yellow light flooded the long, low trading room, she resumed her sewing, while Molaire hitched his chair nearer the stove and whittled a pipeful of tobacco from a plug.

"There ye go again with ye're tomrot an' ye're foolishness!" exploded the old Frenchman, as he threw away his match and crowded the swelling tobacco back into the bowl of his pipe. "Always babblin' about the gold. Always wantin' to go an' find out for ye'reself it ain't there."

"But I'm tellin' you it is there," insisted MacFarlane.

"Where is it, then? Why ain't it be'n got?"

"Because the right man ain't gone after it."

"An' ye're the right man, I suppose! Still lackin' of twenty-five years, an' be'n four years in the bush; tellin' me that's be'n forty years in the fur country, an' older than ye before ever I seen it. Ye'll do better to ferget this foolishness an' stick to the fur like me. I've lived like a king in one post an' another—an' when I'm old I'll retire on my pension."

"An' when I'm old, if I find the gold, I'll ask pension of no man. It ain't so much for myself that I want gold—it's for them—for Margot, there, an' the wee Margot in yon." He nodded toward the door of the living room where the year-old baby lay asleep.

Molaire shrugged: "Margot has lived always in the bush. She needs no gold, an' the little one needs

no gold. Gold costs lives. Come, Margot, speak up! Would ye send ye're man to die in the barrens for the gold that ain't there?"

Margot paused in her sewing and smiled: "I am not sending him into the barrens," she said. "If he goes, I go, and the little Margot, too. If one dies, we all die together. But there must be gold there. Has not Murdo read it in books? And we have heard rumors of gold among the Indians."

"Read it in books!" sniffed Molaire. "Rumors among Injuns! Ye better stick to fur, boy. Ye take to it natural. There's no better judge of fur in all the traders I've had. Before long the Company'll make ye a factor."

As young Murdo MacFarlane filled and lighted his pipe, his eyes rested with burning intensity upon his young wife. When finally he spoke it was half to himself, half to Molaire: "When the lass an' I were married, back yon, to the boomin' of the bells of Ste. Anne's, I vowed me a vow that I'd do the best 'twas in me to do for her. An' I vowed it again when, a year later, the bells of Ste. Anne's rang out at the christening of the wee little Margot. Is it the best a man can do—to spend his life in the buyin' of fur for a wage, when gold 'twould pay for a kingdom lies hid in the sands for the takin'?"

Molaire's reply was interrupted by a sound from without, and the occupants of the room looked at each other in surprise. For it was February and the North lay locked in the iron grip of the strong cold.

Since mid-afternoon the north wind had roared straight out of the Arctic, driving before it a blue-white smother of powder-dry snow particles that cut and seared the skin like white-hot steel filings. MacFarlane was half way across the floor when the door opened and a man, powdered white from head to foot, stepped into the room in a swirl of snow fine as steam. With his hip he closed the door against the push of the wind, and advancing into the room, shook off his huge bear-skin mittens and unwound the heavy woolen scarf that encircled his parka hood and muffled his face to the eyes. The scarf, stiff with ice from his frozen breath, crackled as it unwound, and little ice-chips fell to the floor.

"Ha, it's Downey, who else? Lad, lad, what a night to be buckin' the storm!" cried the trader.

Corporal Downey, of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, grinned as he advanced to the stove. "It was buck the storm to Lashin' Water post, or hole up in a black spruce swamp till it was over. She looks like a three days' storm, an' I prefer Lashin' Water."

"Ye're well in time for supper, Corporal," welcomed Molaire, "and the longer the storm lasts the better. For now we'll have days an' nights of real whist. We've tried to teach Tom Shirts to play, but he knows no more about it now than he knows about the ten commandments—an' cares less. So we've be'n at it three-handed. But three-handed whist is like a three-legged dog—it limps."

Neseka, the squaw, looked in from the kitchen to announce supper, and after ordering Tom to attend to the Corporal's dogs, Molaire clapped his hands impatiently to attract the attention of MacFarlane and Downey who were beating the snow from the latter's moose hide parka. "Come," insisted the old man, "ye're outfit'll have plenty time to dry out. The supper'll be cold, an' we're losin' time. We've wasted a hand of cards already."

"Is the gold bug still buzzin' in your bonnet, Mac?" asked Downey, as Molaire flourished the keen bladed carving knife over the roasted caribou haunch.

"Aye," answered the young Scotchman. "An' when the rivers run free in the spring, I'll be goin' to get it."

A long moment of silence followed the announcement during which the carving knife of Molaire was held suspended above the steaming roast. The old man's gaze centered upon his son-in-law's face, and in that moment he knew that the younger man's decision had been made, and that nothing in the world could change it. The words of Margot flashed through his brain: "If he goes, I go, and the little Margot, too. If one dies, we all die together." His little daughter, the light of his life since the death of her mother years before—and the tiny wee Margot who had snuggled her way into his rough old heart to cheer him in his old age—going away—far and far away into the God-knows-where of bitter cold and howling blizzard—and all on a fool's

errand! The keen blade bit the roast to the bone, raised, dripping red juice, and bit again.

"Mon Dieu, what a fool!" breathed the old man, and as if in final appeal, turned to Corporal Downey, who had known him long, and who had guessed what was passing in his mind. "Tell him, Downey, you know the North beyond the barrens. Tell him he is a fool!"

And Downey who was not old in years but very wise in the ways of men, smiled. He liked young Murdo MacFarlane, but he was a Scotchman himself and he knew the hard-headedness of the breed.

"Well, a man ain't always a fool because he goes huntin' for gold. That's accordin'. Where is this gold, Mac? An' how do you know it's there?"

"It's there, all right—gold and copper, too. Didn't Captain Knight try to find it? And Samuel Hearne?"

"Yes," broke in Molaire, "an' Knight's bones are bleachin' on Marble Island with his ships on the bottom of the Bay, an' Hearne came back empty handed."

"That's why the gold is still there," answered MacFarlane.

"Where 'bouts is it?" insisted Downey.

"Up in the Coppermine River country, to the north and east of Bear Lake."

"How do you know?"

"The Injuns had chunks of it. That's what sent Knight and Hearne after it."

"How long ago?"

"Captain Knight started in 1719, an' Hearne about fifty years later."

"Gosh!" exclaimed Downey. "Ain't that figurin' quite a ways back?"

"Gold don't rot. If it was there then, it's there now. It's never been brought out."

"Yes—if it was there. But, maybe it ain't there an' never was—what then?"

"I talked with an Injun, a year back, that said he had seen an Injun from the North that had seen some Eskimos that had dishes made of yellow metal."

"He was prob'ly lyin'," observed Downey, "or the Injun that told him was lyin'. I've be'n north to the coast a couple of times, an' I never seen no Injuns nor Eskimos eatin' out of no gold dishes yet."

"Maybe it's because you've stuck to the Mackenzie, where the posts are. Have you ever crossed the barrens straight north—between the Mackenzie an' the Bay?"

"No," answered Downey, dryly, "an' I hope to God I don't never have to. You've got a good thing here with the Company, Mac. If I was you I'd stick to it, anyways till I seen an Injun with some gold. I never seen one yet—an' I don't never expect to. An' speakin' of Injuns reminds me, I passed a camp of 'em this forenoon."

"A camp of 'em!" exclaimed Molaire, in surprise.

"Who were they? My Injuns are all on the trap lines."

"These are from the North somewheres. I couldn't savvy their lingo. They ain't much good I guess. They're non-treaty Injuns—wanderers. They wanted to know where a post was, an' I told 'em. They'll prob'ly be in to trade when the storm lets up."

That evening old Molaire played whist badly. His heart was not in the game, for try as he would to keep his mind on the cards, in his ears was the sound of the dull roar of the wind, and his thoughts were of the future—of the long days and nights to come when his loved ones would be somewhere far in the unknown North, and he would be left alone with his Company Indians in the little post on Lashing Water.

II

All night the storm roared unabated and, as is the way of Arctic blizzards, the second day saw its fury increased. During the morning the four played whist. There had been no mention of gold, and old Molaire played his usual game with the result that when Neseka called them to dinner, he and MacFarlane held a three-game lead over Downey and Margot. The meal over, they returned to the cards. The first game after dinner proved a close one, each side scoring the odd in turn, while the old French

man, as was his custom, analyzed each hand as the cards were being shuffled for the next deal. Finally he scored a point and tied the score. Then he glared at his son-in-law: "An' ye'd of finessed your ten-spot through on my lead of hearts we'd of made two points an' game!" he frowned.

"How was I to know?" MacFarlane paused abruptly in the midst of his deal and glanced in surprise toward the door which swung open to admit four Indians who loosened the blankets that covered them from head to foot and beat the snow from them as they advanced toward the stove. Three of them carried small packs of fur. The fourth was a young squaw, straight and lithe as a panther, and as she loosened the moss-bag from her shoulders, a thin wail sounded from its interior.

"A baby!" cried Margot, as MacFarlane made his way to the counter, his eyes upon the packs of fur. She stooped and patted her own little one who was rolling about upon a thick blanket spread on the floor. The squaw smiled, and fumbling in the depths of the bag drew forth a tiny brown-red mite which ceased crying and stared stolidly at the cluster of strange white faces. "What a terrible day for a baby to be out!" continued the white woman, as she pushed a chair near to the stove. Again the squaw smiled and seating herself, turned her back upon the occupants of the room and proceeded to nurse the tiny atom.

Meanwhile MacFarlane was trying by means of

the Cree language to question the three bucks who stood in solemn line before the counter, each with his pack of fur before him. Downey tried them with the Blackfoot tongue, and the Jargon, while old Molaire and Tom Shirts added half a dozen dialects from nearer the Bay. But no slightest flicker of comprehension crossed the face of any one of them. Presently the young squaw arose and placed her baby upon the blanket beside the white child where the two little mites sat and stared at each other in owlish solemnity. As she advanced toward the counter MacFarlane addressed her in Cree. And to the surprise of all she spoke to him in English: "We buy food," she said, indicating the packs of fur.

"Where did you come from?" queried the trader. "An' how is it that you talk English an' the rest of 'em can't talk nothin'?"

"We come from far to the northward," she answered. "I have been to school at the mission. These are Dog Ribs. They have not been to school. I am of the Yellow Knives. My man was drowned in a rapids. He was name Bonnetrouge. He was a Dog Rib so I live with these."

"Why don't you trade at your own post?" asked MacFarlane, suspiciously. "Is it because you have a debt there that you have not paid?"

"No. We have no debt at any post. We are only a small band. We move about all the time. We do not like to stay in one place like the rest.

We see many new rivers, and many lakes, and we go to many places that the others do not know. We have no debt at any post, we trade as we go and pay with skins for what we buy."

"One of them wanderin' bands," observed Downey. "I've run across two or three of 'em here an' there. They camp a while somewheres an' then, seems like, they just naturally get restless an' move on."

The squaw nodded: "The police is right. We do not like to stay and trap in one place. I have seen many new things, and many things that even the oldest man has not seen."

MacFarlane opened the packs and examined their contents, fur by fur, laying them in separate piles and paying for each as he appraised it in brass tokens of made beaver. The three bucks looked on in stolid indifference but MacFarlane noted that the eyes of the squaw followed his every movement.

As a general rule the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company deal fairly with the Indians in the trading of the common or standard skins, and MacFarlane was no exception. It was in a spirit of fun, to see what the squaw would do, that he counted out thirty made beaver in payment for a large otter skin.

The Indian woman shook her head: "No, that is a good otter. He is worth more." And with a smile the Scotchman counted ten additional tokens into the pile, whereat the squaw nodded approval

and the trading proceeded. When at last it was finished the squaw took entire charge of the purchasing, pausing only now and then, to consult one or the other of the Indians in their own tongue, and in her selection of only the essentials, MacFarlane realized that he was dealing with that rarest of northern Indians, one who possessed sound common sense and the force of character to reject the useless trinkets so dear to the Indian heart.

While the bucks were making up their packs the squaw plunged her hand into the bottom of the moss-bag from which she had taken the baby, and drew out a single skin. For a long time she stood holding the skin in one hand while with the other she stroked its softly gleaming surface. MacFarlane and Molaire gazed at the skin in fascination while Margot rose from the blanket where she had been playing with the two babies, and even Corporal Downey who knew little of skins crowded close to feast his eyes on the jet black pelt whose hairs gleamed with silver radiance. In all the forty years of his trading Molaire had handled fewer than a dozen such skins—a true black fox, taken in its prime, so that the silvered hairs seemed to emit a soft radiance of their own—a skin to remember, and to talk about. Then the squaw handed the pelt to MacFarlane and smiled faintly as she watched the trader examine it almost hair by hair.

"Where did you get it?" he asked.

"I trapped it far to the northward, in the barren

grounds, upon a river that has no name. It is a good skin."

"Did you trap it yourself?"

"Yes. I am a good trapper. My man was a good trapper and he showed me how. These are good trappers, too," she indicated the three Indians, "And all the rest who are with us. There are thirty of us counting the women and children. But we have not had good luck. That is all the fur we have caught," she pointed to the skins MacFarlane had just bought, "Those and the little black fox. When the storms stops we will go again into the barren grounds, and we must have food, or, if we have bad luck again, some of us will die."

"Why do you go to the barren grounds?" asked MacFarlane. "The trappin' is better to the eastward, or to the westward."

The squaw shrugged: "My man he had been to school a little, but mostly he had worked far to the westward along the coast of the sea—among the white men who dig for gold. And he heard men talk of the gold that lies in the barren grounds and northward to the coast of the frozen sea. So he went back to the country of his people, far up on the Mackenzie, and he told the men of the gold and how it was worth many times more than the fur. But the old men would not believe him and many of the young men would not, but some of them did, and these he persuaded to go with him and hunt for the gold. It was when they were crossing through

the country of my people that I saw him and he saw me and we were married. That was two years ago and since then we have traveled far and have seen many things. Then my husband was drowned in a rapids, and I have taken his place. I will not go back to my people. They were very angry when I married Bonnetrouge, for the Yellow Knives hate the Dog Ribs. Even if they were not angry I would not go back, for my husband said there is gold in the barren grounds. He did not lie. So we will go and get the gold."

"There's your chance, Mac," grinned Corporal Downey, "You better throw in with 'em an' get in on the ground floor."

But MacFarlane did not smile. Instead, he spoke gravely to the woman: "An' have you found any gold in the barrens?"

The squaw shrugged, and glanced down at the babies. When she looked up again her eyes were upon the little fox skin. "How much?" she asked.

MacFarlane considered. Holding the pelt he stroked its glossy surface with his hand. Here was a skin of great value. He had heard many traders and factors boast of the black, and the silver grey fox skins they had bought at ridiculously low price—and they were men who did not hesitate to give full value for the common run of skins. Always, with the traders, the sight of a rare skin arouses a desire to obtain it—and to obtain it at the lowest possible figure. And MacFarlane was a trader. He

fixed upon a price in his mind. He raised his eyes, but the squaw was not looking at him and he followed her glance to the blanket where the two babies, the red baby and the white baby—his own baby and Margot's, were touching each other gravely with fat pudgy hands.

He opened his lips to mention the price, but closed them again as a new train of thought flashed through his mind. How nearly this woman's case paralleled his own. The imagination of each was fired by the lure of gold, and both were scoffed at by their people for daring to believe that there was still gold in the earth to be had for the taking. Then, there was the matter of the babies——

When finally MacFarlane spoke it was to mention a sum three times larger than the one that he had fixed upon in his mind—a sum that caused old Molaire to snort and sputter and to stamp angrily up and down the room.

The squaw nodded gravely: "You are a good man," she said, simply. "You have dealt fairly. Sometime, maybe you will know that Wananebish does not forget."

Two hours later, when the price of the pelt had been paid and the supplies all made into packs and carried to the toboggans that had been left before the door, the Indians wrapped their blankets about them and prepared to depart.

As the Indian woman wrapped the baby in warm woolens, Margot urged her to remain until the

storm subsided, but the woman declined with a smile: "No. These are my people. I will go with them. Where one goes, all go."

"But the baby! This is a terrible storm to take a baby into."

"The baby is warm. She does not know that it storms. She is one of us. Where we go, she goes, too."

As the Indians filed through the door into the whirling white smother the young squaw stepped to the counter for a last look at her black fox skin. She raised it in her hand, drew it slowly across her cheek, stroked it softly, and then returned it to the counter, taking deliberate care to lay it by itself apart from the other skins. Then she turned and was swallowed up in the storm as MacFarlane closed the door behind her.

"Ye could of bought it for half the price!" growled old Molaire, as his son-in-law returned to the card table.

"Aye," answered the younger man as he resumed his cards. "But the Company has still a good margin of profit. They're headin' for the barrens, an' if, as she said, they have bad luck some of 'em would die. An' you know who would be the first to go—it would be the babies. I'm glad I done as I did. I'll sleep better nights."

"And I'm glad, too," added Margot, as she reached over and patted her husband's hand, "And so is papa way down in his heart. But he loves to

have people think he is a cross old bear—and bears must growl."

Corporal Downey grinned at the twinkle that appeared in old Molaire's eyes, and the game proceeded until Neseka called them to supper. MacFarlane paused at the counter and raised the fox skin to the light. And as he did so, a very small, heavy object rolled from its soft folds and thudded upon the boards. Slowly MacFarlane laid down the skin and, picking up the object, carried it close under the swinging lamp, where he held it in his open palm. Curiously the others crowded about and stared at the dull yellow lump scarcely larger than the two halves of a split pea. For a long moment there was silence and then MacFarlane turned to Corporal Downey: "What was it you said," he asked, "about sticking to my job until I saw an Injun with some gold?"

III

The north wind moaned and soughed about the eaves of the low log trading post on Lashing Water. Old Molaire rose from his place by the stove, crossed the room, and threw open the door. Seconds passed as he stood listening to the roar of the wind in the tree tops, heedless of the fine powdering of stinging snow particles that glistened like diamond points upon his silvery hair and sifted beneath his shirt collar. Then he closed the door and returned to his

chair beside the stove. Corporal Downey watched in silence while the old man filled his pipe. He threw away the match and raised his eyes to the officer: "It was a year ago, d'ye mind, an' just such a storm—when that squaw came bringin' her black fox skin, and her nugget of damned gold."

"It would be about a year," agreed Downey, gravely nodding his head. "I made this patrol in February."

"It's just a year—the thirteenth of the month. I'll not be forgetting it."

"An' have you had no word?"

The old factor shook his head: "No word. They left in May—with the rivers not yet free of running ice. Two light canoes. Margot could handle a canoe like a man."

"You'll prob'ly hear from 'em on the break-up this spring. Maybe they'll give it up an' come back."

Molaire shook his head: "Ye don't know Murdo MacFarlane," he said, "He'll never give up. He swore he would never return to Lashin' Water without gold. He's Scotch—an' stubborn as the seven-year itch."

"I'm Scotch," grinned Downey, hoping to draw the old man into an argument and turn his thoughts from the absent ones. But he would not be drawn. For a long time he smoked in silence while outside the wind howled and moaned and sucked red flames high into the stovepipe.

"She'd be two years old, now," Molaire said,

"An' maybe talkin' a bit. Maybe they've taught her to say grand-père. Don't you think she might be talkin' a little?"

"I don't know much about 'em. Do they talk when they're two?"

The old factor pondered: "Why—it seems to me she did—the other Margot. But—it's a long time ago—yet it seems like yesterday. I'm gettin' old an' my memory plays me tricks. Maybe it was three, instead of two when she begun to say words. D'ye mind, Downey, a year ago we played whist?"

"Two-handed cribbage is all right," suggested the Corporal. But the old man shook his head and for a long, long time the only sound in the room was the irregular tapping of contracting metal as the fire died down unheeded in the stove. The old man's pipe went out and lay cold in his hand. The bearded chin sagged forward onto the breast of his woolen shirt and his eyes closed. Beyond the stove Corporal Downey drowsed in his chair.

Suddenly the old man raised his head: "What was that?" he asked sharply.

Downey listened with his eyes on the other's face. "I hear nothing," he answered, "but the booming of the wind."

The peculiar startled look died out of Molaire's eyes: "Yes," he answered, "It is the wind. I must have be'n dozin'. But it sounded like bells. I've heard the bells of Ste. Ann's boom like that—tollin'—when some one—died." Stiffly he rose from his

chair and fumbled upon the counter for a candle which he handed to Downey. "We'll be goin' to bed, now," he said, "It's late."

IV

Upon a bunk built against the wall of a tiny cabin of logs five hundred miles to the northward of Lashing Water post the sick woman turned her head feebly and smiled into the tear-dimmed eyes of the man who leaned over her: "It's all right, Murdo," she murmured, "The pain in my side seems better. I think I slept a little."

Murdo MacFarlane nodded: "Yes, Margot, you have been asleep for an hour. In a few days, now, I'm thinkin' you'll be sittin' up, an' in a week's time you'll be on your feet again."

The woman's eyes closed, and by the tightening of the drawn lips her husband knew that she was enduring another paroxysm of the terrible pain. Outside, the wind tore at the eaves, the sound muffled by its full freighting of snow. And on the wooden shelf above the man's head the little alarm clock ticked brassily.

Once more Margot's eyes opened and the muscles of the white pain-racked face relaxed. The breath rushed in quick jerky stabs between the parted lips that smiled bravely. "We are not children, Murdo—you and I," she whispered. "We must not be afraid to face—this thing. We have found much

happiness together. That will be ours always. Nothing can rob us of that. We have had it. And now you must face a great unhappiness. I am going to die. In your eyes I have seen that you, too, know this—when you thought I slept. To-day—to-night—not later than to-morrow I must go away. I am not afraid to go—only sorry. We would have had many more years of happiness, Murdo—you—and I—and the little one—" The low voice faltered and broke, and the dark eyes brimmed with tears.

The man's hands clenched till the nails bit deep into the palms. A great dry sob shook the drooped shoulders: "God!" he breathed, hoarsely, "An' it's all my fault for bringin' you into this damned waste of snow an' ice, an' bitter cold!"

"No, Murdo, it is not your fault. I was as anxious to come as you were. I am a child of the North, and I love the North. I love its storms and its sunshine. I love even the grim cruelty of it—its relentless snuffing out of lives in the guarding of its secrets. Strong men have gone to their death fighting it, and more men will go—why then should not I, who am a woman, go also? But, it would have been the same if we had stayed at Lashing Water. I know what this sickness is. I have seen men die of it before—Nash, of the Mounted—and Nokoto, a Company Indian. It is the appendicitis, and no doctor could have got to Lashing Water in time, any more than he could have got here. They sent the fastest dog-team on the river when Nash was

sick, and before the doctor came he was dead. It is not your fault, my husband. It is no one's fault. There is a time when each of us must die. My time is now. That is all." She ceased speaking, and with an effort that brought little beads of cold sweat to her forehead, she raised herself upon her elbow and pointed a faltering forefinger toward the little roughly made crib that stood close beside the bunk. "Promise me, Murdo," she gasped, "promise me upon your soul that you will see—that—she—that she shall go to school! More than I have gone, for there are many things I do not know. I have read in books things I do not understand."

"Aye, girl," the deep voice of MacFarlane rumbled through the room as he eased his wife back onto the pillow, "I promise."

The dark eyes closed, the white face settled heavily onto the pillow, and as MacFarlane bent closer he saw that the breathing was peaceful and regular. It was as though a great load had been lifted from her mind, and she slept. With her hand still clasped in his the man's tired body sagged forward until his head rested beside hers.

MacFarlane awoke with a start. Somewhere in the darkness a small voice was calling: "Mamma! Daddy! I cold!" For a moment the man lay trying to collect his befuddled senses. "Just a minute, baby," he called, "Daddy's comin'." As he raised to a sitting posture upon the edge of the bunk his fingers came in contact with his wife's hand—the

hand that he suddenly remembered had been clasped in his. Rapidly his brain cleared. He must have fallen asleep. The fire had burned itself out in the stove and he shivered in the chill air. Margot's hand must have slipped from his clasp as they slept. It was too cold for her hand to lie there on top of the blankets, and her arm protected only by the sleeve of her nightgown. He would slip it gently beneath the covers and then build up a roaring fire.

A low whimpering came from the direction of the crib: "Daddy, I cold."

"Just a minute, baby, till daddy lights the light." He reached for the hand that lay beside him there in the darkness. As his fingers clutched it a short, hoarse cry escaped him. The hand was icy cold—too cold for even the coldness of the fireless room. The fingers yielded stiffly beneath his palm and the arm lay rigid upon the blanket.

MacFarlane sprang to his feet and as he groped upon the shelf for matches his body was shaken by great dry sobs that ended in low throaty moans. Clumsily his trembling fingers held the tiny flame to the wick of the candle, and as the light flickered a moment and then burned clear, he crossed to the crib where the baby had partly wriggled from beneath her little blankets and robes. Wrapping her warmly in a blanket, he drew the rest of the covers over her.

"I want to get in bed with mamma," came plaintively from the small bundle.

MacFarlane choked back a sob: "Don't, don't! little one," he cried, then lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper, he bent low over the crib. "S-h-s-h, don't disturb mamma. She's—asleep."

"I want sumpin' to eat. I want some gravy and some toast."

"Yes, you wait till daddy builds the fire an' then we'll be nice an' warm, an' daddy'll get supper."

Silently MacFarlane set about his work. He kindled a fire, put the teakettle on, and warmed some caribou gravy, stirring it slowly to prevent its scorching while he toasted some bread upon the top of the stove. Once or twice he glanced toward the bed. Margot's face was turned away from him, and all he could see was a wealth of dark hair massed upon the pillow. That—and the hand that showed at the end of the nightgown sleeve. White as snow—and cold as snow it looked against the warm red of the blanket. MacFarlane crossed and drew the blanket up over the hand and arm, covering it to the shoulder. Bending over, he looked long into the white face. The eyes were closed, MacFarlane was glad of that, and the lips were slightly parted as though in restful slumber. "Good bye—Margot—lass—" his voice broke thickly. He was conscious of a gnawing pain in his throat, and two great scalding tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped to the mass of dark hair where they glistened in the steady glow of the single candle like tiny globes of fire. He raised the blanket to cover

the still face, lowered it again and crossed to the table where he laid out a tincup for himself and a little thick yellow bowl into which he crumbled the toast and poured the gravy over it. Then he warmed a tiny blanket, wrapped the baby in it and, holding her on his lap, fed her from a spoon. Between the slowly portioned spoonfuls he drank great gulps of scalding tea. There were still several spoonfuls left in the bowl when the tiny mite in his arms snuggled warmly against him. "Tell me a 'tory," demanded the mite. MacFarlane told the "'tory"—and another, and another. And then, in response to an imperious demand, he sang a song. It was the first time MacFarlane had ever sung a song. It was a song he had often heard Margot sing, and he was surprised that he had unconsciously learned the words which fell from his lips in a wailing monotone.

MacFarlane's heart was breaking—but he finished the song.

"I sleepy," came drowsily from the blanket. "I want to kiss mamma."

"S-h-s-h, mamma's asleep. Kiss daddy, and we'll go to bed."

"I want to kiss mamma," insisted the baby.

MacFarlane hesitated with tight-pressed lips. Then he rose and carried the baby to the bedside. "See, mamma's asleep," he whispered, pointing to the mass of dark hair on the pillow. "Just kiss her hair—and we—won't—wake—her—up." He

held the baby so that the little pursed lips rested for a moment in the thick mass of hair, then he carried her to her crib and tucked her in. She was asleep when he smoothed the robe into place.

For a long time he stood looking down at the little face on the pillow. Then he crossed to the table where he sat with his head resting upon his folded arms while the minutes ticked into hours and the fire burned low. As he sat there with closed eyes MacFarlane followed the thread of his life from his earliest recollection. His childhood on the little hillside farm, the long hours that he struggled with his books under the eye of the stern-faced schoolmaster, his 'prenticeship in the shop of the harness-maker in the small Scotch town, his year of work about the docks at Liverpool, his coming to Canada and hiring out to the Hudson's Bay Company, his assignment to Lashing Water as Molaire's clerk, his meeting with Margot when she returned home from school at the mission—and the wonderful days of that first summer together. Then—his promotion to the position of trader, his marriage to Margot—step by step he lived again that long journey from Lashing Water to Ste. Anne's. For it was old Molaire's wish that his daughter should be married in the old Gothic church where, years before, he had married her mother.

MacFarlane raised his head and listened, his wide-staring eyes fixed upon the black square of the window—that sound—it was—only the moan and

the muffled roar of the wind—but, for a moment it had sounded like the tone of a deep-throated bell—like the booming of the bells of Ste. Anne's. Slowly the man lowered his head to his arms and groped for the thread of his thought where he had left it. Lingeringly, he dwelt upon the happiness that had been theirs, the coming of the little Margot—the infinite love that welled in their hearts for this soft little helpless thing, their delight in her unfolding—the gaining of a pound—the first tooth—the first half-formed word—the first step. He remembered, too, their distress at her tiny ills, real and fancied. Then, his own desire to seek gold—not for himself, but that these two loved ones might enjoy life in a fullness undreamed by the family of a fur trader. He recollected Molaire's opposition, his arguments, his scoffing, and his prediction that by the end of a year he would be back at Lashing Water buying fur for the Company. And he recollected his own retort, that without the gold he would never come back.

And here, in this little thick walled cabin far into the barren grounds, he had come to the end of the long, long trail. MacFarlane raised his head and stared at the crib. But, was it the end? He knew that it was not, and he groped blindly, desperately to picture the end. If it were not for her—for this little one who lay asleep there in the crib, the end would be easy. The man's glance sought the rifle that rested upon its pegs above the window. It

was out of the question to think of returning to Lashing Water, if he would—the baby could not stand five hundred miles of gruelling winter-trail. He could not keep her here and leave her alone while he prospected. He could not remain in the cabin all winter and care for her—he must hunt to live—and game was scarce and far afield. He shuddered at the thought of what might happen if he were to leave her alone in the cabin with a fire in the stove—or worse, of what might eventually happen if some accident befell him and he could not return to the cabin.

MacFarlane sat bolt upright. He suddenly remembered that a few days before, from a high hill some thirty miles to the westward, he had seen an Indian village nestled against a spruce swamp at a wide bend of a river. It was a small village of a dozen or more tepees, and he had intended to visit it later. Why not take the baby over there and give her into the keeping of some squaw. If he could find one like Neseka all would be well, for Neseka's love for the little Margot was hardly less than his own. And surely, in a whole village there must be at least one like her.

MacFarlane replenished his fire, and groping upon the shelf, found a leather covered note book and pencil. The guttered candle flared smokily and he replaced it with another, and for an hour or more he wrote steadily, filling page after page of the note book with fine lined writing.

When he had finished he thrust the note book into his pocket and again buried his face in his arms.

V

Toward morning the storm wore itself out, and before the belated winter dawn had tinted the east MacFarlane set out for the Indian village. The cold was intense so that his snowshoes crunched on the surface of the flinty, wind-driven snow. Mile after mile he swung across the barrens that lay trackless, and white, and dead, skirting towering rock ledges and patches of scraggly timber. The sun came out and the barrens glared dazzling white. MacFarlane had left his snow-goggles back in the cabin, so he squinted his eyes and pushed on. Three times that day he stopped and built a fire at the edge of a thicket and heated thick caribou gruel which he fed by spoonfuls to the tiny robe-wrapped little girl that snuggled warm in his pack sack. Darkness had fallen before he reached the high hill from which he had seen the village. He scanned the sweep of waste that lay spread before him, its shapes and distances distorted and unreal in the feeble light of the glittering stars. He hardly expected a light to show from a village of windowless tepees in the dead of winter, and he strove to remember which of those vague splotchy outlines was the black spruce swamp against which he had seen the tepees. Suddenly the silence of the night was broken by the

sharp jerky yelp of a stricken dog. The sound issued from one of the dark blotches of timber, and was followed by a rabble of growls and snarls. MacFarlane judged the distance that separated him from the vague outline of the swamp to be three or four miles, but the shrill sounds cut the frozen air so distinctly that they seemed to issue from the foot of the hill upon which he stood. A dull spot of light showed for a moment, rocketed through the air, and disappeared amid a chorus of yelps and howls. An Indian, disturbed by the fighting dogs, had thrown back the flap of his tepee and hurled a lighted brand among them.

Swiftly MacFarlane descended the slope and struck out for the black spruce swamp. An hour later he stood upon the snow-covered ice of the river while barking, snarling and growling, the Indian dog pack crowded about him. It seemed a long time that he stood there holding the dogs at bay with a stout spruce club. At length dark forms appeared in front of the tepees and several Indians advanced toward him, dispersing the dogs with blows and kicks and commands in hoarse gutterals. MacFarlane spoke to them in Cree, and getting no response, he tried several of the dialects from about the Bay. He had advanced until he stood among them peering from one to another of the flat expressionless faces for some sign of comprehension. But they returned his glances with owlish blinking of their smoke reddened eyes.

MacFarlane's heart sank. These were the people in whose care he had intended to leave his little daughter! Suddenly, as a ray of starlight struck aslant one of the flat bestial faces, a flash of recognition lighted MacFarlane's eyes. The man was one of the four who had come to trade a year before at Lashing Water.

"Where is the squaw?" he cried in English, grasping the man by the shoulder and shaking him roughly, "Where is Wananebish?"

At the name, the Indian turned and pointed toward a tepee that stood slightly apart from the rest, and a moment later MacFarlane stood before its door. "Wananebish!" he called. And again, "Wananebish!"

"Yes," came the answer, "What does the white man want?"

"It is MacFarlane, the trader at Lashing Water. Do you remember a year ago you sold me a black fox skin?"

"I remember. Did I not say that Wananebish would not forget? Wait, and I will let you in, for it is cold." The walls of the tepee glowed faintly as the squaw struck a light. He could hear her moving about inside and a few minutes later she threw open the flap and motioned him to enter. MacFarlane blinked in surprise as she fastened the flap behind him. Instead of the filthy smoke-reeking interior he had expected, the tepee was warm and comfortable, its floor covered thickly with

robes, and instead of the open fire in the center with its smoke vent at the apex of the tepee, he saw a little Yukon stove in which a fire burned brightly.

Without a word he removed his pack sack and tenderly lifting the sleeping baby from it laid her on the robes. Then, seating himself beside her he told her, simply and in few words what had befallen him. The squaw listened in silence and for a long time after he finished she sat staring at the flame of the candle.

"What would you have me do?" she asked at length.

"Keep the little one and care for her until I return," answered the man, "I will pay you well."

The Indian woman made a motion of dissent. "Where are you going?"

"To find gold."

Was it fancy, or did the shadow of a peculiar smile tremble for an instant upon the woman's lips? "And, if you do not return—what then?"

"If I do not return by the time of the breaking up of the rivers," answered the man, "You will take the baby to Lashing Water post to Molaire, the factor, who is the father of her mother." As he spoke MacFarlane drew from his pocket the leather notebook, and a packet wrapped in parchment deer skin and tied with buckskin thongs. He handed them to the squaw: "Take these," he said, "and deliver them to Molaire with the baby. In the book I have instructed him to pay you for her keep."

"But this Molaire is an old man. Suppose by the time of the breaking up of the rivers he is not to be found at Lashing Water? He may be dead, or he may have gone to the settlements."

"If he has gone to the settlements, you are to find him. If he is dead—" MacFarlane hesitated: "If Molaire is dead," he repeated, "You are to take care of the baby until she is old enough to enter the school at some mission. I'm Scotch, an' no Catholic—but, her mother was Catholic, an' if the priests an' the sisters make as good woman of her as they did of her mother, I could ask no more. Give them the notebook in which I have set down the story as I have told it to you. The packet you shall open and take out whatever is due you for her keep. It contains money. Keep some for yourself and give some to the priests to pay for her education."

The squaw nodded slowly: "It shall be as you say. And, if for any reason, we move from here before the breaking up of the rivers, I will write our direction and place it inside the caribou skull that hangs upon the great split stump beside the river."

MacFarlane rose; "May God use you as you use the little one," he said, "I'll be going now, before she wakes up. It will be better so." He stooped and gazed for a long time at the face of the sleeping baby. A hot tear splashed upon the back of his hand, and he brushed it away and faced the squaw

in the door of the tepee: "Goodbye," he said, gruffly, "Until the rivers break up in the spring."

The Indian woman shook her head: "Do not say it like that," she answered, "For those were the words of my man when he, too, left to find gold. And when the river broke up in the spring he did not come back to me—for the grinding ice-cakes caught his canoe, and he was crushed to death in a rapids."

VI

For four long nights and four short days MacFarlane worked at the digging of a grave. It was a beautiful spot he chose to be the last resting place of his young wife—a high, spruce-covered promontory that jutted out into a lake. The cabin and its surroundings had grown intolerable to him, so that he worked furiously, attacking the iron-hard ground with fire, and ice-chisel, and spade. At last it was done and placing the body of his wife in the rough pole coffin, he placed it upon his sled and locking the dogs in the cabin, hauled it himself to the promontory and lowered it into the grave. Then he shoveled back the frozen earth, and erected a wooden cross upon which was burned deep her name, and returning to the cabin, slept the clock around.

If MacFarlane had been himself he would have heeded the signs of approaching storm. But he

had become obsessed with desire to leave that place with its haunting memories, where every mute object seemed to whisper to him of his loved ones. He was talking and mumbling to himself as he harnessed his dogs and headed into the North at the breaking of a day.

Three hours after MacFarlane hit the trail he left the sparsely timbered country behind and struck into a vast treeless plain whose glaring white surface was cut here and there by rugged ridges of basalt which terminated abruptly in ledges of bare rock.

At noon he made a fireless camp, ate some pilot bread, and caribou meat. The air was still—ominously dead and motionless to one who knew the North. But MacFarlane gave no heed, nor did he even notice that though there were no clouds in the sky, the low-hung sun showed dull and coppery through a steel-blue fog. He bolted his food and pressed on. Before him was no guiding landmark. He laid his course by the compass and held straight North across the treeless rock-ribbed plain. The man's lean face looked pinched and drawn. For a week he had taken his sleep in short fitful snatches, in his chair beside the cabin stove, or with his back against a tree while he waited for the fire to bite a few inches deeper into the frozen ground as he toiled at the lonely grave. On and on he mushed at the head of his dogs, his eyes, glowing feverbright, stared fixedly from between red-rimmed lids

straight into the steel blue fog bank that formed his northern horizon. And as he walked, he talked incessantly—now arguing with old Molaire, who predicted dire things, and refused to believe that there was gold in the North—now telling Margot of his hopes and planning his future—and again, telling stories to little Margot of Goldilocks and the three little bears, and of where the caribou got their horns.

The blue fog thickened. From somewhere far ahead sounded a low whispering roar—the roar of mightly wind, muffled by its burden of snow. When the first blast struck, MacFarlane tottered in his tracks, then lowering his head, leaned against it and pushed on. Following the gust was a moment of calm. Behind him the dogs whimpered uneasily. MacFarlane did not hear them, nor did he hear the roar of the onrushing wind.

Around a corner of a rock ledge a scant two hundred yards ahead of him, appeared a great grey shape, running low. The shape halted abruptly and circled wide. It was followed by other shapes—gaunt, and grey, and ugly, between whose back-curled lips white fangs gleamed. The wolf pack, forty strong, was running before the storm, heading southward for the timber. Whining with terror, MacFarlane's dogs crowded about his legs in a sudden rush. The man went down and struggled to his feet, cursing, and laying about him with clubbed rifle. Then the storm struck in all its fury. Mac

Farlane gasped for air, and sucked in great gulps of powdery snow that bit into his lungs and seared his throat with their stinging cold. He choked and coughed and jerking off his mitten, clawed with bare fingers at his throat and eyes. While behind him, down wind, the great grey caribou wolves, stopped in their wild flight by the scent of meat, crowded closer, and closer.

In a panic, MacFarlane's dogs whirled, and dragging the sled behind them bolted. MacFarlane staggered a few steps forward and fell, then, on hands and knees he crawled back, groping and pawing the snow for his mitten and rifle. The sharp frenzied yelps as the dog team plunged into the wolf-pack sounded faint and far. The man threw up his head. He pulled off his cap to listen and the wind whipped it from his numbed fingers—but MacFarlane did not know. Moments of silence followed during which the man strained his ears to catch a sound that eluded him.

When the last shred of flesh had been ripped from the bones of the dogs the gaunt grey leader of the pack raised his muzzle and sniffed the wind. He advanced a cautious step or two and sniffed again, then seating himself on his haunches he raised his long pointed muzzle to the sky and gave voice to the long drawn cry of the kill—and the shapes left the fang-scarred bits of bone and sniffed up-wind at the man-scent.

As the sound of the great wolf cry reached his

ears above the roar of the wind, MacFarlane's face lighted with a smile of infinite gladness: "The bells," he muttered, "I heard them—d'you hear them, Margot—girl? It's for us—the booming of the bells of Ste. Anne's!" And with the words on his lips MacFarlane pillowed his head on the snow—and slept.

VII

Years afterward, after old Molaire had been gathered to his fathers and laid in the little cemetery within the sound of the bells of Ste. Anne's, Corporal Downey one day came upon a long deserted cabin far into the barren grounds upon the shore of a nameless lake. He closed the rotting door behind him, and methodically searching the ground, came at length upon the solitary grave upon the high promontory that jutted into the lake. Unconsciously he removed his hat as he read the simple inscription burned deep into the little wooden cross. His lips moved: "Margot—girl," he whispered, "if—if—" the whisper thickened and choked him. He squared his shoulders and cleared his throat roughly. "Aw hell!" he breathed, and turning, walked slowly back to his canoe and shoved out onto the water.

And during the interval of the years the little band of non-treaty Indians—the homeless and the restless ones—moved on—and on—and on—

—

CHAPTER I

COARSE GOLD

As Carter Brent pushed through the swinging doors of "The Ore Dump" saloon, the eyes of the head bartender swept with approval from the soles of the high laced boots to the crown of the jauntily tilted Stetson. "What'll it be this morning, Mr. Brent?" he greeted. "Little eye-opener?"

The young man grinned as he crossed to the bar: "How did you guess it?"

The bartender set out decanter and glasses. "Well, after last night, thought maybe you'd have a kind of fuzzy taste in your mouth."

"Fuzzy is right! My tongue is coated with fur—dark brown fur—thick and soft. What time was it when we left here?"

"Must have been around two o'clock. But, how does it come you ain't on the works this mornin'? Never knew you to lose a day on account of a hang-over. Heard a couple of the S. & R.'s tunnels got flooded last night."

Brent poured a liberal drink and downed it at a swallow: "Yes," he answered, dryly, "And that's

why I'm not on the works. I'm hunting a job, and the S. & R. is hunting a new mining engineer."

"Jepson fired you, did he! Well, you should worry. I've heard 'em talkin' in here, now an' then—some of the big guns—an' they all claim you're one of the best engineers in Montana. They say if you'd buckle down to business you'd have 'em all skinned."

"Buckle down to business, eh! The trouble with them is that when they hire a man they think they buy him. It's none of their damn business what I do evenings. If I'm sober when I'm on the job—and on the job six days a week, and sometimes seven—they're getting all they're paying for."

"They sure are," agreed the other with emphasis, "Have another shot," he shoved the decanter toward the younger man and leaned closer: "Say Mr. Brent, you ain't—er, you don't need a little change, do you? If you do just say so, you're welcome to it." The man drew forth a roll of bills, but Brent shook his head:

"No thanks. You can cash this check for me though. Jepson was square enough about it—paid me in full to date and threw in a month's salary in advance. I don't blame him any. We quit the best of friends. When he hired me he knew I liked a little drink now and then, so I took the job with the understanding that if the outfit ever lost a dollar because of my boozing, I was through right then."

"What was it flooded the tunnels?"

"Water," grinned Brent.

"Oh," laughed the bartender, "I thought maybe it was booze."

"You'd have thought so all the more if you'd been there this morning to hear the temperance lecture that old Jepson threw in gratis along with that extra month's pay. About the tunnels—we get our power from Anaconda, and something happened to the high tension wire, and the pumps stopped, and there wasn't any light, and Number Four and Number Six are wet tunnels anyway so they filled up and drowned two batteries of drills. Then, instead of rigging a steam pump and pumping them out through Number Four, one of the shift bosses rigged a fifteen inch rotary in Number Six and started her going full tilt with the result that he ran the water down against that new piece of railroad grade and washed about fifty feet of it into the river and left the track hanging in the air by the rails."

"The damn fool!"

"Oh, I don't know. He did the best he could. A shift boss isn't hired to think."

"What did old Jepson fire you for? He didn't think you clim up an' cut the high tension wire did he? Or, did he expect you to set around nights an' keep the juice flowin'?"

Brent laughed: "Not exactly. But they tried to find me and couldn't. So when I showed up

this morning old Jepson sent for me and asked me where I was last night. I could have lied out of it easy enough. He would have accepted any one of a half a dozen excuses—but lying's poor business—so I told him I was out having a hell of a good time and wound up about three in the morning with a pretty fair snootful."

"Bet he thinks a damn sight more of you than if you'd of lied, at that. But they's plenty of jobs fer you. You've got it in your noodle—what they need—an' what they've got to pay to get. You might drop around an' talk to Gunnison, of the Little Ella. He was growlin' in here the other night because he couldn't get holt of an engineer. Goin' to do a lot of cross tunnel work or somethin'. Said he was afraid he'd have to send back East an' get some pilgrim or some kid just out of college. Hold on a minute there's a bird down there, among them hard rock men, that looks like he was figgerin' on startin' somethin'. I'll just step down an' put a flea in his ear."

Brent's eyes followed the other as he made his way toward the rear of the long bar where three or four bartenders were busy serving drinks to a crowd of miners. He noticed casually that the men were divided into small groups and that they seemed to be talking excitedly among themselves, and that the talk was mostly in whispers.

"The Ore Dump" was essentially a mining man's saloon. Its proprietor, Patsy Kelliher, was an old

time miner who, having struck it lucky with pick and shovel, had started a modest little saloon, and later had opened "The Ore Dump," in the fitting up of which he had gone the limit in expensive furnishings. It was his boast that no miner had ever gone out of his door hungry or thirsty, nor had any man ever lost a cent by unfair means within his four walls. Rumor had it that Patsy had given away thousands. Be that as it may, "The Ore Dump" had for years been the mecca of the mining fraternity. Millionaire mine owners, managers, engineers, and on down through the list to the humblest "hunk," were served at its long bar, which had, by common usage become divided by invisible lines of demarkation. The mine owners, the managers, the engineers, and the independent contractors foregathered at the front end of the bar; the hunks, and the wops, and the guineas at the rear end; while the long space between was a sort of no-man's-land where drank the shift bosses and the artisans of the mines—the hard-rock men, the electricians, and the steam-fitters. Combinations of capital running into millions had been formed at the front end, and combinations of labor at the rear, while in no-man's-land great mines had been tied up at the crooking of a finger.

On this particular morning Carter Brent was the only customer at the front end of the bar. He poured another drink and watched it glow like a thing of life with soft amber lights that played

through the crystal clear glass as a thin streak of sunlight struck aslant the bar. The liquor in his stomach was taking hold. He felt warm, with a glowing, tingling warmth that permeated to his finger tips. In his mind was a vast sense of well being. The world was a great old place to live in. He drank the whisky in his glass and refilled it from the cut glass decanter. Poor old Jepson—fired the best engineer in Montana—that's what his friend, the bartender, had just told him, and he got it from the big guns. Well, it was Jepson's funeral—he and the S. & R. would have to stagger along as best they could. He would go and see Gunnison—no, to hell with Gunnison! Brent's fingers closed about the roll of bills in his trousers pocket. He had plenty of money, he would wait and pick out a job. He needn't worry. He always was sure of a good job. Hadn't he had five in the two years since he graduated from college? There were plenty of mines and they all needed good engineers. Brent smiled as his thoughts drifted lazily back to his four years in college. He wished some of the fellows would drop in. "They were a bunch of damned good sports," he muttered to himself, "And we sure did roll 'em high! Speedy Bennet was always the first to go under—about two drinks and we'd lay him on the shelf to call for when needed. Then came McGivern, then Sullivan, and about that time little Morse would begin flapping his arms around and proclaiming he could fly. Then, after a while

there wouldn't be anyone left but Morey and me—good old Morey—they canned him in his senior year—and they've been canning me ever since."

Brent paused in his soliloquy and regarded the men who had been whispering among themselves toward the rear of the room. There were no small groups now, and no whispering. With tense faces they were crowding about a man who stood with hands palm down upon the bar. He wondered what it was all about. From his position at the head of the bar he could see the man's face plainly. Also he could see the faces of the others—the lined, rugged faces of the hard rock and the vapid, loose-lipped faces of the wops—and of all the faces only the face of the man who stood with his hands on the bar betrayed nothing of tense expectancy. Why were these others crowding about him, and why was he the only man of them all who was not holding in check by visible effort some pent up emotion? Brent glanced again into the weather-lined face with its drooping sun-burned mustache, and its skin tanned to the color of old leather—a strong face, one would say—the face of a man who had battled long against odds, and won. Won what? He wondered. For an instant the man's eyes met his own, and it seemed to Brent as though he had read the question for surely, behind the long drooping mustache, the lips twisted into just the shadow of a cynical grin.

The head bartender stepped to the back bar and, from beside a huge gilded cash register, he lifted a set of tiny scales which he carried to the bar and set down directly before the man with the sun-burned mustache.

In front of the bar men crowded closer, craning their necks, and elbowing one another, as their feet made soft shuffling sounds upon the hardwood floor. One of the man's hands slipped into a side pocket of his coat and when it came out something thudded heavily upon the bar. Brent saw the object plainly as the bartender reached for it, a small buckskin pouch, its surface glazed with the grease and soot of many campfires. He had seen men carry their tobacco in just such pouches, but this pouch held no tobacco, it had thumped the bar heavily and lay like a sack of sand.

The bartender untied the strings and stood with the pouch poised above the scales while his eyes roved over the eager, expectant faces of the crowd. Then he placed a small weight upon the pan of the scales and poured something slowly from the pouch into the small scoop upon the opposite side. From his position Brent could see the delicate scales oscillate and finally strike a balance. The bartender closed the pouch and handed it back to the owner. Then he picked up the scales and returned them to their place beside the cash register, while in front of the bar men surged about the pouch owner clawing and shoving to get next to him, and all talking

at once, nobody paying the slightest attention to the bartenders who were vainly trying to serve a round of drinks.

The head bartender returned to his position opposite Brent, and reaching for the decanter, poured himself a drink. "Drink up and have one on the stranger—he just set 'em up to the house."

Brent swallowed the liquor in his glass and refilled it: "What's the excitement?" he asked, "A man don't ordinarily get as popular as he seems to be just because he buys a round of drinks, does he?"

"Didn't you see it? It ain't the round of drinks, it's—wait—" He stepped to the back bar and lifting the scoop from the scales set it down in front of Brent, "That's what it is—gold! Yes sir, pure gold just as she comes from the sand—nuggets and dust. It's be'n many a year since any of that stuff has been passed over this bar for the drinks. I've be'n here seven years and it's the first I've took in, except now and then a few colors that some hombre's washed out of some dry coulee or creek bed—fine dust that's cost him the shovelin' an' pannin' of tons of gravel. Patsy keeps the scales settin' around for a curiosity—that, an' because the old-timers likes to see 'em handy. Kind of reminds 'em of the early days an' starts 'em gassin'. But this here's the real stuff. Look at that boy." He poked with his finger at an irregular nugget the size of a navy bean, "Looks like a

chunk of slag—an' that ain't all! He's got a bag full of 'em. I held it in my hand, an' it weighed pounds!"

As Brent stood looking down at the grains of yellow metal in the little scoop a strange uneasiness stirred deep within him. He picked up the nugget and held it in the palm of his hand. One side of it was flat, as though polished by a thousand years of water-wear, and the other side was rough and fire-eaten as though fused by a mighty heat. Brent had seen plenty of gold—coined gold, gold fashioned by the goldsmith's art, and gold in bricks and ingots, in the production of which he himself had been a factor. Yet never before had the sight of gold moved him. It had been merely a valuable metal which it was his business to help extract from certain rocks by certain processes of chemistry and expensive machinery. Yet here in his hand was a new kind of gold—gold that seemed to reach into the very heart of him with a personal appeal. Raw gold—gold that had known the touch of neither chemicals nor machinery, but that had been wrested by the bare hands of a man from some far place where the fires of a glowing world and the glacial ice-drift had fashioned it. The vague uneasiness that had stirred him at sight of the yellow grains, flamed into a mighty urge at its touch. He, too, would go and get gold—and he would get it not by process of brain, but by process of brawn. Not by means of chemicals and machinery, but by slash

ing into the sides of mountains, and ripping the guts out of creeks! Carefully he returned the nugget to the scoop, and as he raised his eyes to the bartender's, he moistened his lips with his tongue.

"Where did he get it?" he asked, huskily.

"God, man! If I know'd that I wouldn't be standin' here, would I?" He jerked his thumb toward the rear of the room where men were frenziedly crowding the stranger. "That's what they all want to know. Lord, if he'd let the word slip what a stampede there'd be! Every man for himself an' the devil take the hindmost. Out of every hundred that's in on a stampede, about one makes a stake, an' ten gets their ante back, an' the rest goes broke. They all know what they're going up against—but the damned fools! Every one of 'em would stake all they've got, an' their life throw'd in, to be in on it."

"It's the lure of gold," muttered Brent, "I've heard of it, but I never felt it before. Are they damned fools? Wouldn't you?"

"Wouldn't I—what?"

"Wouldn't you go—along with the rest?"

"Hell—yes! An' so would anyone else that had any red guts in 'em!"

Brent poured himself a drink, and shoved the decanter toward the other, "Let's liquor," he said, "and then maybe if we can get that fellow away from the crowd where we can talk——"

The bartender interrupted the thought before it was expressed; "No chance. Take a look at him. Believe me, there's one hombre that ain't goin' to spill nothin' he don't want to. An' when a man makes a strike like that he don't hang around bars runnin' off at the chin about it—not what you could notice, he don't. Far as I can see we got just one chance. It's a damn slim one, but you can't always tell what's runnin' in these birds' heads. He asked me if Patsy Kelliher was runnin' this dump, an' when I told him he was, he had me send for him. Said he wanted to see him pronto. An' then he kind of throw'd his eyes around over the faces of the boys an' he says: 'You're all friends of Patsy's?' He seen in a minute how Patsy stood acehigh with them all, an' then he says; 'Well, just kind of stick around 'till Patsy gets down here an' it might be I'll explode somethin' amongst his friends that'll clean this dump out.' Now, you might take that two ways, but he don't look like one of these, what you might call, anarchists, does he? An' when he said that he laughed, an' he says: 'Belly up to the bar an' I'll buy a little drink—an' I'll pay for it with coarse gold!' Well, you seen how much drinkin' they done, an'—Here's Patsy, now!"

Brent turned and nodded greeting as the proprietor of "The Ore Dump" entered the door.

"Is it yersilf that sint fer me, Mister Brint, ye spalpeen?" he grinned, "Bein' a gintleman yersilf, ye'll be knowin' Oi'd still be at me newspaper an'

seegar. Whut's on yer mind thot ye'll be dhraggin' a mon from the bossom of his family befoor lunch?"

"It ain't him," explained the bartender, "It's the stranger, I told him you didn't never show up till after dinner, but——"

"Lunch! Damn it! Lunch!" Kelliher's fist smote the bar, and as he scowled into the face of his head bartender, Brent detected a twinkle in the deep-set blue eyes. "Didn't the owld woman beat that same into me own head a wake afther we'd moved into the big house? An' she done ut wid a tree-calf concoordance to Shakspere wid gold edges thot sets on the par—livin' room table? 'Tis a handy an' useful weapon—a worthy substitute, as the feller says, to the pleebeen rollin' pin an' fryin' pan. Thim tree calves has got a hide on 'em loike the bottom av a sluice-box. Oi bet they could make anvils out av the hide av a full-grow'd tree-bull. G'wan now an' trot out this ill-fared magpie that must be at his chatterin' befoor the break av day!"

At a motion from the bartender the crowd parted to allow the stranger to make his way to the front, surged together behind him, and followed, ranging itself in a semicircle at a respectful distance. Thus with the two principals, Brent found himself included within this semicircle of excited faces.

The two eyed each other for a moment in silence, the stranger with a smile half-veiled by his sun

-burned mustache, and Kelliher with a frankly puzzled expression upon his face as his thick fingers toyed with the heavy gold chain that hung cable-like from pocket to pocket of his gaily colored vest.

"I figured you wouldn't know me." The stranger's grin widened as he noted the look of perplexity.

"An' no more I don't," retorted the other, unconsciously tilting his high silk hat at an aggressive angle over his right eye. "Let's git the cards on the table. Who are ye? An' what ye got in ye're head that ye couldn't kape there till afther lunch?"

"I'm McBride."

Brent saw that the name conveyed nothing to the other, whose puzzled frown deepened. "Ye're McBride!" The tone was good-naturedly sarcastic, "Well, ye'd av still be'n McBride this afthernoon, av ye'd be'n let live that long. But who the divil's McBride that Oi shud come tearin' down to look into the ugly mug av um?"

The stranger laughed: "Nine years ago McBride was the night telegraph operator over in the yards. That was before you moved up here. You was still in the little dump over on Fagin street an' you done most of the work yerself—used to open up mornings. There wasn't no big diamon's shinin' in the middle of yer bald-face shirt them days—I doubt an' you owned a bald-face shirt, except, maybe, for Sundays. Anyhow, you'd be

openin' up in the mornin' when I'd be goin off trick, an' I most generally stopped in for a couple of drinks or so. An' one mornin' when I'd downed three or four, I noticed you kind of givin' me the once-over. There wasn't no one else in the place, an' you come over an' leaned yer elbows on the bar, an' you says: 'Yer goin' kind of heavy on that stuff, son,' you says.

"'What the hell's the difference?' I says, 'I ain't got only six months to live an' I might's well enjoy what I can of it.'

"'Are they goin' to hang ye in six months?' you asks, 'Have ye got yer sentence?'

"'I've got my sentence,' I says, 'But it ain't hangin'. The doctors sentenced me. It's the con.'

"'To hell with the doctors,' you says, 'They don't know it all. We'll fool 'em. All you need is to git out in the mountains—an' lay off the hooch.'

"I laughed at you. 'Me go to the mountains!' I says, 'Why man I ain't hardly got strength to get to my room an' back to the job again—an' couldn't even make that if it wasn't for the hooch.'

"'That's right,' you says, 'From the job to the room, an' the room to the job, ye'll last maybe six months—but I'm doubtin' it. But the mountains is different.' An' then you goes on an talks mountains an' gold till you got me interested, an' you offers to grub-stake me for a trip into the Kootenay country. You claimed it was a straight business proposition—fifty-fifty if I made a strike, an' you put

up the money against my time." The stranger paused and smiled as a subdued ripple of whisperings went from man to man as he mentioned the Kootenay. Then he looked Kelliher squarely in the face: "There wasn't no gold in the Kootenay," he said simply, "Or leastwise I couldn't find none. I figured someone had be'n stringin' you."

Patsy Kelliher shifted the hat to the back of his head and laughed out loud as his little eyes twinkled with merriment. "I git ye now, son," he said, "I moind the white face av ye, an' the chist bowed in like the bottom av a wash bowl, an' yer shoulders stuck out befront ye loike the horns av a cow." He paused as his eyes ran the lines of sinewy leanness and came to rest upon the sun bronzed face: "So ye made a failure av the trip, eh? A plumb clane failure—an' Oi'm out the couple av hundred it cost me fer the grub stake——"

"It cost you more than five hundred," interrupted the other. "I was in bad shape and there was things I needed that other men wouldn't of—that I don't need—now."

"Well—foive hundred, thin. An' how long has ut be'n ago?"

"Nine years."

Kelliher laughed: "Who was roight—me or the damn doctors? Ye've lived eighteen toimes as long as they was going to let ye live a'ready—an' av me eyes deceive me roight, ye ain't ordered no coffin yet."

"No—I ain't ordered no coffin. I come here to hunt you up an' pay you back."

Kelliher laughed: "There ain't nothin' to pay son. You don't owe me a cent. A grub-stake's a grub-stake, an' no one iver yit said Patsy Kelliher welched on a bargain. Besoides, Oi guess ye got all Oi sint ye afther. I know'd damn well they wasn't no gold in the Kootenay—none that a tenderfoot lunger cud foind."

McBride laughed: "Sure—I knew after I'd been there six months what you done it for. I doped it all out. But, as you say, a grub-stake's a grub-stake, an' no time limit on it, an' no one ever said Jim McBride ever welched on a bargain, neither. I ain't never be'n just ready to come back an' settle with you, till now. I drifted north, and farther north, till I wound up in the Yukon country. I prospected around there an' had pretty good luck. I'd got back my strength an' my health till right now there ain't but damn few men in the big country that can hit the trail with Jim McBride. But I wasn't never satisfied with what I was takin' out. I know'd there was somethin' big somewheres up there. I could feel it, an' I played for the big stake. Others stuck by stuff that was pannin' 'em out wages. I didn't. They called me a fool—an' I let 'em. I struck up river at last an' they laughed—but they ain't laughin' now. Me an' a squaw-man named Carmack hunted moose together over on Bonanza. One day Carmack was scratchin' around

the roots of a big birch tree an' just fer fun he gets to monkeyin' with my pan." The man paused and Brent could hear the suppressed breathing of the miners who had crowded close. His eyes swept their faces and he saw that every eye in the house was staring into the face of McBride as they hung upon his every word. He realized suddenly that he himself was waiting in a fever of impatience for the man to go on. "Then I come into camp, an' we both fooled with the pan—but we didn't fool long. God, man! We was shakin' it out of the grass roots! Coarse gold! I stayed at it a month—an' I've filed on every creek within ten miles of that lone birch tree. Then I come outside to find you an' settle." He paused and his eyes swept the room: "These men friends of yourn?" he asked. Kelliher nodded. "Well then I'm lettin' 'em in. Right here starts the biggest stampede the world ever seen. Some of the old timers that was already up there are into the stuff now—but in the spring the whole world will be gettin' in on it!"

Kelliher was the only self-possessed man in the room: "What'll she run to the pan?" he asked.

"Run to the pan! God knows! We thought she was big when she hit an ounce——"

"An ounce to the pan!" cried Kelliher, "Man ye're crazy!"

The other continued: "An' we thought she was little when she run a hundred dollars—two hundred!

I've washed out six-hundred dollars to the pan! An' I ain't to bed rock!"

And then he began to empty his pockets. One after another the little buckskin sacks thudded upon the bar—ten—fifteen—twenty of them. McBride spoke to Kelliher, who stared with incredulous, bulging eyes: "That's your share of what I've took out. You're filed along with me as full pardner in all the claims I've got. They's millions in them claims—an' more millions fer the men that gets there first." He paused and turned to the men of the crowd who stood silent, with tense white faces, and staring eyes glued on the pile of buckskin sacks: "Beat it, you gravel hogs!" he cried, "It's the biggest strike that ever was! Hit fer Seattle, go by Dyea Beach an' over the Chilkoot, an' take a thousand pounds of outfit—or you'll die. A hell of a lot of you'll die anyhow—but some of you will win—an' win big. Over the Chilkoot, down through the lakes, an' down the Yukon to Dawson—" A high pitched, unnatural yell, animal-like in its nervous excitement broke from a throat in the crowd, and the next instant pandemonium broke loose in Kelliher's, and Carter Brent fought his way to the door through a howling mass of mad men, and struck out for his boarding house at a run.

CHAPTER II

ON DYEA BEACH

In a drizzle of cold rain forty men stood on Dyea beach and viewed with disfavor the forty thousand pounds of sodden, mud-smeared outfit that had been hurriedly landed from the little steamer that was already plowing her way southward. Of the sixty-odd men who, two weeks before had stood in Patsy Kelliher's "Ore Dump Saloon" and had seen Jim McBride toss one after another upon the bar twenty buckskin pouches filled to bursting with coarse gold in his reckoning with Kelliher, these forty had accomplished the first leg of the long North trail. The next year and the next, thousands, and tens of thousands of men would follow in their footsteps, for these forty were the forerunners of the great stampede from the "outside"—a stampede that exacted merciless toll in the lives of fools and weaklings, even as it heaped riches with lavish prodigality into the laps of the strong.

Jim McBride had said that each man must carry in a thousand pounds of outfit. Well and good, they had complied. Each had purchased his thous

and pounds, had it delivered on board the steamer, and in due course, had watched it dumped upon the beach from the small boats. Despite the cold drizzle, throughout the unloading the forty had laughed and joked each other and had liberally tendered flasks. But now, with the steamer a vanishing speck in the distance and the rock-studded Dyea Flats stretching away toward the mountains, the laughter and joking ceased. Men eyed the trail, moved aimlessly about, and returned to their luggage. The thousand pound outfits had suddenly assumed proportions. Every ounce of it must be man-handled across a twenty-eight mile portage and over the Chilkoot Pass. Now and then a man bent down and gave a tentative lift at a bale or a sack. Muttered curses had taken the place of laughter, and if a man drew a flask from his pocket, he drank, and returned it to his pocket without tendering it to his neighbor.

When Carter Brent had reached the seclusion of his room after leaving Kelliher's saloon, he slipped his hand into his pocket and withdrawing his roll of bills, counted them. He found exactly three hundred and seventy-eight dollars which he rightly decided was not enough to finance an expedition to the gold country. He must get more—and get it quickly. Returning the bills in his pocket he packed his belongings, left the room, and a few minutes later was admitted upon signal to the gambling rooms of Nick the Greek where selecting a

faro layout, he bought a stack of chips. At the end of a half-hour he bought another stack, and thereafter he began to win. When his innings totaled one thousand dollars he cashed in, and that evening at seven o'clock he stepped onto a train bound for Seattle. He was mildly surprised that none of the others from Kelliher's were in evidence. But when he arrived at his destination he grinned as he saw them swarming from the day coaches ahead.