The Crimson Gardenia and Other Tales of Adventure

in that air is too much for anybody." "Sure," growled the other. "Bet I sleep good to-night, all right, all right. What's the use, anyhow?" he continued, disgustedly. "I'm sore on the whole works. If the Yukon was open I'd chuck it all." "What! Go back to the States? Give up?" "Well, yes, if you want to call it that, though I think I've shown I ain't a quitter. Lord! I've rustled steady for two years, and what have I got? Nothing--except my interest in this pauperized hill claim." "If two years of hard luck gives you cold feet, you ain't worthy of the dignity of 'prospector.' This here is the only honorable calling there is. There's no competition and cuttin' throats in our business, nor we don't rob the widders and orphans. A prospector is defined as a semi-human being with a low forehead but a high sense of honor, a stummick that shies at salads, but a heart that's full of grit. They don't never lay down, and the very beauty of the business is that you never know when you're due. Some day a guy comes along: 'I hit her over yonder, bo,' says he, whereupon you insert yourself into a pack-strap, pound the trail, and the next you know you're a millionaire or two." "Bah! No more stampedes for me. I've killed myself too often--there's nothing in 'em. I'm sick of it, I tell you, and I'm going out to God's country. No more wild scrambles and hardships for Buck." A step sounded on the chips without, and a slender, sallow man entered. "Hello, Maynard!" they chorused, and welcomed him to a seat. "What are you doing out here?" "D'you bring any chewing with you?" Evidently he labored under excitement, for his face was flushed and his eyes danced nervously. He panted from his climb, ignoring their questions. "There's been a big strike--over on the Tanana--four bits to the pan." Forgetting fatigue, Crowley scrambled out of his bunk while the cook left his steaming skillet. "When?" "How d'you know?" "It's this way. I met a fellow as I came out from town--he'd just come over--one of the discoverers. He showed me the gold. It's coarse; one nugget weighed three hundred dollars and there's only six men in the party. They went up the Tanana last fall, prospecting, and only just struck it. Three of 'em are down with scurvy, so this one came over the mountains for fresh grub. It'll be the biggest stampede this camp ever saw." Maynard became incoherent. "How long ago did you meet him?" Crowley inquired, excitedly. "About an hour. I came on the run, because he'll get into camp by eleven, and midnight will see five hundred men on the trail. Look at this--he gave me a map." The speaker gloatingly produced a scrap of writing-paper and continued, "Boys, you've got five hours' start of them." "We can't go; we haven't got any dogs," said Buck. "Those people from town would catch us in twenty miles." "You don't want dogs," Maynard answered. "It's too soft. You'll have to make a quick run with packs or the spring break-up will catch you. I wish I could go. It's big, I tell you. Lord! How I wish I could go!" They were huddled together, their eyes feverish, their fingers tracing the pencil-markings. A smell of burning food filled the room, but there is no obsession more absolute than the gold-lust. "Get the packs together while me and Buck eats a bite. We'll take the fox-robe and the Navajo. Glad I've got a new pair of mukluks, 'cause we need light footgear; but what will you wear, boy? Them hip-boots is too heavy--you'd never make it." "Here," said Maynard, "try these." He slipped off his light gossamer sporting-boots, and Buck succeeded in stamping his feet into them. "Little tight, but they'll go." They snatched bites of food, meanwhile collecting their paraphernalia, Maynard helping as he could. Each selected a change of socks and mittens. Then the grub was divided evenly--tea, flour, bacon, baking-powder, salt, sugar. There was nothing else, for spring on the Yukon finds only the heel of the grub-stake. Each rolled his portion in his blanket and lashed it with light rope. Then an end of the bundle was thrust into the waist of a pair of overalls and the garment closely cinched to it. The legs were brought forward and fastened, forming two loops, through which they slipped their arms, balancing the packs, or shifting a knot here and there. A light ax, a coffee-pot, frying-pan, and pail were tied on the outside, and they stood ready for the run. They stored carefully wrapped bundles of matches in pockets, packs, and in the lining of their caps. The preparations had not taken twenty minutes. "Too bad we ain't got some cooked grub, like chocolate or dog-biscuits," said Crowley, "but seeing as we've got five hours' start over everybody we won't have to kill ourselves." Maynard spoke hesitatingly. "Say, I told Sully about it as I came along." "What!" Crowley interrupted him sharply. "Yes! I told him to get ready, and I promised to give him the location an hour after you left. You see, he did me a good turn once and I had to get back at him somehow. He and Knute are getting fixed now. Why, what's up?" He caught a queer, quick glance between his partners and noted a hardness settle into the lined face of the elder. "Nothing much," Buck took up. "I guess you didn't know about the trouble, eh? Crowley knocked him down day before yesterday and Sully swears he'll kill him on sight. It came up over that fraction on Buster Creek." "Well, well," said Maynard, "that's bad, isn't it? I promised, though, so I'll have to tell him." "Sure! That's all right," Crowley agreed, quietly, though his lip curled, showing the strong, close-shut, ivory teeth. His nostrils dilated, also, giving his face a passing wolfish hint. "There's neither white man nor Swede that can gain an hour on us, and if he should happen to--he wouldn't pass." Be it known that many great placer fortunes have been won by those who stepped in the warm tracks of the discoverers, while rarely does the goddess smile on the tardy; in consequence, no frenzy approaches that of the gold stampede. Passing Sully's place, they found him and his partner ready and waiting, their packs on the saw-buck. Crowley glared at his enemy in silence while the other sneered wickedly back, and Big Knute laughed in his yellow beard. Buck's heart sank. Could he outlast these two? He was a boy; they were reckless giants with thews and legs of iron. Knute was a gaunt-framed Viking; Sully a violent, florid man with the quarters of an ox. Through the quixotism of Maynard this trip bade fair to combine the killing grind of a long, fierce stampede with the bitter struggle of man and man, and too well he knew the temper of his red-headed partner to doubt that before the last stake was driven either he or Sully would be down. From the glare in their eyes at passing it came over him that either he or Knute would recross the mountains partnerless. The trail was too narrow for these other men. He shrank from the toil and agony he felt was coming to him through this; then, with it, there came the burning gold-hunger; the lust that drives starving, broken wrecks onward unremittingly, over misty hills, across the beds of lava and the forbidden tundra; on, into the new diggings. It neared eight o'clock, and, although darkness was far distant, the chill that follows the sun fell sharply. As they swung out on to the river their fatigue had dropped away and they moved with the steady, loose gait of the hardened "musher." Buck looked at his watch. They had been gone an hour. "The race is on!" said he. Though unhurried, their progress was likewise unhindered, and the miles slipped backward as the darkness thickened, hour by hour. Straight up the fifty-mile stream to its source, over the great backbone and into the unmapped country their course led. If they hurried they would have first choice of the good claims close about the discovery; if they lagged Sully and his ox-eyed partner would overtake them, and beyond that it was unpleasant to conjecture. "We'll hit water pretty soon!" Crowley's voice broke hours of silence, for they were sparing of language. They neither whistled nor sang nor spoke, for Man is a potential body from which his store of energy wastes through tiny unheeded ways. True to prophecy, in the darkness of midnight they walked out upon a thin skin of newly frozen ice. "Look out for the overflow! She froze since dark," Crowley cautioned. "We're liable to go through." On all sides it cracked alarmingly, while they felt it sag beneath their feet. It is bad in the dark to ride the ice of an overflow, for one may crash through ankle-deep to the solid body beneath or plunge to his armpits. They skated over the yielding surface toward safety till, without warning, Crowley smashed in half-way to his hips. He fell forward bodily, and the ice let him through till he rolled in the water. Buck skimmed over more lightly, and, when they had reached the solid footing, helped him wring out his garments. Straightway the cloth whitened under the frost and crackled when they resumed their march, but there was no time for fires, and by vigorous action he could keep the cold from striking in. They had threaded up into the region where spring was further advanced, and within half an hour encountered another overflow. Climbing the steep bank, they wallowed through thickets waist-deep in snow. Beneath the crust, which cut knifelike, it was wet and soggy, so they emerged saturated. Then debouching on to the glare ice the boy had a nasty fall, for he slipped, and his loose-hung pack flung him suddenly. Nothing is more wicked than a pack on smooth ice. The surface had frozen glass-smooth, and constant difficulty beset their progress. Their slick-soled footgear refused to grip it, so that often they fell, always awkwardly, occasionally crushing through into the icy water beneath. Without warning Buck found that he was very tired. He also found that his pack had grown soggy and quadrupled in weight, tugging sullenly at his aching shoulders. As daylight showed they slipped harness and, hurriedly gathering twigs, boiled a pot of tea. They took time to prepare nothing else, yet even though the kettle sang speedily, as they drank from around the bend below came voices. Crowley straightened with a curse and, snatching his pack, fled up the stream, followed by his companion. They ran till Buck's knees failed him. Thereupon the former removed a portion of the youngster's burden, adding it to his own, and they hurried on for hours, till they fell exhausted upon a dry moss hummock. Here they exchanged footgear, as Buck now found his feet were paining him acutely, owing to the tightness of his rubber boots. They proved too small for Crowley as well, and in a few hours his feet were likewise ruined. Noon found them limping among the bald hills of the river's source. Here timber was sparse and the snows, too, had thinned; so to avoid the convolutions of the stream they cut across points, floundering among "niggerheads"--quaint, wobbly hummocks of grass--being thrown repeatedly by their packs which had developed a malicious deviltry. This footing was infinitely worse than the reeking ice, but it saved time, so they took it. Now, under their stiff mackinaws they perspired freely as the sun mounted, until their heavy garments chafed them beneath arms and legs. Moreover, mosquitoes, which in this latitude breed within arm's-length of snow-drifts, continually whined in a vicious cloud before their features. Human nerves will weather great strains, but wearing, maddening, unending trivialities will break them down, and so, although their journey in miles had been inconsiderable, the dragging packs, the