" And I asked her to let me have you at table. 
 And here s my chance. " 
 
SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 BY 
 
 JACK LONDON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE CALL OF THE WILD," 
 "THE SEA WOLF, :: ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 P. J. MONAHAN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO 
 
 1912 
 
 
Copyright, 1912, by 
 THE CENTURY Co, 
 
 Copyright, 1911, 1912, by 
 INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY 
 
 Published, October, IQI2 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 3365 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 3 
 
 II THE MEAT 34 
 
 III THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 69 
 
 IV SHORTY DREAMS 99 
 
 V THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 119 
 
 VI THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 146 
 
 VII THE LITTLE MAN I73 
 
 VIII THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 198 
 
 IX THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 224 
 
 X A FLUTTER IN EGGS . .255 
 
 XI THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE . . . ^ ^ .288 
 
 XII WONDER OF WOMAN . . . . ^ . , A % . .324 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " And I asked her to let me have you at table. And here s 
 
 my chance." Frontispiece 
 
 " I can throw you right now, or thrash you with my fists," 9 
 
 " If you don t turn the boat around I ll shoot you," Sprague 
 
 threatened 59 
 
 It was as if her feet and calves were encased in corrugated 
 iron * * . 91 
 
 The man on the river had been struck by the first shot 129 
 
 It was the utter weakness of the Indians that saved Smoke 
 
 and Shorty from being overborne 207 
 
 They hit him right, and left at the same instant . . . 251 
 
 "And there is no one else? No other Iseult out there 
 
 beyond the mountains?" 353 
 
SMOKE BELLEW 
 

SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 
 
 TN the beginning he was Christopher Bellew. By 
 -* the time he was at college he had become Chris 
 Bellew. Later, in the Bohemian crowd of San Fran 
 cisco, he was called Kit Bellew. And in the end he 
 was known by no other name than Smoke Bellew. 
 And this history of the evolution of his name is the 
 history of his evolution. Nor would it have hap 
 pened had he not had a fond mother and an iron 
 uncle, and had he not received a letter from Gillet 
 Bellamy. 
 
 " I have just seen a copy of The Billow," Gillet 
 wrote from Paris. " Of course O Hara will succeed 
 with it. But he s missing some tricks." Here fol 
 lowed details in the improvement of the budding so 
 ciety weekly. " Go down and see him. Let him 
 think they re your own suggestions. Don t let him 
 know they re from me. If you do, he 11 make me 
 Paris correspondent, which I can t afford, because 
 I m getting real money for my stuff from the big 
 magazines. Above all, don t forget to make him fire 
 that dub who s doing the musical and art criticism. 
 Another thing. San Francisco has always had a lit- 
 
4 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 erature of her own. But she has n t any now. Tell 
 him to kick around and get some gink to turn out a 
 live serial, and to put into it the real romance and 
 glamour and color of San Francisco." 
 
 And down to the office of The Billow went Kit 
 Bellew faithfully to instruct. O Hara listened. 
 O Hara debated. O Hara agreed. O Hara fired the 
 dub who wrote criticisms. Further, O Hara had a 
 way with him, the very way that was feared by Gillet 
 in distant Paris. When O Hara wanted anything, 
 no friend could deny him. He was sweetly and com- 
 pellingly irresistible. Before Kit Bellew could es 
 cape from the office, he had become an associate edi 
 tor, had agreed to write weekly columns of criticism 
 till some decent pen was found, and had pledged him 
 self to write a weekly instalment of ten thousand 
 words on the San Francisco serial and all this with 
 out pay. The Billow was n t paying yet, O Hara ex 
 plained; and just as convincingly had he exposited 
 that there was only one man in San Francisco capable 
 of writing the serial and that man Kit Bellew. 
 
 " Oh, Lord, I m the gink ! " Kit had groaned to 
 himself afterward on the narrow stairway. 
 
 And thereat had begun his servitude to O Hara and 
 the insatiable columns of The Billow. Week after 
 week he held down an office chair, stood off creditors, 
 wrangled with printers, and turned out twenty-five 
 thousand words of all sorts. Nor did his labors 
 lighten. The Billow was ambitious. It went in for 
 illustration. The processes were expensive. It 
 never had any money to pay Kit Bellew, and by the 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 5 
 
 same token it was unable to pay for any additions to 
 the office staff. Luckily for Kit, he had his own in- 
 come. Small it was, compared with some, yet it was 
 large enough to enable him to belong to several clubs 
 and maintain a studio in the Latin quarter. In point 
 of fact, since his associate-editorship, his expenses 
 ha H decreased prodigiously. He had no time to 
 spend money. He never saw the studio any more, 
 nor entertained the local Bohemians with his famous 
 chafing-dish suppers. Yet he was always broke r for 
 The Billow, in perennial distress, absorbed his cash 
 as well as his brains. There were the illustrators, 
 w r ho periodically refused to illustrate; the printers, 
 \vho periodically refused to print; and the office-boy, 
 who frequently refused to officiate. At such times 
 O Hara looked at Kit, and Kit did the rest. 
 
 When the steamship Excelsior arrived from 
 Alaska, bringing the news of the Klondike strike that 
 set the country mad, Kit made a purely frivolous 
 proposition. 
 
 " Look here, O Hara," he said. " This gold rush 
 is going to be big the days of 49 over again. 
 Suppose I cover it for The Billow? I 11 pay my own 
 expenses." 
 
 O Hara shook his head. " Can t spare you from 
 the office, Kit. Then there s that serial. Besides, 
 I saw Jackson not an hour ago. He s starting for 
 the Klondike to-morrow, and he s agreed to send a 
 weekly letter and photos. I would n t let him get 
 away till he promised. And the beauty of it is that it 
 doesn t cost us anything." 
 
6 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 The next Kit heard of the Klondike was when he 
 dropped into the club that afternoon and in an alcove 
 off the library encountered his uncle. 
 
 " Hello, avuncular relative," Kit greeted, sliding 
 into a leather chair and spreading out his legs. 
 " Won t you join me? " 
 
 He ordered a cocktail, but the uncle contented him 
 self with the thin native claret he invariably drank. 
 He glanced with irritated disapproval at the cocktail 
 and on to his nephew s face. Kit saw a lecture gath 
 ering. 
 
 " I ve only a minute," he announced hastily. 
 " I ve got to run and take in that Keith exhibition 
 at Ellery s and do half a column on it." 
 
 "What s the matter with you?" the other de 
 manded. " You re pale. You re a wreck." 
 
 Kit s only answer was a groan. 
 
 " I 11 have the pleasure of burying you. I can see 
 that." 
 
 Kit shook his head sadly. " No destroying worm, 
 thank you. Cremation for mine." * 
 
 John Bellew came of the old hard and hardy stock 
 that had crossed the plains by ox-team in the fifties, 
 and in him was this same hardness and the hardness 
 of a childhood spent in the conquering of a new land. 
 " You re not living right, Christopher. I m 
 ashamed of you." 
 
 "Primrose path, eh?" Kit chuckled. 
 
 The older man shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Shake not your gory locks at me, avuncular. I 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 7 
 
 wish it were the primrose path. But that s all cut 
 out. I have no time." 
 
 " Then what in ? " 
 
 " Overwork." 
 
 John Bellew laughed harshly and incredulously. 
 
 " Honest." 
 
 Again came the laughter. 
 
 " Men are the products of their environment," Kit 
 proclaimed, pointing at the other s glass. Your 
 mirth is thin and bitter as your drink." 
 
 " Overwork ! " was the sneer. " You never earned 
 a cent in your life." 
 
 " You bet I have, only I never got it. I m earning 
 five hundred a week right now, and doing four men s 
 work." 
 
 " Pictures that won t sell ? Or er fancy work 
 of some sort? Can you swim?" 
 
 " I used to." 
 
 "Sit a horse?" 
 
 " I have essayed that adventure." 
 
 John Bellew snorted his disgust. " I m glad your 
 father did n t live to see you in all the glory of your 
 gracelessness," he said. " Your father was a man, 
 every inch of him. Do you get it ? A man. I think 
 he d have whaled all this musical and artistic torn 
 foolery out of you." 
 
 " Alas ! these degenerate days," Kit sighed. 
 
 " I could understand it, and tolerate it," the other 
 w T ent on savagely, "if you succeeded at it. You Ve 
 never earned a cent in your life, nor done a tap of 
 
8 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 man s work. What, earthly good are you, anyway? 
 You were well put up, )iet even at university you 
 di dn t play football. You didn t row. You 
 didn t" 
 
 " I boxed and fenced some." 
 
 "When did you box last?" 
 
 " Not since, but I was considered an excellent judge 
 of time and distance, only I was er " 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " Considered desultory." 
 
 " Lazy, you mean." 
 
 " I always imagined it was an euphemism." 
 
 " My father, sir, your grandfather, old Isaac Bel- 
 lew, killed a man with a blow of his fist when he was 
 sixty-nine years old." 
 
 "The man?" 
 
 " No, you graceless scamp ! But you 11 never kill 
 a mosquito at sixty-nine." 
 
 " The times have changed, O my avuncular ! 
 They send men to prison for homicide now." 
 
 " Your father rode one hundred and eighty-five 
 miles, without sleeping, and killed three horses." 
 
 " Had he lived to-day he d have snored over the 
 same course in a Pullman." 
 
 The older man was on the verge of choking with 
 wrath, but swallowed it down and managed to articu 
 late, " How old are you? " 
 
 " I have reason to believe " 
 
 " I know. Twenty-seven. You finished college 
 at twenty-two. You ve dabbled and played and 
 frilled for five years. Before God and man, of what 
 
I can throw you right now, or thrash you with my fists 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 11 
 
 use are you? When I was your age I had one suit 
 of underclothes. I was riding with the cattle in 
 Coluso. I was hard as rocks, and I could sleep on 
 a rock. I lived on jerked beef and bear-meat. I am 
 a better man physically right now than you are. You 
 weigh about one hundred and sixty-five. I can throw 
 you right now, or thrash you with my fists." 
 
 " It does n t take a physical prodigy to mop up 
 cocktails or pink tea," Kit murmured deprecatingly. 
 " Don t you see, my avuncular, the times have 
 changed. Besides, I was n t brought up right. My 
 dear fool of a mother " 
 
 John Bellew started angrily. 
 
 " as you once described her, was too good to me, 
 kept me in cotton wool and all the rest. Now, if 
 when I was a youngster I had taken some of those 
 intensely masculine vacations you go in for I 
 \vonder why you did n t invite me sometimes ? You 
 took Hal and Robbie all over the Sierras and on that 
 Mexico trip." 
 
 " I guess you were too Lord-Fauntleroyish." 
 
 " Your fault, avuncular, and my dear er 
 mother s. How was I to know the hard? I was 
 only a chee-ild. What was there left but etchings 
 and pictures and fans ? Was it my fault that I never 
 had to sweat?" 
 
 The older man looked at his nephew with uncon 
 cealed disgust. He had no patience with levity from 
 the lips of softness. " Well, I m going to take an 
 other one of those what you call masculine vacations. 
 Suppose I asked you to come along?" 
 
12 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 "Rather belated, I must say. Where is it?" 
 
 " Hal and Robert are going in to Klondike, and 
 I m going to see them across the pass and down to 
 the lakes, then return " 
 
 He got no further, for the young man had sprung 
 forward and gripped his hand. " My preserver ! " 
 
 John Bellew was immediately suspicious. He 
 had not dreamed the invitation would be accepted. 
 " You don t mean it? " he said. 
 
 "When do we start?" 
 
 " It will be a hard trip. You 11 be in the way." 
 
 " No, I won t. I 11 work. I ve learned to work 
 since I went on The Billow" 
 
 " Each man has to take a year s supplies in with 
 him. There 11 be such a jam the Indian packers 
 won t be able to handle it. Hal and Robert will have 
 to pack their outfits across themselves. That s what 
 I m going along for to help them pack. If you 
 come you 11 have to do the same." 
 
 " Watch me." 
 
 " You can t pack," was the objection. 
 
 "When do we start?" 
 
 " To-morrow." 
 
 " You need n t take it to yourself that your lecture 
 on the hard has done it," Kit said, at parting. " I 
 just had to get away, somewhere, anywhere, from 
 O Hara." 
 
 "Who is O Hara? A Jap?" 
 
 " No ; he s an Irishman, and a slave-driver, and 
 my best friend. He s the editor and proprietor and 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 13 
 
 all-round big squeeze of The Billow. What he says 
 goes. He can make ghosts walk." 
 
 That night Kit Bellew wrote a note to O Hara. 
 " It s only a several weeks vacation," he explained. 
 " You 11 have to get some gink to dope out instal 
 ments for that serial. Sorry, old man, but my health 
 demands it. I 11 kick in twice as hard when I get 
 back." 
 
 Kit Bellew landed through the madness of the 
 Dyea beach congested with the thousand-pound 
 outfits of thousands of men. This immense 
 mass of luggage and food, flung ashore in mountains 
 by the steamers, was beginning slowly to dribble up 
 the Dyea Valley and across Chilkoot. It was a 
 portage of twenty-eight miles, and could be accom 
 plished only on the backs of men. Despite the fact 
 that the Indian packers had jumped the freight from 
 eight cents a pound to forty, they were swamped with 
 the work, and it was plain that winter would catch 
 the major portion of the outfits on the wrong side of 
 the divide. 
 
 Tenderest of the tenderfeet was Kit. Like many 
 hundreds of others, he carried a big revolver swung 
 on a cartridge-belt. Of this his uncle, filled with 
 memories of old lawless days, was likewise guilty. 
 But Kit Bellew was romantic. He was fascinated 
 by the froth and sparkle of the gold rush, and viewed 
 its life and movement with an artist s eye. He did 
 not take it seriously. As he said on the steamer, it 
 was not his funeral. He was merely on a vacation, 
 
I 4 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 and intended to peep over the top of the pass for a 
 " look see " and then return. 
 
 Leaving his party on the sand to wait for the put 
 ting ashore of the freight, he strolled up the beach 
 toward the old trading-post. He did not swagger, 
 though he noticed that many of the be-revolvered in 
 dividuals did. A strapping, six-foot Indian passed 
 him, carrying an unusually large pack. Kit swung in 
 behind, admiring the splendid calves of the man, and 
 the grace and ease with which he moved along under 
 his burden. The Indian dropped his pack on the 
 scales in front of the post, and Kit joined the group 
 of admiring gold-rushers who surrounded him. The 
 pack weighed one hundred and twenty-five pounds, 
 which fact was uttered back and forth in tones of 
 awe. It was going some, Kit decided, and he won 
 dered if he could lift such a weight, much less walk 
 off with it. 
 
 " Going to Lake Linderman with it, old man? " he 
 asked. 
 
 The Indian, swelling with pride, grunted an affirm 
 ative. 
 
 " How much you make that one pack? " 
 
 " Fifty dollars." 
 
 Here Kit slid out of the conversation. A young 
 woman, standing in the doorway, had caught his eye. 
 Unlike other women landing from the steamers, she 
 was neither short-skirted not bloomer-clad. She was 
 dressed as any woman traveling anywhere would be 
 dressed. What struck him was the justness of her 
 being there, a feeling that somehow she belonged. 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 15 
 
 Moreover, she was young and pretty. The bright 
 beauty and color of her oval face held him, and he 
 looked overlong -looked till she resented, and her 
 own eyes, long lashed and dark, met his in cool sur 
 vey. From his face, they traveled in evident amuse 
 ment down to the big revolver at his thigh. Then 
 her eyes came back to his, and in them was amused 
 contempt. It struck him like a blow. She turned 
 to the man beside her and indicated Kit. The man 
 glanced him over with the same amused contempt. 
 
 " Chekako," the girl said. 
 
 The man, who looked like a tramp in his cheap 
 overalls and dilapidated woolen jacket, grinned dryly, 
 and Kit felt withered, though he knew not why. But 
 anyway she was an unusually pretty girl, he decided, 
 as the two moved off. He noted the way of her walk, 
 and recorded the judgment that he would recognize 
 it after the lapse of a thousand years. 
 
 " Did you see that man with the girl? " Kit s neigh 
 bor asked him excitedly. " Know who he is ? " 
 
 Kit shook his head. 
 
 " Cariboo Charley. He was just pointed out to 
 me. He struck it big on Klondike. Old-timer. 
 Been on the Yukon a dozen years. He s just come 
 out." 
 
 " What does chekako mean? " Kit asked. 
 
 " You re one; I m one," was the answer. 
 
 " Maybe I am, but you Ve got to search me. 
 What does it mean?" 
 
 " Tenderfoot." 
 
 On his way back to the beach, Kit turned the. 
 
16 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 phrase over and over. It rankled to be called tender 
 foot by a slender chit of a woman. Going into a 
 corner among the heaps of freight, his mind still filled 
 with the vision of the Indian with the redoubtable 
 pack, Kit essayed to learn his own strength. He 
 picked out a sack of flour which he knew weighed an 
 even hundred pounds. He stepped astride it, reached 
 down, and strove to get it on his shoulder. His first 
 conclusion was that one hundred pounds were real 
 heavy. His next was that his back was weak. His 
 third was an oath, and it occurred at the end of five 
 futile minutes, when he collapsed on top of the bur 
 den with which he was wrestling. He mopped his 
 forehead, and across a heap of grub-sacks saw John 
 Bellew gazing at him, wintry amusement in his eyes. 
 
 "God!" proclaimed that apostle of the hard. 
 " Out of our loins has come a race of weak 
 lings. When I was sixteen I toyed with things like 
 that." 
 
 "You forget, avuncular," Kit retorted, "that I 
 wasn t raised on bear-meat." 
 " And I 11 toy with it when I m sixty." 
 
 " You ve got to show me." 
 
 John Bellew did. He was forty-eight, but he bent 
 over the sack, applied a tentative, shifting grip that 
 balanced it, and with a quick heave stood erect, the 
 sack of flour on his shoulder. 
 
 " Knack, my boy, knack and a spine." 
 
 Kit took off his hat reverently. " You re a won 
 der, avuncular, a shining wonder. D ye think I can 
 learn the knack ? " 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 17 
 
 John Bellew shrugged his shoulders. " You 11 be 
 hitting the back trail before we get started/ 
 
 " Never you fear," Kit groaned. " There s 
 O Hara, the roaring lion, down there. I m not go 
 ing back till I have to." 
 
 Kit s first pack was a success. Up to Finnegan s 
 Crossing they had managed to get Indians to carry 
 the twenty-five-hundred-pound outfit. From that 
 point their own backs must do the work. They 
 planned to move forward at the rate of a mile a day. 
 It looked easy on paper. Since John Bellew was 
 to stay in camp and do the cooking, he would be un 
 able to make more than an occasional pack; so to 
 each of the three young men fell the ta?k of carrying 
 eight hundred pounds one mile each day. If they 
 made fifty-pound packs, it meant a daily walk of six 
 teen miles loaded and of fifteen miles light " Be 
 cause we don t back-trip the last time," Kit explained 
 the pleasant discovery. Eighty-pound packs meant 
 nineteen miles travel each day; and hundred-pound 
 packs meant only fifteen miles. 
 
 " I don t like walking," said Kit. " Therefore I 
 shall carry one hundred pounds." He caught the 
 grin of incredulity on his uncle s face, and added 
 hastily: " Of course I shall work up to it. A fellow s 
 got to learn the ropes and tricks. I 11 start with 
 fifty." 
 
 He did, and ambled gaily along the trail. He 
 dropped the sack at the next camp-site and ambled 
 back. It was easier than he had thought. But two 
 miles had rubbed off the velvet of his strength and 
 
18 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 exposed the underlying softness. His second pack 
 was sixty-five pounds. It was more difficult, and he 
 no longer ambled. Several times, following the cus 
 tom of all packers, he sat down on the ground, resting 
 the pack behind him on a rock or stump. With the 
 third pack he became bold. He fastened the straps to 
 a ninety-five-pound sack of beans and started. At the 
 end of a hundred yards he felt that he must collapse. 
 He sat down and mopped his face. 
 
 " Short hauls and short rests," he muttered. 
 " That s the trick." 
 
 Sometimes he did not make a hundred yards, and 
 each time he struggled to his feet for another short 
 haul the pack became undeniably heavier. He panted 
 for breath, and the sweat streamed from him. Be 
 fore he had covered a quarter of a mile he stripped off 
 his woolen shirt and hung it on a tree. A little later 
 he discarded his hat. At the end of half a mile he 
 decided he was finished. He had never exerted him 
 self so in his life, and he knew that he was finished. 
 As he sat and panted, his gaze fell upon the big re 
 volver and the heavy cartridge-belt. 
 
 "Ten pounds of junk!" he sneered, as he un 
 buckled it. 
 
 He did not bother to hang it on a tree, but flung 
 it into the underbrush. And as the steady tide of 
 packers flowed by him, up trail and down, he noted 
 that the other tenderfeet were beginning to shed their 
 shooting-irons. 
 
 His short hauls decreased. At times a hundred 
 feet was all he could stagger, and then the ominous 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 19 
 
 pounding of his heart against his eardrums and the 
 sickening totteriness of his knees compelled him to 
 rest. And his rests grew longer. But his mind was 
 busy. It was a twenty-eight-mile portage, which rep 
 resented as many days, and this by all accounts was 
 the easiest part of it. " Wait till you get to Chil- 
 koot," others told him as they rested and talked, 
 " where you climb with hands and feet." 
 
 " They ain t going to be no Chilkoot," was his an 
 swer. " Not for me. Long before that I 11 be at 
 peace in my little couch beneath the moss." 
 
 A slip and a violent, wrenching effort at recovery 
 frightened him. He felt that everything inside him 
 had been torn asunder. 
 
 " If ever I fall down with this on my back, I m a 
 goner/ he told another packer. 
 
 " That s nothing," came the answer. " Wait till 
 you hit the Canyon. You 11 have to cross a raging 
 torrent on a sixty-foot pine-tree. No guide-ropes, 
 nothing, and the water boiling at the sag of the log 
 to your knees. If you fall with a pack on your back, 
 there s no getting out of the straps. You just stay 
 there and drown." 
 
 " Sounds good to me," he retorted ; and out of the 
 depths of his exhaustion he almost meant it. 
 
 " They drown three or four a day there," the 
 man assured him. " I helped fish a German out 
 of there. He had four thousand in greenbacks on 
 him." 
 
 " Cheerful, I must say," said Kit, battling his. way 
 to his feet and tottering on. 
 
20 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 He and the sack of beans became a perambulating 
 tragedy. It reminded him of the old man of the sea 
 who sat on Sindbad s neck. And this was one of 
 those intensely masculine vacations, he meditated. 
 Compared with it, the servitude to O Hara was sweet. 
 Again and again he was nearly seduced by the thought 
 of abandoning the sack of beans in the brush and of 
 sneaking around the camp to the beach and catching 
 a steamer for civilization. 
 
 But he did n t. Somewhere in him was the strain 
 of the hard, and he repeated over and over to himself 
 that what other men could do he could. It became a 
 nightmare chant, and he gibbered it to those that 
 passed him on the trail. At other times, resting, he 
 watched and envied the stolid, mule-footed Indians 
 that plodded by under heavier packs. They never 
 seemed to rest, but went on and on with a steadiness 
 and certitude that w r ere to him appalling. 
 
 He sat and cursed he had no breath for it when 
 under way and fought the temptation to sneak 
 back to San Francisco. Before the mile pack was 
 ended he ceased cursing and took to crying. The 
 tears were tears of exhaustion and of disgust with 
 self. If ever a man was a wreck, he was. As the 
 end of the pack came in sight, he strained himself in 
 desperation, gained the camp-site, and pitched for 
 ward on his face, the beans on his back. It did not 
 kill him, but he lay for fifteen minutes before he could 
 summon sufficient shreds of strength to release him 
 self from the straps. Then he became deathly sick, 
 and was so found by Robbie, who had similar 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 21 
 
 troubles of his own. It was this sickness of Robbie 
 that braced Kit up. 
 
 " What other men can do we can do," he told Rob 
 bie, though down in his heart he wondered whether 
 or not he was bluffing. 
 
 " And I am twenty-seven years old and a man," 
 he privately assured himself many times in the days 
 that followed. There was need for it. At the end 
 of a week, though he had succeeded in moving his 
 eight hundred pounds forward a mile a day, he had 
 lost fifteen pounds of his own weight. His face was 
 lean and haggard. All resilience had gone out of 
 his body and mind. He no longer walked, but 
 plodded. And on the back-trips, traveling light, his 
 feet dragged almost as much as when he was loaded. 
 
 He had become a work animal. He fell asleep 
 over his food, and his sleep was heavy and beastly, 
 save when he was aroused, screaming with agony, by 
 the cramps in his legs. Every part of him ached. 
 He tramped on raw blisters; yet even this was easier 
 than the fearful bruising his feet received on the 
 water-rounded rocks of the Dyea Flats, across which 
 the trail led for two miles. These two miles repre 
 sented thirty-eight miles of traveling. His shoulders 
 and chest, galled by the pack-straps, made him think, 
 and for the first time with understanding, of the 
 horses he had seen on city streets. 
 
 When they had moved the outfit across the foot- 
 logs at the mouth of the Canyon, they made a change 
 in their plans. Word had come across the pass that 
 at Lake Linderman the last available trees for build- 
 
22 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 ing boats were being cut. The two cousins, with 
 tools, whipsaw, blankets, and grub on their backs, 
 went on, leaving Kit and his uncle to hustle along the 
 outfit. John Bellew now shared the cooking with 
 Kit, and both packed sfroulder to shoulder. Time 
 was flying, and on the peaks the first snow was fall 
 ing. To be caught on the wrong side of the pass 
 meant a delay of nearly a year. The older man put 
 his iron back under a hundred pounds. Kit was 
 shocked, but he gritted his teeth and fastened his own 
 straps to a hundred pounds. It hurt, but he had 
 learned the knack, and his body, purged of all soft 
 ness and fat, was beginning to harden up with lean 
 and bitter muscle. Also, he observed and devised. 
 He took note of the head-straps worn by the Indians 
 and manufactured one for himself which he used in 
 addition to the shoulder-straps. It made things eas 
 ier, so that he began the practise of piling any light, 
 cumbersome piece of luggage on top. Thus he was 
 soon able to bend along with a hundred pounds in 
 the straps, fifteen or twenty more lying loosely on 
 top the pack and against his neck, an ax or a pair of 
 oars in one hand, and in the other the nested cook 
 ing-pails of the camp. 
 
 But work as they would, the toil increased. The 
 trail grew more rugged; their packs grew heavier; 
 and each day saw the snow-line dropping down the 
 mountains, while freight jumped to sixty cents. No 
 word came from the cousins beyond, so they knew 
 they must be at work chopping down the standing 
 trees and whipsawing them into boat-planks. John 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 23 
 
 Bellew grew anxious. Capturing a bunch of Indians 
 back-tripping from Lake Linderman, he persuaded 
 them to put their straps on the outfit. They charged 
 thirty cents a pound to carry it to the summit of Chil- 
 koot, and it nearly broke him. As it was, some four 
 hundred pounds of clothes-bags and camp outfit were 
 not handled. He remained behind to move it along, 
 despatching Kit with the Indians. At the summit 
 Kit was to remain, slowly moving his ton until over 
 taken by the four hundred pounds with which his 
 uncle guaranteed to catch him. 
 
 Kit plodded along the trail with his Indian packers. 
 In recognition of the fact that it was to be a long 
 pack, straight to the top of Chilkoot, his own load 
 was only eighty pounds. The Indians plodded under 
 their loads, but it was a quicker gait than he had 
 practised. Yet he felt no apprehension, and by 
 now had come to deem himself almost the equal of 
 an Indian. 
 
 At the end of a quarter of a mile he desired to 
 rest. But the Indians kept on. He stayed with 
 them, and kept his place in the line. At the half- 
 mile he was convinced that he w^as incapable of an 
 other step, yet he gritted his teeth, kept his place, and 
 at the end of the mile was amazed that he was still 
 alive. Then, in some strange way, came the thing 
 called second wind, and the next mile was almost 
 easier than the first. The third mile nearly killed 
 him, but, though half delirious with pain and fatigue, 
 he never whimpered. And then, when he felt he 
 must surely faint, came the rest. Instead of sitting 
 
24 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 in the straps, as was the custom of the white packers, 
 the Indians slipped out of the shoulder- and head- 
 straps and lay at ease, talking and smoking. A full 
 half-hour passed before they made another start. To 
 Kit s surprise, he found himself a fresh man, and 
 " long hauls and long rests " became his newest motto. 
 
 The pitch of Chilkoot was all he had heard of it, 
 and many were the occasions when he climbed with 
 hands as well as feet. But when he reached the crest 
 of the divide in the thick of a driving snow-squall, it 
 was in the company of his Indians, and his secret 
 pride was that he had come through with them and 
 never squealed and never lagged. To be almost as 
 good as an Indian was a new ambition to cherish. 
 
 When he had paid off the Indians and seen them 
 depart, a stormy darkness was falling, and he was 
 left alone, a thousand feet above timber-line, on the 
 backbone of a mountain. Wet to the Waist, famished 
 and exhausted, he would have given a year s income 
 for a fire and a cup of coffee. Instead, he ate half 
 a dozen cold flapjacks and crawled into the folds of 
 the partly unrolled tent. As he dozed off he had time 
 for only one fleeting thought, and he grinned with 
 vicious pleasure at the picture of John Bellew in the 
 days to follow, masculinely back-tripping his four 
 hundred pounds up Chilkoot. As for himself, even 
 though burdened with two thousand pounds, he was 
 bound down the hill. 
 
 In the morning, stiff from his labors and numb 
 with the frost, he rolled out of the canvas, ate a 
 couple of pounds of uncooked bacon, buckled the 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 25 
 
 straps on a hundred pounds, and went down the 
 rocky way. Several hundred yards beneath, the trail 
 led across a small glacier and down to Crater Lake. 
 Other men packed across the glacier. All that day 
 he dropped his packs at the glacier s upper edge, and 
 by virtue of the shortness of the pack, he put his 
 straps on one hundred and fifty pounds each load. 
 His astonishment at being able to do it never abated. 
 For two dollars he bought from an Indian three 
 leathery sea-biscuits, and out of these, and a huge 
 quantity of raw bacon, made several meals. Un 
 washed, unwarmed, his clothing wet with sweat, he 
 slept another night in the canvas. 
 
 In the early morning he spread a tarpaulin on the 
 ice, loaded it with three-quarters of a ton, and started 
 to pull. Where the pitch of the glacier accelerated, 
 his load likewise accelerated, overran him, scooped 
 him in on top, and ran away with him. 
 
 A hundred packers, bending under their loads, 
 stopped to watch him. He yelled frantic warnings, 
 and those in his path stumbled and staggered clear. 
 Below, on the lower edge of the glacier, was pitched 
 a small tent, which seemed leaping toward him, so 
 rapidly did it grow larger. He left the beaten track 
 where the packers trail swerved to the left, and struck 
 a patch of fresh snow. This arose about him in 
 frosty smoke, while it reduced his speed. He saw 
 the tent the instant he struck it, carrying away the 
 corner guys, bursting in the front flaps, and fetching 
 up inside, still on top of the tarpaulin and in the 
 midst of his grub-sacks. The tent rocked drunkenly, 
 
26 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 and in the frosty vapor he found himself face to face 
 with a startled young woman who was sitting up in 
 her blankets the very one who had called him a 
 tenderfoot at Dyea. 
 
 " Did you see my smoke ? " he queried cheerfully. 
 
 She regarded him with disapproval. 
 
 f< Talk about your magic carpets ! " he went on. 
 
 Her coolness was a challenge. " It was a mercy 
 you did not overturn the stove," she said. 
 
 He followed her glance and saw a sheet-iron stove 
 and a coffee-pot, attended by a young squaw. He 
 sniffed the coffee and looked back to the girl. 
 
 " I m a chekako," he said. 
 
 Her bored expression told him that he was stating 
 the obvious. But he was unabashed. 
 
 " I Ve shed my shooting-irons," he added. 
 
 Then she recognized him, and her eyes lighted. 
 " I never thought you d get this far," she informed 
 him. 
 
 Again, and greedily, he sniffed the air. " As I 
 live, coffee ! " He turned and directly addressed her : 
 " I 11 give you my little finger i cut it off right now ; 
 I 11 do anything ; I 11 be your slave for a year and a 
 day or any other old time, if you 11 give me a cup out 
 of that pot." 
 
 And over the coffee he gave his name and learned 
 hers Joy Gastell. Also, he learned that she was 
 an old-timer in the country. She had been born in a 
 trading-post on the Great Slave, and as a child had 
 crossed the Rockies with her father and come down 
 to the Yukon. She was going in, she said, with her 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 27 
 
 father, who had been delayed by business in Seattle 
 and who had then been wrecked on the ill-fated 
 Chanter and carried back to Puget Sound by the res 
 cuing steamer. 
 
 In vie\v of the fact that she was still in her blankets, 
 he did not make it a long conversation, and, heroically 
 declining a second cup of coffee, he removed himself 
 and his heaped and shifted baggage from her tent. 
 Further, he took several conclusions away with him : 
 she had a fetching name and fetching eyes ; could 
 not be more than twenty, or twenty-one or two; her 
 father must be French; she had a will of her own; 
 temperament to burn; and she had been educated 
 elsewhere than on the frontier. 
 
 Over the ice-scoured rocks and above the timber- 
 line, the trail ran around Crater Lake and gained the 
 rocky defile that led toward Happy Camp and the 
 first scrub-pines. To pack his heavy outfit around 
 would take days of heart-breaking toil. On the lake 
 was a canvas boat employed in freighting. Two 
 trips with it, in two hours, would see him and his ton 
 across. But he was broke, and the ferryman charged 
 forty dollars a ton. 
 
 You ve got a gold-mine, my friend, in that dinky 
 boat," Kit said to the ferryman. " Do you want an 
 other gold-mine ? " 
 
 " Show me," was the answer. 
 
 " I 11 sell it to you for the price of ferrying my 
 outfit. It s an idea, not patented, and you can jump 
 the deal as soon as I tell you it. Are you game ? " 
 
 The ferryman said he was, and Kit liked his looks. 
 
28 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Very well. You see that glacier. Take a 
 pick-ax and wade into it. In a day you can have a 
 decent groove from top to bottom. See the point? 
 The Chilkoot and Crater Lake Consolidated Chute 
 Corporation, Limited. You can charge fifty cents 
 a hundred, get a hundred tons a day, and have no 
 work to do but collect the coin." 
 
 Two hours later, Kit s ton was across the lake, 
 and he had gained three days on himself. And when 
 John Bellew overtook him, he was well along toward 
 Deep Lake, another volcanic pit filled with glacial 
 water. 
 
 The last pack, from Long Lake to Linderman, was 
 three miles, and the trail, if trail it could be called, 
 rose up over a thousand- foot hogback, dropped down 
 a scramble of slippery rocks, and crossed a wide 
 stretch of swamp. John Bellew remonstrated when 
 he saw" Kit rise with a hundred pounds in the straps 
 and pick up a fifty-pound sack of flour and place it 
 on top of the pack against the back of his neck. 
 
 " Come on, you chunk of the hard," Kit retorted. 
 " Kick in on your bear-meat fodder and your one suit 
 of underclothes." 
 
 But John Bellew shook his head. " I m afraid 
 I m getting old, Christopher." 
 
 " You re only forty-eight. Do you realize that 
 my grandfather, sir, your father, old Isaac Bellew, 
 killed a man with his fist when he was sixty-nine 
 years old?" 
 
 John Bellew grinned and swallowed his medicine. 
 
 " Avuncular, I want to tell you something impor- 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 29 
 
 tant. I was raised a Lord Fauntleroy, but I can out- 
 pack you, outwalk you, put you on your back, or lick 
 you with my fists right now." 
 
 John Bellew thrust out his hand and spoke sol 
 emnly. " Christopher, my boy, I believe you can do 
 it. I believe you can do it with that pack on your 
 back at the same time. You ve made good, boy, 
 though it s too unthinkable to believe." 
 
 Kit made the round trip of the last pack four times 
 a day, which is to say that he daily covered twenty- 
 four miles of mountain climbing, twelve miles of it 
 under one hundred and fifty pounds. He \vas proud, 
 hard, and tired, but in splendid physical condition. 
 He ate and slept as he had never eaten and slept in 
 his life, and as the end of the work came in sight, he 
 was almost half sorry. 
 
 One problem bothered him. He had learned that 
 he could fall with a hundred-weight on his back and 
 survive; but he was confident that if he fell with that 
 additional fifty pounds across the back of his neck, it 
 would break it clean. Each trail through the swamp 
 was quickly churned bottomless by the thousands of 
 packers, who were compelled continually to make new 
 trails. It was while pioneering such a new trail that 
 he solved the problem of the extra fifty. 
 
 The soft, lush surface gave way under him, he 
 floundered, and pitched forward on his face. The 
 fifty pounds crushed his face into the mud and went 
 clear without snapping his neck. With the remain 
 ing hundred pounds on his back, he arose on hands 
 and knees. But he got no farther. One arm sank to 
 
30 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 the shoulder, pillowing his cheek in the slush. As he 
 drew this arm clear, the other sank to the shoulder. 
 In this position it was impossible to slip the straps, 
 and the hundred-weight on his back would not let him 
 rise. On hands and knees, sinking first one arm and 
 then the other, he made an effort to crawl to where 
 the small sack of flour had fallen. But he exhausted 
 himself without advancing, and so churned and broke 
 the grass surface that a tiny pool of water began 
 to form in perilous proximity to his mouth and 
 nose. 
 
 He tried to throw himself on his back with the 
 pack underneath, but this resulted in sinking both 
 arms to the shoulders and gave him a foretaste of 
 drowning. With exquisite patience, he slowly with 
 drew one sucking arm and then the other and rested 
 them flat on the surface for the support of his chin. 
 Then he began to call for help. After a time he 
 heard the sound of feet sucking through the mud as 
 some one advanced from behind. 
 
 " Lend a hand, friend," he said. " Throw out a 
 life-line or something." 
 
 It was a woman s voice that answered, and he rec 
 ognized it. 
 
 " If you 11 unbuckle the straps I can get up." 
 
 The hundred pounds rolled into the mud with a 
 soggy noise, and he slowly gained his feet. 
 
 " A pretty predicament," Miss Gastell laughed, at 
 sight of his mud-covered face. 
 
 " Not at all," he replied airily. " My favorite 
 physical-exercise stunt. Try it some time. It s 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 31 
 
 great for the pectoral muscles and the spine." He 
 wiped his face, flinging the slush from his hand with 
 a snappy jerk. 
 
 " Oh ! " she cried in recognition. " It s Mr. ah 
 Mr. Smoke Bellew." 
 
 " I thank you gravely for your timely rescue and 
 for that name, " he answered. " I have been doubly 
 baptized. Henceforth I shall insist always on being 
 called Smoke Bellew. It is a strong name, and not . 
 without significance." 
 
 He paused, and then voice and expression became 
 suddenly fierce. 
 
 " Do you know what I m going to do ? " he de 
 manded. " I m going back to the States. I am go 
 ing to get married. I am going to raise a large 
 family of children. And then, as the evening shad 
 ows fall, I shall gather those children about me and 
 relate the sufferings and hardships I endured on the 
 Chilkoot Trail. And if they don t cry I repeat, 
 if they don t cry, I 11 lambaste the stuffing out of 
 them." 
 
 The arctic winter came down apace. Snow that 
 had come to stay lay six inches on the ground, and 
 the ice was forming in quiet ponds, despite the fierce 
 gales that blew. It was in the late afternoon, during 
 a lull in such a gale, that Kit and John Bellew helped 
 the cousins load the boat and watched it disappear 
 down the lake in a snow-squall. 
 
 " And now a night s sleep and an early start in the 
 morning," said John Bellew. " If we are n t storm 
 bound at the summit we 11 make Dyea to-morrow 
 
32 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 night, and if we have luck in catching a steamer we 11 
 be in San Francisco in a week." 
 
 "Enjoyed your vacation?" Kit asked absently. 
 
 Their camp for that last night at Linderman was 
 a melancholy remnant. Everything of use, including 
 the tent, had been taken by the cousins. A tattered 
 tarpaulin, stretched as a wind-break, partially shel 
 tered them from the driving snow. Supper they 
 cooked on an open fire in a couple of battered and 
 discarded camp utensils. All that was left them were 
 their blankets and food for several meals. 
 
 Only once during supper did Kit speak. " Avun 
 cular," he said, " after this I wish you d call me 
 Smoke. I Ve made some smoke on this trail, 
 haven t I?" 
 
 A few minutes later he wandered away in the di 
 rection of the village of tents that sheltered the gold- 
 rushers who were still packing or building their boats. 
 He was gone several hours, and when he returned 
 and slipped into his blankets John Bellew was asleep. 
 
 In the darkness of a gale-driven morning, Kit 
 crawled out, built a fire in his stocking feet, by which 
 he thawed out his frozen shoes, then boiled coffee and 
 fried bacon. It was a chilly, miserable meal. As 
 soon as it was finished, they strapped their blankets. 
 As John Bellew turned to lead the way toward the 
 Chilkoot Trail, Kit held out his hand. 
 
 " Good-by, avuncular," he said. 
 
 John Bellew looked at him and swore in his sur 
 prise. 
 
 " Don t forget, my name s Smoke," Kit chided. 
 
THE TASTE OF THE MEAT 33 
 
 " But what are you going to do ? " 
 
 Kit waved his hand in a general direction north 
 ward over the storm-lashed lake. " What s the good 
 of turning back after getting this far?" he asked. 
 " Besides, I ve got my taste of meat, and I like it. 
 I m going on." 
 
 "You re broke," protested John Bellew. "You 
 have no outfit." 
 
 " I ve got a job. Behold your nephew, Christo-; 
 pher Smoke Bellew ! He s got a job. He s a gen 
 tleman s man. He s got a job at a hundred and fifty 
 per month and grub. He s going down to Dawson 
 with a couple of dudes and another gentleman s man 
 camp-cook, boatman, and general all-round hustler. 
 And O Hara and The Billow can go to the devil. 
 Good-by." 
 
 But John Bellew was dazed, and could only mutter, 
 " I don t understand." 
 
 " They say the bald-face grizzlies are thick in the 
 Yukon Basin," Kit explained. " Well, I Ve got only 
 one suit of underclothes, and I m going after the 
 bear-meat, that s all." 
 
II 
 
 THE MEAT 
 
 TTALF the time the wind blew a gale, and Smoke 
 ** Bellew staggered against it along the beach. 
 In the gray of dawn a dozen boats were being loaded 
 with the precious outfits packed across Chilkoot. 
 They were clumsy home-made boats, put together by 
 men who were not boat-builders, out of ptanks they 
 had sawed by hand from green spruce-trees. One 
 boat, already loaded, was just starting, and Kit paused 
 to watch. 
 
 The wind, which was fair down the lake, here blew 
 in squarely on the beach, kicking up.a nasty sea in the 
 shallows. The men of the departing boat waded in 
 high rubber boots as they shoved it out toward deeper 
 water. Twice they did this. Clambering aboard 
 and failing to row clear, the boat was swept back and 
 grounded. Kit noticed that the spray on the sides 
 of the boat quickly turned to ice. The third attempt 
 was a partial success. The last two men to climb in 
 were wet to their waists, but the boat was afloat. 
 They struggled awkwardly at the heavy oars, and 
 slowly worked off shore. Then they hoisted a sail 
 made of blankets, had it carry away in a gust, and 
 were swept a third time back on the freezing beach. 
 
 Kit grinned to himself and went on. This was 
 
 34 
 
THE MEAT 35 
 
 what he must expect to encounter, for he, too, in his 
 new role of gentleman s man, was to start from the 
 beach in a similar boat that very day. 
 
 Everywhere men were at work, and at work des 
 perately, for the closing down of winter was so im 
 minent that it was a gamble whether or not they 
 would get across the great chain of lakes before the 
 freeze-up. Yet, when Kit arrived at the tent of 
 Messrs. Sprague and Stine, he did not find them stir 
 ring. 
 
 By a fire, under the shelter of a tarpaulin, squatted 
 a short, thick man, smoking a brown-paper cigarette. 
 " Hello," he said. " Are you Mister Sprague s new 
 man?" 
 
 As Kit nodded, he thought he had noted a shade of 
 emphasis on the Mister and the man, and he was sure 
 of a twinkle in the corner of the eye. 
 
 " Well, I m Doc Stine s man," the other went on. 
 " I m five feet two inches long, and my name s 
 Shorty, Jack Short for short, and sometimes known 
 as Johnny-on-the-Spot." 
 
 Kit put out his hand and shook. " Were you 
 raised on bear-meat? " he queried. 
 
 " Sure," was the answer; " though my first feedin 
 was buffalo-milk as near as I can remember. Sit 
 down an have some grub. The bosses ain t turned 
 out yet." 
 
 And despite the one breakfast, Kit sat down under 
 the tarpaulin and ate a second breakfast thrice as 
 hearty. The heavy, purging toil of weeks had given 
 him the stomach and appetite of a wolf. He could 
 
36 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 eat anything, in any quantity, and be unaware that he 
 possessed a digestion. Shorty he found voluble and 
 pessimistic, and from him he received surprising tips 
 concerning their bosses and ominous forecasts of the 
 expedition. Thomas Stanley Sprague was a budding 
 mining engineer and the son of a millionaire. Doc 
 tor Adolph Stine was also the son of a wealthy father. 
 And, through their fathers, both had been backed by 
 an investing syndicate in the Klondike adven 
 ture. 
 
 " Oh, they re sure made of money," Shorty ex 
 pounded. " When they hit the beach at Dyea freight 
 was seventy cents, but no Indians. There was a 
 party from eastern Oregon, real miners, that d man 
 aged to get a team of Indians together at seventy 
 cents. Indians had the straps on the outfit, three 
 thousand pounds of it, when along comes Sprague and 
 Stine. They offered eighty cents and ninety, and at 
 a dollar a pound the Indians jumped the contract and 
 took off their straps. Sprague and Stine came 
 through, though it cost them three thousand, and the 
 Oregon bunch is still on the beach. They won t get 
 through till next year. 
 
 " Oh, they are real hummers, your boss and mine, 
 when it comes to sheddin the mazuma an never 
 mindin other folks feelin s. What did they do when 
 they hit Linderman? The carpenters was just put 
 ting in the last licks on a boat they d contracted to a 
 Frisco bunch for six hundred. Sprague and Stine 
 slipped em an even thousand, and they jumped their 
 contract It s a good-lookin boat, but it s jiggered 
 
THE MEAT 37 
 
 the other bunch. They Ye got their outfit right here, 
 but no boat. And they re stuck for next year. 
 
 " Have another cup of coffee, and take it from me 
 that I would n t travel with no such outfit if I did n t 
 want to get to Klondike so blamed bad. They ain t 
 hearted right. They d take the crape off the door of 
 a house in mourning if they needed it in their business. 
 Did you sign a contract?" 
 
 Kit shook his head. 
 
 " Then I m sorry for you, pardner. They ain t 
 no grub in the country, and they 11 drop you cold as 
 soon as they hit Dawson. Men are going to starve 
 there this winter." 
 
 " They agreed " Kit began. 
 
 " Verbal," Shorty snapped him short. " It s your 
 say-so against theirs, that s all. Well, anyway, 
 what s your name, pardner?" 
 
 " Call me Smoke," said Kit. 
 
 " Well, Smoke, you 11 have a run for your verbal 
 contract just the same. This is a plain sample of 
 what to expect. They can sure shed mazuma, but 
 they can t work, or turn out of bed in the morning. 
 We should have been loaded and started an hour ago. 
 It s you an me for the big work. Pretty soon you 11 
 hear em shoutin for their coffee in bed, mind you, 
 and them grown men. What d ye know about 
 boatin on the water? I m a cowman and a pros 
 pector, but I m sure tenderfooted on water, an they 
 don t know punkins. What d ye know? " 
 
 " Search me," Kit answered, snuggling in closer 
 under the tarpaulin as the snow r whirled before a 
 
38 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 fiercer gust. " I have n t been on a small boat since 
 a boy. But I guess we can learn." 
 
 A corner of the tarpaulin tore loose, and Shorty re 
 ceived a jet of driven snow down the back of his neck. 
 
 " Oh, we can learn all right," he muttered wrath- 
 fully. " Sure we can. A child can learn. But it s 
 dollars to doughnuts we don t even get started to 
 day." 
 
 It was eight o clock when the call for coffee came 
 from the tent, and nearly nine before the two em 
 ployers emerged. 
 
 " Hello," said Sprague, a rosy-cheeked, well-fed 
 young man of twenty-five. " Time we made a start, 
 Shorty. You and " Here he glanced interroga 
 tively at Kit. " I did n t quite catch your name last 
 evening." 
 
 " Smoke." 
 
 " Well, Shorty, you and Mr. Smoke had better be 
 gin loading the boat." 
 
 " Plain Smoke cut out the Mister," Kit sug 
 gested. 
 
 Sprague nodded curtly and strolled away among 
 the tents, to be followed by Doctor Stine, a slender, 
 pallid young man. 
 
 Shorty looked significantly at his companion. 
 " Over a ton and a half of outfit, and they won t lend 
 a hand. You 11 see." 
 
 " I guess it s because we re paid to do the work," 
 Kit answered cheerfully, " and we might as well buck 
 in." 
 
 To move three thousand pounds on the shoulders a 
 
THE MEAT 39 
 
 hundred yards was no slight task, and to do it in half 
 a gale, slushing through the snow in heavy rubber 
 boots, was exhausting. In addition there was the tak 
 ing down of the tent and the packing of small camp 
 equipage. Then came the loading. As the boat set 
 tled it had to be shoved farther and farther out, in 
 creasing the distance they had to wade. By two 
 o clock it had all been accomplished, and Kit, despite 
 his two breakfasts, was weak with the faintness of 
 hunger. His knees were shaking under him. Shorty, 
 in similar predicament, foraged through the pots and 
 pans, and drew forth a big pot of cold boiled beans in 
 which were imbedded large chunks of bacon. There 
 was only one spoon, a long-handled one, and they 
 dipped, turn and turn about, into the pot. Kit was 
 filled with an immense certitude that in all his life he 
 had never tasted anything so good. 
 
 " Lord, man," he mumbled between chews, " I never 
 knew what appetite was till I hit the trail." 
 
 Sprague and Stine arrived in the midst of this pleas 
 ant occupation. 
 
 "What s the delay?" Sprague complained. 
 " Aren t we ever going to get started? " 
 
 Shorty dipped in turn, and passed the spoon to Kit. 
 Nor did either speak till the pot was empty and the 
 bottom scraped. 
 
 " Of course we ain t been doin nothing," Shorty 
 said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 
 " We ain t been doin nothing at all. And of course 
 you ain t had nothing to eat. It was sure careless of 
 
 me." 
 
40 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Yes, yes," Stine said quickly. " We ate at one of 
 the tents friends of ours." 
 
 " Thought so," Shorty grunted. 
 
 " But now that you re finished, let us get started," 
 Sprague urged. 
 
 "There s the boat," said Shorty. "She s sure 
 loaded. Now just how might you be goin about to 
 get started?" 
 
 " By climbing aboard and shoving off. Come on." 
 
 They waded out, and the employers got on board, 
 while Kit and Shorty shoved clear. When the waves 
 lapped the tops of their boots they clambered in. The 
 other two men were not prepared with the oars, and 
 the boat swept back and grounded. Half a dozen 
 times, with a great expenditure of energy, this was re 
 peated. 
 
 Shorty sat down disconsolately on the gunwale, took 
 a chew of tobacco, and questioned the universe, while 
 Kit baled the boat and the other two exchanged un 
 kind remarks. 
 
 "If you 11 take my orders, I 11 get her off," Sprague 
 finally said. 
 
 The attempt was well intended, but before he could 
 clamber on board he was wet to the waist. 
 
 " We ve got to camp and build a fire," he said, as 
 the boat grounded again. " I m freezing." 
 
 " Don t be afraid of a wetting," Stine sneered. 
 " Other men have gone off to-day wetter than you. 
 Now I m going to take her out." 
 
 This time it was he who got the wetting and who 
 announced with chattering teeth the need of a fire. 
 
THE MEAT 41 
 
 " A little splash like that! " Sprague chattered spite 
 fully. " We 11 go on." 
 
 " Shorty, dig out my clothes-bag and make a fire/ 
 the other commanded. 
 
 " You 11 do nothing of the sort/ Sprague cried. 
 
 Shorty looked from one to the other, expectorated, 
 but did not move. 
 
 " He s working for me, and I guess he obeys my 
 orders," Stine retorted. " Shorty, take that bag 
 ashore." 
 
 Shorty obeyed, and Sprague shivered in the boat. 
 Kit, having received no orders, remained inactive, 
 glad of the rest. 
 
 " A boat divided against itself won t float," he so 
 liloquized. 
 
 " What s that? " Sprague snarled at him. 
 
 " Talking to myself habit of mine," he answered. 
 
 His employer favored him with a hard look, and 
 sulked several minutes longer. Then he surrendered. 
 " Get out my bag, Smoke," he ordered, " and lend a 
 hand with that fire. We won t get off till morning 
 now." 
 
 Next day the gale still blew. Lake Linderman was 
 no more than a narrow mountain gorge filled with 
 water. Sweeping down from the mountains through 
 this funnel, the wind was irregular, blowing great 
 guns at times and at other times dwindling to a strong 
 breeze. 
 
 "If you give me a shot at it, I think I can get 
 her off," Kit said, when all was ready for the 
 start. 
 
42 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 "What do you know about it?" Stine snapped at 
 him. 
 
 " Search me," Kit answered, and subsided. 
 
 It was the first time he had worked for wages in 
 his life, but he was learning the discipline of it fast. 
 Obediently and cheerfully he joined in various vain 
 efforts to get clear of the beach. 
 
 "How would you go about it?" Sprague finally 
 half panted, half whined at him. 
 
 " Sit down and get a good rest till a lull comes in 
 the wind, and then buck in for all we re worth." 
 
 Simple as the idea was, he had been the first to 
 evolve it; the first time it was applied it worked, and 
 they hoisted a blanket to the mast and sped down the 
 lake. Stine and Sprague immediately became cheer 
 ful. Shorty, despite his chronic pessimism, was al 
 ways cheerful, and Kit was too interested to be other 
 wise. Sprague struggled with the steering-sweep for 
 a quarter of an hour, and then looked appealingly at 
 Kit, who relieved him. 
 
 " My arms are fairly broken with the strain of it," 
 Sprague muttered apologetically. 
 
 "You never ate bear-meat, did you?" Kit asked 
 sympathetically. 
 
 " What the devil do you mean? " 
 
 "Oh, nothing; I was just wondering." But be 
 hind the employer s back Kit caught the approving 
 grin of Shorty, who had already caught the whim of 
 his metaphor. 
 
 Kit steered the length of Linderman, displaying an 
 aptitude that caused both young men of money and 
 
THE MEAT 43 
 
 disinclination for work to name him boat-steerer. 
 Shorty was no less pleased, and volunteered to 
 continue cooking and leave the boat work to the 
 other. 
 
 Between Linderman and Lake Bennett was a port 
 age. The boat, lightly loaded, was lined down the 
 small but violent connecting stream, and here Kit 
 learned a vast deal more about boats and water. But 
 when it came to packing the outfit, Stine and Sprague 
 disappeared, and their men spent two days of back- 
 breaking toil in getting the outfit across. And this 
 was the history of many miserable days of the trip - 
 Kit and Shorty working to exhaustion, while their 
 masters toiled not and demanded to be waited upon. 
 
 But the iron-bound arctic winter continued to close 
 down, and they were held back by numerous and un 
 avoidable delays. At Windy Arm Stine arbitrarily 
 dispossessed Kit of the steering-sweep and within the 
 hour wrecked the boat on a wave-beaten lee shore. 
 Two days were lost here in making repairs, and the 
 morning of the fresh start, as they came down to em 
 bark, on stern and bow, in large letters, was charcoaled 
 " The Chekako." 
 
 Kit grinned at the appropriateness of the invidious 
 word. 
 
 " Huh ! " said Shorty, when accused by Stine. " I 
 can sure read and spell, an I know that chekako 
 means tenderfoot, but my education never went high 
 enough to learn me to spell a jaw-breaker like that." 
 
 Both employers looked daggers at Kit, for the in 
 sult rankled ; nor did he mention that the night before 
 
44 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Shorty had besought him for the spelling of that par 
 ticular word. 
 
 " That s most as bad as your bear-meat slam at 
 em," Shorty confided later. 
 
 Kit chuckled. Along with the continuous discov 
 ery of his own powers had come an ever-increasing 
 disapproval of the two masters. It was not so much 
 irritation, which was always present, as disgust. He 
 had got his taste of the meat, and liked it; but they 
 were teaching him how not to eat it. Privily he 
 thanked God that he was not made as they. He came 
 to dislike them to a degree that bordered on hatred. 
 Their malingering bothered him less than their help 
 less inefficiency. Somewhere in him old Isaac Bellew 
 and all the rest of the hardy Bellews were making 
 good. 
 
 " Shorty," he said one day, in the usual delay of 
 getting started, " I could almost fetch them a rap over 
 the head with an oar and bury them in the river." 
 
 " Same here," Shorty agreed. " They re not 
 meat-eaters. They re fish-eaters, and they sure 
 stink." 
 
 They came to the rapids ; first, the Box Canyon, and 
 then, several miles below, the White Horse. The 
 Box Canyon was adequately named. It was a box, a 
 trap. Once in it, the only way out was through. On 
 either side arose perpendicular walls of rock. The 
 river narrowed to a fraction of its width and roared 
 through this gloomy passage in a madness of motion 
 that heaped the water in the center into a ridge fully 
 eight feet higher than at the rocky sides. This ridge, 
 
THE MEAT 45 
 
 in turn, was crested with stiff, upstanding waves 
 that curled over yet remained each in its unvary 
 ing place. The canyon was well feared, for it had 
 collected its toll of dead from the passing gold- 
 rushers. 
 
 Tying to the bank above, where lay a score of other 
 anxious boats, Kit and his companions went ahead on 
 foot to investigate. They crept to the brink and gazed 
 down at the swirl of water. Sprague drew back, 
 shuddering. 
 
 " My God ! " he exclaimed. " A swimmer has n t 
 a chance in that." 
 
 Shorty touched Kit significantly with his elbow and 
 said in an undertone: 
 
 " Cold feet. Dollars to doughnuts they don t go 
 jyhrough." 
 
 Kit scarcely heard. From the beginning of the 
 boat trip he had been learning the stubbornness and 
 inconceivable viciousness of the elements, and this 
 glimpse of what was below him acted as a challenge. 
 " We ve got to ride that ridge/ he said. " If we get 
 off it we 11 hit the walls." 
 
 " And never know what hit us," was Shorty s ver 
 dict. " Can you swim ? " 
 
 " I d wish I could n t if anything went wrong in 
 there." 
 
 !< That s \vhat I say," a stranger, standing along 
 side and peering down into the canyon, said mourn 
 fully. " And I wish I were through it." 
 
 " I would n t sell my chance to go through," Kit 
 answered. 
 
46 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 He spoke honestly, but it was with the idea of heart 
 ening the man. He turned to go back to the boat. 
 
 "Are you going to tackle it? " the man asked. 
 
 Kit nodded. 
 
 " I wish I could get the courage to," the other con 
 fessed. " I ve been here for hours. The longer I 
 look the more afraid I am. I am not a boatman, and 
 I have with me only my nephew, who is a young boy, 
 and my wife. If you get through safely, will you run 
 my boat through? " 
 
 Kit looked at Shorty, who delayed to answer. 
 
 " He s got his wife with him," Kit suggested. Nor 
 had he mistaken his man. 
 
 " Sure," Shorty affirmed. " It was just what I 
 was stopping to think about. I knew there was some 
 reason I ought to do it." 
 
 Again they turned to go, but Sprague and Stine 
 made no movement. 
 
 " Good luck, Smoke," Sprague called to him. " I 11 
 er " He hesitated. " I 11 just stay here and 
 watch you." 
 
 " We need three men in the boat, two at the oars 
 and one at the steering-sweep," Kit said quietly. 
 
 Sprague looked at Stine. 
 
 " I m cursed if I do," said that gentleman. " If 
 you re not afraid to stand here and look on, I m not." 
 
 " Who s afraid? " Sprague demanded hotly. Stine 
 retorted in kind, and their two men left them in the 
 thick of a squabble. 
 
 " We can do without them," Kit said to Shorty. 
 " You take the bow with a paddle, and I 11 handle the 
 
THE MEAT 47 
 
 steering-sweep. All you 11 have to do is just to help 
 keep her straight. Once we re started, you won t be 
 able to hear me, so just keep on keeping her straight." 
 
 They cast off the boat and worked out to middle 
 in the quickening current. From the canyon came an 
 ever-growing roar. IJThe river sucked in to the en 
 trance with the smoothness of molten glass, and here, 
 as the darkening walls received them, Shorty took a 
 chew of tobacco and dipped his paddle. The boat 
 leaped on the first crests of the ridge, and they were 
 deafened by the uproar of wild water that rever 
 berated from the narrow walls and multiplied itself. 
 They were half-smothered with flying spray. At 
 times Kit could not see his comrade at the bow. It 
 was only a matter of two minutes, in which time they 
 rode the ridge three-quarters of a mile and emerged 
 in safety and tied to the bank in the eddy below. 
 
 Shorty emptied his mouth of tobacco juice he had 
 forgotten to spit, and spoke. : That was bear-meat," 
 he exulted, " the real bear-meat. Say, we went a few, 
 did n t we ? Smoke, I don t mind tellin you in confi 
 dence that before \ve started I was the gosh-dangdest 
 scaredest man this side of the Rocky Mountains. 
 Now I m a bear-eater. Come on an we 11 run that 
 other boat through." 
 
 Midway back, on foot, they encountered their em 
 ployers, who had watched the passage from above. 
 
 "There comes the fish-eaters," said Shorty. 
 " Keep to win ward." 
 
 After running the stranger s boat through, Kit and 
 Shorty met his wife, a slender, girlish woman whose 
 
48 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 blue eyes were moist with gratitude. Breck himself 
 tried to hand Kit fifty dollars, and then attempted it 
 on Shorty. 
 
 " Stranger," was the latter s rejection, " I come 
 into this country to make money outa the ground an* 
 not outa my fellow critters." 
 
 Breck, the stranger, rummaged in his boat and 
 produced a demijohn of whiskey. Shorty s hand 
 half went out to it and stopped abruptly. He shook 
 his head. 
 
 "There s that blamed White Horse right below, 
 an* they say it s worse than the Box. I reckon I 
 don t dast tackle any lightning." 
 
 Several miles below they ran in to the bank, and 
 all four walked down to look at the bad water. The 
 river, which was a succession of rapids, was here de 
 flected toward the right bank by a rocky reef. The 
 whole body of water, rushing crookedly into the nar 
 row passage, accelerated its speed frightfully and was 
 up-flung into huge waves, white and wrathful. This 
 was the dread Mane of the White Horse, and here an 
 even heavier toll of dead had been exacted. On one 
 side of the Mane was a corkscrew curl-over and suck- 
 under, and on the opposite side was the big whirlpool. 
 To go through, the Mane itself must be ridden. 
 
 " This plumb rips the strings outa the Box," Shorty 
 concluded. 
 
 As they watched, a boat took the head of the rapids 
 above. It was a large boat, fully thirty feet long, 
 laden with several tons of outfit, and handled by six 
 men. Before it reached the Mane it was plunging 
 
THE MEAT 49 
 
 and leaping, at times almost hidden by the foam and 
 spray. 
 
 Shorty shot a slow, sidelong glance at Kit and said : 
 " She s fair smoking, and she has n t hit the worst. 
 They ve hauled the oars in. There she takes it now. 
 God ! She s gone ! No ; there she is ! " 
 
 Big as the boat was, it had been buried from sight 
 in the flying smother between crests. The next mo 
 ment, in the thick of the Mane, the boat leaped up a 
 crest and into view. To Kit s amazement he saw the 
 whole long bottom clearly outlined. The boat, for 
 the fraction of an instant, was in the air, the men sit 
 ting idly in their places, all save one in the stern, who 
 stood at the steering-sweep. Then came the down 
 ward plunge into the trough and a second disappear 
 ance. Three times the boat leaped and buried itself, 
 then those on the bank saw its nose take the whirlpool 
 as it sjipped off the Mane. The steersman, vainly 
 opposing with full weight on the steering-gear, sur 
 rendered to the whirlpool and helped the boat to take 
 the circle. 
 
 Three times it went around, each time so close to 
 the rocks on which Kit and Shorty stood that either 
 could have leaped on board. The steersman, a man 
 with a reddish beard of recent growth, waved his 
 hand to them. The only way out of the whirlpool 
 was by the Mane, and on the third round the boat en 
 tered the Mane obliquely at its upper end. Possibly 
 out of fear of the draw of the whirlpool, the steers 
 man did not attempt to straighten out quickly enough. 
 When he did, it was too late. Alternately in the air 
 
50 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 and buried, the boat angled the Mane and was sucked 
 into and through the stiff wall of the corkscrew on 
 the opposite side of the river. A hundred feet below, 
 boxes and bales began to float up. Then appeared 
 the bottom of the boat and the scattered heads of six 
 men. Two managed to make the bank in the eddy 
 below. The others were drawn under, and the gen 
 eral flotsam was lost to view, borne on by the swift 
 current around the bend. 
 
 There was a long minute of silence. Shorty was 
 the first to speak. 
 
 " Come on," he said. " We might as well tackle it. 
 My feet 11 get cold if I stay here any longer." 
 
 " We 11 smoke some," Kit grinned at him. 
 
 " And you 11 sure earn your name," was the 
 rejoinder. Shorty turned to their employers. 
 " Comin ? " he queried. 
 
 Perhaps the roar of the water prevented them from 
 hearing the invitation. 
 
 Shorty and Kit tramped back through a foot of 
 snow to the head of the rapids and cast off the boat. 
 Kit was divided between two impressions : one, of the 
 caliber of his comrade, which served as a spur to him ; 
 the other, likewise a spur, was the knowledge that old 
 Isaac Bellew, and all the other Bellews, had done 
 things like this in their westward march of empire. 
 What they had done, he could do. It was the meat, 
 the strong meat, and he knew, as never before, that it 
 required strong men to eat such meat. 
 
 " You Ve sure got to keep the top of the ridge," 
 Shorty shouted at him, the plug of tobacco lifting to 
 
THE MEAT 51 
 
 his mouth as the boat quickened in the quickening 
 current and took the head of the rapids. 
 
 Kit nodded, swayed his strength and weight tenta 
 tively on the steering-gear, and headed the boat for 
 the plunge. 
 
 Several minutes later, half -swamped and lying 
 against the bank in the eddy below the White Horse, 
 Shorty spat out a mouthful of tobacco juice and shook 
 Kit s hand. 
 
 "Meat! Meat!" Shorty chanted. "We eat it 
 raw! We eat it alive!" 
 
 At the top of the bank they met Breck. His wife 
 stood at a little distance. Kit shook his hand. 
 
 " I m afraid your boat can t make it," he said. 
 " It is smaller than ours and a bit cranky." 
 
 The man pulled out a roll of bills. " I 11 give you 
 each a hundred if you run it through." 
 
 Kit looked out and up the tossing Mane of the 
 White Horse. A long, gray twilight was falling, it 
 was turning colder, and the landscape seemed taking 
 on a savage bleakness. 
 
 "It ain t that," Shorty was saying. "We don t 
 want your money. Would n t touch it nohow. But 
 my pardner is the real meat with boats, and when he 
 says yourn ain t safe I reckon he knows what he s 
 talkin about." 
 
 Kit nodded affirmation, and chanced to glance at 
 Mrs. Breck. Her eyes were fixed upon him, and he 
 knew that if ever he had seen prayer in a woman s 
 eyes he was seeing it then. Shorty followed his gaze 
 and saw what he saw. They looked at each other in 
 
52 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 confusion and did not speak. Moved by the common 
 impulse, they nodded to each other and turned to the 
 trail that led to the head of the rapids. They had not 
 gone a hundred yards when they met Stine and 
 Sprague coming down. 
 
 " Where are you going? " the latter demanded. 
 
 "To fetch that other boat through," Shorty an 
 swered. 
 
 " No, you re not. It s getting dark. You two 
 are going to pitch camp." 
 
 So huge was Kit s disgust that he forebore to speak. 
 
 " He s got his wife with him," Shorty said. 
 
 " That s his lookout," Stine contributed. 
 
 " And Smoke s and mine," was Shorty s retort. 
 
 " I forbid you," Sprague said harshly. " Smoke, 
 if you go another step I 11 discharge you." 
 
 " And you, too, Shorty," Stine added. 
 
 " And a devil of a pickle you 11 be in with us fired," 
 Shorty replied. " How 11 you get your blamed boat 
 to Dawson ? Who 11 serve you coffee in your 
 blankets and manicure your finger-nails? Come on, 
 Smoke. They don t dast fire us. Besides, we Ve got 
 agreements. If they fire us they Ve got to divvy up 
 grub to last us through the winter." 
 
 Barely had they shoved Breck s boat out from the 
 bank and caught the first rough water, when the waves 
 began to lap aboard. They were small waves, but it 
 was an earnest of what was to come. Shorty cast 
 back a quizzical glance as he gnawed at his inevitable 
 plug, and Kit felt a strange rush of warmth at his 
 heart for this man who could n t swim and who 
 could n t back out. 
 
THE MEAT 53 
 
 The rapids grew stiffer, and the spray began to 
 fly. In the gathering darkness, Kit glimpsed the 
 Mane and the crooked fling of the current into it. 
 He worked into this crooked current, and felt a glow 
 of satisfaction as the boat hit the head of the Mane 
 squarely in the middle. After that, in the smother, 
 leaping and burying and swamping, he had no clear 
 impression of anything save that he swung his weight 
 on the steering-oar and wished his uncle were there to 
 see. They emerged, breathless, wet through, the boat 
 filled with water almost to the gunwale. Lighter 
 pieces of baggage and outfit were floating inside the 
 boat. A few careful strokes on Shorty s part worked 
 the boat into the draw of the eddy, and the eddy did 
 the rest till the boat softly touched the bank. Look 
 ing down from above was Mrs. Breck. Her prayer 
 had been answered, and the tears were streaming 
 down her cheeks. 
 
 " You boys have simply got to take the money," 
 Breck called down to them. 
 
 Shorty stood up, slipped, and sat down in the water, 
 while the boat dipped one gunwale under and righted 
 again. 
 
 " Damn the money," said Shorty. " Fetch out that 
 whiskey. Now that it s over I m getting cold feet, 
 an I J m sure likely to have a chill." 
 
 In the morning, as usual, they were among the last 
 of the parties to start. Breck, despite his boating in 
 efficiency, and with only his wife and nephew for 
 crew, had broken camp, loaded his boat, and pulled 
 out at the first streak of day. But there was no hur 
 rying Stine and Sprague, who seemed incapable of 
 
54 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 realising that the freeze-up might come at any time. 
 They malingered, got in the way, delayed, and 
 doubled the work of Kit and Shorty. 
 
 " I m sure losing my respect for God, seein as he 
 must a made them two mistakes in human form," 
 was the latter s blasphemous way of expressing his 
 disgust. 
 
 " Well, you re the real goods, at any rate," Kit 
 grinned back at him. " It makes me respect God the 
 more just to look at you." 
 
 " He was sure goin some, eh ? " was Shorty s fash 
 ion of overcoming the embarrassment of the compli 
 ment. 
 
 The trail by water crossed Lake Labarge. Here 
 was no fast current, but a tideless stretch of forty 
 miles which must be rowed unless a fair wind blew. 
 But the time for fair wind was past, and an icy gale 
 blew in their teeth out of the north. This made a 
 rough sea, against which it was almost impossible to 
 pull the boat. Added to their troubles was driving 
 snow; also, the freezing of the water on their oar- 
 blades kept one man occupied in chopping it off with 
 a hatchet. Compelled to take their turn at the oars, 
 Sprague and Stine patiently loafed. Kit learned ho\\ 
 to throw his weight on an oar, but he noted that his 
 employers made a seeming of throwing their weight 
 and that they dipped their oars at a cheating 
 angle. 
 
 At the end of three hours, Sprague pulled his oar 
 in and said they would run back into the mouth of the 
 river for shelter. Stine seconded him, and the sev- 
 
THE MEAT 55 
 
 era! hard-won miles were lost. A second day, and a 
 third, the same fruitless attempt was made. In the 
 river mouth, the continually arriving boats from 
 White Horse made a flotilla of over two hundred. 
 Each day forty or fifty arrived, and only two or three 
 won to the northwest shore of the lake and did not 
 come back. Ice was now forming in the eddies and 
 connecting from eddy to eddy in thin lines around the 
 points. The freeze-up was very imminent. 
 
 " We could make it if they had the souls of clams," 
 Kit told Shorty, as they dried their moccasins by the 
 fire on the evening of the third day. " We could 
 have made it to-day if they had n t turned back. An 
 other hour s work \vould have fetched that west shore. 
 They re they re babes in the woods." 
 
 " Sure," Shorty agreed. He turned his moccasin 
 to the flame and debated a moment. " Look here, 
 Smoke. It s hundreds of miles to Dawson. If we 
 don t want to freeze in here, we ve got to do some 
 thing. What d ye say?" 
 
 Kit looked at him, and w r aited. 
 
 :< We Ve got the immortal cinch on them two- 
 babes," Shorty expounded. They can give orders 
 \an shed mazuma, but as you say, they re plumb 
 babes. If we re going to Dawson, we got to take 
 ccharge of this here outfit." 
 
 They looked at each other. 
 
 " It s a go," said Kit, as his hand went out in rati 
 fication. 
 
 In the morning, long before daylight, Shorty is 
 sued his call. " Come on ! " he roared. " Tumble 
 
56 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 out, you sleepers ! Here s your coffee ! Kick into it ! 
 We re goin to make a start ! " 
 
 Grumbling and complaining, Stine and Sprague 
 were forced to get under way two hours earlier than 
 ever before. If anything, the gale was stiff er, and in 
 a short time every man s face was iced up, while the 
 oars were heavy with ice. Three hours they strug 
 gled, and four, one man steering, one chopping ice, 
 two toiling at the oars, and each taking his various 
 turns. The northwest shore loomed nearer and 
 nearer. The gale blew ever harder, and at last 
 Sprague pulled in his oar in token of surrender. 
 Shorty sprang to it, though his relief had only begun. 
 
 " Chop ice," he said, handing Sprague the hatchet. 
 
 " But what s the use ? " the other whined. " We 
 can t make it. We re going to turn back." 
 
 " We re going on," said Shorty. " Chop ice. An 
 when you feel better you can spell me." 
 
 It was heart-breaking toil, but they gained the 
 shore, only to find it composed of surge-beaten rocks 
 and cliffs, with no place to land. 
 
 " I told you so," Sprague whimpered. 
 
 " You never peeped," Shorty answered. 
 
 " We re going back." 
 
 Nobody spoke, and Kit held the boat into the seas 
 as they skirted the forbidding shore. Sometimes they 
 gained no more than a foot to the stroke, and there 
 were times when two or three strokes no more than 
 enabled them to hold their own. He did his best to 
 hearten the two weaklings. He pointed out that the 
 boats which had won to this shore had never come 
 
THE MEAT 57 
 
 back. Perforce, he argued, they had found a shelter 
 somewhere ahead. Another hour they labored, and 
 a second. 
 
 "If you fellows d put into your oars some of that 
 coffee you swig in your blankets, we d make it," was 
 Shorty s encouragement. " You re just goin 
 through the motions an not pullin a pound." 
 
 A few minutes later, Sprague drew in his oar again. 
 " I m finished," he said, and there were tears in his 
 voice. 
 
 " So are the rest of us," Kit answered, himself 
 ready to cry or to commit murder, so great was his 
 exhaustion. " But we re going on just the same." 
 
 " We re going back. Turn the boat around." 
 
 " Shorty, if he won t pull, take that oar yourself," 
 Kit commanded. 
 
 " Sure," was the answer. " He can chop ice." 
 
 But Sprague refused to give over the oar; Stine 
 had ceased rowing, and the boat was drifting back 
 ward. 
 
 " Turn around, Smoke," Sprague ordered. 
 
 And Kit, who never in his life had cursed any man, 
 astonished himself. " I 11 see you in hell first," he 
 replied. " Take hold of that oar and pull." 
 
 It is in moments of exhaustion that men lose all 
 their reserves of civilization, and such a moment had 
 come. Each man had reached the breaking-point. 
 Sprague jerked off a mitten, drew his revolver, and 
 turned it on his steersman. This was a new experi 
 ence to Kit. He had never had a gun presented at 
 him in his life. And now, to his surprise, it seemed 
 
58 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 to mean nothing at all. It was the most natural 
 thing in the world. 
 
 " If you don t put that gun up," he said, " I 11 take 
 it away and rap you over the knuckles with it." 
 
 "If you don t turn the boat around, I 11 shoot you/ 
 Sprague threatened. 
 
 Then Shorty took a hand. He ceased chopping ice 
 and stood up behind Sprague. " Go on an shoot," 
 said Shorty, wiggling the hatchet. " I m just aching 
 for a chance to brain you. Go on an start the fes 
 tivities." 
 
 This is mutiny," Stine broke in. " You were en 
 gaged to obey orders." 
 
 Shorty turned on him. " Oh, you 11 get yours as 
 soon as I finish with your pardner, you little hog- 
 wallopin snooper, you." 
 
 " Sprague," Kit said, " I 11 give you just thirty 
 seconds to put away that gun and get that oar 
 out." 
 
 Sprague hesitated, gave a short hysterical laugh, 
 put the revolver away, and bent his back to the work. 
 
 For two hours more, inch by inch, they fought 
 their way along the edge of the foaming rocks, until 
 Kit feared he had made a mistake. And then, when 
 on the verge of himself turning back, they came 
 abreast of a narrow opening, not twenty feet wide, 
 which led into a land-locked enclosure where the 
 fiercest gusts scarcely flawed the surface. It was 
 the haven gained by the boats of previous days. 
 They landed on a shelving beach, and the two em 
 ployers lay in collapse in the boat, while Kit and 
 
If you don t turn the boat around, I ll shoot you," Sprague 
 threatened. 
 
THE MEAT 61 
 
 Shorty pitched the tent, built a fire, and started the 
 cooking. 
 
 "What is a hog-walloping snooper, Shorty?" Kit 
 asked. 
 
 "Blamed if I know," was the answer; "but he s 
 one, just the same." 
 
 The gale, which had been dying quickly, ceased at 
 nightfall, and it came on clear and cold. A cup of 
 coffee, set aside to cool and forgotten, a few minutes 
 later was found coated with half an inch of ice. At 
 eight o clock, when Sprague and Stine, already rolled 
 in their blankets, were sleeping the sleep of exhaus 
 tion, Kit came back from a look at the boat. 
 
 " It s the freeze-up, Shorty," he announced. 
 There s a skin of ice over the whole pond already." 
 
 [t What are you going to do?" 
 
 " There s only one thing. The lake of course 
 freezes first. The rapid current of the river may 
 keep it open for days. This time to-morrow any boat 
 caught in Lake Labarge remains there until next 
 year?" 
 
 " You mean we got to get out to-night ? Now ? " 
 
 Kit nodded. 
 
 " Tumble out, you sleepers ! " was Shorty s answer, 
 couched in a roar, as he began casting off the guy- 
 ropes of the tent. 
 
 The other two awoke, groaning with the pain of 
 stiffened muscles and the pain of rousing from the 
 sleep of exhaustion. 
 
 "W T hat time is it?" Stine asked. 
 
 " Half-past eight." 
 
62 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " It s dark yet," was the objection. 
 
 Shorty jerked cut a couple of guy- ropes, and the 
 tent began to sag. " It s not morning," he said. 
 "It s evening. Come on. The lake s freezin . We 
 got to get acrost." 
 
 Stine sat up, his face bitter and wrathful. " Let it 
 freeze. We re not going to stir." 
 
 " All right," said Shorty. " We re goin on with 
 the boat." 
 
 " You were engaged " 
 
 " To take your outfit to Dawson," Shorty caught 
 him up. "Well, we re takin it, ain t we?" He 
 punctuated his query by bringing half the tent down 
 on top of them. 
 
 They broke their way through the thin ice in the 
 little harbor, and came cut on the lake, where the 
 water, heavy and glassy, froze on their oars with 
 every stroke. The water soon became like mush, 
 clogging the stroke of the oars and freezing in the 
 air even as it dripped. Later the surface began to 
 form a skin, and the boat proceeded slower and 
 slower. 
 
 Often afterward, when Kit tried to remember that 
 night and failed to bring up aught but nightmare rec 
 ollections, he wondered what must have been the suf 
 ferings of Stine and Sprague. His one impression 
 of himself was that he struggled through biting frost 
 and intolerable exertion for a thousand years, more 
 or less. 
 
 Morning found them stationary. Stine complained 
 
THE MEAT 63 
 
 of frosted fingers, and Sprague of his nose, while the 
 pain in Kit s cheeks and nose told him that he, too, 
 had been touched. With each accretion of daylight 
 they could see farther, and as far as they could see 
 was icy surface. The water of the lake was gone. 
 A hundred yards away was the shore of the north end. 
 Shorty insisted that it was the opening of the river 
 and that he could see water. He and Kit alone were 
 able to work, and with their oars they broke the ice 
 and forced the boat along. And at the last gasp of 
 their strength they made the suck of the rapid river. 
 One look back showed them several boats which had 
 fought through the night and were hopelessly frozen 
 in; then they whirled around a bend in a current run 
 ning six miles an hour. 
 
 Day by day they floated down the swift river, and 
 day by day the shore-ice extended farther out. When 
 they made camp at nightfall, they chopped a space 
 in the ice in which to lay the boat and carried the 
 camp outfit hundreds of feet to shore. In the morn 
 ing, they chopped the boat out through the new ice 
 and caught the current. Shorty set up the sheet-iron 
 stove in the boat, and over this Stine and Sprague 
 hung through the long drifting hours. They had 
 surrendered, no longer gave orders, and their one de 
 sire was to gain Dawson. Shorty, pessimistic, in 
 defatigable, and joyous, at frequent intervals roared 
 out the three lines of the first four-line stanza of a 
 song he had forgotten. The colder it got the oftener 
 he sang: 
 
64 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 "Like Argus of the ancient times, 
 We leave this Modern Greece, 
 Turn-turn, turn-turn, turn-turn, turn-turn, 
 To shear the Golden Fleece." 
 
 As they passed the mouths of the Hootalinqua and 
 the Big and Little Salmon, they found these streams 
 throwing mush-ice into the main Yukon. This gath 
 ered about the boat and attached itself, and at night 
 they found themselves compelled to chop the boat out 
 of the current. In the morning they chopped the 
 boat back into the current. 
 
 The last night ashore was spent between the mouths 
 of the White River and the Stewart. At daylight 
 they found the Yukon, half a mile wide, running white 
 from ice-rimmed bank to ice-rimmed bank. Shorty 
 cursed the universe with less of geniality than usual, 
 and looked at Kit. 
 
 " We 11 be the last boat this year to make Dawson," 
 Kit said. 
 
 " But they ain t no water, Smoke." 
 " Then we 11 ride the ice down. Come on." 
 Futilely protesting, Sprague and Stine were bun 
 dled on board. For half an hour, with axes, Kit and 
 Shorty struggled to cut a way into the swift but solid 
 stream. When they did succeed in clearing the shore- 
 ice, the floating ice forced the boat along the edge for 
 a hundred yards, tearing away half of one gunwale 
 and making a partial wreck of it. Then, at the lower 
 end of the bend, they caught the current that flung 
 off-shore. They proceeded to work farther toward 
 
THE MEAT 65 
 
 the middle. The stream was no longer composed of 
 mush-ice, but of hard cakes. In between the cakes 
 only was mush-ice, that froze solidly as they looked 
 at it. Shoving with the oars against the cakes, some 
 times climbing out on the cakes in order to force the 
 boat along, after an hour they gained the middle. 
 Five minutes after they ceased their exertions, the 
 boat was frozen in. The whole river was coagulating 
 as it ran. Cake froze to cake, until at last the boat 
 was the center of a cake seventy-five feet in diameter. 
 Sometimes they floated sidewise, sometimes stern-first, 
 while gravity tore asunder the forming fetters in the 
 moving mass, only to be manacled by faster-forming 
 ones. While the hours passed, Shorty stoked the 
 stove, cooked meals, and chanted his war-song. 
 
 Night came, and after many efforts they gave up 
 the attempt to force the boat to shore, and through the 
 darkness they swept helplessly onward. 
 
 " What if we pass Dawson? " Shorty queried. 
 
 " We 11 walk back," Kit answered, " if we re not 
 crushed in a jam." 
 
 The sky was clear, and in the light of the cold, 
 leaping stars they caught occasional glimpses of the 
 loom of mountains on either hand. At eleven o clock, 
 from below, came a dull grinding roar. Their speed 
 began to diminish and cakes of ice to up-end and 
 crash and smash about them. The river was jam 
 ming. One cake, forced upward, slid across their 
 cake and carried one side of the boat away. It did 
 not sink, for its own cake still upbore it, but in a whirl 
 they saw dark water show for an instant within a foot 
 
66 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 of them. Then all movement ceased. At the end of 
 half an hour the whole river picked itself up and be 
 gan to move. This continued for an hour, when again 
 it was brought to rest by a jam. Once again it 
 started, running swiftly and savagely, with a great 
 grinding. Then they saw lights ashore, and, when 
 abreast, gravity and the Yukon surrendered, and the 
 river ceased for six months. 
 
 On the shore at Dawson, curious ones gathered to 
 watch the river freeze heard from out of.the darkness 
 the war-song of Shorty: 
 
 "Like Argus of the ancient times, 
 We leave this Modern Greece, 
 Turn-turn, turn-turn, turn-turn, turn-turn, 
 To shear the Golden Fleece." 
 
 For three days Kit and Shorty labored, carrying 
 the ton and a half of outfit from the middle of the 
 river to the log-cabin Stine and Sprague had bought 
 on the hill overlooking Dawson. This work finished, 
 in the warm cabin, as twilight was falling, 
 Sprague motioned Kit to him. Outside the ther 
 mometer registered sixty-five below zero. 
 
 " Your full month is n t up, Smoke," Sprague said. 
 " But here it is in full. I wish you luck/ 
 
 "How about the agreement?" Kit asked. "You 
 know there s a famine here. A man can t get work 
 in the mines even unless he has his own grub. You 
 agreed " 
 
 " I know of no agreement," Sprague interrupted. 
 "Do you, Stine? We engaged you by the month. 
 
THE MEAT 67 
 
 There s your pay. Will you sign the receipt?" 
 
 Kit s hands clenched, and for the moment he 
 saw red. Both men shrank away from him. 
 He had never struck a man in anger in his life, 
 and he felt so certain of his ability to thrash Sprague 
 that he could not bring himself to do it. 
 
 Shorty saw his trouble and interposed. 
 
 " Look here, Smoke, I ain t travelin no more with 
 a ornery outfit like this. Right here s where I sure 
 jump it. You an me stick together. Savvy? Now 
 you take your blankets an hike down to the Elkhorn. 
 Wait for me. I 11 settle up, collect what s comin , 
 an give them what s comin . I ain t no good on the 
 water, but my feet s on terry-firmy now, an I m go- 
 in to make smoke." 
 
 Half an hour afterward Shorty appeared at the 
 Elkhorn. From his bleeding knuckles and the skin 
 off one cheek, it was evident that he had given Stine 
 and Sprague what was coming. 
 
 " You ought to see that cabin," he chuckled, as they 
 stood at the bar. " Rough-house ain t no name for 
 it. Dollars to doughnuts nary one of em shows up 
 on the street for a week. An now it s all figgered 
 out for you an me. Grub s a dollar an a half a 
 pound. They ain t no work for wages without you 
 have your own grub. Moose-meat s sellin for two 
 dollars a pound, an they ain t none. We got enough 
 money for a month s grub an ammunition, an we 
 hike up the Klondike to the back country. If they 
 ain t no moose, we go an live with the Indians. But 
 if we ain t got five thousand pounds of meat six weeks 
 
68 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 from now, I 11 sure go back an apologize to our 
 bosses. Is it a go? " 
 
 Kit s hand went out, and they shook. Then he fal 
 tered. " I don t know anything about hunting," he 
 said. 
 
 Shorty lifted his glass. " But you re a sure meat- 
 eater, an I 11 learn you." 
 
Ill 
 
 THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CRE2K 
 
 months after Smoke Bellew and Shorty 
 went after moose for a grub-stake, they were 
 back in the Elkhorn saloon at Dawson. The hunting 
 was done, the meat hauled in and sold for two dollars 
 and a half a pound, and between them they possessed 
 three thousand dollars in gold dust and a good team 
 of dogs. They had played in luck. Despite the fact 
 that the gold-rush had driven the game a hundred 
 miles or more into the mountains, they had within half 
 that distance bagged four moose in a narrow canyon. 
 
 The mystery of the strayed animals was no greater 
 than the luck of their killers, for within the day four 
 famished Indian families, reporting no game in three 
 days journey back, camped beside them. Meat was 
 traded for starving dogs, and after a week of feeding 
 Smoke and Shorty harnessed the animals and 
 began freighting the meat to the eager Dawson 
 market. 
 
 The problem of the two men now was to turn their 
 gold-dust into food. The current price for flour and 
 beans was a dollar and a half a pound, but the diffi 
 culty was to find a seller. Dawson was in the throes 
 of famine. Hundreds of men, with money but no 
 food, had been compelled to leave the country. Many 
 
 69 
 
70 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 had gone down the river on the last water, and many 
 more, with barely enough food to last, had walked 
 the six hundred miles over the ice to Dyea. 
 
 Smoke met Shorty in the warm saloon, and found 
 the latter jubilant. 
 
 " Life ain t no punkins without whiskey an sweet- 
 enin ," was Shorty s greeting, as he pulled lumps of 
 ice from his thawing mustache and flung them rat 
 tling onto the floor. " An I sure just got eighteen 
 pounds of that same sweetenin . The geezer only 
 charged three dollars a pound for it. What luck did 
 you have?" 
 
 " I, too, have not been idle," Smoke answered with 
 pride. " I bought fifty pounds of flour. And 
 there s a man up on Adam Creek who says he 11 let 
 me have fifty pounds more to-morrow." 
 
 " Great ! We 11 sure live till the river opens. 
 Say, Smoke, them dogs of ourn is the goods. A dog- 
 buyer offered me two hundred apiece for the five of 
 them. I told him nothin doin . They sure took on 
 class when they got meat to get outside of; but it 
 goes against the grain, feedin dog-critters on grub 
 that s worth two an a half a pound. Come on an 
 have a drink. I just got to celebrate them eighteen 
 pounds of sweetenin ." 
 
 Several minutes later, as he weighed in on the gold- 
 scales for the drinks, he gave a start of recollec 
 tion. 
 
 " I plumb forgot that man I was to meet in the 
 Tivoli. He s got some spoiled bacon he 11 sell for a 
 dollar an a half a pound. We can feed it to the dogs 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 71 
 
 an save a dollar a day on each s board-bill. So- 
 long." 
 
 " So-long," said Smoke. " I m goin to the cabin 
 an 5 turn in." 
 
 Hardly had Shorty left the place, when a fur-clad 
 man entered through the double storm-doors. His 
 face lighted at sight of Smoke, who recognized him 
 as Breck, the man whose boat they had run through 
 the Box Canyon and the White Horse Rapids. 
 
 " I heard you were in town," Breck said hurriedly, 
 as they shook hands. " Been looking for you for 
 half an hour. Come outside, I want to talk with 
 you." 
 
 Smoke looked regretfully at the roaring, red-hot 
 stove. " Won t this do? " 
 
 "No; it s important. Come outside." 
 
 As they emerged, Smoke drew off one mitten, 
 lighted a match, and glanced at the thermometer that 
 hung beside the door. He remittened his naked hand 
 hastily, as if the frost had burned him. Overhead 
 arched the flaming aurora borealis, while from all 
 Dawson arose the mournful howling of thousands of 
 wolf-dogs. 
 
 "What did it say?" Breck asked. 
 
 " Sixty below." Kit spat experimentally, and the 
 spittle crackled in the air. " And the thermometer is 
 certainly working. It s falling all the time. An 
 hour ago it was only fifty-two. Don t tell me it s a 
 stampede." 
 
 " It is," Breck whispered back cautiously, casting 
 anxious eyes about in fear of some other listener. 
 
72 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 You know Squaw Creek empties in on the other side 
 the Yukon thirty miles up ? " 
 
 " Nothing doing there," was Smoke s judgment. 
 " It was prospected years ago." 
 
 " So were all the other rich creeks. Listen ! It s 
 big. Only eight to twenty feet to bed-rock. There 
 won t be a claim that don t run to half a million. 
 It s a dead secret. Two or three of my close friends 
 let me in on it. I told my wife right away that I was 
 going to find you before I started. Now so-long. 
 My pack s hidden down the bank. In fact, when 
 they told me they made me promise not to pull out 
 until Dawson was asleep. You know what it means 
 if you re seen with a stampeding outfit. Get your 
 partner and follow. You ought to stake fourth or 
 fifth claim from Discovery. Don t forget Squaw 
 Creek. It s the third after you pass Swede Creek." 
 
 When Smoke entered the little cabin on the hillside 
 back of Dawson, he heard a heavy familiar breathing. 
 
 " Ah, go to bed," Shorty mumbled, as Smoke shook 
 his shoulder. " I m not on the night shift," was his 
 next remark, as the rousing hand became more vig 
 orous. " Tell your troubles to the barkeeper." 
 
 " Kick into your clothes," Smoke said. " We Ve 
 got to stake a couple of claims." 
 
 Shorty sat up and started to explode, but Smoke s 
 hand covered his mouth. 
 
 " Ssh ! " Smoke warned. " It s a big strike. 
 Don t wake the neighborhood. Dawson s asleep." 
 
 " Huh ! You got to show me. Nobody tells any 
 body about a strike, of course not. But ain t it plumb 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 73 
 
 amazin the way everybody hits the trail just the 
 same?" 
 
 " Squaw Creek," Smoke whispered. " It s right. 
 Breck gave me the tip. Shallow bed-rock. Gold 
 from the grass-roots down. Come on. We 11 sling 
 a couple of light packs together and pull out." 
 
 Shorty s eyes closed as he lapsed back into 
 sleep. The next moment his blankets were swept off 
 him. 
 
 " If you don t want them, I do," Smoke explained. 
 
 Shorty followed the blankets and began to dress. 
 " Coin to take the dogs? " he asked. 
 
 " No. The trail up the creek is sure to be un 
 broken, and we can make better time without them." 
 
 " Then I J ll throw em a meal which 11 have to last 
 em till we get back. Be sure you take some birch- 
 bark and a candle." 
 
 Shorty opened the door, felt the bite of the cold, 
 and shrank back to pull down his ear-flaps and mitten 
 his hands. Five minutes later he returned, sharply 
 rubbing his nose. " Smoke, I m sure opposed to 
 makin this stampede. It s colder than the hinges of 
 hell a thousand years before the first fire was lighted. 
 Besides, it s Friday the thirteenth, an we re goin to 
 trouble as the sparks fly upward." 
 
 With small stampeding-packs on their backs, they 
 closed the door behind them and started down the hill. 
 The display of the aurora borealis had ceased, and only 
 the stars leaped in the great cold and by their uncer 
 tain light made traps for the feet. Shorty floundered 
 off a turn of the trail into deep snow, and raised his 
 
74 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 voice in blessing of the date of the week and month 
 and year. 
 
 "Can t you keep still?" Smoke chided. "Leave 
 the almanac alone. You 11 have all Dawson awake 
 and after us." 
 
 " Huh! See the light in that cabin? An in that 
 one over there? An hear that door slam? Oh, sure 
 Dawson s asleep. Them lights ? Just buryin their 
 dead. They ain t stampedin , betcher life they ain t." 
 
 By the time they reached the foot of the hill and 
 were fairly in Dawson, lights were springing up in 
 the cabins, doors were slamming, and from behind 
 came the sound of many moccasins on the hard- 
 packed snow. Again Shorty delivered himself. 
 
 " But it beats the devil the amount of mourners 
 they is." 
 
 They passed a man who stood by the path and was 
 calling anxiously in a low voice, " Oh, Charley ; get 
 
 a move on." 
 
 " See that pack on his back, Smoke? The grave 
 yard s sure a long ways off when the mourners got 
 to pack their blankets." 
 
 By the time they reached the main street a hundred 
 men were in line behind them, and while they sought 
 in the deceptive starlight for the trail that dipped 
 down the bank to the river, more men could be heard 
 arriving. Shorty slipped and shot down the thirty- 
 foot chute into the soft snow. Smoke followed, 
 knocking him over as he was rising to his feet. 
 
 " I found it first," he gurgled, taking off his mittens 
 to shake the snow out of the gauntlets. 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 75 
 
 The next moment they were scrambling wildly out 
 of the way of the hurtling bodies of those that fol 
 lowed. At the time of the freeze-up, a jam had oc 
 curred at this point, and cakes of ice were up-ended 
 in snow-covered confusion. After several hard falls, 
 Smoke drew out his candle and lighted it. Those in 
 the rear hailed it with acclaim. In the windless air 
 it burned easily, and he led the way more quickly. 
 
 " It s a sure stampede," Shorty decided. " Or 
 might all them be sleep-walkers?" 
 
 " We re at the head of the procession at any rate," 
 was Smoke s answer. 
 
 " Oh, I don t know. Mebbe that s a firefly ahead 
 there. Mebbe they re all fireflies that one, an that 
 one. Look at em ! Believe me, they is a whole string 
 of processions ahead." 
 
 It was a mile across the jams to the west bank of 
 the Yukon, and candles flickered the full length of the 
 twisting trail. Behind them, clear to the top of the 
 bank they had descended, were more candles. 
 
 " Say, Smoke, this ain t no stampede. It s a 
 exode-us. They must be a thousand men ahead of 
 us an ten thousand behind. Now you listen to your 
 uncle. My medicine s good. When I get a hunch 
 it s sure right. An we re in wrong on this stam 
 pede. Let s turn back an hit the sleep." 
 
 " You d better save your breath if you intend to 
 keep up," Smoke retorted gruffly. 
 
 " Huh ! My legs is short, but I slog along slack 
 at the knees an don t worry my muscles none, an I 
 can sure walk every piker here off the ice." 
 
76 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 And Smoke knew he was right, for he had long 
 since learned his comrade s phenomenal walking pow 
 ers. 
 
 " I Ve been holding back to give you a chance," 
 Smoke jeered. 
 
 " An I m plumb troddin on your heels. If you 
 can t do better, let me go ahead and set pace." 
 
 Smoke quickened, and was soon at the rear of the 
 nearest bunch of stampeders. 
 
 " Hike along, you, Smoke," the other urged. 
 :< Walk over them unburied dead. This ain t no fu 
 neral. Hit the frost like you was goin somewheres." 
 
 Smoke counted eight men and two women in this 
 party, and before the way across the jam-ice was won, 
 he and Shorty had passed another party twenty 
 strong. Within a few feet of the west bank, the trail 
 swerved to the south, emerging from the jam upon 
 smooth ice. The ice, however, was buried under sev 
 eral feet of fine snow. Through this the sled-trail 
 ran, a narrow ribbon of packed footing barely two 
 feet in width. On either side one sank to his knees 
 and deeper in the snow. The stampeders they over 
 took were reluctant to give way, and often Smoke 
 and Shorty had to plunge into the deep snow and by 
 supreme efforts flounder past. 
 
 Shorty was irrepressible and pessimistic. When the 
 stampeders resented being passed, he retorted in kind. 
 
 "What s your hurry?" one of them asked. 
 
 " What s yours ? " he answered. " A stampede 
 come down from Indian River yesterday afternoon 
 an beat you to it. They ain t no claims left." 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 77 
 
 "That being so, I repeat, what s your hurry?" 
 
 "Who? Me? I ain t no stampeder. I m 
 workin for the government. I m on official business. 
 I m just trapesin along to take the census of Squaw 
 Creek." 
 
 To another, who hailed him with : " Where away, 
 little one? Do you really expect to stake a claim?" 
 Shorty answered: 
 
 "Me? I m the discoverer of Squaw Creek. I m 
 just comin back from recordin so as to see no 
 blamed chekako jumps my claim." 
 
 The average pace of the stampeders on the smooth 
 going was three miles and a half an hour. Smoke 
 and Shorty were doing four and a half, though some 
 times they broke into short runs and went faster. 
 
 " I m going to travel your feet clean off, Shorty," 
 Smoke challenged. 
 
 " Huh ! I can hike along on the stumps an wear 
 the heels off your moccasins. Though it ain t no use. 
 I ve been figgerin . Creek claims is five hundred feet. 
 Call em ten to the mile. They s a thousand stam 
 peders ahead of us, an that creek ain t no hundred 
 miles long. Somebody s goin to get left, an it 
 makes a noise like you an me." 
 
 Before replying, Smoke let out an unexpected link 
 that threw Shorty half a dozen feet in the rear. " If 
 you saved your breath and kept up, we d cut down 
 a few of that thousand," he chided. 
 
 "Who? Me? If you d get outa the way I d 
 show you a pace what is." 
 
 Smoke laughed, and let out another link. " Shorty, 
 
78 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 I ve got you skinned to death. I ve reconstructed 
 every cell in my body since I hit the beach at Dyea. 
 -My flesh is as stringy as whipcords, and as bitter and 
 mean as the bite of a rattlesnake. A few months 
 ago I d have patted niyself on the back to \vrite such 
 words, but I could n t have written them. I had to 
 live them first, and now that I m living them there s 
 no need to write them. I m the real, bitter, stinging 
 goods, and no scrub of a mountaineer can put any 
 thing over on me without getting it back compound. 
 Now you go ahead and set pace for half an hour. 
 Do your worst, and when you re all in I 11 go ahead 
 and give you half an hour of the real worst." 
 
 " Huh ! " Shorty sneered genially. " An him not 
 dry behind the ears yet. Get outa the way an let 
 your father show you some goin ." 
 
 Half -hour by half -hour they alternated in setting 
 pace. Nor did they talk much. Their exertions kept 
 them warm, though their breath froze on their faces 
 from lips to chin. So intense was the cold that they 
 almost continually rubbed their noses and cheeks with 
 their mittens. A few minutes cessation from this al 
 lowed the flesh to grow numb, and then most vigorous 
 rubbing was required to produce the burning prickle 
 of returning circulation. 
 
 Often they thought they had reached the lead, but 
 always they overtook more stampeders who had started 
 before them. Occasionally groups of men attempted 
 to swing in behind to their pace, but invariably they 
 were discouraged after a mile or two and disappeared 
 in the darkness to the rear. 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 79 
 
 " We ve been out on trail all winter," was Shorty s 
 comment. " An them geezers, soft from layin 
 around their cabins, has the nerve to think they can 
 keep our stride. Now if they was real sour-doughs 
 it d be different. If they s one thing a sour-dough 
 can do it s sure walk." 
 
 Once, Smoke lighted a match and glanced at his 
 watch. He never repeated it, for so quick was 
 the bite of the frost on his bared hands that half an 
 hour passed before they were again comfortable. 
 
 " Four o clock," he said, as he pulled on his mit 
 tens, " and we ve already passed three hundred." 
 
 " Three hundred and thirty-eight," Shorty cor 
 rected. " I been keepin count. Get outa the way, 
 stranger. Let somebody stampede that knows how 
 to stampede." 
 
 This latter was addressed to a man, evidently ex 
 hausted, who could no more than stumble along and 
 who blocked the trail. This, and one other, were the 
 only played-out men they encountered, for they were 
 very near to the head of the stampede. Nor did they 
 learn till afterward the horrors of that night. Ex 
 hausted men sat down to rest by the way and failed 
 to get up again. Seven were frozen to death, while 
 scores of amputations of toes, feet and fingers were 
 performed in the Dawson hospitals on the survivors. 
 For the stampede to Squaw Creek occurred on the 
 coldest night of the year. Before morning the spirit 
 thermometers at Dawson registered seventy degrees 
 below zero. 
 
 The other played-out man they found a few min- 
 
8o SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 utes later, sitting on a piece of ice beside the trail. 
 
 " Hop along, sister Mary," Shorty gaily greeted 
 him. " Keep movin . If you sit there you 11 freeze 
 stiff." 
 
 The man made no response, and they stopped to in 
 vestigate. 
 
 " Stiff as a poker," was Shorty s verdict. " If you 
 tumbled him over he d break." 
 
 " See if he s breathing," Smoke said, as, with bared 
 hand, he sought through furs and woolens for the 
 man s heart. 
 
 Shorty lifted one ear-flap and bent to the iced lips. 
 " Nary breathe," he reported. 
 
 " Nor heart-beat," said Smoke. 
 
 He mittened his hand and beat it violently for a 
 minute before exposing it to the frost to strike a 
 match. It was an old man, incontestably dead. In 
 the moment of illumination they saw a long gray 
 beard, massed with ice to the nose, cheeks that were 
 white with frost, and closed eyes with frost-rimmed 
 lashes frozen together. Then the match went out. 
 
 " Come on," Shorty said, rubbing his ear. " We 
 can t do nothin for the old geezer. An I ve sure 
 frosted my ear. Now all the blamed skin 11 peel off, 
 and it 11 be sore for a week." 
 
 A few minutes later, when a flaming ribbon spilled 
 pulsating fire over the heavens, they saw on the ice a 
 quarter of a mile ahead two forms. Beyond, for a 
 mile, nothing moved. 
 
 " They re leading the procession," Smoke said, as 
 darkness fell again. " Come on, let s get them." 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 81 
 
 At the end of half an hour, not yet having over 
 taken the two in front, Shorty broke into a run. "If 
 we catch em we 11 never pass em," he panted. 
 " Lord, what a pace they re hittin . Dollars to dough 
 nuts they re no chekakos. They re the real sour 
 dough variety, you can stack on that." 
 
 Smoke was leading when they finally caught up, 
 and he was glad to ease to a walk at their heels. Al 
 most immediately he got the impression that the one 
 nearer him was a woman. How this impression 
 came, he could not tell. Hooded and furred, the dark 
 form was as any form; yet there was a haunting 
 sense of familiarity about it. He waited for the next 
 flame of the aurora, and by its light saw the small- 
 ness of the moccasined feet. But he saw more 
 the walk, and knew it for the unmistakable w r alk he 
 had once resolved never to forget. 
 
 " She s a sure goer," Shorty confided hoarsely. 
 " I 11 bet it s an Indian." 
 
 " How do you do, Miss Gastell? " Smoke addressed 
 her. 
 
 " How do you do? " she answered, with a turn of 
 the head and a quick glance. " It s too dark to see. 
 Who are you?" 
 
 " Smoke." 
 
 She laughed in the frost, and he was certain it was 
 the prettiest laughter he had ever heard. " And have 
 you married and raised all those children you were 
 telling me about ? " Before he could retort, she went 
 on, " How many chekakos are there behind ? " 
 
 " Several thousand, I imagine. We passed over 
 
82 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 three hundred. And they were n t wasting any time." 
 
 " It s the old story," she said bitterly. " The new 
 comers get in on the rich creeks, and the old-timers, 
 who dared and suffered fand^made this country, get 
 nothing. Old-tinraa^naaqe^is discovery on Squaw 
 Creek how it leak^crout is the mystery and they 
 sent word up to all the old-timers on Sea Lion. But 
 it s ten miles farther than Dawson, and when they 
 arrive they 11 find the creek staked to the sky-line by 
 the Dawson chekakos. It is n t right, it is n t fair, 
 such perversity of luck." 
 
 " It is too bad," Smoke sympathized. " But I m 
 hanged if I know what you are going to do about it. 
 First come, first served, you know." 
 
 " I wish I could do something," she flashed back 
 at him. " I d like to see them all freeze on the trail, 
 or have everything terrible happen to them, so long 
 as the Sea Lion stampede arrived first." 
 
 You Ve certainly got it in for us hard," he 
 laughed. 
 
 " It is n t that," she said quickly. " Man by man, 
 I know the crowd from Sea Lion, and they are men. 
 They starved in this country in the old days, and they 
 worked like giants to develop it. They are heroes, 
 and they deserve some reward, and yet here are thou 
 sands of green softlings, who have n t earned the right 
 to stake anything, miles and miles ahead of them. 
 And now, if you 11 forgive my tirade, I 11 save my 
 breath, for I don t know when you and all the rest 
 may try to pass dad and me." 
 
 No further talk passed between Joy and Smoke 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 83 
 
 for an hour or so, though he noticed that for a time 
 she and her father talked in low tones. 
 
 " I know em now," Shorty told Smoke. " He s 
 old Louis Gastell, an the real goods. That must be 
 his kid. He come into this country so long ago they 
 ain t nobody can recollect, an he brought the girl 
 with him, she only a baby. Him an Beetles was 
 tradin partners, an they ran the first dinky little 
 steamboat up the Koyukuk." 
 
 " I don t think we 11 try to pass them," Smoke 
 said. " We re at the head of the stampede, and there 
 are only four of us." 
 
 Shorty agreed, and another hour of silence fol 
 lowed, during which they swung steadily along. At 
 seven o clock, the blackness was broken by a last dis 
 play of the aurora borealis, which showed to the west 
 a broad opening between snow-clad mountains. 
 
 " Squaw Creek ! " Joy exclaimed. 
 
 " Coin some," Shorty exulted. " We ought n t to 
 been there for another half hour to the least, accordin 
 to my reckonin . I must a been spreadin my 
 legs." 
 
 It was at this point that the Dyea trail, baffled by 
 ice-jams, swerved abruptly across the Yukon to the 
 east bank. And here they must leave the hard- 
 packed, main-traveled trail, mount the jams, and fol 
 low a dim trail, but slightly packed, that hovered the 
 west bank. 
 
 Louis Gastell, leading, slipped in the darkness on 
 the rough ice, and sat up, holding his ankle in both 
 his hands. He struggled to his feet and went on, 
 
84 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 but at a slower pace and with a perceptible limp. 
 After a few minutes he abruptly halted. 
 
 " It s no use/ he said to his daughter. " I ve 
 sprained a tendon. You go ahead and stake for me 
 as well as yourself." 
 
 " Can t we do something?" Smoke asked solicit 
 ously. 
 
 Louis Gastell shook his head. " She can stake two 
 claims as well as one. I 11 crawl over to the bank, 
 start a fire, and bandage my ankle. I 11 be all right. 
 Go on, Joy. Stake ours above the discovery claim; 
 it s richer higher up." 
 
 " Here s some birch-bark," Smoke said, dividing 
 his supply equally. " We 11 take care of your daugh 
 ter." 
 
 Louis Gastell laughed harshly. l Thank you just 
 the same," he said, " but she can take care of herself. 
 Follow her and watch her." 
 
 " Do you mind if I lead ? " she asked Smoke, as 
 she headed on. " I know this country better than 
 you." 
 
 " Lead on," Smoke answered gallantly, " though 
 I agree with you it s a darn shame all us chekakos 
 are going to beat that Sea Lion bunch to it. Is n t 
 there some way to shake them ? " 
 
 She shook her head. " We can t hide our trail, 
 and they 11 follow it like sheep." 
 
 After a quarter of a mile, she turned sharply 
 to the west. Smoke noticed that they were going 
 through unpacked snow, but neither he nor Shorty 
 observed that the dim trail they had been on still led 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 85 
 
 south. Had they witnessed the subsequent procedure 
 of Louis Gastell, the history of the Klondike would 
 have been written differently; for they would have 
 seen that old-timer, no longer limping, running with 
 his nose to the trail like a hound, following them. 
 Also, they would have seen him trample and widen 
 the turn to the fresh trail they had made to the west. 
 And, finally, they would have seen him keep on the 
 old dim trail that still led south. 
 
 A trail did run up the creek, but so slight was it 
 that they continually lost it in the darkness. After 
 a quarter of an hour, Joy Gastell was willing to drop 
 to the rear and let the two men take turns in break 
 ing a way through the snow. This slowness of the 
 leaders enabled the whole stampede to catch up, and 
 when daylight came, at nine o clock, as far back as 
 they could see was an unbroken line of men. Joy s 
 dark eyes sparkled at the sight. 
 
 " How long since we started up the creek ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " Fully two hours," Smoke answered. 
 
 " And two hours back make four," she laughed. 
 " The stampede from Sea Lion is saved." 
 
 A faint suspicion crossed Smoke s mind and he 
 stopped and confronted her. " I don t understand," 
 he said. 
 
 "You don t? Then I ll tell you. This is Nor 
 way Creek. Squaw Creek is the next to the 
 south." 
 
 Smoke was for the moment speechless. 
 
 "You did it a purpose?" Shorty demanded. 
 
86 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " I did it to give the old-timers a chance." She 
 laughed mockingly. The men grinned at each other 
 and finally joined her. " I d lay you across my knee 
 an give you a wallopin , if women folk was n t so 
 scarce in this country," Shorty assured her. 
 
 " Your father did n t sprain a tendon, but waited 
 till we were out of sight and then went on ? " Smoke 
 asked. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " And you were the decoy? " 
 
 Again she nodded, and this time Smoke s laughter 
 rang out clear and true. It was the spontaneous 
 laughter of a frankly beaten man. 
 
 " Why don t you get angry with me? " she queried 
 ruefully. " Or or wallop me? " 
 
 " Well, we might as well be startin back," Shorty 
 urged. " My feet s gettin cold standin here." 
 
 Smoke shook his head. That would mean four 
 hours lost. We must be eight miles up this creek 
 now, and from the look ahead Norway is making a 
 long swing south. We 11 follow it, then cross over 
 the divide somehow, and tap Squaw Creek somewhere 
 above Discovery." He looked at Joy. :< Won t you 
 come along with us ? I told your father we J d look 
 after you." 
 
 !_ She hesitated. "I think I shall, if you 
 don t mind." She was looking straight at him, and 
 her face was no longer defiant and mocking. 
 " Really, Mr. Smoke, you make me almost sorry for 
 what I have done. But somebody had to save the 
 old-timers." 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 87 
 
 " It strikes me that stampeding is at best a sport 
 ing proposition." 
 
 " And it strikes me you two are very game about 
 it," she went on, then added with the shadow of a 
 sigh. " What a pity you are not old-timers ! " 
 
 For two hours more they kept to the frozen creek 
 bed of Norway, then turned into a narrow and rugged 
 tributary that flowed from the south. At midday 
 they began the ascent of the divide itself. Behind 
 them, looking down and back, they could see the long 
 line of stampeders breaking up. Here and there, in 
 scores of places, thin smoke-columns advertised the 
 making of camps. 
 
 As for themselves, the going was hard. They 
 w r allowed through snow to their waists, and were com 
 pelled to stop every few yards to breathe. Shorty was 
 the first to call a halt. 
 
 " We been hittin the trail for over twelve hours," 
 he said. " Smoke, I m plumb willin to say I m good 
 an tired. An so are you. An I m free to shout 
 that I can sure hang on to this here pasear like a 
 starvin Indian to a hunk of bear-meat. But this 
 poor girl here can t keep her legs no time if she don t 
 get something in her stomach. Here s where we 
 build a fire. What d ye say?" 
 
 So quickly, so deftly and methodically, did they go 
 about making a temporary camp that Joy, watching 
 with jealous eyes, admitted to herself that old-timers 
 could not do it better. Spruce-boughs, with a spread 
 blanket on top, gave a foundation for rest and cook 
 ing operations. But they kept away from the heat 
 
88 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 of the fire until noses and cheeks had been rubbed 
 cruelly. 
 
 Smoke spat in the air, and the resultant crackle 
 was so immediate and loud that he shook his head. 
 " I give it up," he said. " I ve never seen cold like 
 this." 
 
 " One winter on the Koyukuk it went to eighty- 
 six below," Joy answered. " It s at least seventy 
 or seventy-five right now, and I know I ve frosted 
 my cheeks. They re burning like fire." 
 
 On the steep slope of the divide there was no ice, 
 so snow, as fine and hard and crystalline as granu 
 lated sugar, was poured into the gold-pan by the 
 bushel until enough had been melted for the coffee. 
 Smoke fried bacon and thawed biscuits. Shorty 
 kept the fuel supplied and tended the fire, and Joy 
 set the simple table composed of two plates, two cups, 
 two spoons, a tin of mixed salt and pepper, and a tin 
 of sugar. When it came to eating, she and Smoke 
 shared one set between them. They ate out of the 
 same plate and drank from the same cup. 
 
 It was nearly two in the afternoon when they 
 cleared the crest of the divide and began dropping 
 down a feeder of Squaw Creek. Earlier in the win 
 ter some moose-hunter had made a trail up the can 
 yon; that is, in going up and down he had stepped 
 always in his previous tracks. As a result, in the 
 midst of soft snow and veiled under later snowfalls, 
 was a line of irregular hummocks. If one s foot 
 missed a hummock, he plunged down through un 
 packed snow and usually to a fall. Also, the moose- 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 89 
 
 hunter had been an exceptionally long-legged individ 
 ual. Joy, who was eager now that the two men should 
 stake, and fearing that they were slackening their 
 pace on account of her evident weariness, insisted on 
 taking her turn in the lead. The speed and manner 
 in which she negotiated the precarious footing called 
 out Shorty s unqualified approval. 
 
 " Look at her ! " he cried. " She s the real goods 
 an the red meat. Look at them moccasins swing 
 along. No high-heels there. She uses the legs God 
 gave her. She s the right squaw for any bear- 
 hunter." 
 
 She flashed back a smile of acknowledgment that 
 included Smoke. He caught a feeling of chummi- 
 ness, though at the same time he was bitingly aware 
 that it was very much of a woman who embraced him 
 in that comradely smile. 
 
 Looking back, as they came to the bank of Squaw 
 Creek, they could see the stampede, strung out irreg 
 ularly, struggling along the descent of the divide. 
 
 They slipped down the bank to the creek bed. The 
 stream, frozen solidly to bottom, was from twenty to 
 thirty feet wide and ran between six- and eight-foot 
 earth banks of alluvial wash. No recent feet had 
 disturbed the snow that lay upon its ice, and they 
 knew they were above the discovery claim and the 
 last stakes of the Sea Lion stampeders. 
 
 " Look out for springs," Joy warned, as Smoke led 
 the way down the creek. " At seventy below you 11 
 lose your feet if you break through." 
 
 These springs, common to most Klondike streams, 
 
QO SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 never cease at the lowest temperatures. The water 
 flows out from the banks and lies in pools which are 
 cuddled from the cold by later surface-freezings and 
 snowfalls. Thus, a man, stepping on dry snow, 
 might break through half an inch of ice-skin and find 
 himself up to the knees in water. In five minutes, 
 unless able to remove the wet gear, the loss of one s 
 feet was the penalty. 
 
 Though only three in the afternoon, the long gray 
 twilight of the arctic had settled down. They 
 watched for a blazed tree on either bank, which would 
 show the center-stake of the last claim located. Joy, 
 impulsively eager, was the first to find it. She darted 
 ahead of Smoke, crying : 
 
 " Somebody s been there ! See the snow ! Look 
 for the blaze ! There it is ! See that spruce ! " She 
 sank suddenly to her waist in the snow. " Now I ve 
 done it," she said w r oefully. Then she cried: 
 " Don t come near me ! I 11 wade out." 
 
 Step by step, each time breaking through the thin 
 skin of ice concealed under the dry snow, she forced 
 her way to solid footing. Smoke did not wait, but 
 sprang to the bank, where dry and seasoned, twigs 
 and sticks, lodged among the brush by spring fresh 
 ets, waited the match. By the time she reached his 
 side the first flames and flickers of an assured fire 
 were rising. 
 
 " Sit down ! " he commanded. 
 
 She obediently sat down in the snow. He slipped 
 his pack from his back, and spread a blanket for her 
 feet. 
 
It was as if her feet and calves were encased in corrugated iron. 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 93 
 
 From above came the voices of the stampeders who 
 followed them. 
 
 " Let Shorty stake," she urged. 
 
 " Go on, Shorty," Smoke said, as he attacked her 
 moccasins, already stiff with ice. " Pace off a thou 
 sand feet and place the two center-stakes. We can 
 fix the corner-stakes aftenvard." 
 
 With his knife, Smoke cut away the lacings and 
 leather of the moccasins. So stiff were they with ice 
 that they snapped and crackled under the hacking and 
 sawing. The siwash socks and heavy woolen stock 
 ings were sheaths of ice. It was as if her feet and 
 calves were encased in corrugated iron. 
 
 " How are your feet? " he asked as he worked. 
 
 " Pretty numb. I can t move nor feel my toes. 
 But it will be all right. The fire is burning beauti 
 fully. Watch out you don t freeze your hands. 
 They must be numb now from the way you re fumb 
 ling." 
 
 He slipped his mittens on, and for nearly a minute 
 smashed the open hands savagely against his sides. 
 When he felt the blood prickle, he pulled off the mit 
 tens and ripped and tore and sawed and hacked at 
 the frozen garments. The white skin of one foot ap 
 peared, then that of the other, to be exposed to the 
 bite of seventy below zero, which is the equivalent of 
 one hundred and two below freezing. 
 
 Then came the rubbing with snow, carried on with 
 an intensity of cruel fierceness, till she squirmed and 
 shrank and moved her toes, and joyously complained 
 of the hurt. He half dragged her, and she half lifted 
 
94 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 herself, nearer to the fire. He placed her feet on the 
 blanket close to the flesh-saving flames. 
 
 You 11 have to take care of them for a while," 
 he said. 
 
 She could now safely remove her mittens and work 
 and manipulate her own feet, with the wisdom of the 
 initiated being watchful that the heat of the fire was 
 absorbed slowly. While she did this, he attacked his 
 hands. The snow did not melt nor moisten. Its 
 light crystals were like so much sand. Slowly the 
 stings and pangs of circulation came back into the 
 chilled flesh. Then he tended the fire, unstrapped the 
 light pack from her back, and got out a complete 
 change of foot-gear. 
 
 Shorty returned along the creek bed and climbed 
 the bank to them. " I sure staked a full thousan 
 feet," he proclaimed. " Number twenty-seven an* 
 number twenty-eight, though I d only got the upper 
 stake of twenty-seven when I met the first geezer of 
 the bunch behind. He just straight declared I 
 was n t goin to stake twenty-eight. An I told 
 him" 
 
 "Yes, yes," Joy cried. "What did you tell 
 him?" 
 
 " Well, I told him straight that if he did n t back 
 up plumb five hundred feet I d sure punch his frozen 
 nose into raspberry ice-cream. He backed up, an 
 I Ve got in the center-stakes of two full an 
 honest five-hundred-foot creek claims. He staked 
 next, an I guess by now the bunch has Squaw Creek 
 located to head-waters an down the other side. Ourn 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 95 
 
 is safe. It s too dark to see now, but we can put out 
 the corner-stakes in the mornin ." 
 
 When they awoke, they found a change had taken 
 place during the night. So warm was it, that Shorty 
 and Smoke, still in their mutual blankets, estimated 
 the temperature at no more than twenty below. The 
 cold snap had broken. On top of their blankets lay 
 six inches of frost-crystals. 
 
 " Good morning, how are your feet ? " was Smoke s 
 greeting across the ashes of the fire to where Joy 
 Gastell, carefully shaking aside the snow, was sitting 
 up in her sleeping-furs. 
 
 Shorty built the fire and quarried ice from the creek, 
 while Smoke cooked breakfast. Daylight came on as 
 they finished the meal. 
 
 You go an fix them corner-stakes, Smoke/ 
 Shorty said. There s gravel under where I chopped 
 ice for the coffee, an I m goin to melt snow and 
 wash a pan of that same gravel for luck." 
 
 Smoke departed, ax in hand, to blaze the stakes. 
 Starting from the down-stream center-stake of 
 twenty-seven, he headed at right angles across the nar 
 row valley toward its rim. He proceeded methodic 
 ally, almost automatically, for his mind was alive with 
 recollections of the night before. He felt, somehow, 
 that he had won to empery over the delicate lines and 
 firm muscles of those feet and ankles he had rubbed 
 with snow, and this empery seemed to extend to the 
 rest and all of this woman of his kind. In dim and 
 fiery ways a feeling of possession mastered him. It 
 seemed that all that was necessary was for him to 
 
96 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 walk up to this Joy Gastell, take her hand in his, and 
 say, " Come." 
 
 It was in this mood that he discovered something 
 that made him forget empery over the white feet of 
 woman. At the valley rim he blazed no corner- 
 stake. He did not reach the valley rim, but, instead, 
 he found himself confronted by another stream. He 
 lined up with his eye a blasted willow-tree and a big 
 and recognizable spruce. He returned to the stream 
 where were the center-stakes. He followed the bed 
 of the creek around a wide horseshoe bend through 
 the flat and found that the two creeks were the same 
 creek. Next, he floundered twice through the snow 
 from valley rim to valley rim, running the first line 
 from the lower stake of twenty-seven, the second from 
 the upper stake of twenty-eight; and he found that 
 the upper stake of the latter was lower than the lower 
 stake of the former. In the gray twilight and half- 
 darkness, Shorty had located their two claims on the 
 horseshoe. 
 
 Smoke plodded back to the little camp. Shorty, at 
 the end of washing a pan of gravel, exploded at sight 
 of him. 
 
 " We got it ! " Shorty cried, holding out the pan. 
 " Look at it ! A nasty mess of gold. Two hundred 
 right there if it s a cent. She runs rich from the top 
 of the wash-gravel. I Ve churned around placers 
 some, but I never got butter like what s in this pan/ 
 
 Smoke cast an incurious glance at the coarse gold, 
 poured himself a cup of coffee at the fire, and sat 
 down. Joy sensed something wrong and looked at 
 
THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK 97 
 
 him with eagerly solicitous eyes. Shorty, however, 
 was disgruntled by his partner s lack of delight in the 
 discovery. 
 
 "Why don t you kick in an get excited?" he de 
 manded. " We got our pile right here, unless you re 
 stickin up your nose at two-hundred-dollar pans." 
 
 Smoke took a swallow of coffee before replying. 
 " Shorty, why are our two claims here like the Panama 
 Canal?" 
 
 "What s the answer?" 
 
 " Well, the eastern entrance of the Panama Canal 
 is west of the western entrance, that s all." 
 
 " Go on," Shorty said. " I ain t seen the joke yet." 
 
 " In short, Shorty, you staked our two claims on a 
 big horseshoe bend." 
 
 Shorty set the gold-pan down in the snow and 
 stood up. " Go on," he repeated. 
 
 " The upper stake of twenty-eight is ten feet be 
 low the lower stake of twenty-seven." 
 
 You mean we ain t got nothin , Smoke?" 
 
 "Worse than that; we ve got ten feet less than 
 nothing." 
 
 Shorty departed down the bank on the run. Five 
 minutes later he returned. In response to Joy s look 
 he nodded. Without speech, he went over to a log 
 and sat down to gaze steadily at the snow in front 
 of his moccasins. 
 
 " We might as well break camp and start back for 
 Dawson," Smoke said, beginning to fold the blankets. 
 
 " I am sorry, Smoke," Joy said. " It s all my 
 fault." 
 
98 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " It s all right," he answered. " All in the day s 
 work, you know." 
 
 " But it s my fault, wholly mine," she persisted. 
 " Dad s staked for me down near Discovery, I know. 
 I 11 give you my claim." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Shorty," she pleaded. 
 
 Shorty shook his head and began to laugh. It was 
 a colossal laugh. Chuckles and muffled explosions 
 yielded to hearty roars. 
 
 " It ain t hysterics," he explained. " I sure get 
 powerful amused at times, an this is one of them." 
 
 His gaze chanced to fall on the gold-pan. He 
 walked over and gravely kicked it, scattering the gold 
 over the landscape. " It ain t ourn," he said. " It 
 belongs to the geezer I backed up five hundred feet last 
 night. An what gets me is, four hundred and ninety 
 of them feet was to the good his good. Come on, 
 Smoke. Let s start the hike to Dawson. Though if 
 you re hankerin to kill me I won t lift a finger to pre 
 vent." 
 
IV 
 
 SHORTY DREAMS 
 
 ! T?UXNY you don t gamble none," Shorty said to 
 -F Smoke one night in the Elkhorn. " Ain t it in 
 your blood ? " 
 
 " It is," Smoke answered. " But the statistics are 
 in my head. I like an even break for my money." 
 
 All about them, in the huge barroom, arose the click 
 and rattle and rumble of a dozen games, at which fur- 
 clad, moccasined men tried their luck. Smoke waved 
 his hand to include them all. 
 
 " Look at them," he said. " It s cold mathematics 
 that they will lose more than they win to-night, that 
 the big proportion are losing right now." 
 
 " You re sure strong on riggers," Shorty murmured 
 admiringly. " An in the main you re right. But 
 they s such a thing as facts. An one fact is streaks 
 of luck. They s times when every geezer playin 
 wins, as I know, for I ve sat in such games an saw 
 more n one bank busted. The only way to win at 
 gamblin is, wait for a hunch that you ve got a lucky 
 streak comin and then play it to the roof." 
 
 " It sounds simple," Smoke criticised, " so simple I 
 can t see how men lose." 
 
 " The trouble is," Shorty admitted, " that most men 
 gets fooled on their hunches; On occasion I sure get 
 
 99 
 
ioo SMOKE BELLE W 
 
 fooled on mine. The thing is to try an find out." 
 
 Smoke shook his head. " That s a statistic, too, 
 Shorty. Most men prove wrong on their hunches." 
 
 " But don t you ever get one of them streaky feelin s 
 that all you got to do is put your money down an pick 
 a winner? " 
 
 Smoke laughed. " I m too scared of the percentage 
 against me. But I 11 tell you what, Shorty, I 11 throw 
 a dollar on the high card right now, and see if it will 
 buy us a drink." Smoke was edging his way in to the 
 faro-table when Shorty caught his arm. 
 
 " Hold on ! I m gettin one of them hunches now. 
 You put that dollar on roulette." 
 
 They went over to the roulette-table near the bar. 
 
 " Wait till I give the word," Shorty counseled. 
 
 "What number?" Smoke asked. 
 
 " Pick it yourself. But wait till I say let her go." 
 You don t mean to say I ve got an even chance on 
 that table ? " Smoke argued. 
 
 " As good as the next geezer s." 
 
 " But not as good as the bank s." 
 
 "Wait an see," Shorty urged. "Now! Let 
 her go!" 
 
 The game-keeper had just sent the little ivory ball 
 whirling around the smooth rim above the revolving, 
 many-slotted wheel. Smoke, at the lower end of the 
 table, reached over a player, and blindly tossed the 
 dollar. It slid along the smooth, green cloth and 
 stopped fairly in the center of " 34." 
 
 The ball came to a rest, and the game-keeper an 
 nounced, " Thirty-four wins ! " He swept the table, 
 
SHORTY "BREAMS * ibi 
 
 and alongside of Smoke s dollar stacked thirty-five dol 
 lars. Smoke drew the money in, and Shorty slapped 
 him on the shoulder. 
 
 " Now that was the real goods of a hunch, Smoke ! 
 H^pw d I know it? There s no tellin . I just knew 
 you d win. Why, if that dollar of yourn d fell on 
 any other number it d won just the same. When the 
 hunch is right, you just can t help winnin ." 
 
 "Suppose it had come double naught?" Smoke 
 queried, as they made their way to the bar. 
 
 " Then your dollar d been on double naught," was 
 Shorty s answer. " They s no gettin away from it. 
 A hunch is a hunch. Here s how. Come on back 
 to the table. I got a hunch, after pickin you for a 
 winner, that I can pick some few numbers myself." 
 
 " Are you playing a system? " Smoke asked, at the 
 end of ten minutes, when his partner had dropped a 
 hundred dollars. 
 
 Shorty shook his head indignantly, as he spread his 
 chips out in the vicinities of "3," " n," and " 17," 
 and tossed a spare chip on the green. " Hell is sure 
 cluttered with geezers that played systems," he ex- 
 posited, as the keeper raked the table. 
 
 From idly watching, Smoke became fascinated, fol 
 lowing closely every detail of the game from the 
 whirling of the ball to the making and the paying of 
 the bets. He made no plays, however, merely con 
 tenting himself with looking on. Yet so interested 
 was he that Shorty, announcing that he had had 
 enough, with difficulty drew Smoke away from the 
 table. 
 
102 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 The game-keeper returned Shorty the gold-sack he 
 had deposited as a credential for playing, and with it 
 went a slip of paper on which was scribbled, " Out 
 $350.00." Shorty carried the sack and the paper 
 across the room and handed them to the weigher, 
 who sat behind a large pair of gold-scales. Out of 
 Shorty s sack he weighed three hundred and fifty dol 
 lars, which he poured into the coffer of the house. 
 
 That hunch of yours was another one of those 
 statistics," Smoke jeered. 
 
 " I had to play it, did n t I, in order to find out? " 
 Shorty retorted. " I reckon I was crowdin some just 
 on account of tryin to convince you they s such a 
 thing as hunches." 
 
 " Never mind, Sliorty," Smoke laughed. " I Ve 
 got a hunch right now " 
 
 Shorty s eyes sparkled as he cried eagerly : " What 
 is it? Kick in an play it pronto." 
 
 " It s not that kind, Shorty. Now what I Ve got 
 is a hunch that some day I 11 work out a system that 
 will beat the spots off that table." 
 
 " System ! " Shorty groaned, then surveyed his 
 partner with a vast pity. " Smoke, listen to your side- 
 kicker an leave system alone. Systems is sure losers. 
 They ain t no hunches in systems." 
 
 " That s why I like them," Smoke answered. " A 
 system is statistical. When you get the right system 
 you can t lose and that s the difference between it 
 and a hunch. You never know when the right hunch 
 is going wrong." 
 
 " But I know a lot of systems that went wrong, an 
 
SHORTY DREAMS 103 
 
 I never seen a system win." Shorty paused and 
 sighed. " Look here, Smoke, if you re gettin cracked 
 on systems this ain t no place for you, an it s about 
 time we hit the trail again." 
 
 During the several following weeks, the two part 
 ners played at cross-purposes. Smoke was bent on 
 spending his time watching the roulette game in the 
 Elkhorn, while Shorty was equally bent on traveling 
 trail. At last Smoke put his foot down when a stam 
 pede was proposed for two hundred miles down the 
 Yukon. 
 
 " Look here, Shorty," he said, " I m not going. 
 That trip will take ten days, and before that time I 
 hope to have my system in proper working order. I 
 could almost win with it now. What are you drag 
 ging me around the country this way for, anyway? " 
 
 " Smoke, I got to take care of you," was Shorty s 
 reply. " You re gettin nutty. I d drag you stam- 
 pedin to Jericho or the north pole if I could keep you 
 away from that table." 
 
 " It s all right, Shorty. But just remember I Ve 
 reached full man-grown, meat-eating size. The only 
 dragging you 11 do will be dragging home the dust 
 I m going to win with that system of mine, and you 11 
 most likely have to do it with a dog-team." 
 
 Shorty s response was a groan. 
 
 " And I don t want you to be bucking any games 
 on your own," Smoke went on. " We re going to 
 divide the winnings, and I 11 need all our money to 
 get started. That system s young yet, and it s liable 
 to trip me for a few falls before I get it lined up," 
 
104 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 At last, after long hours and days spent at watch 
 ing the table, the night came when Smoke proclaimed 
 that he was ready, and Shorty, glum and pessimistic, 
 with all the seeming of one attending a funeral, ac 
 companied his partner to the Elkhorn. Smoke bought 
 a stack of chips and stationed himself at the game 
 keeper s end of the table. Again and again the ball 
 was whirled, and the other players won or lost, but 
 Smoke did not venture a chip. Shorty waxed im 
 patient. 
 
 * " Buck in, buck in," he urged. " Let s get this fu 
 neral over. What s the matter? Got cold feet?" 
 
 Smoke shook his head and waited. A dozen plays 
 went by, and then, suddenly, he placed ten one-dollar 
 chips on " 26." The number won, and the keeper 
 paid Smoke three hundred and fifty dollars. A dozen 
 plays went by, twenty plays, and thirty, when Smoke 
 placed ten dollars on " 32." Again he received three 
 hundred and fifty dollars. 
 
 " It s a hunch! " Shorty whispered vociferously in 
 his ear. "Ride it! Ride it!" 
 
 Half an hour went by, during which Smoke was 
 inactive, then he placed ten dollars on " 34 " and won. 
 
 " A hunch ! " Shorty whispered. 
 
 " Nothing of the sort," Smoke whispered back. 
 " It s the system. Is n t she a dandy? " 
 
 " You can t tell me," Shorty contended. " Hunches 
 comes in mighty funny ways. You might think 
 it s a system, but it ain t. Systems is impos 
 sible. They can t happen. It s a sure hunch you re 
 playin ." 
 
SHORTY DREAMS 105 
 
 Smoke now altered his play. He bet more fre 
 quently, with single chips, scattered here and there, 
 and he lost more often than he won. 
 
 "Quit it," Shorty advised. " Cash in. You ve 
 rung the bull s-eye three times, an you re ahead a 
 thousand. You can t keep it up." 
 
 At this moment the ball started whirling, and Smoke 
 dropped ten chips on " 26." The ball fell into the slot 
 of " 26," and the keeper again paid him three hundred 
 and fifty dollars. 
 
 "If you re plumb crazy an got the immortal cinch, 
 bet em the limit," Shorty said. " Put down twenty- 
 five next time." 
 
 A quarter of an hour passed, during which Smoke 
 won and lost on small scattering bets. Then, with the 
 abruptness that characterized his big betting, he placed 
 twenty-five dollars on " oo," and the keeper paid him 
 eight hundred and seventy-five dollars. 
 
 " Wake me up, Smoke, I m dreamin ," Shorty 
 moaned. 
 
 Smoke smiled, consulted his notebook, and became 
 absorbed in calculation. He continually drew the 
 notebook from his pocket, and from time to time jotted 
 down figures. 
 
 A crowd had packed densely around the table, while 
 the players themselves were attempting to cover the 
 same numbers he covered. It was then that a change 
 came over his play. Ten times in succession he placed 
 ten dollars on " 18" and lost. At this stage he was 
 deserted by the hardiest. He changed his number and 
 won another three hundred and fifty dollars. Immedi- 
 
io6 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 ately the players were back with him, deserting agaii* 
 after a series of losing bets. 
 
 " Quit it, Smoke, quit it," Shorty advised. " The 
 longest string of hunches is only so long, an your 
 string s finished. No more bull s-eyes for you." 
 
 " I m going to ring her once again before I cash 
 in," Smoke answered. 
 
 For a few minutes, with varying luck, he played 
 scattering chips over the table, and then dropped 
 twenty-five dollars on " oo." 
 
 " I 11 take my slip now," he said to the dealer, as 
 he won. 
 
 " Oh, you don t need to show it to me," Shorty said, 
 as they walked to the weigher. " I been keepin track. 
 You re something like thirty-six hundred to the good. 
 How near am I ? " 
 
 " Thirty-six sixty," Smoke replied. " And now 
 you ve got to pack the dust home. That was the 
 agreement." 
 
 " Don t crowd your luck," Shorty pleaded with 
 Smoke, the next night, in the cabin, as he evidenced 
 preparations to return to the Elkhorn. " You played 
 a mighty long string of hunches, but you played it out. 
 If you go back you 11 sure drop all your winnings." 
 
 " But I tell you it is n t hunches, Shorty. It s sta 
 tistics. It s a system. It can t lose." 
 
 " System the devil. They ain t no such a thing as 
 system. I made seventeen straight passes at a crap- 
 table once. Was it system ? Nope. It was fool luck, 
 only I had cold feet an did n t dast let it ride. If 
 it d rid, instead of me dra.\vin down after the third 
 
SHORTY DRE \MS 107 
 
 pass I d a won over thirty thousan on the original 
 two-bit piece." 
 
 " Just the same, Shorty, this is a real system." 
 
 " Huh! You got to show me." 
 
 " I did show you. Come on with me now, and I 11 
 show you again." 
 
 When they entered the Elkhorn all eyes centered on 
 Smoke, and those about the table made way for him 
 as he took up his old place at the keeper s end. His 
 play was quite unlike that of the previous night. In 
 the course of an hour and a half he made only four 
 bets, but each bet was for twenty-five dollars, and 
 each bet won. He cashed in thirty-five hundred dol 
 lars, and Shorty carried the dust home to the cabin. 
 
 " Now s the time to jump the game," Shorty ad 
 vised, as he sat on the edge of his bunk and took off 
 his moccasins. " You re seven thousan ahead. A 
 man s a fool that d crowd his luck harder." 
 
 " Shorty, a man would be a blithering lunatic if 
 he did n t keep on backing a winning system like mine." 
 
 " Smoke, you re a sure bright boy. You re col 
 lege-learnt. You know more n a minute than I could 
 know in forty thousan years. But just the same 
 you re dead wrong when you call your luck a system. 
 I ve been around some, an seen a few, an I tell you 
 straight an confidential an all-assurin , a system to 
 beat a bankin game ain t possible." 
 
 " But I m showing you this one. It s a pipe." 
 
 " No, you re not, Smoke. It s a pipe-dream. I m 
 asleep. Bimeby I 11 wake up, an build the fire, an 
 start breakfast." 
 
io8 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Well, my unbelieving friend, there s the dust. 
 Heft it." 
 
 So saying, Smoke tossed the bulging gold-sack upon 
 his partner s knees. It weighed thirty-five pounds, and 
 Shorty was fully aware of the crush of its impact 
 on his flesh. 
 
 " It s real," Smoke hammered his point home. 
 
 " Huh ! I ve saw some mighty real dreams in my 
 time. In a dream all things is possible. In real life 
 a system ain t possible. Now I ain t never been to 
 college, but I m plumb justified in sizin up this gam- 
 blin orgy of ourn as a sure-enough dream." 
 
 " Hamilton s Taw of Parsimony, " Smoke laughed. 
 
 " I ain t never heard of the geezer, but his dope s 
 sure right. I m dreamin , Smoke, an you re just 
 snoopin around in my dream an tormentin me with 
 system. If you love me, if you sure do love me, you 11 
 just yell: Shorty! Wake up! An I 11 wake up 
 an start breakfast." 
 
 The third night of play, as Smoke laid his first bet, 
 the game-keeper shoved fifteen dollars back to him. 
 
 " Ten s all you can play," he said. " The limit s 
 come down." 
 
 " Gettin picayune," Shorty sneered. 
 
 " No one has to play at this table that don t want 
 to," the keeper retorted. " And I m willing to say 
 straight out in meeting that we d sooner your pardner 
 did n t play at our table." 
 
 " Scared of his system, eh? " Shorty challenged, as 
 the keeper paid over three hundred and fifty dollars. 
 
 " I ain t saying I believe in system, because I don t. 
 
SHORTY DREAMS 109 
 
 There never was a system that d beat roulette or any 
 percentage game. But just the same I ve seen some 
 queer strings of luck, and I ain t going to let this bank 
 go bust if I can help it." 
 
 " Cold feet." 
 
 " Gambling is just as much business, my friend, as 
 any other business. We ain t philanthropists." 
 
 Night by night, Smoke continued to win. His 
 method of play varied. Expert after expert, in the 
 jam about the table, scribbled down his bets and num 
 bers in vain attempts to work out his system. They 
 complained of their inability to get a clue to start 
 with, and swore that it was pure luck, though the most 
 colossal streak of it they had ever seen. 
 
 It was Smoke s varied play that obfuscated them. 
 Sometimes, consulting his notebook or engaging in 
 long calculations, an hour elapsed without his staking 
 a chip. At other times he would win three limit-bets 
 and clean up a thousand dollars and odd, in five or ten 
 minutes. At still other times, his tactics would be to 
 scatter single chips prodigally and amazingly over the 
 table. This would continue for from ten to thirty 
 minutes of play, when, abruptly, as the ball whirled 
 through the last few of its circles, he would play the 
 limit on column, color, and number, and win all three. 
 Once, to complete confusion in the minds of those 
 that strove to divine his secret, he lost forty straight 
 bets, each at the limit. But each night, play no mat 
 ter how diversely, Shorty carried home thirty-five hun 
 dred dollars for him. 
 
 " It ain t no system," Shorty expounded at one of 
 
i io SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 their bed-going discussions. " I follow you, an fol 
 low you, but they ain t no figgerin out. You never 
 play twice the same . All you do is pick winners when 
 you want to, an when you don t want to you just on 
 purpose don t." 
 
 " Maybe you re nearer right than you think, Shorty. 
 I ve just got to pick losers sometimes. It s part of 
 the system." 
 
 " System the devil ! I ve talked with every gam 
 bler in town, an the last one is agreed they ain t 
 no such thing as system." 
 
 Yet I m showing them one all the time." 
 
 " Look here, Smoke." Shorty paused over the 
 candle, in the act of blowing it out. " I m real irri 
 tated. Maybe you think this is a candle. It ain t. 
 No, sir ! An this ain t me neither. I m out on trail 
 somewheres, in my blankets, lyin flat on my back with 
 my mouth open, an dreamin all this. And that 
 ain t you talkin , any more than this candle is a 
 candle." 
 
 " It s funny how I happen to be dreaming along 
 with you then," Smoke persisted. 
 
 " No, it ain t. You re part of my dream, that s 
 all. I ve hearn many a man talk in my dreams. I 
 want to tell you one thing, Smoke, I m gettin mangy 
 an mad. If this here dream keeps up much more I m 
 goin to bite my veins an howl." 
 
 On the sixth night of play at the Elkhorn, the limit 
 was reduced to five dollars. 
 
 " It s all right," Smoke assured the game-keeper. 
 " I want thirty-five hundred to-night, as usual, and 
 
SHORTY DREAMS in 
 
 you only compel me to play longer. I ve got to pick 
 twice as many winners, that s all." 
 
 " Why don t you buck somebody else s table? " the 
 keeper demanded wrathfully. 
 
 " Because I like this one." Smoke glanced over at 
 the roaring stove only a few feet away. " Besides, 
 there are no drafts here, and it is warm and comfor 
 table." 
 
 On the ninth night, \vhen Shorty had carried the 
 dust home, he had a fit. " I quit, Smoke, I quit," he 
 began. " I know when I got enough. I ain t 
 dreamin . I m wide awake. A system can t be, but 
 you got one just the same. There s nothin in the 
 rule o three. The almanac s clean out. The world s 
 gone smash. There s nothin regular an uniform no 
 more. The multiplication table s gone loco. Two is 
 eight, nine is eleven, and two-times-two is eight hun 
 dred an forty-six an an a half. Anything is 
 everything, an nothing s all, an twice all is cold- 
 cream, milk-shakes, an calico horses. You ve got a 
 system. Figgers beat the figgerin . What ain t is, 
 an what is n t has to be. The sun rises in the \vest, 
 the moon s a pay-streak, the stars is canned corn-beef, 
 scurvy s the blessin of God, him that dies kicks again, 
 rocks floats, water s gas, I ain t me, you re somebody 
 else, an mebbe we re twins if we ain t hashed-brown 
 potatoes fried in verdigris. Wake me up, somebody! 
 Oh, wake me up ! " 
 
 The next morning a visitor came to the cabin. 
 Smoke knew him, Harvey Moran, the owner of all 
 the games in the Tivoli. There was a note of appeal 
 
ii2 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 in his deep gruff voice as he plunged into his business. 
 
 " It s like this, Smoke," he began. " You Ve got 
 us all guessing. I m representing nine other game- 
 owners and myself from all the saloons in town. We 
 don t understand. We know that no system ever 
 worked against roulette. All the mathematic sharps 
 in the colleges have told us gamblers the same thing. 
 They say that roulette itself is the system, the one and 
 only system, and therefore that no system can beat 
 it, for that would mean arithmetic has gone bug 
 house." Shorty nodded his head violently. 
 
 " If a system can beat a system, then there s no such 
 thing as system," the gambler went on. " In such a 
 case anything could be possible a thing could be in 
 two different places at once, or two things could be in 
 the same place that s only large enough for one at 
 the same time." 
 
 " Well, you Ve seen me play," Smoke answered defi 
 antly; " and if you think it s only a string of luck on 
 my part, why worry? " 
 
 " That s the trouble. We can t help worrying. 
 It s a system you Ve got, and all the time we know 
 it can t be. I Ve watched you five nights now, and all 
 I can make out is that you favor certain numbers and 
 keep on winning. Now the ten of us game-owners 
 have got together, and we want to make a friendly 
 proposition. We 11 put a roulette-table in a back room 
 of the Elkhorn, pool the bank against you, and have 
 you buck us. It will be all quiet and private. Just 
 you and Shorty and us. What do you say? " 
 
 " I think it s the other way around," Smoke an- 
 
SHORTY DREAMS 113 
 
 swered. " It s up to you to come and see me. I 11 
 be playing in the barroom of the Elkhorn to-night. 
 You can watch me there just as well." 
 
 That night, when Smoke took up his customary 
 place at the table, the keeper shut down the game. 
 " The game s closed," he said. " Boss s orders." 
 
 But the assembled game-owners were not to be 
 balked. In a few minutes they arranged a pool, each 
 putting in a thousand, and took over the table. 
 
 " Come on and buck us," Harvey Moran challenged, 
 as the keeper sent the ball on its first whirl around. 
 
 " Give me the twenty-five limit? " Smoke suggested. 
 
 "Sure; go to it." 
 
 Smoke immediately placed twenty-five chips on 
 " oo " and won. 
 
 Moran wiped the sweat from his forehead. " Go 
 on," he said. " We got ten thousand in this bank." 
 
 At the end of an hour and a half, the ten thousand 
 was Smoke s. 
 
 " The bank s bust," the keeper announced. 
 
 " Got enough? " Smoke asked. 
 
 The game-owners looked at one another. They 
 were awed. They, the fatted proteges of the laws of 
 chance, were undone. They were up against one who 
 had more intimate access to those laws, or who had 
 invoked higher and undreamed laws. 
 
 " We quit," Moran said. " Ain t that right, 
 Burke?" 
 
 Big Burke, who owned the games in the M. and G. 
 Saloon, nodded. !< The impossible has happened," he 
 said. " This Smoke here has got a system all right. 
 
H4 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 If we let him go on we 11 all bust. All I can see, if 
 we re goin to keep our tables running, is to cut down 
 the limit to a dollar, or to ten cents, or a cent. He 
 won t win much in a night with such stakes." 
 
 All looked at Smoke. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " In that case, gentle 
 men, I 11 have to hire a gang of men to play at all your 
 tables. I can pay them ten dollars for a four-hour 
 shift and make money." 
 
 " Then we 11 shut down our tables," Big Burke re 
 plied. " Unless " He hesitated and ran his eye 
 over his fellows to see that they were with him. " Un 
 less you re willing to talk business. What will you 
 sell the system for?" 
 
 " Thirty thousand dollars," Smoke answered. 
 " That s a tax of three thousand apiece." 
 
 They debated and nodded. "And you ll tell us 
 your system ? " 
 
 " Surely." 
 
 " And you 11 promise not to play roulette in Daw- 
 son ever again? " 
 
 " No, sir," Smoke said positively. " I 11 promise 
 not to play this system again." 
 
 " My God ! " Moran exploded. " You have n t got 
 other systems, have you?" 
 
 " Hold on! " Shorty cried. " I want to talk to my 
 pardner. Come over here, Smoke, on the side." 
 
 Smoke followed into a quiet corner of the room, 
 while hundreds of curious eyes centered on him and 
 Shorty. 
 
 " Look here, Smoke," Shorty whispered hoarsely. 
 
SHORTY DREAMS 115 
 
 " Mebbe it ain t a dream. In which case you re sellin 
 out almighty cheap. You ve sure got the world by 
 the slack of its pants. They s millions in it. Shake 
 it! Shake it hard!" 
 
 " But if it s a dream? " Smoke queried softly. 
 
 " Then, for the sake of the dream an the love of 
 Mike, stick them gamblers up good an plenty. 
 What s the good of dreamin if you can t dream to 
 the real right, dead sure, eternal finish? " 
 
 " Fortunately, this is n t a dream, Shorty." 
 
 " Then if you sell out for thirty thousan , I 11 never 
 forgive you." 
 
 " When I sell out for thirty thousand, you 11 fall 
 on my neck an wake up to find out that you have n t 
 been dreaming at all. This is no dream, Shorty. In 
 about two minutes you 11 see you have been wide 
 awake all the time. Let me tell you that when I sell 
 out it s because I ve got to sell out." 
 
 Back at the table, Smoke informed the game-own 
 ers that his offer still held. They proffered him their 
 paper to the extent of three thousand each. 
 
 " Hold out for the dust," Shorty cautioned. 
 
 " I was about to intimate that I d take the money 
 weighed out," Smoke said. 
 
 The owner of the Elkhorn cashed their paper, and 
 Shorty took possession of the gold-dust. 
 
 " Now I don t want to wake up," he chortled, as he 
 hefted the various sacks. " Toted up, it s a seventy- 
 thousan dream. It d be too blamed expensive to 
 open my eyes, roll out of the blanket, an start break 
 fast." 
 
n6 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 "What s your system?" Big Burke demanded. 
 " We ve paid for it, and we want it." 
 
 Smoke led the way to the table. " Now, gentle 
 men, bear with me a moment. This is n t an ordinary 
 system. It can scarcely be called legitimate, but its 
 one great virtue is that it works. I ve got my sus 
 picions, but I m not saying anything. You watch. 
 Mr. Keeper, be ready with the ball. Wait. I am go 
 ing to pick 26. Consider I ve bet on it. Be ready, 
 Mr. Keeper. Now!" 
 
 The ball whirled around. 
 
 " You observe," Smoke went on, " that 9 was di 
 rectly opposite." 
 
 The ball finished in " 26." 
 
 Big Burke swore deep in his chest, and all waited. 
 
 " For oo to win, 1 1 must be opposite. Try it 
 yourself and see." 
 
 "But the system?" Moran demanded impatiently. 
 " We know you can pick winning numbers, and we 
 know what those numbers are, but how do you do it? " 
 
 " By observed sequences. By accident I chanced 
 twice to notice the ball whirled when 9 was opposite. 
 Both times 26 won. After that I saw it happen 
 again. Then I looked for other sequences, and found 
 them. Double naught opposite fetches 32, and 
 1 1 fetches oo. It does n t always happen, but it 
 usually happens. You notice, I say usually/ As I 
 said before, I have my suspicions, but I m not say 
 ing anything." 
 
 Big Burke, with a sudden flash of comprehension, 
 reached over, stopped the wheel, and examined it care- 
 
SHORTY DREAMS 117 
 
 fully. The heads of the nine other game-owners bent 
 over and joined in the examination. Then Big 
 Burke straightened up and cast a glance at the near-by 
 stove. 
 
 " Hell," he said. " It was n t any system at all 
 The table stood close to the fire, and the blamed 
 wheel s warped. And we ve been worked to a fraz 
 zle. No wonder he liked this table. He could n t 
 have bucked for sour apples at any other table." 
 
 Harvey Moran gave a great sigh of relief and wiped 
 his forehead. " Well, anyway," he said, " it s cheap 
 at the price just to find out that it was n t a system." 
 His face began to work, and then he broke into laugh 
 ter and slapped Smoke on the shoulder. " Smoke, 
 you had us going for a while, and we patting our 
 selves on the back because you were letting our tables 
 alone ! Say, I ve got some real fizz I 11 open if you 11 
 all come over to the Tivoli with me." 
 
 Later, back in the cabin, Shorty silently overhauled 
 and hefted the various bulging gold-sacks. He fi 
 nally piled them on the table, sat down on the edge 
 of his bunk, and began taking off his moccasins. 
 
 " Seventy thousan ," he calculated. " It weighs 
 three hundred and fifty pounds. And all out of a 
 warped wheel an a quick eye. Smoke, you eat m 
 raw, you eat m alive, you work under water, you ve 
 given me the jim-jams; but just the same I know it s 
 a dream. It s only in dreams that the good things 
 comes true. I m almighty unanxious to wake up. I 
 hope I never wake up." 
 
 " Cheer up," Smoke answered. " You won t 
 
uS SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 There are a lot of philosophy sharps that think men 
 are sleep-walkers. You re in good company." 
 
 Shorty got up, went to the table, selected the heavi 
 est sack, and cuddled it in his arms as if it were a baby. 
 " I may be sleep-walkin ," he said, " but, as you say, 
 I m sure in mighty good company." 
 
V 
 
 THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 
 
 TT was before Smoke Bellew staked the farcical 
 * town-site of Tra-Lee, made the historic corner of 
 eggs that nearly broke Swiftwater Bill s bank-account, 
 or won the dog-team race down the Yukon for an 
 even million dollars, that he and Shorty parted com 
 pany on the upper Klondike. Shorty s task was to re 
 turn down the Klondike to Dawson to record some 
 claims they had staked. 
 
 Smoke, with the dog-team, turned south. His 
 quest was Surprise Lake and the mythical Two Cabins. 
 His traverse was to cut the headwaters of the Indian 
 River and cross the unknown region over the moun 
 tains to the Stewart River. Here, somewhere, rumor 
 persisted, was Surprise Lake, surrounded by jagged 
 mountains and glaciers, its bottom paved with raw 
 gold. Old-timers, it was said, whose very names 
 were forgotten in the frosts of earlier years, had 
 dived into the icy waters of Surprise Lake and fetched 
 lump-gold to the surface in both hands. At different 
 times parties of old-timers had penetrated the forbid 
 ding fastness and sampled the lake s golden bottom. 
 But the water was too cold. Some died in the water, 
 being pulled up dead. Others died later of consump 
 tion. And one who had gone down never did come 
 
 119 
 
120 SMOKE BELLE W 
 
 up. All survivors had planned to return and drain 
 the lake, yet none had ever gone back. Disaster al 
 ways smote them. One man fell into an air-hole be 
 low Forty Mile; another was killed and eaten by his 
 dogs; a third was crushed by a falling tree. And so 
 the tale ran. Surprise Lake was a hoodoo ; its location 
 was unremembered ; and the gold still paved its un- 
 drained bottom. 
 
 Two Cabins, no less mythical, was more definitely 
 located. " Five sleeps " up the McQuestion River from 
 the Stewart stood two ancient cabins. So ancient were 
 they that they must have been built before ever the 
 first known gold-hunter had entered the Yukon Basin. 
 Wandering moose-hunters, whom even Smoke had met 
 and talked with, claimed to have found the two cabins 
 in the old days, but to have sought vainly for the 
 mine which those early adventurers must have worked. 
 
 " I wish you was goin with me," Shorty said wist 
 fully, at parting. :< Just because you got the Indian 
 bug ain t no reason for to go pokin into trouble. 
 They s no gettin away from it, that s loco country 
 you re bound for. The hoodoo s sure on it, from the 
 first flip to the last call, judgin from all you an me 
 has hearn tell about it." 
 
 " It s all right, Shorty," replied Smoke. " I 11 make 
 the round trip and be back in Dawson in six weeks. 
 The Yukon trail is packed, and the first hundred miles 
 or so of the Stewart ought to be packed. Old-timers 
 from Henderson have told me a number of outfits 
 went up last fall after the freeze-up. When I strike 
 their trail I ought to hit her up forty or fifty miles a 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 121 
 day. I m likely to be back inside a month, once I get 
 
 across." 
 
 :t Yep, once you get acrost. But it s the gettin 
 acrost that worries me. Well, so long, Smoke. Keep 
 your eyes open for that hoodoo, that s all. An don t 
 be ashamed to turn back if you don t kill any meat." 
 
 A week later, Smoke found himself among the jum 
 bled ranges south of Indian River. On the divide 
 from the Klondike he had abandoned the sled and 
 packed his wolf-dogs. The six big huskies each car 
 ried fifty pounds, and on his own back was an equal 
 burden. Through the soft snow he led the way, pack 
 ing it down under his snow-shoes, and behind, in single 
 file, toiled the dogs. 
 
 He loved the life, the deep arctic winter, the silent 
 wilderness, the unending snow-surface unpressed by 
 the foot of man. About him towered icy peaks un 
 named and uncharted. No hunter s camp-smoke, ris 
 ing in the still air of the valleys, ever caught his eye. 
 He, alone, moved through the brooding quiet of the 
 tintraveled wastes; nor was he oppressed by the soli 
 tude. He loved it all, the day s toil, the bickering 
 wolf-dogs, the making of the camp in the long twi 
 light, the leaping stars overhead, and the flaming pa 
 geant of the aurora borealis. 
 
 Especially he loved his camp at the end of day, and 
 in it he saw a picture which he ever yearned to paint 
 and which he knew he would never forget a beaten 
 place in the snow, where burned his fire; his bed a 
 couple of rabbit-skin robes spread on fresh-chopped 
 spruce-boughs; his shelter a stretched strip of canvas 
 
122 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 that caught and threw back the heat of the fire; the 
 blackened coffee-pot and pail resting on a length of 
 log, the moccasins propped on sticks to dry, the snow- 
 shoes up-ended in the snow; and across the fire the 
 wolf-dogs snuggling to it for the warmth, wistful and 
 eager, furry and frost-rimed, with bushy tails curled 
 protectingly over their feet ; and all about, pressed 
 backward but a space, the wall of encircling darkness. 
 
 At such times San Francisco, The Billow, and 
 O Hara seemed very far away, lost in a remote past, 
 shadows of dreams that had never happened. He 
 found it hard to believe that he had known any other 
 life than this of the wild, and harder still was it for 
 him to reconcile himself to the fact that he had once 
 dabbled and dawdled in the Bohemian drift of city 
 life. Alone, with no one to talk to, he thought much, 
 and deeply, and simply. He was appalled by the wast 
 age of his city years, by the cheapness, now, of the 
 philosophies of the schools and books, of the clever 
 cynicism of the studio and the editorial room, of the 
 cant of the business men in their clubs. They knew 
 neither food, nor sleep, nor health ; nor could they ever 
 possibly know the sting of real appetite, the goodly 
 ache of fatigue, nor the rush of mad strong blood that 
 bit like wine through all one s body as work was done. 
 
 And all the time this fine, wise, Spartan Northland 
 had been here, and he had never known. What puz 
 zled him was that, with such intrinsic fitness, he had 
 never heard the slightest calling whisper, had not him 
 self gone forth to seek. But this, too, he solved in 
 time. 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 123 
 
 " Look here, Yellow Face, I ve got it clear ! " 
 
 The dog addressed lifted first one forefoot and then 
 the other with quick, appeasing movements, curled his 
 bush of a tail about them again, and laughed across 
 the fire. 
 
 " Herbert Spencer was nearly forty before he caught 
 the vision o.f his greatest efficiency and desire. I m 
 none so slow. I did n t have to wait till I was thirty gf c*\ 
 to catch mine. Right here is my efficiency and desire. /V"K |f 
 Almost, Yellow Face, do I wish I had been born a J 
 wolf -boy and been brother all my days to you and 
 yours." 
 
 For days he wandered through a chaos of canyons 
 and divides which did not yield themselves to any ra 
 tional topographical plan. It was as if they had been 
 flung there by some cosmic joker. In vain he sought 
 for a creek or feeder that flowed truly south toward 
 the McOuestion and the Stewart. Then came a moun 
 tain storm that blew a blizzard across the riffraff of 
 high and shallow divides. Above timber-line, fireless, 
 for two days, he struggled blindly to find lower levels. 
 On the second day he came out upon the rim of an 
 enormous palisade. So thickly drove the snow that 
 he could not see the base of the wall, nor dared he at 
 tempt the descent. He rolled himself in his robes and 
 huddled the dogs about him in the depths^ of a snow 
 drift, but did not permit himself to sleep. 
 
 In the morning, the storm spent, he crawled out to 
 investigate. A quarter of a mile beneath him, beyond 
 all mistake, lay a frozen, snow-covered lake. About 
 it, on every side, rose jagged peaks. It answered the 
 
124 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 description. Blindly, he had found Surprise Lake. 
 
 " Well named," he muttered, an hour later, as he 
 came out upon its margin. A clump of aged spruce 
 was the only woods. In his way to it, he stumbled 
 upon three graves, snow-buried, but marked by hand- 
 hewn head-posts and undecipherable writing. On the 
 edge of the woods was a small ramshackle. cabin. He 
 pulled the latch and entered. In a corner, on what had 
 once been a bed of spruce-boughs, still wrapped in 
 mangy furs that had rotted to fragments, lay a skele 
 ton. The last visitor to Surprise Lake, was Smoke s 
 conclusion, as he picked up a lump of gold as large as 
 his doubled fist. Beside the lump was a pepper-can 
 filled with nuggets of the size of walnuts, rough-sur 
 faced, showing no signs of wash. 
 
 So true had the tale run that Smoke accepted with 
 out question that the source of the gold was the lake s 
 bottom. Under many feet of ice and inaccessible, 
 there was nothing to be done, and at midday, from 
 the rim of the palisade, he took a farewell look back 
 and down at his find. 
 
 "It s all right, Mr. Lake," he said. "You just 
 keep right on staying there. I m coming back to 
 drain you if that hoodoo does n t catch me. I don t 
 know how I got here, but I 11 know by the way I go 
 out." 
 
 In a little valley, beside a frozen stream and under 
 beneficent spruce-trees, he built a fire four days later. 
 Somewhere in that white anarchy he had left behind 
 him was Surprise Lake somewhere, he knew not 
 where; for a hundred hours of drifting and struggle 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 125 
 
 through blinding, driving snow had concealed his 
 course from him, and he knew not in what direction 
 lay behind. It was as if he had just emerged from a 
 nightmare. He was not sure whether four days or a 
 week had passed. He had slept with the dogs, fought 
 across a forgotten number of shallow divides, followed 
 the windings of weird canyons that ended in pockets, 
 and twice had managed to make a fire and thaw out 
 frozen moose-meat. And here he was, well fed and 
 well camped. The storm had passed, and it had turned 
 clear and cold. The lay of the land had again become 
 rational. The creek he was on was natural in appear 
 ance, and trended, as it should, toward the southwest. 
 But Surprise Lake was as lost to him as it had been to 
 all its seekers in the past. 
 
 Half a day s journey down the creek brought him 
 to the valley of a larger stream which he decided was 
 the McQuestion. Here he shot a moose, and once 
 again each wolf-dog carried a full fifty-pound pack of 
 meat. As he turned down the McQuestion, he came 
 upon a sled-trail. The late snows had drifted over, 
 but underneath it was well packed by travel. His con 
 clusion was that two camps had been established on 
 the McQuestion, and that this was the connecting trail. 
 Evidently, Two Cabins had been found, and it was the 
 lower camp, so he headed down the stream. 
 
 It was forty below zero when he camped that night, 
 and he fell asleep wondering who were the men who 
 had rediscovered the Two Cabins and if he would 
 fetch it next day. At the first hint of dawn he was 
 under way, easily following the half-obliterated trail 
 
126 SMOKE BRLLEW 
 
 and packing the recent snow with his webbed shoes so 
 that the dogs should not wallow. 
 
 And then it came, the unexpected, leaping out upon 
 him on a bend of the river. It seemed to him that 
 he heard and felt simultaneously. The crack of the 
 rifle came from the right, and the bullet, tearing 
 through and across the shoulders of his drill parka and 
 woolen coat, pivoted him half around with the shock 
 of its impact. He staggered on his twisted snow-shoes 
 to recover balance, and heard a second crack of the 
 rifle. This time it was a clean miss. He did not wait 
 for more, but plunged across the snow for the shelter 
 ing trees of the bank a hundred feet away. Again 
 and again the rifle cracked, and he was unpleasantly 
 aware of a trickle of warm moisture down his back. 
 
 He climbed the bank, the dogs floundering behind, 
 and dodged in among the trees and brush. Slipping 
 out of his snow-shoes, he wallowed forward at full 
 length and peered cautiously out. Nothing was to be 
 seen. Whoever had shot at him was lying quiet 
 among the trees of the opposite bank. 
 
 "If something does n t happen pretty soon/ he mut 
 tered at the end of half an hour, " I 11 have to sneak 
 away and build a fire or freeze my feet. Yellow 
 Face, what d you do, lying in the frost with circula 
 tion getting slack and a man trying to plug you? " 
 
 He crawled back a few yards, packed down the 
 snow, danced a jig that sent the blood back into his 
 feet, and managed to endure another half-hour. Then, 
 from down the river, he heard the unmistakable jingle 
 of dog-bells. Peering out, he saw a sled round the 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 127 
 
 bend. Only one man was with it, straining at the 
 gee-pole and urging the dogs along. The effect on 
 Smoke was one of shock, for it was the first human 
 he had seen since he parted from Shorty three weeks 
 before. His next thought was of the potential mur 
 derer concealed on the opposite bank. 
 
 Without exposing himself, Smoke whistled warn- 
 ingly. The man did not hear, and came on rapidly. 
 Again, and more sharply, Smoke whistled. The man 
 whoaed his dogs, stopped, and had turned and faced 
 Smoke when the rifle cracked. The instant afterward, 
 Smoke fired into the woods in the direction of the 
 sound. The man on the river had been struck by the 
 first shot. The shock of the high-velocity bullet stag 
 gered him. He stumbled awkwardly to the sled, half 
 falling, and pulled a rifle out from under the lashings. 
 As he strove to raise it to his shoulder, he crumpled at 
 the waist and sank down slowly to a sitting, posture on 
 the sled. Then, abruptly as the gun went off aimlessly, 
 he pitched backward and across a corner of the sled- 
 load, so that Smoke could see only his legs and stom 
 ach. 
 
 From below came more jingling bells. The man did 
 not move. Around the bend swung three sleds, ac 
 companied by half a dozen men. Smoke cried warn- 
 ingly, but they had seen the condition of the first sled, 
 and they dashed on to it. No shots came from the 
 other bank, and Smoke, calling his dogs to follow, 
 emerged into the open. There were exclamations from 
 the men, and two of them, flinging off the mittens of 
 their right hands, leveled their rifles at him. 
 
128 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Come on, you red-handed murderer, you," one of 
 them, a black-bearded man, commanded. " An jest 
 pitch that gun of yourn in the snow." 
 
 Smoke hesitated, then dropped his rifle and came 
 up to them. 
 
 " Go through him, Louis, an take his weapons," 
 the black-bearded man ordered. 
 
 Louis was a French-Canadian voyageur, Smoke de 
 cided, as were four of the others. His search re 
 vealed only Smoke s hunting-knife, which was appro 
 priated. 
 
 " Now what have you got to say for yourself, 
 stranger, before I shoot you dead? " the black-bearded 
 man demanded. 
 
 " That you re making a mistake if you think I 
 killed that man," Smoke answered. 
 
 A cry came from one of the voyageurs. He had 
 quested along the trail and found Smoke s tracks 
 where he had left it to take refuge on the bank. The 
 man explained the nature of his find. 
 
 " What d you kill Joe Kinade for? " he of the black 
 beard asked. 
 
 " I tell you I did n t," Smoke began. 
 
 " Aw, what s the good of talkin ? We got you red- 
 handed. Right up there s where you left the trail 
 when you heard him comin . You laid among the 
 trees an bushwhacked him. A short shot. You 
 could n t a missed. Pierre, go an get that gun he 
 dropped." 
 
 " You might let me tell what happened," Smoke ob 
 jected. 
 
The man on the river had been struck by the first shot. 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 131 
 
 " You shut up," the man snarled at him. " I 
 reckon your gun 11 tell the story." 
 
 All the men examined Smoke s rifle, ejecting and 
 counting the cartridges, and examining the barrel at 
 muzzle and breech. 
 
 " One shot," Blackbeard concluded. 
 
 Pierre, with nostrils that quivered and distended 
 like a deer s, sniffed at the breech. " Him one fresh 
 shot," he said. 
 
 " The bullet entered his back," Smoke said. " He 
 was facing me when he was shot. You see, it came 
 from the other bank." 
 
 Blackbeard considered this proposition for a scant 
 second, and shook his head. " Nope. It won t do. 
 Turn him around to face the other bank that s how 
 you whopped him in the back. Some of you boys run 
 up an down the trail, and see if you can see any 
 tracks making for the other bank." 
 
 Their report was that on that side the snow was 
 unbroken. Blackbeard, bending over the dead man, 
 straightened up with a wooly, furry wad in his hand. 
 Shredding this, he found imbedded in the center the 
 bullet which had perforated the body. Its nose was 
 spread to the size of a half-dollar, its butt-end, steel- 
 jacketed, was undamaged. He compared it with a 
 cartridge from Smoke s belt. 
 
 " That s plain enough evidence, stranger, to satisfy 
 a blind man. It s soft-nosed an steel- jacketed; 
 yourn is soft-nosed and steel- jacketed. It s a thirty- 
 thirty; yourn is thirty-thirty. It s manufactured by 
 the J. & T. Arms Company; yourn is manufactured 
 
1 32 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 by the J. & T. Arms Company. Now you come along, 
 an we 11 go over to the bank an see jest how you 
 done it." 
 
 " I was bushwhacked myself," Smoke said. " Look 
 at the hole in my parka." 
 
 While Blackbeard examined it, one of the voy- 
 ageurs threw open the breech of the dead man s gun. 
 It was patent to all that it had been fired once. The 
 empty cartridge w T as still in the chamber. 
 
 " A damn shame poor Joe did n t get you," Black- 
 beard said bitterly. " But he did pretty well with a 
 hole like that in him. Come on, you." 
 
 " Search the other bank first," Smoke urged. 
 
 " You shut up an come on, an let the facts do the 
 talkin ." 
 
 They left the trail at the same spot that he had, and 
 followed it up along the bank and then in among the 
 trees. 
 
 " Him dance that place keep him feet warm," Louis 
 pointed out. " That place him crawl on belly. That 
 place him put one elbow w en him shoot." 
 
 " And there s the empty cartridge he done it 
 with ! " was Blackbeard s discovery. " Boys, there s 
 only one thing to do." 
 
 " You might ask me how I came to fire that shot," 
 Smoke interrupted. 
 
 " An I might knock your teeth into your gullet if 
 you butt in again. You can answer them questions 
 later on. Now, boys, we re decent an law-abidin , 
 an we got to handle this right an regular. How far 
 do you reckon we ve come, Pierre? " 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 133 
 
 " Twenty mile, I t ink, for sure." 
 
 " All right. We 11 cache the outfit an run him an 
 poor Joe back to Two Cabins. I reckon we ve seen 
 an can testify to what 11 stretch his neck." 
 
 It was three hours after dark when the dead man, 
 Smoke, and his captors arrived at Two Cabins. By 
 the starlight Smoke could make out a dozen or more 
 recently built cabins snuggling about a larger and 
 older cabin on a flat by the river bank. Thrust in 
 side this older cabin, he found it tenanted by a young 
 giant of a man, his wife, and an old blind man. The 
 woman, whom her husband called " Lucy," was her 
 self a strapping creature of the frontier type. The 
 old man, as Smoke learned afterward, had been a trap 
 per on the Stewart for years, and had gone finally 
 blind the winter before. The camp of Two Cabins, 
 he was also to learn, had been made the previous fall 
 by a dozen men who arrived in half as many poling- 
 boats loaded with provisions. Here they had found 
 the blind trapper, on the site of Two Cabins, and about 
 his cabin they had built their own. Later arrivals, 
 mushing up the ice with dog-teams, had tripled the 
 population. There was plenty of meat in camp, and 
 good low T -pay dirt had been discovered and was being 
 worked. 
 
 In five minutes, all the men of Two Cabins were 
 jammed into the room. Smoke, shoved off into a cor 
 ner, ignored and scowled at, his hands and feet tied 
 with thongs of moose-hide, looked on. Thirty-eight 
 men he counted, a wild and husky crew, all frontiers 
 men of the States or voyageurs from upper Canada, 
 
134 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 His captors told the tale over and over, each the cen 
 ter of an excited and wrathful group. There were 
 mutterings of: "Lynch him now! Why wait?" 
 And, once, a big Irishman was restrained only by force 
 from rushing upon the helpless prisoner and giving 
 him a beating. 
 
 It was while counting the men that Smoke caught 
 sight of a familiar face. It was Breck, the man 
 whose boat Smoke had run through the rapids. He 
 wondered why the other did not come and speak to 
 him, but himself gave no sign of recognition. Later, 
 when with shielded face Breck passed him a wink, 
 Smoke understood. 
 
 Blackbeard, whom Smoke heard called Eli Harding, 
 ended the discussion as to whether or not the prisoner 
 should be immediately lynched. " Hold on ! " he 
 roared. " Keep your shirts on. That man belongs 
 to me. I caught him an I brought him here. D ye 
 think I brought him all the way here to be lynched? 
 Not on your life. I could a done that myself when I 
 found him. I brought him here for a fair an impar 
 tial trial, an by God, a fair an impartial trial he s 
 goin to get. He s tied up safe an sound. Chuck 
 him in a bunk till morning, an we 11 hold the trial 
 right here." 
 
 Smoke woke up. A draft that possessed all the 
 rigidity of an icicle was boring into the front of his 
 shoulders as he lay on his side facing the wall. When 
 he had been tied into the bunk there had been no such 
 draft, and now the outside air, driving into the heated 
 atmosphere of the cabin with the pressure of fifty be- 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 135 
 
 low zero, was sufficient advertisement that some one 
 from without had pulled away the moss-chinking be 
 tween the logs. He squirmed as far as his bonds 
 would permit, then craned his neck forward until his 
 lips just managed to reach the crack. 
 
 "Who is it?" he whispered. 
 
 " Breck," came the almost inaudible answer. " Be 
 careful you don t make a noise. I m going to pass a 
 knife in to you." 
 
 " No good," Smoke said. " I could n t use it. My 
 hands are tied behind me and made fast to the leg of 
 the bunk. Besides, you could n t get a knife through 
 that crack. But something must be done. Those 
 fellows are of a temper to hang me, and of course 
 you know I did n t kill that man." 
 
 " It was n t necessary to mention it, Smoke. And 
 if you did you had your reasons. Which is n t the 
 point at all. I want to get you out of this. It s a 
 tough bunch of men here. You ve seen them. 
 They re shut off from the world, and they make and 
 enforce their own law by miners meeting, you 
 know. They handled two men already both grub- 
 thieves. . One they hiked from camp without an ounce 
 of grub and no matches. He made about forty miles 
 and lasted a couple of days before he froze stiff. Two 
 weeks ago they hiked the second man. They gave 
 him his choice : no grub, or ten lashes for each day s 
 ration. He stood for forty lashes before he fainted. 
 And now they ve got you, and every last one is con 
 vinced you killed Kinade." 
 
 " The man who killed Kinade shot at me, too. His 
 
136 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 bullet broke the skin on my shoulder. Get them to 
 delay the trial till some one goes up and searches the 
 bank where the murderer hid." 
 
 " No use. They take the evidence of Harding and 
 the five Frenchmen with him. Besides, they have n t 
 had a hanging yet, and they re keen for it. You see, 
 things have been pretty monotonous. They have n t 
 located anything big, and they got tired of hunting 
 for Surprise Lake. They did some stampeding the 
 first part of the winter, but they ve got over that now. 
 Scurvy is beginning to show up among them, too, 
 and they re just ripe for excitement." 
 
 " And it looks like I 11 furnish it," was Smoke s 
 comment. " Say, Breck, how did you ever fall in 
 with such a God-forsaken bunch?" 
 
 " After I got the claims at Squaw Creek opened up 
 and some men to working, I came up here by way of 
 the Stewart, hunting for Two Cabins. They d 
 beaten me to it, so I ve been higher up the Stewart. 
 Just got back yesterday out of grub." 
 
 "Find anything?" 
 
 " Nothing much. But I think I ve got a hydraulic 
 proposition that 11 work big when the country s opened 
 up. It s that, or a gold-dredger." 
 
 " Hold on," Smoke interrupted. " Wait a minute. 
 Let me think." 
 
 He was very much aware of the snores of the 
 sleepers as he pursued the idea that had flashed into 
 his mind. 
 
 " Say, Breck, have they opened up the meat-packs 
 my dogs carried ? " he asked, 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 137 
 
 " A couple. I was watching. They put them in 
 Harding s cache." 
 
 " Did they find anything? " 
 
 " Meat." 
 
 " Good. You Ye got to get into the brown-canvas 
 pack that s patched with moose-hide. You 11 find 
 a few pounds of lumpy gold. You Ye never seen 
 gold like it in the country, nor has anybody else. 
 Here s what you Y T e got to do. Listen." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, fully instructed and com 
 plaining that his toes were freezing, Breck went away. 
 Smoke, his own nose and one cheek frosted by prox 
 imity to the chink, rubbed them against the blankets 
 for half an hour before the blaze and bite of the 
 returning blood assured him of the safety of his flesh. 
 
 " My mind s made up right now. There ain t no 
 doubt but what he killed Kinade. We heard the 
 whole thing last night. What s the good of goin 
 over it again? I vote guilty." 
 
 In such fashion Smoke s trial began. The speaker, 
 a loose- jointed, hard-rock man from Colorado, mani 
 fested irritation and disgust when Harding set his 
 suggestion aside, demanded the proceedings should 
 be regular, and nominated one Shunk Wilson for 
 judge and chairman of the meeting. The population 
 of Two Cabins constituted the jury, though, after 
 some discussion, the woman, Lucy, was denied the 
 right to vote on Smoke s guilt or innocence. 
 
 While this was going on, Smoke, jammed into a cor 
 ner on a bunk, overheard a whispered conversation 
 between Breck and a miner. 
 
138 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 "You havn t fifty pounds of flour you ll sell?" 
 Breck queried. 
 
 " You ain t got the dust to pay the price I m 
 askin ," was the reply. 
 
 " I 11 give you two hundred." 
 
 The man shook his head. 
 
 " Three hundred. Three fifty." 
 
 At four hundred, the man nodded, and said, " Come 
 on over to my cabin an weigh out the dust." 
 
 The two squeezed their way to the door and slipped 
 out. After a few minutes Breck returned alone. 
 
 Harding was testifying when Smoke saw the door 
 shoved open slightly, and in the crack appear the face 
 of the man who had sold the flour. He was grimac 
 ing and beckoning emphatically to some one inside, 
 who arose from near the stove and started to work 
 toward the door. 
 
 u Where are you goin , Sam?" Shunk Wilson de 
 manded. 
 
 " I 11 be back in a jiffy," Sam explained. " I jes 
 got to go." 
 
 Smoke was permitted to question the witnesses, and 
 he was in the middle of the cross-examination of 
 Harding when from without came the whining of 
 dogs in harness and the grind and churn of sled-run 
 ners. Somebody near the door peeped out. 
 
 " It s Sam an his pardner an a dog-team hell-bent 
 down the trail for Stewart River," the man reported. 
 
 Nobody spoke for a long half -minute, but men 
 glanced significantly at one another, and a general rest- 
 lesness pervaded the packed room. Out of the cor- 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 139 
 
 ner of his eye, Smoke caught a glimpse of Breck, 
 Lucy, and her husband whispering together. 
 
 " Come on, you/ Shunk Wilson said gruffly to 
 Smoke. " Cut this questionin short. We know what 
 you re tryin to prove that the other bank wa n t 
 searched. The witness admits it. We admit it. It 
 wa n t necessary. No tracks led to that bank. The 
 snow wa n t broke." 
 
 " There was a man on the other bank just the 
 same," Smoke insisted. 
 
 " That s too thin for skatin , young man. There 
 ain t many of us on the McQtiestion, an we got every 
 man accounted for." 
 
 " Who was the man you hiked out of camp two 
 weeks ago ? " Smoke asked. 
 
 " Alonzo Miramar. He was a Mexican. What s 
 that grub-thief got to do with it? " 
 
 " Nothing, except that you have n t accounted for 
 him, Mr. Judge." 
 
 " He went down river, not up." 
 
 " How do you know where he went?" 
 
 " Saw him start." 
 
 " And that s all you know of what became of him? " 
 
 " No, it ain t, young man. I know, we all know, 
 he had four days grub an no gun to shoot meat with. 
 If he did n t make the settlement on the Yukon he d 
 croaked long before this." 
 
 " I suppose you ve got all the guns in this part of 
 the country accounted for, too," Smoke observed 
 pointedly. 
 
 Shunk Wilson was angry. " You d think I was the 
 
140 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 prisoner the way you slam questions into me. Now 
 then, come on with the next witness. Where s French 
 Louis?" 
 
 While French Louis was shoving forward, Lucy 
 opened the door. 
 
 " Where you goin ? " Shunk Wilson shouted. 
 
 " I reckon I don t have to stay," she answered de 
 fiantly. " I ain t got no vote, an besides, my cabin s 
 so jammed up I can t breathe." 
 
 In a few minutes her husband followed. The closing 
 of the door was the first warning the judge received 
 of it. 
 
 [< Who was that? " he interrupted Pierre s narrative 
 to ask. 
 
 " Bill Peabody," somebody spoke up. " Said he 
 wanted to ask his wife something and was coming 
 right back." 
 
 Instead of Bill, it was Lucy who reentered, took 
 off her furs, and resumed her place by the stove. 
 
 " I reckon we don t need to hear the rest of the wit 
 nesses," was Shunk Wilson s decision, when Pierre 
 had finished. " We know they can only testify to the 
 same facts we ve already heard. Say, Sorensen, you 
 go an bring Bill Peabody back. We 11 be votin a 
 verdict pretty short. Now, stranger, you can get up 
 an say your say concernin what happened. In the 
 meantime, we 11 just be savin delay by passin around 
 the two rifles, the ammunition, an the bullet that done 
 thekillin ." 
 
 Midway in his story of how he had arrived in that 
 part of the country, and at the point in his narrative 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 141 
 
 where he described his own ambush and how he had 
 fled to the bank, Smoke was interrupted by the indig 
 nant Shunk Wilson. 
 
 Young man, what sense is there in you testifyin 
 that way? You re just takin up valuable time. Of 
 course you got the right to lie to save your neck, but 
 we ain t goin to stand for such foolishness. The 
 rifle, the ammunition, an the bullet that killed Joe 
 Kinade is against you. What s that ? Open the 
 door, somebody ! " 
 
 The frost rushed in, taking form and substance in 
 the heat of the room, while through the open door 
 came the whining of dogs that decreased rapidly with 
 distance. 
 
 " It s Sorensen an Peabody," some one cried, 
 " a-throwin the whip into the dawgs an headin down 
 river I " 
 
 "Now what the ?" Shunk Wjlson paused 
 with dropped jaw, and glared at Lucy. " I reckon 
 you can explain, Mrs. Peabody." 
 
 She tossed her head and compressed her lips, and 
 Shunk Wilson s wrathful and suspicious gaze passed 
 and rested on Breck. 
 
 " An I reckon that newcomer you ve been chin 
 ning with could explain if he had a mind to." 
 
 Breck, now very uncomfortable, found all eyes 
 centered on him. 
 
 " Sam was chewing the rag with him, too, before 
 he lit out," some one said. 
 
 " Look here, Mr. Breck," Shunk Wilson continued. 
 " You ve ben interruptin proceedings, and you got 
 
142 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 to explain the meanin of it. What was you chinnin 
 about ?" 
 
 Breck cleared his throat timidly and replied, " I 
 was just trying to buy some grub." 
 
 "What with?" 
 
 "Dust, of course." 
 
 " Where d you get it?" 
 
 Breck did not answer. 
 
 " He s been snoopin round up the Stewart," a man 
 volunteered. " I run across his camp a week ago 
 when I was huntin . An I want to tell you he was 
 almighty secretions about it." 
 
 " The dust did n t come from there," Breck said. 
 " That s only a low-grade hydraulic proposition." 
 
 " Bring your poke here an let s see your dust," 
 Wilson commanded. 
 
 " I tell you it did n t come from there." 
 
 " Let s see it, just the same." 
 
 Breck made as if to refuse, but all about him were 
 menacing faces. Reluctantly, he fumbled in his coat 
 pocket. In the act of drawing forth a pepper-can, it 
 rattled against what was evidently a hard object. 
 
 "Fetch it all out!" Shunk Wilson thundered. 
 
 And out came the big nugget, fist-size, yellow as no 
 gold any onlooker had ever seen. Shunk Wilson 
 gasped. Half a dozen, catching one glimpse, made 
 a break for the door. They reached it at the same 
 moment, and, with cursing and scuffling, jammed and 
 pivoted through. The judge emptied the contents of 
 the pepper-can on the table, and the sight of the rough 
 lump-gold sent half a dozen more toward the door. 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 143 
 
 " Where are you goin ? " Eli Harding asked, as 
 Shunk started to follow. 
 
 " For my dogs, of course." 
 
 " Ain t you goin to hang him ? " 
 
 " It d take too much time right now. He 11 keep 
 till we get back, so I reckon this court is adjourned. 
 This ain t no place for lingerinV 
 
 Harding hesitated. He glanced savagely at Smoke, 
 saw Pierre beckoning to Louis from the doorway, took 
 one last look at the lump-gold on the table, and de 
 cided. 
 
 " No use you tryin to get away," he flung back over 
 his shoulder. " Besides, I m goin to borrow your 
 dogs." 
 
 " What is it? another one of them blamed stam 
 pedes?" the old blind trapper asked in a queer and 
 petulant falsetto, as the cries of men and dogs and the 
 grind of the sleds swept the silence of the room. 
 
 " It sure is," Lucy answered. " An I never seen 
 gold like it. Feel that, ole man." 
 
 She put the big nugget in his hand. He was but 
 slightly interested. 
 
 " It was a good fur-country," he complained, " be 
 fore them danged miners come in an scared back the 
 game." 
 
 The door opened, and Breck entered. " Well," he 
 said, " we four are all that are left in camp. It s 
 forty miles to the Stewart by the cut-off I broke, and 
 the fastest of them can t make the round trip in less 
 than five or six days. But it s time you pulled out, 
 Smoke, just the same." 
 
144 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Breck drew his hunting-knife across the other s 
 bonds, and glanced at the woman. " I hope you don t 
 object?" he said, with significant politeness. 
 
 " Go on, an don t mind me," Lucy answered. " If 
 I ain t good enough to hang a man, I ain t good enough 
 to hold him." 
 
 Smoke stood up, rubbing his wrists where the 
 thongs had impeded the circulation. 
 
 " I ve got a pack all ready for you," Breck said. 
 " Ten days grub, blankets, matches, tobacco, an ax, 
 and a rifle." 
 
 " Go to it," Lucy encouraged. " Hit the high 
 places, stranger. Beat it as fast as God 11 let you." 
 
 " I m going to have a square meal before I start," 
 Smoke said. " And when I start it will be up the Mc- 
 Question, not down. I m going to search that other 
 bank for the man that really did the killing." 
 
 " If you 11 listen to me, you 11 head down for the 
 Stewart and the Yukon," Breck objected. " When 
 this gang gets back it 11 be seeing red." 
 
 Smoke laughed and shook his head. " I can t 
 jump this country, Breck. I ve got interests here. 
 I ve found Surprise Lake. That s where that gold 
 came from. Besides, they took my dogs, and I ve 
 got to wait to get them back. Also, I know what I m 
 about. There was a man hidden on that bank. He 
 came pretty close to emptying his magazine at me." 
 
 Half an hour afterward, with a big plate of moose- 
 steak before him and a big mug of coffee at his lips, 
 Smoke half started up from his seat. He had heard 
 the sounds first. Lucy threw open the door. 
 
THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK 145 
 
 " Hello, Spike ; hello, Methody," she greeted the 
 two frost-rimed men who were bending over the bur 
 den on their sled. 
 
 " We just come down from Upper Camp," one said, 
 as the pair staggered into the room with a fur- 
 wrapped object which they handled with exceeding 
 gentleness. " An this is what we found by the way. 
 He s all in, I guess." 
 
 " Put him in the rear bunk there," Lucy said. She 
 bent over and pulled back the furs, disclosing a face 
 composed principally of large, staring, black eyes and 
 of skin, dark and scabbed by repeated frost-bite, tightly 
 stretched across the bones. 
 
 "If it ain t Alonzo!" she cried. "You pore, 
 starved devil ! " 
 
 " That s the man on the other bank," Smoke said 
 in an undertone to Breck. 
 
 " We found it raidin a cache that Harding must 
 a made," one of the men was explaining. " He was 
 eatin raw flour an frozen bacon, an when we got 
 m he was cryin an squealin like a hawg. Look at 
 him ! He s all starved, an most of him frozen. 
 He 11 kick at any moment." 
 
 Half an hour later, when the furs had been drawn 
 over the face of the still form in the bunk, Smoke 
 turned to Lucy. " If you don t mind, Mrs. Peabody, 
 I 11 have another whack at that steak. Make it thick 
 and not so well done. I m a meat-eater, I am." 
 
VI 
 
 THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 
 
 TLJUH ! Get onto the glad rags ! " 
 * Shorty surveyed his partner with simulated dis 
 approval, and Smoke, vainly attempting to rub the 
 wrinkles out of the pair of trousers he had just put 
 on, was irritated. 
 
 " They sure fit you close for a second-hand buy," 
 Shorty went on. " What was the tax? " 
 
 " One hundred and fifty for the suit," Smoke an 
 swered. " The man was nearly my own size. I 
 thought it was remarkably reasonable. What are you 
 kicking about ? " 
 
 "Who? Me? Oh, nothin . I was just thinkin 
 it was goin some for a meat-eater that hit Dawson 
 in an ice- jam, with no grub, one suit of underclothes, 
 a pair of mangy moccasins, an overalls that looked 
 like they d been through the wreck of the Hesperus. 
 Pretty gay front, pardner. Say?" 
 
 " What do you want now? " Smoke demanded tes 
 tily. 
 
 "What s her name?" 
 
 " There is n t any her, my friend. I m to have 
 dinner at Colonel Bowie s, if you want to know. The 
 trouble with you, Shorty, is you re envious because 
 I m going into high society and you re not invited." 
 
 146 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 147 
 
 " Ain t you some late ? " Shorty queried. 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " For dinner. They 11 be eatin supper when you 
 get there." 
 
 Smoke was about to explain with crudely elaborate 
 sarcasm when he caught the twinkle in the other s 
 eye. He went on dressing, with fingers that had lost 
 their deftness, tying a Windsor tie in a bow-knot at 
 the throat of his soft cotton shirt. 
 
 " Wisht I had n t sent all my starched shirts to the 
 laundry," Shorty murmured sympathetically. " I 
 might a fitted you out." 
 
 By this time Smoke was straining at a pair of shoes. 
 The woolen socks were too thick to go into them. He 
 looked appealingly at Shorty, who shook his head. 
 
 " Nope. If I had thin ones I would n t lend em 
 to you. Back to the moccasins, pardner. You d 
 sure freeze your toes in skimpy-fangled gear like 
 that." 
 
 " I paid fifteen dollars for them, second hand," 
 Smoke lamented. 
 
 " I reckon they w r on t be a man not in moccasins." 
 
 " But there are to be women, Shorty. I m going 
 to sit down and eat with real live women Mrs. 
 Bowie, and several others, so the colonel told me." 
 
 :( Well, moccasins won t spoil their appetite none," 
 was Shorty s comment. " Wonder what the colonel 
 wants with you ? " 
 
 " I don t know, unless he s heard about my find 
 ing Surprise Lake. It will take a fortune to drain it, 
 and the Gnggenheims are out for investment." 
 
148 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Reckon that s it. That s right, stick to the moc 
 casins. Gee! That coat is sure wrinkled, an it fits 
 you a mite too swift. Just peck around at your vit- 
 tles. If you eat hearty you 11 bust through. An if 
 them women folks gets to droppin handkerchiefs, just 
 let em lay. Don t do any pickin up. Whatever you 
 do, don t." 
 
 As became a high-salaried expert and the repre 
 sentative of the great house of Guggenheim, Colonel 
 Bowie lived in one of the most magnificent cabins in 
 Dawson. And there Smoke met the social elect of 
 Dawson not the mere pick-handle millionaires, but 
 the ultra-cream of a mining city whose population 
 had been recruited from all the world men like 
 Warburton Jones, the explorer and writer; Captain 
 Consadine, of the Mounted Police; Haskell, gold com 
 missioner of the Northwest Territory; and Baron Von 
 Schroeder, an emperor s favorite with an international 
 dueling reputation. And here, dazzling in evening 
 gown, he met Joy Gastell, whom hitherto he had en 
 countered only on trail, befurred and moccasined. At 
 dinner he found himself beside her. 
 
 " I feel like a fish out of water," he confessed. 
 " All you folks are so real grand, you know. Be 
 sides, I never dreamed such Oriental luxury existed 
 in the Klondike. Look at Von Schroeder there. 
 He s actually got a dinner-jacket, and Consadine s 
 got a starched shirt. I noticed he wore moccasins 
 just the same. How do you like my outfit?" He 
 moved his shoulders about as if preening himself for 
 Joy s approval. 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 149 
 
 " It looks as if you d grown stout since you came 
 over the pass," she laughed. 
 
 " Wrong. Guess again." 
 
 " It s somebody else s." 
 
 You win. I bought it for a price from one of 
 the clerks at the A. C. Company." 
 
 " It s a shame clerks are so narrow-shouldered," 
 she sympathized. " And you have n t told me what 
 you think of my outfit." 
 
 " I can t," he said. " I m out of breath. I ve 
 been living on trail too long. This sort of thing comes 
 to me with a shock, you know. I d quite forgotten 
 that women have arms and shoulders. To-morrow 
 morning, like my friend Shorty, I 11 wake up and 
 know it s all a dream. Now the last time I saw you 
 on Squaw Creek " 
 
 " I was just a squaw," she broke in. 
 
 " I had n t intended to say that. I \vas remember 
 ing that it was on Squaw Creek that I discovered you 
 had feet." 
 
 " And I can never forget that you saved them for 
 me," she said. " I Ve been wanting to see you ever 
 since, to thank you." He shrugged his shoulders 
 deprecatingly. " And that s why you are here to 
 night." 
 
 You asked the colonel to invite me ? " 
 " No ; Mrs. Bowie. And I asked her to let me have 
 you at table. And here s my chance. Everybody s 
 talking. Listen. You know Mono Creek?" 
 " Yes." 
 " It has turned out rich, dreadfully rich. They es- 
 
ISO SMOKE BELLE W 
 
 timated the claims as worth a million and more 
 apiece. It was only located the other day." 
 
 " I remember the stampede." 
 
 " Well, the whole creek was staked to the sky-line, 
 and all the feeders, too. And yet, right now, on the 
 main creek, Number Three below Discovery is unre 
 corded. The creek was so far away from Dawson 
 that the commissioner allowed sixty days for record 
 ing after location. Every claim was recorded except 
 Number Three below. It was staked by Cyrus John 
 son. And that was all. Cyrus Johnson has disap 
 peared, and in six days the time for recording will be 
 up. Then the man who stakes it, and reaches Daw- 
 son first and records it, gets it." 
 
 " A million dollars," Smoke murmured. 
 
 " Gilchrist, who has the next claim below, has got 
 six hundred dollars in a single pan of bedrock. He s 
 burned one hole do\vn. And the claim on the other 
 side is even richer. I know." 
 
 "But why doesn t everybody know?" Smoke 
 queried skeptically. 
 
 " They re beginning to know. They kept it secret 
 for a long time, and it is only now that it s coming out. 
 Good dog-teams will be at a premium in another 
 twenty- four hours. Now you ve got to get away as 
 decently as you can as soon as dinner is over. I ve 
 arranged it. An Indian will come with a message 
 for you. You read it, let on that you re very much 
 put out, make your excuses, and get away." 
 
 "I er I fail to follow." 
 
 "Ninny!" she exclaimed in a half-whisper. 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 151 
 
 " What you must do is to get out to-night and hustle 
 dog-teams. I know of two. There s Hanson s 
 team, seven big Hudson Bay dogs he s holding 
 them at four hundred each. That s top price to 
 night, but it won t be to-morrow. And Sitka Charley 
 has eight Malemutes he s asking thirty-five hundred 
 for. To-morrow he 11 laugh at an offer of five thou 
 sand. Then you ve got your own team of dogs. 
 And you 11 have to buy several more teams. That s 
 your work to-night. Get the best. It s dogs as well 
 as men that will win this race. It s a hundred and 
 ten miles, and you 11 have to relay as frequently as 
 you can." 
 
 " Oh, I see, you want me to go in for it," Smoke 
 drawled. 
 
 " If you have n t the money for the dogs, I 11 " 
 She faltered, but before she could continue, Smoke was 
 speaking. 
 
 " I can buy the dogs. But are n t you afraid this 
 is gambling? " 
 
 " After your exploits at roulette in the Elkhorn," 
 she retorted, " I m not afraid that you re afraid. It s 
 a sporting proposition, if that s what you mean. A 
 race for a million and with some of the stiff est dog- 
 mushers and travelers in the country entered against 
 you. They have n t entered yet, but by this time to 
 morrow they will, and dogs will be worth what the 
 richest man can afford to pay. Big Olaf is in town. 
 He came up from Circle City last month. He is one 
 of the most terrible dog-mushers in the country, and 
 if he enters he will be your most dangerous man. 
 
152 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Arizona Bill is another. He s been a professional 
 freighter and mail-carrier for years. If he goes in, 
 interest will be centered on him and Big Olaf." 
 
 " And you intend me to come along as a sort of dark 
 horse?" 
 
 " Exactly. And it will have its advantages. You 
 will not be supposed to stand a show. After all, you 
 know, you are still classed as a chekako. You have n t 
 seen the four seasons go around. Nobody will take 
 notice of you until you come into the home stretch 
 in the lead." 
 
 " It s on the home stretch the dark horse is to show 
 up its classy form, eh ? " 
 
 She nodded, and continued earnestly: " Remember, 
 I shall never forgive myself for the trick I played on 
 the Squaw Creek stampede unless you win this Mono 
 claim. And if any man can win this race against the 
 old-timers, it s you." 
 
 It was the way she said it. He felt warm all over, 
 and in his heart and head. He gave her a quick, 
 searching look, involuntary and serious, and for the 
 moment that her eyes met his steadily ere they fell, 
 it seemed to him that he read something of vaster im 
 port than the claim Cyrus Johnson had failed to 
 record. 
 
 " I 11 do it," he said, " I 11 win it." 
 
 The glad light in her eyes seemed to promise a 
 greater meed than all the gold in the Mono claim. He 
 was aware of a movement of her hand in her lap. 
 Under the screen of the table-cloth he thrust his own 
 hand across and met a firm grip of woman s fingers 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 153 
 
 that sent another wave of warmth through him. 
 
 "What will Shorty say?" was the thought that 
 flashed whimsically through his mind as he withdrew 
 his hand. He glanced almost jealously at the faces 
 of Von Schroeder and Jones, and wondered if they 
 had not divined the remarkableness and deliciousness 
 of this woman who sat beside him. 
 
 He was aroused by her voice, and realized that she 
 had been speaking for some moments. 
 
 " So, you see, Arizona Bill is a white Indian," she 
 was saying. " And Big Olaf is a bear-wrestler, a 
 king of the snows, a mighty savage. He can out- 
 travel and out-endure an Indian, and he s never 
 known any other life than that of the wild and the 
 frost." 
 
 " Who s that?" Captain Consadine broke in from 
 across the table. 
 
 " Big Olaf," she answered. " I was just telling 
 Mr. Bellew what a traveler he is." 
 
 " You re right," the captain s voice boomed. 
 " Big Olaf is the greatest traveler in the Yukon. I d 
 back him against Old Nick himself for snow-bucking 
 and ice-travel. He brought in the government des 
 patches in 1895, and he did it after two couriers were 
 frozen on Chilkoot and the third drowned in the open 
 water of Thirty Mile." 
 
 Smoke had traveled in a leisurely fashion up to 
 Mono Creek, fearing to tire his dogs before the big 
 race. Also, he had familiarized himself with every 
 mile of the trail and located his relay camps. So 
 many men had entered the race that the hundred and 
 
154 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 ten miles of its course were almost a continuous vil 
 lage. Relay camps were everywhere along the trail. 
 Von Schroeder, who had gone in purely for the sport, 
 had no less than eleven dog-teams a fresh one for 
 every ten miles. Arizona Bill had been forced to con 
 tent himself with eight teams. Big Olaf had seven, 
 which was the complement of Smoke. In addition, 
 over two score of other men were in the running. 
 Not every day, even in the golden north, was a million 
 dollars the prize for a dog-race. The country had 
 been swept of dogs, and their prices had doubled and 
 quadrupled in the course of the frantic speculation. 
 
 Number Three below Discovery was ten miles up 
 Mono Creek from its mouth. The remaining hun 
 dred miles was to be run on the frozen breast of the 
 Yukon. On Number Three itself were fifty tents and 
 over three hundred dogs. The old stakes, blazed and 
 scrawled sixty days before by Cyrus Johnson, still 
 stood, and every man had gone over the boundaries 
 of the claim again and again, for the race with the 
 dogs was to be preceded by a foot and obstacle race. 
 Each man had to relocate the claim for himself, and 
 this meant that he must place two center-stakes and 
 four corner-stakes and cross the creek twice, before 
 he could start for Dawson with his dogs. 
 
 Furthermore, there were to be no " sooners." Not 
 until the stroke of midnight of Friday night was the 
 claim open for relocation, and not until the stroke of 
 midnight could a man plant a stake. This was the 
 ruling of the gold commissioner at Dawson, and Cap 
 tain Consadine had sent up a squad of mounted police 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 155 
 
 to enforce it. Discussion had arisen about the dif 
 ference between sun-time and police-time, but Con- 
 sadine had sent forth his fiat that police-time went, 
 and, further, that it was the watch of Lieutenant Pol 
 lock that went. 
 
 The Mono trail ran along the level creek-bed, and, 
 less than two feet in width, was like a groove, walled 
 on either side by the snowfall of months. The prob 
 lem of how forty-odd sleds and three hundred dogs 
 were to start in so narrow a course was in every 
 body s mind. 
 
 " Huh ! " said Shorty. " It s goin to be the gosh- 
 dangdest mix-up that ever was. I can t see no way out, 
 Smoke, except main strength an sweat an to plow 
 through. If the whole creek was glare-ice they ain t 
 room for a dozen teams abreast. I got a hunch right 
 now they s goin to be a heap of scrappin before they 
 get strung out. An if any of it comes our way, 
 you got to let me do the punchin ." 
 
 Smoke squared his shoulders and laughed non-com- 
 mittally. 
 
 "No, you don t!" his partner cried in alarm. 
 " No matter what happens, you don t dast hit. You 
 can t handle dogs a hundred miles with a busted 
 knuckle, an that s what 11 happen if you land on 
 somebody s jaw." 
 
 Smoke nodded his head. " You re right, Shorty. 
 I could n t risk the chance." 
 
 " An just remember," Shorty went on, " that I got 
 to do all the shovin for them first ten miles, an you 
 got to take it easy as you can. I 11 sure jerk you 
 
156 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 through to the Yukon. After that it s up to you an 
 the dogs. Say, what d ye think Schroeder s scheme 
 is? He s got his first team a quarter of a mile down 
 the creek, an he 11 know it by a green lantern. But 
 we got him skinned. Me for the red flare every 
 time." 
 
 The day had been clear and cold, but a blanket of 
 cloud formed across the face of the sky, and the 
 night came on warm and dark, with the hint of snow 
 impending. The thermometer registered fifteen be 
 low zero, and in the Klondike winter fifteen below is 
 esteemed very warm. 
 
 At a few minutes before midnight, leaving 
 Shorty with the dogs five hundred yards down the 
 creek, Smoke joined the racers on Number Three. 
 There were forty-five of them waiting the start for 
 the thousand thousand dollars Cyrus Johnson had left 
 lying in the frozen gravel. Each man carried six 
 stakes and a heavy wooden mallet, and was clad in 
 a smock-like parka of heavy cotton drill. 
 
 Lieutenant Pollock, in a big bearskin coat, looked 
 at his watch by the light of a fire. It lacked a minute 
 of midnight. " Make ready," he said, as he raised 
 a revolver in his right hand and watched the second 
 hand tick around. 
 
 Forty-five hoods were thrown back from the parkas, 
 forty-five pairs of hands were unmittened, and forty- 
 five pairs of moccasins pressed tensely into the 
 packed snow. Also, forty-five stakes were thrust in 
 to the snow, and the same number of mallets lifted in 
 the air. 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 157 
 
 The shot rang out, and the mallets fell. Cyrus 
 Johnson s right to the million had expired. 
 
 Smoke drove in his stake and was away with the 
 leading dozen. Fires had been lighted at the corners, 
 and by each fire stood a policeman, list in hand, check 
 ing off the names of the runners. A man was sup 
 posed to call out his name and show his face. There 
 was to be no staking by proxy while the real racer 
 was off and away down the creek. 
 
 At the first corner, beside Smoke s stake, Von 
 Schroeder placed his. The mallets struck at the same 
 instant. As they hammered, more arrived from be 
 hind and with such impetuosity as to get in one 
 another s way and cause jostling and shoving. 
 Squirming through the press and calling his name to 
 the policeman, Smoke saw the baron, struck in colli 
 sion by one of the rushers, hurled clean off his feet 
 into the snow. But Smoke did not wait. Others 
 were still ahead of him. By the light of the vanish 
 ing fire, he was certain that he saw the back, hugely 
 looming, of Big Olaf, and at the southwestern cor 
 ner Big Olaf and he drove their stakes side by side. 
 
 It was no light work, this preliminary obstacle race. 
 The boundaries of the claim totaled nearly a mile, 
 and most of it was over the uneven surface of a snow- 
 covered, niggerhead flat. All about Smoke men 
 tripped and fell, and several times he pitched forward 
 himself, jarringly, on hands and knees. Once, Big 
 Olaf fell so immediately in front of him as to bring 
 him down on top. 
 
 The upper center-stake was driven by the edge of 
 
158 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 the bank, and down the bank the racers plunged, 
 across the frozen creek-bed, and up the other side. 
 Here, as Smoke clambered, a hand gripped his ankle 
 and jerked him back. In the flickering light of a 
 distant fire, it was impossible to see who had played 
 the trick. But Arizona Bill, who had been treated 
 similarly, rose to his feet and drove his fist with a 
 crunch into the offender s face, Smoke saw and 
 heard as he was scrambling to his feet, but before he 
 could make another lunge for the bank a fist dropped 
 him half stunned into the snow. He staggered up, 
 located the man, half swung a hook for his jaw, then 
 remembered Shorty s warning and refrained. The 
 next moment, struck below the knees by a hurtling 
 body, he went down again. 
 
 It was a foretaste of what would happen when the 
 men reached their sleds. Men were pouring over the 
 other bank and piling into the jam. They swarmed 
 up the bank in bunches, and in bunches were dragged 
 back by their impatient fellows. More blows were 
 struck, curses rose from the panting chests of those 
 who still had wind to spare, and Smoke, curiously 
 visioning the face of Joy Gastell, hoped that the mal 
 lets would not be brought into play. Overthrown, 
 trod upon, groping in the snow for his lost stakes, 
 he at last crawled out of the crush and attacked the 
 bank farther along. Others were doing this, and 
 it was his luck to have many men in advance of him 
 in the race for the northwestern corner. 
 
 Reaching the fourth corner, he tripped headlong, 
 and in the sprawling fall lost his remaining stake. 
 
J THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 159 
 
 For five minutes he groped in the darkness before he 
 found it, and all the time the panting runners were 
 passing him. From the last corner to the creek he 
 began overtaking men for whom the mile run had 
 been too much. In the creek itself bedlam had broken 
 loose. A dozen sleds were piled up and overturned, 
 and nearly a hundred dogs were locked in combat. 
 Among them men struggled, tearing the tangled ani 
 mals apart, or beating them apart with clubs. 
 
 Leaping down the bank beyond the glutted pas 
 sage, he gained the hard-footing of the sled-trail and 
 made better time. Here, in packed harbors beside 
 the narrow trail, sleds and men waited for runners 
 that were still behind. From the rear came the whine 
 and rush of dogs, and Smoke had barely time to leap 
 aside into the deep snow. A sled tore past, and he 
 made out the man kneeling and shouting madly. 
 Scarcely was it by when it stopped with a crash of 
 battle. The excited dogs of a harbored sled, resent 
 ing the passing animals, had got out of hand and 
 sprung upon them. 
 
 Smoke plunged around and by. He could see the 
 green lantern of Von Schroeder and, just below it, 
 the red flare that marked his own team. Two men 
 were guarding Von Schroeder s dogs, with short clubs 
 interposed between them and the trail. 
 
 " Come on, you Smoke ! Come on, you Smoke ! " 
 he could hear Shorty calling anxiously. 
 
 " Coming! " he gasped. 
 
 By the red flare, he could see the snow torn up and 
 trampled, and from the way his partner breathed he 
 
160 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 knew a battle had been fought. He staggered to the 
 sled, and, in the moment he was falling on it, Shorty s 
 whip snapped as he yelled: 
 
 " Mush ! you devils ! Mush ! " 
 
 The dogs sprang into the breast-bands, and the sled 
 jerked abruptly ahead. They were big animals 
 Hanson s prize team of Hudson Bays and Smoke 
 had selected them for the first stage, which included 
 the ten miles of Mono, the heavy going of the cut-off 
 across the flat at the mouth, and the first ten miles 
 of the Yukon stretch. 
 
 " How many are ahead ? " he asked. 
 
 You shut up an save your wind," Shorty an 
 swered. " Hi ! you brutes ! Hit her up ! Hit her 
 up!" 
 
 He was running behind the sled, towing on a short 
 rope. Smoke could not see him; nor could he see 
 the sled on which he lay full length. The fires had 
 been left in the rear, and they were tearing through a 
 wall of blackness as fast as the dogs could spring 
 into it. This blackness was almost sticky, so nearly 
 did it take on the seeming of substance. 
 
 Smoke felt the sled heel up on one runner as it 
 rounded an invisible curve, and from ahead came the 
 snarls of beasts and the oaths of men. This was 
 known afterward as the Barnes-Slocum jam. It was 
 the teams of those two men which first collided, and 
 into it, at full career, piled Smoke s seven big fighters, 
 Scarcely more than semi-domesticated wolves, the ex 
 citement of that night on Mono Creek had sent every 
 dog fighting mad. The Klondike dogs, driven with- 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 161 
 
 out reins, cannot be stopped except by voice, so that 
 there was no stopping this glut of struggle that heaped 
 itself between the narrow rims of the creek. From 
 behind, sled after sled hurled into the turmoil. Men 
 who had their teams nearly extricated were over 
 whelmed by fresh avalanches of dogs each animal 
 well fed, well rested, and ripe for battle. 
 
 " It s knock down an drag out an plow through ! " 
 Shorty yelled in his partner s ear. " An watch out 
 for your knuckles ! You drag dogs out an let me do 
 the punchin ! " 
 
 What happened in the next half-hour Smoke never 
 distinctly remembered. At the end he emerged ex 
 hausted, sobbing for breath, his jaw sore from a fist- 
 blow, his shoulder aching from the bruise of a club, 
 the blood running warmly down one leg from the rip 
 of a dog s fangs, and both sleeves of his parka torn 
 to shreds. As in a dream, while the battle still raged 
 behind, he helped Shorty reharness the dogs. One, 
 dying, they cut from the traces, and in the dark 
 ness they felt their way to the repair of the disrupted 
 harness. 
 
 " Now you lie down an get your wind back," 
 Shorty commanded. 
 
 And through the darkness the dogs sped, with un 
 abated strength, down Mono Creek, across the long 
 cut-off, and to the Yukon. Here, at the junction with 
 the main river-trail, somebody had lighted a fire, and 
 here Shorty said good-by. By the light of the fire, 
 as the sled leaped behind the flying dogs, Smoke 
 caught another of the unforgettable pictures of the 
 
162 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Northland. It was of Shorty, swaying and sinking 
 down limply in the snow, yelling his parting encour 
 agement, one eye blackened and closed, knuckles 
 bruised and broken, and one arm, ripped and fang- 
 torn, gushing forth a steady stream of blood. 
 
 " How many ahead ? " Smoke asked, as he dropped 
 his tired Hudson Bays and sprang upon the waiting 
 sled at the first relay-station. 
 
 " I counted eleven," the man called after him, for 
 he was already away, behind the leaping dogs. 
 
 Fifteen miles they were to carry him on the next 
 stage, which would fetch him to the mouth of White 
 River. There were nine of them, but they composed 
 his weakest team. The twenty-five miles between 
 White River and Sixty Mile he had broken into two 
 stages because of ice- jams?, and here two of his heavi 
 est, toughest teams were stationed. 
 
 He lay on the sled at full length, face down, hold 
 ing on with both hands. Whenever the dogs slacked 
 from topmost speed he rose to his knees, and, yelling 
 and urging, clinging precariously with one hand, 
 threw his whip into them. Poor team that it was, 
 he passed two sleds before White River was reached. 
 Here, at the freeze-up, a jam had piled a barrier, al 
 lowing the open water that formed for half a mile 
 below to freeze smoothly. This smooth stretch en 
 abled the racers to make flying exchanges of sleds, 
 and down all the course they had placed their relays 
 below the jams. 
 
 Over the jam and out onto the smooth, Smoke tore 
 along, calling loudly, " Billy! Billy! " 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 163 
 
 Billy heard and answered, and by the light of the 
 many fires on the ice, Smoke saw a sled swing in 
 from the side and come abreast. Its dogs were fresh 
 and overhauled his. As the sleds swerved toward 
 each other he leaped across, and Billy promptly rolled 
 off. 
 
 " Where s Big Olaf ? " Smoke cried. 
 
 "Leading!" Billy s voice answered; and the fires 
 were left behind, and Smoke was again flying through 
 the wall of blackness. 
 
 In the jams of that relay, where the way led across 
 a chaos of up-ended ice-cakes, and w r here Smoke 
 slipped off the forward end of the sled and with a 
 haul-rope toiled behind the wheel-dog, he passed 
 three sleds. Accidents had happened, and he could 
 hear the men cutting out dogs and mending harnesses. 
 
 Among the jams of the next short relay into Sixty 
 Mile, he passed two more teams. And that he might 
 know adequately what had happened to them, one of 
 his own dogs wrenched a shoulder, was unable to keep 
 up, and was dragged in the harness. Its teammates, 
 angered, fell upon it with their fangs, and Smoke was 
 forced to club them off with the heavy butt of his 
 whip. As he cut the injured animal out, he heard 
 the whining cries of dogs behind him and the voice 
 of a man that was familiar. It was Von Schroeder. 
 Smoke called a warning to prevent a rear-end colli 
 sion, and the baron, hawing his animals and swinging 
 on the gee-pole, went by a dozen feet to the side. Yet 
 so impenetrable was the blackness that Smoke heard 
 him pass but did not see him. 
 
i6 4 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 On the smooth stretch of ice beside the trading- 
 post at Sixty Mile, Smoke overtook two more sleds. 
 All had just changed teams, and for five minutes they 
 ran abreast, each man on his knees and pouring whip 
 and voice into the maddened dogs. But Smoke had 
 studied out that portion of the trail, and now marked 
 the tall pine on the bank that showed faintly in the 
 light of the many fires. Below that pine was not 
 merely darkness, but an abrupt cessation of the 
 smooth stretch. There the trail, he knew, narrowed 
 to a single sled-width. Leaning out ahead, he caught 
 the haul-rope and drew his leaping sled up to the 
 wheel-dog. He caught the animal by the hind legs 
 and threw it. With a snarl of rage it tried to slash 
 him with its fangs, but was dragged on by the rest of 
 the team. Its body proved an efficient brake, and the 
 two other teams, still abreast, dashed ahead into the 
 darkness for the narrow way. 
 
 Smoke heard the crash and uproar of their collision, 
 released his wheeler, sprang to the gee-pole, and urged 
 his team to the right into the soft snow where the 
 straining animals wallowed to their necks. It was 
 exhausting work, but he won by the tangled teams and 
 gained the hard-packed trail beyond. 
 
 On the relay out of Sixty Mile, Smoke had next 
 to his poorest team, and though the going was good, 
 he had set it a short fifteen miles. Two more teams 
 would bring him into Dawson and to the gold-re 
 corder s office, and Smoke had selected his best animals 
 for the last two stretches. Sitka Charley himself 
 waited with the eight Malemutes that would jerk 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 165 
 
 Smoke along for twenty miles, and for the finish, with 
 a fifteen-mile run, was his own team the team he had 
 had all winter and which had been with him in the 
 search for Surprise Lake. 
 
 The two men he had left entangled at Sixty Mile 
 failed to overtake him, and, on the other hand, his 
 team failed to overtake any of the three that still led. 
 His animals were willing, though they lacked stamina 
 and speed, and little urging was needed to keep them 
 jumping into it at their best. There was nothing for 
 Smoke to do but to lie face downward and hold on. 
 Now and again he would plunge out of the darkness 
 into the circle of light about a blazing fire, catch a 
 glimpse of furred men standing by harnessed and wait 
 ing dogs, and plunge into the darkness again. Mile 
 after mile, with only the grind and jar of the runners 
 in his ears, he sped on. Almost automatically he kept 
 his place as the sled bumped ahead or half lifted and 
 heeled on the swings and swerves of the bends. 
 
 The gray twilight of the morning was breaking as 
 he exchanged his weary dogs for eight fresh Male- 
 mutes. Lighter animals than the Hudson Bays, they 
 were capable of greater speed, and they ran with the 
 supple tirelessness of true wolves. Sitka Charley 
 called out the order of the teams ahead. Big Olaf led, 
 Arizona Bill was second, and Von Schroeder third. 
 These were the three best men in the country. In 
 fact, ere Smoke had left Dawson, the popular betting 
 had placed them in that order. While they were rac 
 ing for a million, at least half a million had been 
 staked by others on the outcome of the race. No one 
 
i66 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 had bet on Smoke, who, despite his several known ex 
 ploits, was still accounted a chekako with much to 
 learn. 
 
 As daylight strengthened, Smoke caught sight of a 
 sled ahead, and, in half an hour, his own lead-dog was 
 leaping at its tail. Not until the man turned his head 
 to exchange greetings, did Smoke recognize him as 
 Arizona Bill. Von Schroeder had evidently passed 
 him. The trail, hard-packed, ran too narrowly 
 through the soft snow, and for another half-hour 
 Smoke was forced to stay in the rear. Then they 
 topped an ice- jam and struck a smooth stretch below, 
 where were a number of relay-camps and where the 
 snow was packed widely. On his knees, swinging 
 his whip and yelling, Smoke drew abreast of Arizona 
 Bill, then pulled ahead. 
 
 Bill dropped behind very slowly, though when the 
 last relay-station was in sight he was fully half a mile 
 in the rear. Ahead, bunched together, Smoke could 
 see Big Olaf and Von Schroeder. Again Smoke arose 
 to his knees, and he lifted his jaded dogs into a burst 
 of speed such as a man only can who has the proper 
 instinct for dog-driving. He drew up close to the 
 tail of Von Schroeder s sled, and in this order the 
 three sleds dashed out on the smooth going below a 
 jam, where many men and many dogs waited. Daw- 
 son was fifteen miles away. 
 
 Von Schroeder, with his ten-mile relays, had 
 changed five miles back and would change five miles 
 ahead. So he held on, keeping his dogs at full leap. 
 Big Olaf and Smoke made flying changes, and their 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 167 
 
 fresh teams immediately regained what had been lost 
 to the baron. Big Olaf led past, and Smoke followed 
 into the narrow trail beyond. 
 
 " Still good, but not so good," Smoke paraphrased 
 Spencer to himself. 
 
 Of Von Schroeder, now behind, he had no fear ; but 
 ahead was the greatest dog-driver in the country. To 
 pass him seemed impossible. Again and again, many 
 times, Smoke forced his leader to the other s sled-tail, 
 and each time Big Olaf let out another link and drew 
 away. Smoke contented himself with taking the pace, 
 and hung on grimly. The race was not lost until one 
 or the other won, and in fifteen miles many things 
 could happen. 
 
 Three miles from Dawson something did happen. 
 To Smoke s surprise, Big Olaf rose up and with oaths 
 and leather proceeded to fetch out the last ounce of 
 effort in his animals. It was a spurt that should have 
 been reserved for the last hundred yards instead of 
 being begun three miles from the finish. Sheer dog- 
 killing that it was, Smoke followed. His own team 
 was superb. No dogs on the Yukon had had harder 
 work or were in better condition. Besides, Smoke 
 had toiled with them, and eaten and bedded with 
 them, and he knew each dog as an individual and how 
 best to win in to the animal s intelligence and extract 
 its last least shred of willingness. 
 
 They topped a small jam and struck the smooth 
 going below. Big Olaf was barely fifty feet ahead. 
 A sled shot out from the side and drew in toward 
 him, and Smoke understood Big Olaf s terrific spurt. 
 
1 68 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 He had tried to gain a lead for the change. This 
 fresh team that waited to jerk him down the home 
 stretch had been a private surprise of his. Even the 
 men who had backed him to win had no knowledge 
 of it. 
 
 Smoke strove desperately to pass during the ex 
 change of sleds. Lifting his dogs to the effort, he ate 
 up the intervening fifty feet. With urging and pour 
 ing of leather, he went to the side and on until his 
 head-dog was jumping abreast of Big Olaf s wheeler. 
 On the other side, abreast, was the relay sled. At the 
 speed they were going, Big Olaf did not dare try the 
 flying leap. If he missed and fell off, Smoke would 
 be in the lead, and the race would be lost. 
 
 Big Olaf tried to spurt ahead, and he lifted his 
 dogs magnificently, but Smoke s leader still continued 
 to jump beside Big Olaf s wheeler. For half a mile the 
 three sleds tore and bounced along side by side. The 
 smooth stretch was nearing its end when Big Olaf 
 took the chance. As the flying sleds swerved toward 
 each other, he leaped, and the instant he struck he 
 was on his knees, with whip and voice spurting the 
 fresh team. The smooth stretch pinched out into 
 the narrow trail, and he jumped his dogs ahead and 
 into it with a lead of barely a yard. 
 
 A man was not beaten until he was beaten, was 
 Smoke s conclusion, and drive no matter how, Big 
 Olaf failed to shake him off. No team Smoke had 
 driven that night could have stood such a killing pace 
 and kept up with fresh dogs no team save this one. 
 Nevertheless, the pace was killing it, and as they be- 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 169 
 
 gan to round the bluff at Klondike City, he could feel 
 the pitch of strength going out of his animals. Al 
 most imperceptibly they lagged behind, and foot by 
 foot Big Olaf drew away until he led by a score 
 of yards. 
 
 A great cheer went up from the population of Klon 
 dike City assembled on the ice. Here the Klondike 
 entered the Yukon, and half a mile away, across the 
 Klondike, on the north bank, stood Dawson. An 
 outburst of madder cheering arose, and Smoke caught 
 a glimpse of a sled shooting out to him. He recog 
 nized the splendid animals that drew it. They were 
 Joy Gastell s. And Joy Gastell drove them. The 
 hood of her squirrel-skin parka was tossed back, re 
 vealing the cameo-like oval of her face outlined 
 against her heavily-massed hair. Mittens had been 
 discarded, and with bare hands she clung to whip and 
 sled. 
 
 " Jump ! " she cried, as her leader snarled at 
 Smoke s. 
 
 Smoke struck the sled behind her. It rocked vio 
 lently from the impact of his body, but she was full 
 up on her knees and swinging the whip. 
 
 "Hi! You! Mush on! Chook! Chook!" she was 
 crying, and the dogs whined and yelped in eagerness 
 of desire and effort to overtake Big Olaf. 
 
 And then, as the lead-dog caught the tail of Big 
 Olaf s sled, and yard by yard drew up abreast, the 
 great crowd on the Dawson bank went mad. It zvas 
 a great crowd, for the men had dropped their tools 
 on all the creeks and come down to see the outcome 
 
170 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 of the race, and a dead heat at the end of a hundred 
 and ten miles justified any madness. 
 
 " When you re in the lead I m going to drop off ! " 
 Joy cried out over her shoulder. 
 
 Smoke tried to protest. 
 
 " And watch out for the dip curve halfway up the 
 bank," she warned. 
 
 Dog by dog, separated by half a dozen feet, the two 
 teams were running abreast. Big Olaf, with whip and 
 voice, held his own for a minute. Then, slowly, an 
 inch at a time, Joy s leader began to forge past. 
 
 " Get ready ! " she cried to Smoke. " I m going to 
 leave you in a minute. Get the whip." 
 
 And as he shifted his hand to clutch the whip, they 
 heard Big Olaf roar a warning, but too late. His 
 lead dog, incensed at being passed, swerved in to the 
 attack. His fangs struck Joy s leader on the flank. 
 The rival teams flew at one another s throats. The 
 sleds overran the fighting brutes and capsized. 
 Smoke struggled to his feet and tried to lift Joy up. 
 But she thrust him from her, crying, 
 
 "Go!" 
 
 On foot, already fifty feet in advance, was Big Olaf, 
 still intent on finishing the race. Smoke obeyed, and 
 when the two men reached the foot of the Dawson 
 bank, he was at the other s heels. But up the bank 
 Big Olaf lifted his body hugely, regaining a dozen 
 feet. 
 
 Five blocks down the main street was the gold-re 
 corder s office. The street was packed as for the wit 
 nessing of a parade. Not so easily this time did 
 
THE RACE FOR NUMBER THREE 171 
 
 Smoke gain to his giant rival, and when he did he 
 was unable to pass. Side by side they ran along the 
 narrow aisle between the solid walls of cheering men. 
 Now one, now the other, with great convulsive jerks, 
 gained an inch or so, only to lose it immediately after. 
 
 If the pace had been a killing one for their dogs, 
 the one they now set themselves was no less so. But 
 they were racing for a million dollars and greatest 
 honor in the Yukon country. The only outside im 
 pression that came to Smoke on that last mad stretch 
 was one of astonishment that there should be so many 
 people in the Klondike. He had never seen them all 
 at once before. 
 
 He felt himself involuntarily lag, and Big Olaf 
 sprang a full stride in the lead. To Smoke it seemed 
 that his heart would burst, while he had lost all con 
 sciousness of his legs. He knew they were flying 
 under him, but he did not know how he continued to 
 make them fly, nor how r he put even greater pressure 
 of will upon them and compelled them again to carry 
 him to his giant competitor s side. 
 
 The open door of the recorder s office appeared 
 ahead of them. Both men had made a final, futile 
 spurt. Neither could draw away from the other, and 
 side by side they hit the doorway, collided violently, 
 and fell headlong on the office floor. 
 
 They sat up, but were too exhausted to rise. Big 
 Olaf, the sweat pouring from him, breathing with tre 
 mendous, painful gasps, pawed the air and vainly tried 
 to speak. Then he reached out his hand with unmis 
 takable meaning ; Smoke extended his, and they shook. 
 
172 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " It s a dead heat," Smoke could hear the recorder 
 saying, but it was as if in a dream, and the voice was 
 very thin and very far away. " And all I can say is 
 that you both win. You 11 have to divide the claim 
 between you. You re partners." 
 
 Their two arms pumped up and down as they rati 
 fied the decision. Big Olaf nodded his head with 
 great emphasis, and spluttered. At last he got it out. 
 
 " You damn chekako," was what he said, but in the 
 saying of it was admiration. " I don t know how you 
 done it, but you did." 
 
 Outside, the great crowd was noisily massed, while 
 the office was packing and jamming. Smoke and Big 
 Olaf essayed to rise, and each helped the other to his 
 feet. Smoke found his legs weak under him, and 
 staggered drunkenly. Big Olaf tottered toward him. 
 
 " I m sorry my dogs jumped yours." 
 
 " It could n t be helped," Smoke panted back. " I 
 heard you yell." 
 
 " Say," Big Olaf went on with shining eyes. " That 
 girl one damn fine girl, eh ? " 
 
 " One damn fine girl," Smoke agreed. 
 
VII 
 
 THE LITTLE MAN 
 
 \YISHT you wasn t so set in your ways," Shorty 
 demurred. " I m sure scairt of that glacier. No 
 man ought to tackle it by his lonely." 
 
 Smoke laughed cheerfully, and ran his eye up the 
 glistening face of the tiny glacier that filled the head 
 of the valley. " Here it is August already, and the 
 days have been getting shorter for two months," he 
 epitomized the situation. " You know quartz, and I 
 don t. But I can bring up the grub, while you keep 
 after that mother lode. So-long. I. 11 be back by to 
 morrow evening." 
 
 He turned and started. 
 
 " I got a hunch something s goin to happen," 
 Shorty pleaded after him. 
 
 But Smoke s reply was a bantering laugh. He held 
 on down the little valley, occasionally wiping the sweat 
 from his forehead, the while his feet crushed through 
 ripe mountain raspberries and delicate ferns that grew 
 beside patches of sun-sheltered ice. 
 
 In the early spring he and Shorty had come up the 
 Stewart River and launched out into the amazing 
 chaos of the region where Surprise Lake lay. And all 
 of the spring and half of the summer had been con 
 sumed in futile wanderings, when, on the verge of 
 
 173 
 
174 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 turning back, they caught their first glimpse of the 
 baffling, gold-bottomed sheet of water which had lured 
 and fooled a generation of miners. Making their 
 camp in the old cabin which Smoke had discovered 
 on his previous visit, they had learned three things: 
 first, heavy nugget gold was carpeted thickly on the 
 lake bottom; next, the gold could be dived for in the 
 shallower portions, but the temperature of the water 
 was man-killing; and, finally, the draining of the lake 
 was too stupendous a task for two men in the shorter 
 half of a short summer. Undeterred, reasoning from 
 the coarseness of the gold that it had not traveled far, 
 they had set out in search of the mother lode. They 
 had crossed the big glacier that frowned on the south 
 ern rim and devoted themselves to the puzzling maze 
 of small valleys and canyons beyond, which, by most 
 unmountainlike methods, drained, or had at one time 
 drained, into the lake. 
 
 The valley Smoke was descending gradually widened 
 after the fashion of any normal valley; but, at the 
 lower end, it pinched narrowly between high precipi 
 tous walls and abruptly stopped in a cross wall. At 
 the base of this, in a welter of broken rock, the stream 
 let disappeared, evidently finding its way out under 
 ground. Climbing the cross wall, from the top Smoke 
 saw the lake beneath him. Unlike any mountain lake 
 he had ever seen, it was not blue. Instead, its in 
 tense peacock-green tokened its shallowness. It was 
 this shallowness that made its draining feasible. All 
 about arose jumbled mountains, with ice-scarred peaks 
 and crags, grotesquely shaped and grouped. All was 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 175 
 
 topsyturvy and unsystematic a Dore nightmare. 
 So fantastic and impossible was it that it affected 
 Smoke as more like a cosmic landscape-joke than a 
 rational portion of earth s surface. There were 
 many glaciers in the canyons, most of them tiny, and, 
 as he looked, one of the larger ones, on the north 
 shore, caved amid thunders and splashings. Across 
 the lake, seemingly not more than half a mile, but, 
 as he well knew, five miles away, he could see the 
 bunch of spruce-trees and the cabin. He looked 
 again to make sure, and saw smoke clearly rising from 
 the chimney. Somebody else had surprised them 
 selves into finding Surprise Lake, was his conclusion, 
 as he turned to climb the southern wall. 
 
 From the top of this he came down into a little 
 valley, flower-floored and lazy with the hum of bees, 
 that behaved quite as a reasonable valley should, -in 
 so far as it made legitimate entry on the lake. What 
 was wrong with it was its length scarcely a hun 
 dred yards; its head a straight up-and-down cliff of a 
 thousand feet, over which a stream pitched itself in 
 descending veils of mist. 
 
 And here he encountered more smoke, floating 
 lazily upward in the warm sunshine beyond an out 
 put of rock. As he came around the corner he heard 
 a light, metallic tap-tapping and a merry whistling 
 that kept the beat. Then he saw the man, an up 
 turned shoe between his knees, into the sole of which 
 he was driving hob-spikes. 
 
 " Hello ! " was the stranger s greeting, and Smoke s 
 heart went out to the man in ready liking. " Just 
 
176 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 in time for a snack. There s coffee in the pot, a 
 couple of cold flapjacks, and some jerky." 
 
 " I 11 go you if I lose," was Smoke s acceptance, 
 as he sat down. " I ve been rather skimped on the 
 last several meals, but there s oodles of grub over in 
 the cabin." 
 
 " Across the lake ? That s what I was heading 
 for." 
 
 " Seems Surprise Lake is becoming populous," 
 Smoke complained, emptying the coffee-pot. 
 
 "Go on, you re joking, aren t you?" the man 
 said, astonishment painted on his face. 
 
 Smoke laughed. " That s the way it takes every 
 body. You see those high ledges across there to the 
 northwest ? There s where I first saw it. No warn 
 ing. Just suddenly caught the view of the whole 
 lake from there. I d given up looking for it, too." 
 
 " Same here," the other agreed. " I d headed back 
 and was expecting to fetch the Stewart last night, 
 when out I popped in sight of the lake. If that s 
 it, where s the Stewart ? And where have I been all 
 the time ? And how did you come here ? And what s 
 your name ? " 
 
 " Bellew. Kit Bellew." 
 
 " Oh ! I know you." The man s eyes and face 
 were bright with a joyous smile, and his hand flashed 
 eagerly out to Smoke s. " I Ve heard all about you." 
 
 " Been reading police-court news, I see," Smoke 
 sparred modestly. 
 
 " Nope." The man laughed and shook his head. 
 " Merely recent Klondike history. I mi^ht have 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 177 
 
 recognized you if you d been shaved. I watched you 
 putting it all over the gambling crowd when you 
 were bucking roulette in the Elkhorn. My name s 
 Carson Andy Carson ; and I can t begin to tell you 
 how glad I am to meet up with you." 
 
 He was a slender man, wiry with health, with quick 
 black eyes and a magnetism of camaraderie. 
 
 " And this is Surprise Lake ? " he murmured in 
 credulously. 
 
 " It certainly is." 
 
 " And its bottom s buttered with gold ? " 
 
 " Sure. There s some of the churning." Smoke 
 dipped in his overalls pocket and brought forth half 
 a dozen nuggets. " That s the stuff. All you have 
 to do is go down to bottom, blind if you want to, and 
 pick up a handful. Then you Ve got to run half a 
 mile to get up your circulation." 
 
 " Well, gosh-dash my dingbats, if you have n t 
 beaten me to it," Carson swore whimsically, but his 
 disappointment was patent. " An I thought I d 
 scooped the whole caboodle. Anyw^ay, I Ve had the 
 fun of getting here." 
 
 " Fun! " Smoke cried. " Why, if we can ever get 
 our hands on all that bottom, we 11 make Rockefeller 
 look like thirty cents." 
 
 " But it s yours," was Carson s objection. 
 
 " Nothing to it, my friend. You Ve got to realize 
 that no gold deposit like it has been discovered in 
 all the history of mining. It will take you and me 
 and my partner and all the friends we Ve got to lay 
 our hands on it. All Bonanza and Eldorado, dumped 
 
1 78 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 together, would n t be richer than half an acre down 
 here. The problem is to drain the lake. It will take 
 millions. And there s only one thing I m afraid of. 
 There s so much of it that if we fail to control the 
 output it will bring about the demonetization of gold." 
 
 " And you tell me " Carson broke off, speechless 
 and amazed. 
 
 " And glad to have you. It will take a year or two, 
 with all the money we can raise, to drain the lake. 
 It can be done. I ve looked over the ground. But 
 it will take every man in the country that s willing 
 to work for wages. We 11 need an army, and we 
 need right now decent men in on the ground floor. 
 Are you in ? " 
 
 " Am I in ? Don t I look it ? I feel so much like 
 a millionaire that I m real timid about crossing that 
 big glacier. Could n t afford to break my neck now. 
 Wish I had some more of those hob-spikes. I was 
 just hammering the last in when you came along. 
 How s yours? Let s see." 
 
 Smoke held up his foot. 
 
 lf Worn smooth as a skating-rink ! " Carson cried. 
 You Ve certainly been hiking some. Wait a min 
 ute, and I 11 pull some of mine out for you." 
 
 But Smoke refused to listen. " Besides," he said, 
 " I ve got about forty feet of rope cached where we 
 take the ice. My partner and I used it coming over. 
 It will be a cinch." 
 
 It was a hard, hot climb. The sun blazed dazzlingly 
 on the ice-surface, and with streaming pores they 
 panted from the exertion. There were places, criss- 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 179 
 
 crossed by countless fissures and crevasses, where an 
 hour of dangerous toil advanced them no more than 
 a hundred yards. At two in the afternoon, beside a 
 pool of water bedded in the ice, Smoke called a halt. 
 
 " Let s tackle some of that jerky," he said. " I Ve 
 been on short allowance, and my knees are shaking. 
 Besides, we re across the worst. Three hundred 
 yards w r ill fetch us to the rocks, and it s easy going, 
 except for a couple of nasty fissures and one bad one 
 that heads us down toward the bulge. There s a 
 weak ice-bridge there, but Shorty and I managed it." 
 
 Over the jerky, the two men got acquainted, and 
 Andy Carson unbosomed himself of the story of his 
 life. " I just knew I d find Surprise Lake," he mum 
 bled in the midst of mouthfuls. " I had to. I missed 
 the French Hill Benches, the Big Skookum, and Monte 
 Cristo, and then it was Surprise Lake or bust. And 
 here I am. My wife knew I d strike it. I Ve got 
 faith enough, but hers knocks mine galleywest. She s 
 a corker, a crackerjack dead game, grit to her 
 finger-ends, never-say-die, a fighter from the drop 
 of the hat, the one woman for me, true blue and 
 all the rest. Take a look at that." 
 
 He sprung open his w r atch, and on the inside cover 
 Smoke saw the small, pasted photograph of a bright- 
 haired woman, framed on either side by the laughing 
 face of a child. 
 
 "Boys?" he queried. 
 
 " Boy and girl," Carson answered proudly. " He s 
 a year and a half older." He sighed. "" They might 
 have been some grown, but* we had to w^ait. You 
 
i8o SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 see, she was sick. Lungs. But she put up a fight. 
 What d we know about such stuff ? I was clerking, 
 railroad clerk, Chicago, when we got married. Her 
 folks were tuberculous. Doctors did n t know much 
 in those days. They said it was hereditary. All her 
 family had it. Caught it from each other, only they 
 never guessed it. Thought they were born with it. 
 Fate. She and I lived with them the first couple of 
 years. I was n t afraid. No tuberculosis in my 
 family. And I got it. That set me thinking. It 
 was contagions. I caught it from breathing their air. 
 
 " We talked it over, she and I. Then I jumped 
 the family doctor and consulted an up-to-date expert. 
 He told me what I d figured out for myself, and said 
 Arizona was the place for us. We pulled up stakes 
 and went down no money, nothing. I got a job 
 sheep-herding, and left her in town a lung town. 
 It was filled to spilling with lungers. 
 
 "Of course, living and sleeping in the clean open, 
 I started right in to mend. I was away months at a 
 time. Every time I came back, she was worse. She 
 just could n t pick up. But we were learning. I 
 jerked her out of that town, and she went to sheep- 
 herding with me. In four years, winter and summer, 
 cold and heat, rain, snow, and frost, and all the rest, 
 we never slept under a roof, and we were moving 
 camp all the time. You ought to have seen^the change 
 brown as berries, lean as Indians, tough as raw 
 hide. When we figured we were cured, we pulled out 
 for San Francisco. But we were too previous. By 
 the second month we both had slight hemorrhages. 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 181 
 
 We flew the coop back to Arizona and the sheep. 
 Two years more of it. That fixed us. Perfect cure. 
 All her family s dead. Would n t listen to us. 
 
 " Then we jumped cities for keeps. Knocked 
 around on the Pacific coast and southern Oregon 
 looked good to us. We settled in the Rogue River 
 Valley apples. There s a big future there, only 
 nobody knows it. I got my land on time, of course 
 for forty an acre. Ten years from now it 11 be 
 worth five hundred. 
 
 " We Ve done some almighty hustling. Takes 
 money, and we had n t a cent to start with, you know 
 had to build a house and barn, get horses and plows, 
 and all the rest. She taught school two years. Then 
 the boy came. But we ve got it. You ought to see 
 those trees we planted a hundred acres of them, 
 almost mature now. But it s all been outgo, and the 
 mortgage working overtime. That s why I m here. 
 She d V come along only for the kids and the trees. 
 She s handlin that end, and here I am, a gosh-danged 
 expensive millionaire in prospect." 
 
 He looked happily across the sun-dazzle on the ice 
 to the green water of the lake along the farther shore, 
 took a final look at the photograph, and murmured : 
 
 " She s some woman, that. She s hung on. She 
 just would n t die, though she was pretty close to skin 
 and bone all wrapped around a bit of fire when she 
 went out with the sheep. Oh, she s thin now. 
 Never will be fat. But it s the prettiest thinness I 
 ever saw, and when I get back, and the trees begin to 
 bear, and the kids get going to school, she and I are 
 
182 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 going to do Paris. I don t think much of that burg, 
 but she s just hankered for it all her life." 
 
 " Well, here s the goid that will take you to Paris," 
 Smoke assured him. " All we ve got to do is to get 
 our hands on it." 
 
 Carson nodded with glistening eyes. " Say that 
 farm of ours is the prettiest piece of orchard land on 
 all the Pacific coast. Good climate, too. Our lungs 
 will never get touched again there. Ex-lungers have 
 to be almighty careful, you know. If you re think 
 ing of settling, well, just take a peep in at our valley 
 before you settle, that s all. And fishing! Say! 
 did you ever get a thirty-five-pound salmon on a six- 
 ounce rod ? Some fight, bo , some fight ! " 
 
 " I m lighter than you by forty pounds," Carson 
 said. " Let me go first." 
 
 They stood on the edge of the crevasse. It was 
 enormous and ancient, fully a hundred feet across, 
 with sloping, age-eaten sides instead of sharp-angled 
 rims. At this one place it was bridged by a huge 
 mass of pressure-hardened snow that was itself half 
 ice. Even the bottom of this mass they could not 
 see, much less the bottom of the crevasse. Crumbling 
 and melting, the bridge threatened imminent collapse. 
 There were signs where recent portions had broken 
 away, and even as they studied it a mass of half a ton 
 dislodged and fell. 
 
 "Looks pretty bad," Carson admitted with an 
 ominous head-shake. " And it looks much worse than 
 if I was n t a millionaire." 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 183 
 
 " But we ve got to tackle it," Smoke said. 
 " We re almost across. We can t go back. We can t 
 camp here on the ice all night. And there s no other 
 way. Shorty and I explored for a mile up. It was 
 in better shape, though, when we crossed." 
 
 " It s one at a time, and me first." Carson took 
 the part coil of rope from Smoke s hand. " You 11 
 have to cast off. I 11 take the rope and the pick. 
 Gimme your hand so I can slip down easy." 
 
 Slowly and carefully he lowered himself the several 
 feet to the bridge, where he stood, making final ad 
 justments for the perilous traverse. On his back was 
 his pack outfit. Around his neck, resting on his 
 shoulders, he coiled the rope, one end of which was 
 still fast to his waist. 
 
 " I d give a mighty good part of my millions right 
 now for a bridge-construction gang," he said, but his 
 cheery, whimsical smile belied the words. Also, he 
 added, " It s all right; I m a cat." 
 
 The pick, and the long stick he used as an alpen 
 stock, he balanced horizontally after the manner of 
 a rope-walker. He thrust one foot forward tenta 
 tively, drew it back, and steeled himself with a visible 
 physical effort. 
 
 " I wish I was flat broke," he smiled up. " If ever 
 I get out of being a millionaire this time, I 11 never 
 be one again. It s too uncomfortable." 
 
 " It s all right," Smoke encouraged. " I ve been 
 over it before. Better let me try it first." 
 
 " And you forty pounds to the worse," the little 
 man flashed back. " I 11 -be all right in a minute. 
 
1 84 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 I m all right now." And this time the nerving-up 
 process was instantaneous. " Well, here goes for 
 Rogue River and the apples," he said, as his foot went 
 out, this time to rest carefully and lightly while the 
 other foot was brought up and past. Very gently and 
 circumspectly he continued on his way until two- 
 thirds of the distance was covered. Here he stopped 
 to examine a depression he must cross, at the bottom 
 of which was a fresh crack. Smoke, watching, saw 
 h;m glance to the side and down into the crevasse it 
 self, and then begin a slight swaying. 
 
 " Keep your eyes up ! " Smoke commanded sharply. 
 "Now! Goon!" 
 
 The little man obeyed, nor faltered on the rest of 
 the journey. The sun-eroded slope of the farther 
 edge of the crevasse was slippery, but not steep, and 
 he worked his way up to a narrow ledge, faced about, 
 and sat down. 
 
 " Your turn," he called across. " But just keep 
 a-coming and don t look down. That s what got my 
 goat. Just keep a-coming, that s all. And get a 
 move on. It s almighty rotten." 
 
 Balancing his own stick horizontally, Smoke es 
 sayed the passage. That the bridge was on its last 
 legs was patent. He felt a jar under foot, a slight 
 movement of the mass, and a heavier jar. This was 
 followed by a single sharp crackle. Behind him he 
 knew something was happening. If for no other rea 
 son, he knew it by the strained, tense face of Carson. 
 From beneath, thin and faint, came the murmur of 
 running water, and Smoke s eyes involuntarily 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 185 
 
 wavered to a glimpse of the shimmering depths. 
 He jerked them back to the way before him. Two- 
 thirds over, he came to the depression. The sharp 
 edges of the crack, but slightly touched by the sun, 
 showed how recent it was. His foot was lifted to 
 make the step across, when the crack began slowly 
 widening, at the same time emitting numerous sharp 
 snaps. He made the step quickly, increasing the 
 stride of it, but the worn nails of his shoe skated on 
 the farther slope of the depression. He fell on his face, 
 and without pause slipped down and into the crack, his 
 legs hanging clear, his chest supported by the stick 
 which he had managed to twist crosswise as he fell. 
 
 His first sensation was the nausea caused by the 
 sickening up-leap of his pulse; his first idea was of 
 surprise that he had fallen no farther. Behind him 
 was crackling and jar and movement to which the 
 stick vibrated. From beneath, in the heart of the 
 glacier, came the soft and hollow thunder of the dis 
 lodged masses striking bottom. And still the bridge, 
 broken from its farthest support and ruptured in the 
 middle, held, though the portion he had crossed tilted 
 downward at a pitch of twenty degrees. He could 
 see Carson, perched on his ledge, his feet braced 
 against the melting surface, swiftly recoiling the rope 
 from his shoulders to his hand. 
 
 " Wait ! " he cried. " Don t move, or the whole 
 shooting-match will come down." 
 
 He calculated the distance with a quick glance, took 
 the bandana from his neck and tied it to the rope, 
 and increased the length by a second bandana from 
 
1 86 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 his pocket. The rope, manufactured from sled-lash 
 ings and short lengths of plaited rawhide knotted to 
 gether, was both light and strong. The first cast was 
 lucky as well as deft, and Smoke s fingers clutched it. 
 He evidenced a hand-over-hand intention of crawling 
 out of the crack. But Carson, who had refastened 
 the rope around his own waist, stopped him. 
 
 " Make it fast around yourself as well," he ordered. 
 
 " If I go I 11 take you with me," Smoke objected. 
 
 The little man became very peremptory. 
 
 " You shut up," he ordered. " The sound of your 
 voice is enough to start the whole thing going." 
 
 " If I ever start going " Smoke began. 
 
 " Shut up ! You ain t going to ever start going. 
 Now do what I say. That s right under the shoul 
 ders. Make it fast. Now ! Start ! Get a move on, 
 but easy as you go. I 11 take in the slack. You just 
 keep a-coming. That s it. Easy. Easy." 
 
 Smoke was still a dozen feet away when the final 
 collapse of the bridge began. Without noise, but in 
 a jerky way, it crumbled to an increasing tilt. 
 
 " Quick ! " Carson called, coiling in hand-over 
 hand on the slack of the rope which Smoke s rush 
 gave him. 
 
 When the crash came, Smoke s fingers were claw 
 ing into the hard face of the wall of the crevasse, 
 while his body dragged back with the falling bridge. 
 Carson, sitting up, feet wide apart and braced, was 
 heaving on the rope. This effort swung Smoke in to 
 the side wall, but it jerked Carson out of his niche. 
 Like a cat, he faced about, clawing wildly for a hold 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 187 
 
 on the ice and slipping down. Beneath him, with 
 forty feet of taut rope between them, Smoke was claw 
 ing just as wildly; and ere the thunder from below 
 announced the arrival of the bridge, both men had 
 come to rest. Carson had achieved this first, and the 
 several pounds of pull he was able to put on the rope 
 had helped bring Smoke to a stop. 
 
 Each lay in a shallow niche, but Smoke s was so 
 shallow that, tense with the strain of flattening and 
 sticking, nevertheless he would have slid on had it 
 not been for the slight assistance he took from the 
 rope. He was on the verge of a bulge and could not 
 see beneath him. Several minutes passed, in which 
 they took stock of the situation and made rapid strides 
 in learning the art of sticking to wet and slippery ice. 
 The little man was the first to speak. 
 
 " Gee ! " he said ; and, a minute later, " If you can 
 dig in for a moment and slack on the rope, I can turn 
 over. Try it." 
 
 Smoke made the effort, then rested on the rope 
 again. " I can do it," he said. " Tell me when 
 you re ready. And be quick." 
 
 "About three feet down is holding for my heels," 
 Carson said. " It won t take a moment. Are you 
 ready?" 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 It was hard work to slide down a yard, turn over 
 and sit up; but it was even harder for Smoke to re 
 main flattened and maintain a position that from in 
 stant to instant made a greater call upon his muscles. 
 As it was, he could feel the almost perceptible begin- 
 
1 88 SMOKE BELLE W 
 
 ning of the slip when the rope tightened and he looked 
 up into his companion s face. Smoke noted the yel 
 low pallor of sun-tan forsaken by the blood, and won 
 dered what his own complexion was like. But when 
 he saw Carson, with shaking fingers, fumble for his 
 sheath-knife, he decided the end had come. The man 
 was in a funk and was going to cut the rope. 
 
 " Don t m-mind m-m-me," the little man chattered. 
 " I ain t scared. It s only my nerves, gosh-dang 
 them. I 11 b-b-be all right in a minute." 
 
 And Smoke watched him, doubled over, his shoul 
 ders between his knees, shivering and awkward, hold 
 ing a slight tension on the rope with one hand while 
 with the other he hacked and gouged holes for his 
 heels in the ice. 
 
 " Carson/ he breathed up to him, " you re some 
 bear, some bear." 
 
 The answering grin was ghastly and pathetic. " I 
 never could stand height," Carson confessed. " It 
 always did get me. Do you mind if I stop a minute 
 and clear my head ? Then I 11 make those heel-holds 
 deeper so I can heave you up." 
 
 Smoke s heart warmed. " Look here, Carson. 
 The thing for you to do is to cut the rope. You can 
 never get me up, and there s no use both of us being 
 lost. You can make it out with your knife." 
 
 "You shut up!" was the hurt retort. "Who s 
 running this ? " 
 
 And Smoke could not help but see that anger was 
 a good restorative for the other s nerves. As for 
 himself, it was the more nerve-racking strain, lying 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 189 
 
 plastered against the ice with nothing to do but strive 
 to stick on. 
 
 A groan and a quick cry of " Hold on ! " warned 
 him. With face pressed against the ice, he made a 
 supreme sticking effort, felt the rope slacken, and 
 knew Carson was slipping toward him. He did not 
 dare look up until he felt the rope tighten and knew 
 the other had again come to rest. 
 
 " Gee, that was a near go," Carson chattered. " I 
 came down over a yard. Now you wait. I ve got 
 to dig new holds. If this danged ice was n t so melty 
 we d be hunky-dory." 
 
 Holding the few pounds of strain necessary for 
 Smoke with his left hand, the little man jabbed and 
 chopped at the ice with his right. Ten minutes of 
 this passed. 
 
 " Now, I 11 tell you what I Ve done," Carson called 
 down. " I ve made heel-holds and hand-holes for 
 you alongside of me. I m going to heave the rope 
 in slow and easy, and you just come along sticking 
 an not too fast. I 11 tell you what, first of all. I 11 
 take you on the rope and you worry out of that pack. 
 Get me?" 
 
 Smoke nodded, and with infinite care unbuckled his 
 pack-straps. With a wriggle of the shoulders he dis 
 lodged the pack, and Carson saw it slide over the bulge 
 and out of sight. 
 
 " Now, I m going to ditch mine," he called down. 
 You just take it easy and wait." 
 
 Five minutes later the upward struggle began. 
 Smoke, after drying his hands on the insides of his 
 
190 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 arm-sleeves, clawed into the climb bellied, and 
 clung, and stuck, and plastered sustained and helped 
 by the pull of the rope. Alone, he could not have 
 advanced. Despite his muscles, because of his 
 forty pounds handicap, he could not cling as did 
 Carson. A third of the way up, where the pitch 
 was steeper and the ice less eroded, he felt the strain 
 on the rope decreasing. He moved slower and slower. 
 Here was no place to stop and remain. His most 
 desperate effort could not prevent the stop, and he 
 could feel the down-slip beginning. 
 
 " I m going," he called up. 
 
 " So am I," was the reply, gritted through Carson s 
 teeth. 
 
 " Then cast loose." 
 
 Smoke felt the rope tauten in a futile effort, then 
 the pace quickened, and as he went past his previous 
 lodgment and over the bulge the last glimpse he 
 caught of Carson he was turned over, with madly 
 moving hands and feet striving to overcome the down 
 ward draw. To Smoke s surprise, as he went over 
 the bulge, there was no sheer fall. The rope re 
 strained him as he slid down a steeper pitch, which 
 quickly eased until he came to a halt in another niche 
 on the verge of another bulge. Carson was now out 
 of sight, ensconced in the place previously occupied 
 by Smoke. 
 
 " Gee ! " he could hear Carson shiver. " Gee ! " 
 
 An interval of quiet followed, and then Smoke 
 could feel the rope agitated. 
 
 are you doing? " he called up. 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 191 
 
 " Making more hand- and foot-holds." came the 
 trembling answer. " You just wait. I 11 have you 
 up here in a jiffy. Don t mind the way I talk. I m 
 just excited. But I m all right. You wait and see." 
 You re holding me by main strength/ Smoke 
 argued. " Soon or late, with the ice melting, you 11 
 slip down after me. The thing for you to do is to 
 cut loose. Hear me ! There s no use both of us go 
 ing. Get that? You re the biggest little man in 
 creation, but you ve done your best. You cut loose." 
 
 " You shut up. I m going to make holes this time 
 deep enough to haul up a span of horses." 
 
 " You ve held me up long enough," Smoke urged. 
 "Let me go." 
 
 " How many times have I held you up ? " came the 
 truculent query. 
 
 " Some several, and all of them too many. You Ve 
 been coming down all the time." 
 
 " And I ve been learning the game all the time. 
 I m going on holding you up until we get out of here. 
 Savvy? When God made me a light-weight I guess 
 he knew what he was about. Now, shut up. I m 
 busy." 
 
 Several silent minutes passed. Smoke could hear 
 the metallic strike and hack of the knife and occa 
 sional driblets of ice slid over the bulge and came down 
 to him. Thirsty, clinging on hand and foot, he 
 caught the fragments in his mouth and melted them 
 to water, which he swallowed. 
 
 He heard a gasp that slid into a groan of despair, 
 and felt a slackening of the rope that made him claw. 
 
IQ2 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Immediately the rope tightened again. Straining his 
 eyes in an upward look along the steep slope, he 
 stared a moment, then saw the knife, point first, slide 
 over the verge of the bulge and down upon him. He 
 tucked his cheek to it, shrank from the pang of cut 
 flesh, tucked more tightly, and felt the knife come to 
 rest. 
 
 " I m a slob," came the wail down the crevasse. 
 
 " Cheer up, I ve got it," Smoke answered. 
 
 " Say! Wait! I ve a lot of string in my pocket. 
 I 11 drop it down to you, and you send the knife up." 
 
 Smoke made no reply. He was battling with a sud 
 den rush of thought. 
 
 " Hey ! You ! Here comes the string. Tell me 
 when you Ve got it." 
 
 A small pocket-knife, weighted on the end of the 
 string, slid down the ice. Smoke got it, opened the 
 larger blade by a quick effort of his teeth and one 
 hand, and made sure that the blade was sharp. Then 
 he tied the sheath-knife to the end of the string. 
 
 "Haul away!" he called. 
 
 With strained eyes he saw the upward progress of 
 the knife. But he saw more a little man, afraid 
 and indomitable, who shivered and chattered, whose 
 head swam with giddiness, and who mastered his 
 qualms and distresses and played a hero s part. Not 
 since his meeting with Shorty had Smoke so quickly 
 liked a man. Here was a proper meat-eater, eager 
 with friendliness, generous to destruction, with a grit 
 that shaking fear could not shake. Then, too, he 
 considered the situation cold-bloodedly. There was 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 193 
 
 no chance for two. Steadily, they were sliding into 
 the heart of the glacier, and it was his greater weight 
 that was dragging the little man down. The little 
 man could stick like a fly. Alone, he could save him 
 self. 
 
 " Bully for us ! " came the voice from above, down 
 and across the bulge of ice. " Now we 11 get out of 
 here in two shakes." 
 
 The awful struggle for good cheer and hope in Car 
 son s voice, decided Smoke. 
 
 " Listen to me," he said steadily, vainly striving 
 to shake the vision of Joy Gastell s face from his 
 brain. " I sent that knife up for you to get out with. 
 Get that? I m going to chop loose with the jack- 
 knife. It s one or both of us. Get that? " 
 
 " Two or nothing," came the grim but shaky re 
 sponse. " If you 11 hold on a minute " 
 
 " I ve held on for too long now. I m not married. 
 I have no adorable thin woman nor kids nor apple- 
 trees waiting for me. Get me? Now, you hike up 
 and out of that! " * 
 
 " Wait ! For God s sake, wait ! " Carson screamed 
 down. " You can t do that ! Give me a chance to 
 get you out. Be calm, old horse. We 11 make the 
 turn. You 11 see. I m going to dig holds that 11 
 lift a house and barn." 
 
 Smoke made no reply. Slowly and gently, fasci 
 nated by the sight, he cut with the knife until one of 
 the three strands popped and parted. 
 
 " What are you doing? " Carson cried desperately. 
 "If you cut, I ll never forgive you never. I tell 
 
194 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 you it s two or nothing. We re going to get out. 
 Wait! For God s sake!" 
 
 And Smoke, staring at the parted strand, five inches 
 before his eyes, knew fear in all its weakness. He 
 did not want to die; he recoiled from the shimmering 
 abyss beneath him, and his panic brain urged all the 
 preposterous optimism of delay. It was fear that 
 prompted him to compromise. 
 
 " All right," he called up. " I 11 wait Do your 
 best. But I tell you, Carson, if we both start slipping 
 again I m going to cut." 
 
 " Huh ! Forget it. When we start, old horse, we 
 start up. I m a porous plaster. I could stick here 
 if it was twice as steep. I m getting a sizable hole 
 for one heel already. Now, you hush, and let me 
 work." 
 
 The slow minutes passed. Smoke centered his 
 soul on the dull hurt of a hang-nail on one of his 
 fingers. He should have clipped it away that morn 
 ing it was hurting then * he decided ; and he re 
 solved, once clear of the crevasse, that it should im 
 mediately be clipped. Then, with short focus, he 
 stared at the hang-nail and the finger with a new 
 comprehension. In a minute, or a few minutes at 
 best, that hang-nail, that finger, cunningly jointed and 
 efficient, might be part of a mangled carcass at the 
 bottom of the crevasse. Conscious of his fear, he 
 hated himself. Bear-eaters were made of sterner 
 stuff. In the anger of self-revolt he all buf hacked 
 at the rope with his knife. But fear made him draw 
 back the hand and to stick himself again, trembling 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 195 
 
 and sweating, to the slippery slope. To the fact that 
 he was soaking wet by contact with the thawing ice 
 he tried to attribute the cause of his shivering; but 
 he knew, in the heart of him, that it was untrue. 
 
 A gasp and a groan and an abrupt slackening of the 
 rope, warned him. He began to slip. The movement 
 \vas very slow. The rope tightened loyally, but he 
 continued to slip. Carson could not hold him, and 
 was slipping with him. The digging toe of his 
 farther-extended fopt encountered vacancy, and he 
 knew that it was over the straight-away fall. And he 
 knew, too, that in another moment his falling body 
 would jerk Carson s after it. 
 
 Blindly, desperately, all the vitality and life-love 
 of him beaten down in a flashing instant by a shudder 
 ing perception of right and wrong, he brought the 
 knife-edge across the rope, saw the strands part, felt 
 himself slide more rapidly, and then fall. 
 
 What happened then, he did not know. He was 
 not unconscious, but it happened too quickly, and it 
 was unexpected. Instead of falling to his death, his 
 feet almost immediately struck in water, and he sat 
 violently do\vn in water that splashed coolingly on his 
 face. His first impression was that the crevasse was 
 shallower than he had imagined and that he had safely 
 fetched bottom. But of this he was quickly disabused. 
 The opposite wall was a dozen feet away. He lay 
 in a basin formed in an out- jut of the ice- wall by melt 
 ing water that dribbled and trickled over the bulge 
 above and fell sheer down a distance of a dozen feet. 
 This had hollowed out the basin. Where he sat the 
 
196 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 water was two feet deep, and it was flush with the rim. 
 He peered over the rim and looked down the narrow 
 chasm hundreds of feet to the torrent that foamed 
 along the bottom. 
 
 " Oh, why did you? " he heard a wail from above. 
 
 " Listen," he called up. " I m perfectly safe, sit 
 ting in a pool of water up to my neck. And here s 
 both our packs. I m going to sit on them. There s 
 room for a half-dozen here. If you slip, stick close 
 and you 11 land. In the meantime you hike up and 
 get out. Go to the cabin. Somebody s there. I saw 
 the smoke. Get a rope, or anything that will make 
 rope, and come back and fish for me." 
 
 " Honest ! " came Carson s incredulous voice. 
 
 " Cross my heart and hope to die. Now, get a 
 hustle on, or I 11 catch my death of cold." 
 
 Smoke kept himself warm by kicking a channel 
 through the rim with the heel of his shoe. By the 
 time he had drained off the last of the water, a faint 
 call from Carson announced that he had reached 
 the top. 
 
 After that Smoke occupied himself with drying his 
 clothes. The late afternoon sun beat warmly in upon 
 him, and he wrung out his garments and spread them 
 about him. His match-case was water-proof, and he 
 manipulated and dried sufficient tobacco and rice- 
 paper to make cigarettes. 
 
 Two hours later, perched naked on the two packs 
 and smoking, he heard a voice above that he could not 
 fail to identify. 
 
 "Oh, Smoke! Smoke!" 
 
THE LITTLE MAN 197 
 
 " Hello, Joy Gastell! " he called back. " Where d 
 you drop from ? " 
 
 "Are you hurt?" 
 
 " Not even any skin off ! " 
 
 " Father s paying the rope down now. Do you 
 see it?" 
 
 " Yes, and I Ve got it," he answered. " Now, wait 
 a couple of minutes, please." 
 
 "What s the matter?" came her anxious query, 
 after several minutes. " Oh, I know, you re hurt." 
 
 " No, I m not. I m dressing." 
 
 "Dressing?" 
 
 "Yes. I ve been in swimming. Now! Ready? 
 Hoist away ! " 
 
 He sent up the two packs on the first trip, was con 
 sequently rebuked by Joy Gastell, and on the second 
 trip came up himself. 
 
 Joy Gastell looked at him \vith glowing eyes, while 
 her father and Carson were busy coiling the rope. 
 "How could you cut loose in that splendid way?" 
 she cried. " It was it was glorious, that s all." 
 
 Smoke waved the compliment away with a depre 
 catory hand. 
 
 " I know all about it," she persisted. " Carson 
 told me. You sacrificed yourself to save him." 
 
 " Nothing of the sort," Smoke lied. " I could see 
 that swimming-pool right under me all the time." 
 
VIII 
 
 THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 
 
 THE way led steeply up through deep, powdery 
 snow that was unmarred by sled-track or moc 
 casin impression. Smoke, in the lead, pressed the 
 fragile crystals down under his fat, short snow-shoes. 
 The task required lungs and muscle, and he flung 
 himself into it with all his strength. Behind, on the 
 surface he packed, strained the string of six dogs, the 
 steam-jets of their breathing attesting their labor and 
 the lowness of the temperature. Between the wheel- 
 dog and the sled toiled Shorty, his weight divided be 
 tween the guiding gee-pole and the haul, for he was 
 pulling with the dogs. Every half-hour he and Smoke 
 exchanged places, for the snow-shoe work was even 
 more arduous than that of the gee-pole. 
 
 The whole outfit was fresh and strong. It was 
 merely hard work being efficiently done the break 
 ing of a midwinter trail across a divide. On this 
 severe stretch, ten miles a day they called a decent 
 stint. They kept in condition, but each night crawled 
 well tired into their sleeping-furs... .This was their 
 sixth day out from the lively camp of Mucluc on the 
 Yukon. In two days, with the loaded sled, they had 
 covered the fifty miles of packed trail up Moose Creek. 
 Then had come the struggle with the four feet of un- 
 
 198 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 199 
 
 touched snow that was really not snow, but frost- 
 crystals, so lacking in cohesion that when kicked it 
 flew with the thin hissing of granulated sugar. In 
 three days they had wallowed thirty miles up Minnow 
 Creek and across the series of low divides that sep 
 arate the several creeks flowing south into Siwash 
 River; and now they were breasting the big divide, 
 past the Bald Buttes, where the way would lead them 
 down Porcupine Creek to the middle reaches of Milk 
 River. Higher up Milk River, it was fairly rumored, 
 were deposits of copper. And this was their goal 
 a hill of pure copper, half a mile to the right and 
 up the first creek after Milk River issued from a deep 
 gorge to flow across a heavily timbered stretch of 
 bottom. They would know it when they saw it. 
 One-Eyed McCarthy had described it with sharp defi- 
 niteness. It was impossible to miss it unless Mc 
 Carthy had lied. 
 
 Smoke was in the lead, and the small scattered 
 spruce-trees were becoming scarcer and smaller, when 
 he saw one, dead and bone-dry, that stood in their 
 path. There was no need for speech. His glance 
 to Shorty was acknowledged by a stentorian 
 " Whoa ! " The dogs stood in the traces till they saw 
 Shorty begin to undo the sled-lashings and Smoke 
 attack the dead spruce with an ax ; whereupon the ani 
 mals dropped in the snow and curled into balls, the 
 bush of each tail curved to cover four padded feet 
 and an ice-rimmed muzzle. 
 
 The men worked with the quickness of long prac 
 tice. Gold-pan, coffee-pot, and cooking-pail were 
 
.jo SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 soon thawing the heaped frost-crystals into water. 
 Smoke extracted a stick of beans from the sled. Al 
 ready cooked, with a generous admixture of cubes 
 of fat pork and bacon, the beans had been frozen into 
 this portable immediacy. He chopped off chunks with 
 an ax, as if it were so much firewood, and put them 
 into the frying-pan to thaw. Solidly frozen sour 
 dough biscuits were likewise placed to thaw. In 
 twenty minutes from the time they halted, the meal 
 was ready to eat. 
 
 " About forty below," Shorty mumbled through a 
 mouthful of beans. "Say I hope it don t get 
 colder or warmer, neither. It s just right for trail- 
 breaking." 
 
 Smoke did not answer. His own mouth full of 
 beans, his jaws working, he had chanced to glance 
 at the lead-dog, lying half a dozen feet away. That 
 gray and frosty wolf was gazing at him with the in 
 finite wistfulness and yearning that glimmers and 
 hazes so often in the eyes of Northland dogs. Smoke 
 knew it well, but never got over the unfathomable 
 wonder of it. As if to shake off the hypnotism, he 
 set down his plate and coffee-cup, went to the sled, 
 and began opening the dried-fish sack. 
 
 "Hey!" Shorty expostulated. "What V you 
 doin ?" 
 
 " Breaking all law, custom, precedent, and trail 
 usage," Smoke replied. " I m going to feed the dogs 
 in the midde of the day just this once. They ve 
 worked hard, and that last pull to the. top of the divide 
 is before them. Besides, Bright there has been talk- 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 201 
 
 ing to me, telling me all untellable things with those 
 eyes of his." 
 
 Shorty laughed skeptically. " Go on an spoil em. 
 Pretty soon you 11 be manicurin their nails. I d 
 recommend cold cream and electric massage it s 
 great for sled-dogs. And sometimes a Turkish bath 
 does em fine." 
 
 " I ve never done it before," Smoke defended. 
 " And I won t again. But this once I m going to. 
 It s just a whim, I guess." 
 
 " Oh, if it s a hunch, go to it." Shorty s tones 
 showed how immediately he had been mollified. " A 
 man s always got to follow his hunches." 
 
 " It is n t a hunch, Shorty. Bright just sort of got 
 on my imagination for a couple of twists. He told 
 me more in one minute with those eyes of his than 
 I could read in the books in a thousand years. His 
 eyes were acrawl with the secrets of life. They were 
 just squirming and wriggling there. The trouble is 
 I almost got them, and then I did n t. I m no wiser 
 than I was before, but I was near them." He paused 
 and then added, " I can t tell you, but that dog s eyes 
 were just spilling over with cues to what life is, and 
 evolution, and star-dust, and cosmic sap, and all the 
 rest everything. 
 
 " Boiled down into simple American, you got a 
 hunch," Shorty insisted. 
 
 Smoke finished tossing the dried salmon, one to each 
 dog, and shook his head. 
 
 " I tell you yes," Shorty argued. " Smoke, it s 
 a sure hunch. Something s goin to happen before 
 
202 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 the day is out. You 11 see. And them dried fish 11 
 have a bearinV 
 
 :( You ve got to show me," said Smoke. 
 
 " No, I ain t. The clay 11 take care of itself an* 
 show you. Now listen to what I m tellin you. I 
 got a hunch myself out of your hunch. I 11 bet eleven 
 ounces against three ornery toothpicks 1 5 m right. 
 When I get a hunch I ain t a-scared to ride it." 
 
 " You bet the toothpicks, and I 11 bet the ounces," 
 Smoke returned. 
 
 " Nope. That d be plain robbery. I win. I 
 know a hunch when it tickles me. Before the day s 
 out somethin 11 happen, an them fish 11 have a 
 meanin ." 
 
 " Hell," said Smoke, dismissing the discussion con 
 temptuously. 
 
 " An it 11 be hell," Shorty came back. " An I 11 
 take three more toothpicks with you on them same 
 odds that it 11 be sure-enough hell." 
 
 " Done," said Smoke. 
 
 " I win," Shorty exulted. " Chicken-feather tooth 
 picks for mine." 
 
 An hour later they cleared the divide, dipped down 
 past the Bald Buttes through a sharp elbow-canyon, 
 and took the steep open slope that dropped into Porcu 
 pine Creek. Shorty, in the lead, stopped abruptly, 
 and Smoke whoaed the dogs. Beneath them, coming 
 up, was a procession of humans, scattered and drag 
 gled, a quarter of a mile long. 
 
 " They move like it was a funeral," Shorty noted. 
 
 " They ve no dogs," said Smoke. 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 203 
 
 " Yep ; there s a couple of men pullin on a sled." 
 
 " See that fellow fall down ? There s something 
 the matter, Shorty, and there must be two hundred 
 of them." 
 
 " Look at em stagger as if they was soused. 
 There goes another." 
 
 " It s a whole tribe. There are children there." 
 
 " Smoke, I win," Shorty proclaimed. " A hunch 
 is a hunch, an you can t beat it. There she comes. 
 Look at her ! surgin up like a lot of corpses." 
 
 The mass of Indians, at sight of the two men, had 
 raised a weird cry of joy and accelerated its pace. 
 
 " They re sure tolerable woozy," commented 
 Shorty. " See em fallin down in lumps and 
 bunches." 
 
 " Look at the face of that first one," Smoke said. 
 " It s starvation that s what s the matter with 
 them. They ve eaten their dogs." 
 
 "What 11 we do? Run for it?" 
 
 " And leave the sled and dogs ? " Smoke demanded 
 reproachfully. 
 
 " They 11 sure eat us if we don t. They look hun 
 gry enough for it. Hello, old skeeziks. What s 
 wrong with you? Don t look at that dog that way. 
 No cookin -pot for him savvy? " 
 
 The forerunners w r ere arriving and crowding about 
 them, moaning and plainting in an unfamiliar jargon. 
 To Smoke the picture was grotesque and horrible. 
 It was famine unmistakable. Their faces, hollow- 
 cheeked and skin-stretched, were so many death s- 
 heads. More and more arrived and crowded about, 
 
204 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 until Smoke and Shorty were hemmed in by the wild 
 crew. Their ragged garments of skin and fur were 
 cut and slashed away, and Smoke knew the reason 
 for it when he saw a wizened child on a squaw s 
 back that sucked and chewed a strip of filthy fur. 
 Another child he observed steadily masticating a 
 leather thong. 
 
 "Keep off there! keep back!" Shorty yelled, 
 falling back on English after futile attempts with the 
 little Indian he did know. 
 
 Bucks and squaws and children tottered and swayed 
 on shaking legs and continued to urge in, their mad 
 eyes swimming with weakness and burning with 
 ravenous desire. A woman, moaning, staggered past 
 Shorty and fell with spread and grasping arms on 
 the sled. An old man followed her, panting and gasp 
 ing, with trembling hands striving to cast off the sled 
 lashings, and get at the grub-sacks beneath. A young 
 man, with a naked knife, tried to rush in, but was 
 flung back by Smoke. The whole mass pressed in 
 upon them, and the fight was on. 
 
 At first Smoke and Shorty shoved and thrust and 
 threw back. Then they used the butt of the dog-whip 
 and their fists on the food-mad crowd. And all this 
 against a background of moaning and wailing women 
 and children. Here and there, in a dozen places, 
 the sled-lashings were cut. Men crawled in on their 
 bellies, regardless of a rain of kicks and blows, and 
 tried to drag out the grub. These had to be picked 
 up bodily and flung back. And such was their weak 
 ness that they fell continually, under the slightest 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 205 
 
 pressures or shoves. Yet they made no attempt to 
 injure the two men who defended the sled. 
 
 It was the utter weakness of the Indians that saved 
 Smoke and Shorty from being overborne. In five 
 minutes the wall of up-standing, on-struggling In 
 dians had been changed to heaps of fallen ones that 
 moaned and gibbered in the snow, and cried and 
 sniveled as their staring, swimming eyes focused on 
 the grub that meant life to them and that brought 
 the slaver to their lips. And behind it all arose the 
 wailing of the women and children. 
 
 " Shut up ! Oh, shut up ! " Shorty yelled, thrust 
 ing his fingers into his ears and breathing heavily 
 from his exertions. "Ah, you would, would you!" 
 was his cry, as he plunged forward and kicked a knife 
 from the hand of a man who, bellying through the 
 snow, was trying to stab the lead-dog in the throat. 
 
 f< This is terrible," Smoke muttered. 
 
 " I m all het up." Shorty replied, returning from 
 the rescue of Bright. " I m real sweaty. An now 
 what V we goin to do with this ambulance outfit ? " 
 
 Smoke shook his head, and then the problem was 
 solved for him. An Indian crawled forward, his one 
 eye fixed on Smoke instead of on the sled, and in it 
 Smoke could see the struggle of sanity to assert itself. 
 Shorty remembered having punched the other eye, 
 which was already swollen shut. The Indian raised 
 himself on his elbow and spoke. 
 
 " Me Carluk. Me good Siwash. Me savvy Bos 
 ton man plenty. Me plenty hungry. All people 
 plenty hungry. All people no savvy Boston man. 
 
206 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Me savvy. Me eat grub now. All people eat grub 
 now. We buy m grub. Got m plenty gold. No 
 got m grub. Summer, salmon no come Milk River. 
 Winter, caribou no come. No grub. Me make m 
 talk all people. Me tell em plenty Boston man come 
 Yukon. Boston man have plenty grub. Boston 
 man like m gold. We take m gold, go Yukon, Bos 
 ton man give m grub. Plenty gold. Me savvy Bos 
 ton man like m gold." 
 
 He began fumbling with wasted fingers at the 
 draw-string of a pouch he took from his belt. 
 
 " Too much make m noise," Shorty broke in dis 
 tractedly. " You tell m squaw, you tell m papoose, 
 shut m up mouth." 
 
 Carluk turned and addressed the wailing women. 
 Other bucks, listening, raised their voices authorita 
 tively, and slowly the squaws stilled, and quieted the 
 children near to them. Carluk paused from fumbling 
 the draw-string and held up his fingers many times. 
 
 " Him people make m die," he said. 
 
 And Smoke, following the count, knew that sev 
 enty-five of the tribe had starved to death. 
 
 " Me buy m grub," Carluk said, as he got the pouch 
 open and drew out a large chunk of heavy metal. 
 Others were following his example, and on every side 
 appeared similar chunks. Shorty stared. 
 
 " Great Jeminey ! " he cried. " Copper ! Raw, red 
 copper! An they think it s gold!" 
 
 " Him gold," Carluk assured them confidently, his 
 quick comprehension having caught the gist of 
 Shorty s exclamation. 
 
It was the utter weakness of the Indians that saved Smoke and 
 Shorty from being over-borne. 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 209 
 
 " And the poor devils banked everything on it," 
 Smoke muttered. " Look at it. That chunk there 
 weighs forty pounds. They Ve got hundreds of 
 pounds of it, and they Ve carried it when they did n t 
 have strength enough to drag themselves. Look 
 here, Shorty. We Ve got to feed them." 
 
 " Huh ! Sounds easy. But how about statistics ? 
 You an me has a month s grub, which is six meals 
 times thirty, which is one hundred an eighty meals. 
 Here s two hundred Indians, with real, full-grown 
 appetites. How the blazes can we give m one meal 
 even?" 
 
 "There s the dog-grub," Smoke answered. "A 
 couple of hundred pounds of dried salmon ought to 
 help out. We Ve got to do it. They Ve pinned their 
 faith on the white man, you know." 
 
 " Sure, an we can t throw m down," Shorty 
 agreed. " An we got two nasty jobs cut out for us, 
 each just about twicet as nasty as the other. One of 
 us has got to make a run of it to Mucluc an raise a 
 relief. The other has to stay here an run the hospi 
 tal an most likely be eaten. Don t let it slip your 
 noodle that we Ve been six days gettin here ; an 
 travelin light, an all played out, it can t be made back 
 in less n three days." 
 
 For a minute Smoke pondered the miles of the way 
 they had come, visioning the miles in terms of time 
 measured by his capacity for exertion. " I can get 
 there to-morrow night," he announced. 
 
 " All right," Shorty acquiesced cheerfully. " An 
 I 11 stay an be eaten." 
 
210 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " But I m going to take one fish each for the dogs," 
 Smoke explained, " and one meal for myself." 
 
 " An you 11 sure need it if you make Mucluc to 
 morrow night." 
 
 Smoke, through the medium of Carluk, stated the 
 program. " Make fires, long fires, plenty fires," he 
 concluded. " Plenty Boston man stop Mucluc. Bos 
 ton man much good. Boston man plenty grub. Five 
 sleeps I come back plenty grub. This man, his name 
 Shorty, very good friend of mine. He stop here. 
 He big boss savvy? " 
 
 Carluk nodded and interpreted. 
 
 " All grub stop here. Shorty, he give m grub. He 
 boss . savvy ? " 
 
 Carluk interpreted, and nods and guttural cries of 
 agreement proceeded from the men. 
 
 Smoke remained and managed until the full swing 
 of the arrangement was under way. Those who 
 were able, crawled or staggered in the collecting of 
 firewood. Long, Indian fires were built that accom 
 modated all. Shorty, aided by a dozen assistants, 
 with a short club handy for the rapping of hungry 
 knuckles, plunged into the cooking. The women de 
 voted themselves to thawing snow in every utensil that 
 could be mustered. First, a tiny piece of bacon was 
 distributed all around, and, next, a spoonful of sugar 
 to cloy the edge of their razor appetites. Soon, on 
 a circle of fires drawn about Shorty, many pots of 
 beans were boiling, and he, with a wrathful eye for 
 what he called renigers, was frying and apportioning 
 the thinnest of flapjacks. 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 211 
 
 " Me for the big cookin ," was his farewell to 
 Smoke. You just keep a-hikin . Trot all the way 
 there an run all the way back. It 11 take you to-day 
 an to-morrow to get there, and you can t be back 
 inside of three days more. To-morrow they 11 eat 
 the last of the dog-fish, an then there 11 be nary a 
 scrap for three days. You gotta keep a-comin , 
 Smoke. You gotta keep a-comin ." 
 
 Though the sled was light, loaded only with six 
 dried salmon, a couple of pounds of frozen beans and 
 bacon, and a sleeping-robe, Smoke could not make 
 speed. Instead of riding the sled and running the 
 dogs, he was compelled to plod at the gee-pole. Also, 
 a day of work had already been done, and the fresh 
 ness and spring had gone out of the dogs and himself. 
 The long arctic twilight was on when he cleared the 
 divide and left the Bald Buttes behind. 
 
 Down the slope better time was accomplished, and 
 often he was able to spring on the sled for short inter 
 vals and get an exhausting six-mile clip out of the 
 animals. Darkness caught him and fooled him in a 
 wide-valleyed, nameless creek. Here the creek wan 
 dered in broad horseshoe curves through the flats, and 
 here, to save time, he began short-cutting the flats in 
 stead of keeping to the creek-bed. And black dark 
 found him back on the creek-bed feeling for the trail. 
 After an hour of futile searching, too wise to go far 
 ther astray, he built a fire, fed each dog half a 
 fish, and divided his own ration in half. Rolled 
 in his robe, ere quick sleep came he had solved the 
 problem. The last big flat he had short-cut was the 
 
SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 one that occurred at the forks of the creek. He had 
 missed the trail by a mile. He was now on the main 
 stream and below where his and Shorty s trail crossed 
 the valley and climbed through a small feeder to the 
 low divide on the other side. 
 
 At the first hint of daylight he got under way, break- 
 fastless, and wallowed a mile upstream to pick up the 
 trail. And breakfastless, man and dogs, without a 
 halt, for eight hours held back transversely across the 
 series of small creeks and low divides and down Min 
 now Creek. By four in the afternoon, with darkness 
 fast-set about him, he emerged on the hard-packed, 
 running trail of Moose Creek. Fifty miles of it 
 would end the journey. He called a rest, built a fire, 
 threw each dog its half -salmon, and thawed and ate 
 his pound of beans. Then he sprang on the sled, 
 yelled, " Mush ! " and the dogs went out strongly 
 against their breast-bands. 
 
 " Hit her up, you huskies! " he cried. " Mush on! 
 Hit her up for grub ! And no grub short of Mucluc ! 
 Dig in, you wolves ! Dig in ! " 
 
 Midnight had gone a quarter of an hour in the An 
 nie Mine. The main room was comfortably crowded, 
 while roaring stoves, combined with lack of ventila 
 tion, kept the big room unsanitarily warm. The click 
 of chips and the boisterous play at the craps-table 
 furnished a monotonous background of sound to the 
 equally monotonous rumble of men s voices where 
 they sat and stood about and talked in groups and 
 twos and threes. The gold-weighers were busy at 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 213 
 
 their scales, for dust was the circulating medium, and 
 even a dollar drink of whiskey at the bar had to be 
 paid for to the weighers. 
 
 The walls of the room were of tiered logs, the bark 
 still on, and the chinking between the logs, plainly 
 visible, was arctic moss. Through the open door that 
 led to the dance-room came the rollicking strains of a 
 Virginia reel, played by a piano and a fiddle. The 
 drawing of Chinese lottery had just taken place, and 
 the luckiest player, having cashed at the scales, was 
 drinking up his winnings with half a dozen cronies. 
 The faro- and roulette-tables were busy and quiet. 
 The draw-poker and stud-poker tables, each with its 
 circle of onlookers, were equally quiet. At another 
 table, a serious, concentrated game of Black Jack was 
 on. Only from the craps-table came noise, as the man 
 who played rolled the dice, full sweep, down the green 
 amphitheater of a table in pursuit of his elusive and 
 long-delayed point. Ever he cried : " Oh ! you Joe 
 Cotton! Come a four! Come a Joe! Little Joe! 
 Bring home the bacon, Joe ! Joe, you Joe, you ! " 
 
 Cultus George, a big strapping Circle City Indian, 
 leaned distantly and dourly against the log wall. He 
 was a civilized Indian, if living like a white man con 
 notes civilization; and he was sorely offended, though 
 the offense was of long standing. For years he had 
 done a white man s work, had done it alongside of 
 white men, and often had done it better than they did* 
 He wore the same pants they wore, the same hearty 
 woolens and heavy shirts. He sported as good a 
 watch as they, parted his short hair on the side, and 
 
2i 4 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 ate the same food bacon, beans, and flour ; and yet 
 he was denied their greatest diversion and reward; 
 namely, whiskey. Cultus George was a money- 
 earner. He had staked claims, and bought and sold 
 claims. He had been grub-staked, and he had ac 
 corded grub-stakes. Just now he was a dog-musher 
 and freighter, charging twenty-eight cents a pound 
 for the winter haul from Sixty Mile to Mucluc and 
 for bacon thirty-three cents, as was the custom. 
 His poke was fat with dust. He had the price of 
 many drinks. Yet no barkeeper would serve him. 
 Whiskey, the hottest, swiftest, completest gratifier of 
 civilization, was not for him. Only by subterranean 
 and cowardly and expensive ways could he get a 
 drink. And he resented this invidious distinction, as 
 he had resented it for years, deeply. And he was 
 especially thirsty and resentful this night, while the 
 white men he had so sedulously emulated he hated 
 more bitterly than ever before. The white men would 
 graciously permit him to lose his gold across their 
 gaming-tables, but for neither love nor money coXild 
 he obtain a drink across their bars. Wherefore he 
 was very sober, and very logical, and logically sullen. 
 The Virginia reel in the dance-room wound to a 
 wild close that interfered not with the three camp 
 drunkards who snored under the piano. " All couples 
 promenade to the bar ! " was the caller s last cry as 
 the music stopped. And the couples were so prome 
 nading through the wide doorway into the main room 
 the men in furs and moccasins, the women in soft 
 fluffy dresses, silk stockings, and dancing-slippers 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 215 
 
 when the double storm-doors were thrust open, and 
 Smoke Bellew staggered wearily in. 
 
 Eyes centered on him, and silence began to fall. 
 He tried to speak, pulled off his mittens (which fell 
 dangling from their cords), and clawed at the frozen 
 moisture of his breath which had formed in fifty miles 
 of running. He halted irresolutely, then went over 
 and leaned his elbow on the end of the bar. 
 
 Only the man at the craps-table, without turning 
 his head, continued to roll the dice and to cry : " Oh ! 
 you Joe ! Come on, you Joe ! " The gamekeeper s 
 gaze, fixed on Smoke, caught the player s attention, 
 and he, too, with suspended dice, turned and looked. 
 
 " What s up, Smoke?" Matson, the owner of the 
 Annie Mine, demanded. 
 
 With a last effort, Smoke clawed his mouth free. 
 " I got some dogs out there dead beat/ he said 
 huskily. " Somebody go and take care of them, and 
 I 11 tell you what s the matter." 
 
 In a dozen brief sentences, he outlined the situa 
 tion. The craps-player, his money still lying on the 
 table and his slippery Joe Cotton still uncaptured, had 
 come over to Smoke, and was now the first to speak. 
 
 " We gotta do something. That s straight. But 
 what ? You Ve had time to think. What s your 
 plan? Spit it out." 
 
 " Sure," Smoke assented. " Here s what I ve been 
 thinking. We ve got to hustle light sleds on the 
 jump. Say a hundred pounds of grub on each sled. 
 The driver s outfit and dog-grub will fetch it up fifty 
 more. But they can make time. Say we start five 
 
216 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 of these sleds pronto best running teams, best 
 mushers and trail-eaters. On the soft trail the sleds 
 can take the lead turn about. They ve got to start 
 at once. At the best, by the time they can get there, 
 all those Indians won t have had a scrap to eat for 
 three days. And then, as soon as we Ve got those 
 sleds off we 11 have to follow up with heavy sleds. 
 Figure it out yourself. Two pounds a day is the 
 very least we can decently keep those Indians travel 
 ing on. That s four hundred pounds a day, and, 
 with the old people and the children, five days is the 
 quickest time we can bring them into Mucluc. Now 
 what are you going to do ? " 
 
 !< Take up a collection to buy all the grub," said 
 the craps-player. 
 
 " I 11 stand for the grub," Smoke began impa 
 tiently. 
 
 " Nope," the other interrupted. " This ain t your 
 treat. We re all in. Fetch a wash-basin somebody. 
 It won t take a minute. An here s a starter." 
 
 He pulled a heavy gold-sack from his pocket, un 
 tied the mouth, and poured a stream of coarse dust 
 and nuggets into the basin. A man beside him caught 
 his hand up with a jerk and an oath, elevating the 
 mouth of the sack so as to stop the run of the dust. 
 To a casual eye, six or eight ounces had already run 
 into the basin. 
 
 " Don t be a hawg," cried the second man. " You 
 ain t the only one with a poke. Gimme a chance 
 at it." 
 
 " Huh ! " sneered the craps-player. " You d think 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 217 
 
 it was a stampede, you re so goshdanged eager 
 about it." 
 
 Men crowded and jostled for the opportunity to 
 contribute, and when they were satisfied, Smoke 
 hefted the heavy basin with both hands and grinned. 
 
 11 It will keep the whole tribe in grub for the rest 
 of the winter," he said. " Now for the dogs. Five 
 light teams that have some run in them." 
 
 A dozen teams were volunteered, and the camp, as 
 a committee of the whole, bickered and debated, ac 
 cepted and rejected. 
 
 "Huh! Your dray-horses!" Long Bill Haskell 
 was told. 
 
 " They can pull," he bristled with hurt pride. 
 
 " They sure can," he was assured. " But they 
 can t make time for sour apples. They Ve got theirs 
 cut out for them bringing up the heavy loads." 
 
 As fast as a team was selected, its owner, with half 
 a dozen aids, departed to harness up and get ready. 
 
 One team was rejected because it had come in tired 
 that afternoon. One owner contributed his team, but 
 apologetically exposed a bandaged ankle that pre 
 vented him from driving it. This team Smoke took, 
 overriding the objection of the crowed that he was 
 played out. 
 
 Long Bill Haskell pointed out that while Fat Ol- 
 sen s team was a cracker jack, Fat Olsen himself was 
 an elephant. Fat Olsen s two hundred and forty 
 pounds of heartiness was indignant. Tears of anger 
 came into his eyes, and his Scandinavian explosions 
 could not be stopped until he was given a place in the 
 
218 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 heavy division, the craps-player j tumping at the chance 
 to take out Olsen s light team. 
 
 Five teams were accepted and were being harnessed 
 and loaded, but only four drivers had satisfied the 
 committee of the whole. 
 
 :( There s Cultus George," some one cried. " He s 
 a trail-eater, and he s fresh and rested." 
 
 All eyes turned upon the Indian, but his face was 
 expressionless, and he said notning. 
 
 " You 11 take a team," Smoke said to him. 
 
 Still the big Indian made no answer. As with an 
 electric thrill, it ran through all of them that some 
 thing untoward was impending. A restless shifting 
 of the group took place, forming a circle in which 
 Smoke and Cultus George faced each other. And 
 Smoke realized that by common consent he had been 
 made the representative of his fellows in what was 
 taking place, in what was to take place. Also, he 
 was angered. It was beyond him that any human 
 creature, a witness to the scramble of volunteers, 
 should hang back. For another thing, in what fol 
 lowed, Smoke did not have Cultus George s point of 
 view did not dream that the Indian held back for 
 any reason save the selfish, mercenary one. 
 
 "Of course you will take a team," Smoke said. 
 
 "How much?" Cultus George asked. 
 
 A snarl, spontaneous and general, grated in the 
 throats and twisted the mouths of the miners. At 
 the same moment, with clenched fists or fingers crooked 
 to grip, they pressed in on the offender. 
 
 " Wait a bit, boys," Smoke cried. " Maybe he 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 219 
 
 does n t understand. Let me explain it to him. Look 
 here, George. Don t you see, nobody is charging 
 anything. They re giving everything to save two 
 hundred Indians from starving to death." He paused, 
 to let it sink home. 
 
 " How much ? " said Cultus George. 
 
 " Wait, you fellows ! Now listen, George. We 
 don t want you to make any mistake. These starving 
 people are your kind of people. They re another 
 tribe, but they re Indians just the same. Now you Ve 
 seen what the white men are doing coughing up 
 their dust, giving their dogs and sleds, falling over 
 one another to hit the trail. Only the best men can 
 go with the first sleds. Look at Fat Olsen there. 
 He was ready to fight because they would n t let him 
 go. You ought to be mighty proud because all men 
 think you are a number-one musher. It is n t a case 
 of how much, but how quick." 
 
 " How much ? " said Cultus George. 
 
 " Kill him ! " " Bust his head ! " " Tar and feath 
 ers ! " were several of the cries in the wild medley 
 that went up, the spirit of philanthropy and good- 
 fellowship changed to brute savagery on the instant. 
 
 In the storm-center Cultus George stood imper 
 turbable, while Smoke thrust back the fiercest and 
 shouted : 
 
 " Wait! Who s running this? " The clamor died 
 away. " Fetch a rope," he added quietly. 
 
 Cultus George shrugged his shoulders, his face 
 twisting tensely in a sullen and incredulous grin. He 
 knew this white-man breed. He had toiled on trail 
 
220 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 with it and eaten its flour and bacon and beans too 
 long not to know it. It was a law-abiding breed. 
 He knew that thoroughly. It always punished the 
 man who broke the law. But he had broken no law. 
 He knew its law. He had lived up to it. He had 
 neither murdered, stolen, nor lied. There was noth 
 ing in the white man s law against charging a price 
 and driving a bargain. They all charged a price and 
 drove bargains. He was doing nothing more than 
 that, and it was the thing they had taught him. Be 
 sides, if he was n t good enough to drink with them, 
 then he was not good enough to be charitable with 
 them, nor to join them in any other of their foolish 
 diversions. 
 
 Neither Smoke nor any man there glimpsed what 
 lay in Cultus George s brain, behind his attitude and 
 prompting his attitude. Though they did not know 
 it, they were as beclouded as he in the matter of mutual 
 understanding. To them, he was a selfish brute; to 
 him, they were selfish brutes. 
 
 When the rope was brought, Long Bill Haskell, Fat 
 Olsen, and the craps-player, with much awkwardness 
 and angry haste, got the slip-noose around the Indian s 
 neck and rove the rope over a rafter. At the other 
 end of the dangling thing a dozen men tailed on, 
 ready to hoist away. 
 
 Nor had Cultus George resisted. He knew it for 
 what it was bluff. The whites were strong on bluff. 
 Was not draw-poker their favorite game? Did they 
 not buy and sell and make all bargains with bluff? 
 Yes ; he had seen a white man do business with a look 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 221 
 
 on his face of four aces and in his hand a busted 
 straight. 
 
 " Wait," Smoke commanded. " Tie his hands. 
 We don t want him climbing. * 
 
 More bluff, Cultus George decided, and passively 
 permitted his hands to be tied behind his back. 
 
 " Now it s your last chance, George," said Smoke. 
 " Will you take out the team? " 
 
 " How much? " said Cultus George. 
 
 Astounded at himself that he should be able to do 
 such a thing, and at the same time angered by the 
 colossal selfishness of the Indian, Smoke gave the 
 signal. Nor was Cultus George any less astounded 
 when he felt the noose tighten with a jerk and swing 
 him off the floor. His stolidity broke on the instant. 
 On his face, in quick succession, appeared surprise, dis 
 may, and pain. 
 
 Smoke watched anxiously. Having never been 
 hanged himself, he felt a tyro at the business. The 
 body struggled convulsively, the tied hands strove to 
 burst the bonds, and from the throat came unpleasant 
 noises of strangulation. Suddenly Smoke held up his 
 hand. 
 
 " Slack away ! " he ordered. 
 
 Grumbling at the shortness of the punishment, the 
 men on the rope lowered Cultus George to the floor. 
 His eyes were bulging, and he was tottery on his 
 feet, swaying from side to side and still making a 
 fight with his hands. Smoke divined what w : as the 
 matter, thrust violent fingers between the rope and 
 the neck, and brought the noose slack w r ith a jerk. 
 
222 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 With a great heave of the chest, Cultus George got his 
 first breath. 
 
 Will you take that team out? " Smoke demanded. 
 
 Cultus George did not answer. He was too busy 
 breathing. 
 
 " Oh, we white men are hogs," Smoke filled in the 
 interval, resentful himself at the part he was compelled 
 to play. :< We d sell our souls for gold, and all that ; 
 but once in a while we forget about it and turn loose 
 and do something without a thought of how much 
 there is in it. And when we do that, Cultus George, 
 watch out. What we want to know now is: Are you 
 going to take out that team ? " 
 
 Cultus George debated with himself. He was no 
 coward. Perhaps this was the extent of their bluff, 
 and if he gave in now he was a fool. And while he 
 debated, Smoke suffered from secret worry lest this 
 stubborn aborigine would persist in being hanged. 
 
 " How much ? " said Cultus George. 
 
 Smoke started to raise his hand for the signal. 
 
 " Me go," Cultus George said very quickly, before 
 the rope could tighten. 
 
 " An when that rescue expedition found me," 
 Shorty told it in the Annie Mine, " that ornery Cultus 
 George was the first in, beatin Smoke s sled by three 
 hours, an don t you forget it, Smoke comes in second 
 at that. Just the same, it was about time, when I heard 
 Cultus George a-yellin at his dogs from the top of 
 the divide, for those blamed Siwashes had ate my 
 moccasins, my mitts, the leather lacin s, my knife- 
 sheath, an some of em was beginnin to look mighty 
 
THE HANGING OF CULTUS GEORGE 223 
 
 hungry at me me bein better nourished, you see. 
 "An Smoke? He was near dead. He hustled 
 around a while, helpin to start a meal for them two 
 hundred sufferin Siwashes; an then he fell asleep, 
 settin on his haunches, thinkin he was feedin snow 
 into a thawin -pail. I fixed him my bed, an dang me 
 if I did n t have to help him into it, he was that give 
 out. Sure I win the toothpicks. Did n t them dogs 
 just naturally need the six salmon Smoke fed em at 
 the noonin ? " 
 
IX 
 
 THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 
 
 "\X7HOA!" Smoke yelled at the dogs, throwing 
 his weight back on the gee-pole to bring the 
 sled to a halt. 
 
 " What s eatin you now?" Shorty complained. 
 f< They ain t no water under that footing." 
 
 " No ; but look at that trail cutting out to the right," 
 Smoke answered. " I thought nobody was wintering 
 in this section." 
 
 The dogs, on the moment they stopped, dropped in 
 the snow and began biting out the partices of ice from 
 between their toes. This ice had been water five min 
 utes before. The animals had broken through a skein 
 of ice, snow-powdered, which had hidden the spring 
 water that oozed out of the bank and pooled on top 
 of the three-foot winter crust of Nordbeska River. 
 
 " First I heard of anybody up the Nordbeska," 
 Shorty said, staring at the all but obliterated track cov 
 ered by two feet of snow, that left the bed of the river 
 at right angles and entered the mouth of a small 
 stream flowing from the left. " Mebbe they re hunt 
 ers and pulled their freight long ago." 
 
 Smoke scooping the light snow away with mittened 
 hands, paused to consider, scooped again, and again 
 paused. "No," he decided. "There s been travel 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 225 
 
 both ways, but the last travel was up that creek. 
 Whoever they are, they re there now certain. 
 There s been no travel for weeks. Now what s been 
 keeping them there all the time ? That s what I want 
 to know." 
 
 " And what I want to know is where we re going 
 to camp to-night," Shorty said, staring disconsolately 
 at the sky-line in the southwest, where the mid-after 
 noon twilight was darkening into night. 
 
 " Let s follow the track up the creek," was Smoke s 
 suggestion. " There s plenty of dead timber. We 
 can camp any time." 
 
 " Sure we can camp any time, but we got to travel 
 most of the time if we ain t goin to starve, an we got 
 to travel in the right direction." 
 
 " We re going to find something up that creek," 
 Smoke went on. 
 
 "But look at the grub! look at them dogs!" 
 Shorty cried. " Look at r oh, hell, all right. You 
 will have your will." 
 
 " It won t make the trip a day longer," Smoke urged. 
 " Possibly no more than a mile longer." 
 
 " Men has died for as little as a mile," Shorty re 
 torted, shaking his head with lugubrious resignation. 
 " Come on for trouble. Get up, you poor sore-foots, 
 you get up ! Haw ! You Bright ! Haw ! " 
 
 The lead-dog obeyed, and the whole team strained 
 weakly into the soft snow. 
 
 " Whoa ! " Shorty yelled. " It s pack trail." 
 
 Smoke pulled his snow-shoes from under the sled- 
 lashings, bound them to his moccasined feet, and went 
 
226 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 to the fore to press and pack the light surface for the 
 dogs. 
 
 It was heavy work. Dogs and men had been for 
 days on short rations, and few and limited were the 
 reserves of energy they could call upon. Though 
 they followed the creek bed, so pronounced was its fall 
 that they toiled on a stiff and unrelenting up-grade. 
 The high rocky walls quickly drew near together, so 
 that their way led up the bottom of a narrow gorge. 
 The long lingering twilight, blocked by the high moun 
 tains, was no more than semi-darkness. 
 
 " It s a trap," Shorty said. " The whole look of 
 it is rotten. It s a hole in the ground. It s the 
 stampin -ground of trouble." 
 
 Smoke made no reply, and for half an hour they 
 toiled on in silence a silence that was again broken 
 by Shorty. 
 
 " She s a-workin ," he grumbled. " She s sure a- 
 workin , an I 11 tell you if you re minded to hear an 
 listen." 
 
 " Go on," Smoke answered. 
 
 " Well, she tells me, plain an simple, that we ain t 
 never goin to get out of this hole in the ground in 
 days an days. We re goin to find trouble an be 
 stuck in here a long time an then some." 
 
 "Does she say anything about grub?" Smoke 
 queried unsympathetically. " For we have n t grub 
 for days and days and days and then some." 
 
 " Nope. Nary whisper about grub. . I guess we 11 
 manage to make out. But I tell you one thing, Smoke, 
 straight an flat. I 11 eat any dog in the team ex- 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 227 
 
 ceptin Bright. I got to draw the line on Bright. I 
 just could n t scoff him." 
 
 " Cheer up," Smoke girded. " My hunch is work 
 ing overtime. She tells me there 11 be no dogs eaten, 
 and, whether it s moose or caribou or quail on toast, 
 we 11 all fatten up." 
 
 Shorty snorted his unutterable disgust, and silence 
 obtained for another quarter of an hour. 
 
 " There s the beginning of your trouble," Smoke 
 said, halting on his snow-shoes and staring at an ob 
 ject that lay on one side of the old trail. 
 
 Shorty left the gee-pole and joined him, and to 
 gether they gazed down on the body of a man beside 
 the trail. 
 
 " Well fed," said Smoke. 
 
 " Look at them lips," said Shorty. 
 
 " Stiff as a poker," said Smoke, lifting an arm, that, 
 without moving, moved the whole body. 
 
 " Pick m up an drop m and he d break to pieces," 
 was Shorty s comment. 
 
 The man lay on his side, solidly frozen. From the 
 fact that no snow powdered him, it was patent that he 
 had lain there but a short time. 
 
 " There was a general fall of snow three days 
 back," said Shorty. 
 
 Smoke nodded, bending over the corpse, twisting 
 it half up to face them, and pointing to a bullet wound 
 in the temple. He glanced to the side and tilted his 
 head at a revolver that lay on top of the snow. 
 
 A hundred yards farther on they came upon a sec 
 ond body that lay face downward in the trail. " Two 
 
228 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 things are pretty clear," Smoke said. " They re fat. 
 That means no famine. They ve not struck it rich, 
 else they would n t have committed suicide." 
 
 " If they did," Shorty objected. 
 
 " They certainly did. There are no tracks besides 
 their own, and each is powder-burned." Smoke 
 dragged the corpse to one side and with the toe of his 
 moccasin nosed a revolver out of the snow into which 
 it had been pressed by the body. " That s what did 
 the work. I told you we d find something." 
 
 " From the looks of it we ain t started yet. Now 
 what d two fat geezers want to kill theirselves for?" 
 
 " When we find that out we 11 have found the rest 
 of your trouble," Smoke answered. " Come on. It s 
 blowing dark." 
 
 Quite dark it was when Smoke s snow-shoe tripped 
 him over a body. He fell across a sled, on which lay 
 another body. And when he had dug the snow out 
 of his neck and struck a match, he and Shorty glimpsed 
 a third body, wrapped in blankets, lying beside a par 
 tially dug grave. Also, ere the match flickered out, 
 they caught sight of half a dozen additional graves. 
 
 " B-r-r-r," Shorty shivered. " Suicide Camp. All 
 fed up. I reckon they re all dead." 
 
 " No peep at that." Smoke was looking farther 
 along at a dim glimmer of light. "And there s 
 another light and a third one there. Come on. 
 Let s hike." 
 
 No more corpses delayed them, and in several min 
 utes, over a hard-packed trail, they were in the camp. 
 
 " It s a city," Shorty whispered. " There must be 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 229 
 
 twenty cabins. An not a dog. Ain t that funny ! " 
 
 " And that explains it," Smoke whispered back ex 
 citedly. " It s the Laura Sibley outfit. Don t you 
 remember? Came up the Yukon last fall on the Port 
 Townsend Number Six. Went right by Dawson with 
 out stopping. The steamer must have landed them at 
 the mouth of the creek." 
 
 " Sure. I remember. They was Mormons." 
 
 " No vegetarians." Smoke grinned in the dark 
 ness. " They won t eat meat and they won t work 
 dogs." 
 
 " It s all the same. I knowed they was something 
 funny about em. Had the allwise steer to the yel 
 low. That Laura Sibley was goin to take em right 
 to the spot where they d all be millionaires." 
 
 " Yes ; she was their seeress had visions and that 
 sort of stuff. I thought they went up the Nordens- 
 jold." 
 
 "Huh! Listen to that!" 
 
 Shorty s hand in the darkness went out warningly 
 to Smoke s chest, and together they listened to a groan, 
 deep and long drawn, that came from one of the cab 
 ins. Ere it could die away it was taken up by another 
 cabin, and another a vast suspiration of human 
 misery. The effect was monstrous and nightmarish. 
 
 " B-r-r-r," Shorty shivered. " It s gettin me goin . 
 Let s break in an find what s eatin em." 
 
 Smoke knocked at a lighted cabin, and was fol 
 lowed in by Shorty in answer to the " Come in " of 
 the voice they heard groaning. It was a simple log 
 cabin, the walls moss-chinked, the earth floor covered 
 
230 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 with sawdust and shavings. The light was a kero 
 sene-lamp, and they could make out four bunks, three 
 of which were occupied by men who ceased from 
 groaning in order to stare. 
 
 "What s the matter?" Smoke demanded af one 
 whose blankets could not hide his broad shoulders and 
 massively muscled body, whose eyes were pain-racked 
 and whose cheeks were hollow. " Smallpox? What 
 is it?" 
 
 In reply, the man pointed at his mouth, spreading 
 black and swollen lips in the effort ; and Smoke recoiled 
 at the sight. 
 
 " Scurvy," he muttered to Shorty ; and the man 
 confirmed the diagnosis with a nod of the head. 
 
 " Plenty of grub? " Shorty asked. 
 
 Yep," was the answer from a man in another 
 bunk. " Help yourself. There s slathers of it. 
 The cabin next on the other side is empty. Cache is 
 right alongside. Wade into it." 
 
 In every cabin they visited that night they found a 
 similar situation. Scurvy had smitten the whole 
 camp. A dozen women were in the party, though the 
 two men did not see all of them. Originally there 
 had been ninety-three men and women. But ten had 
 died, and two had recently disappeared. Smoke told 
 of finding the two, and expressed surprise that none 
 had gone that short distance down the trail to find out 
 for themselves. What particularly struck him and 
 Shorty was the helplessness of these people. Their 
 cabins were littered and dirty. The dishes stood un 
 washed on the rough plank tables. There was no 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 231 
 
 mutual aid. A cabin s troubles were its own troubles, 
 and already they had ceased from the exertion of 
 burying their dead. 
 
 " It s almost weird," Smoke confided to Shorty. 
 " I Ve met shirkers and loafers, but I never met so 
 many all at one time. You heard what they said. 
 They ve never done a tap. I 11 bet they have n t 
 washed their own faces. No wonder they got scurvy." 
 
 " But vegetarians had n t ought to get scurvy," 
 Shorty contended. " It s the salt-meat-eaters that s 
 supposed to fall for it. And they don t eat meat, 
 salt or fresh, raw or cooked, or any other way." 
 
 Smoke shook his head. " I know. And it s vege 
 table diet that cures scurvy. No drugs w T ill do it. 
 Vegetables, especially potatoes, are the only dope. 
 But don t forget one thing, Shorty: we are not up 
 against a theory but a condition. The fact is these 
 grass-eaters have all got scurvy." 
 
 " Must be contagious." 
 
 " No ; that the doctors do know. Scurvy is not a 
 germMisease. It can t be caught. It s generated. 
 As near as I can get it, it s due to an impoverished 
 condition of the blood. Its cause is not something 
 they ve got, but something they have n t got. A man 
 gets scurvy for lack of certain chemicals in his blood, 
 and those chemicals don t come out of powders and 
 bottles, but do come out of vegetables." 
 
 " An these people eats nothin but grass," Shorty 
 groaned. " And they ve got it up to their ears. 
 That proves you re all wrong, Smoke. You re 
 spielin a theory, but this condition sure knocks the 
 
232 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 spots outa your theory. Scurvy s catchin , an* 
 that s why they ve all got it, an rotten bad at that. 
 You an me 11 get it too, if we hang around this dig- 
 gin . B-r-r-r ! I can feel the bugs crawlin into my 
 system right now." 
 
 Smoke laughed skeptically, and knocked on a cabin 
 door. " I suppose we 11 find the same old thing," he 
 said. " Come on. We ve got to get a line on the 
 situation." 
 
 " What do you want?" came a woman s sharp 
 voice. 
 
 " We want to see you," Smoke answered. 
 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 " Two doctors from Dawson," Shorty blurted in, 
 with a levity that brought a punch in the short ribs 
 from Smoke s elbow. 
 
 " Don t want to see any doctors," the woman said, 
 in tones crisp and staccato with pain and irritation. 
 " Go away. Good night. We don t believe in doc 
 tors." 
 
 Smoke pulled the latch, shoved the door open, and 
 entered, turning up the low-flamed kerosene-lamp so 
 that he could see. In four bunks four women ceased 
 
 
 
 from groaning and sighing to stare at the intruders. 
 Two were young, thin- faced creatures, the third was 
 an elderly and very stout woman, and the fourth, the 
 one whom Smoke identified by her voice, was the thin 
 nest, frailest specimen of the human race he had ever 
 seen. As he quickly learned, she was Laura Sibley, 
 the seeress and professional clairvoyant who had or 
 ganized the expedition in Los Angeles and led it to this 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 233 
 
 death-camp on the Xordbeska. The conversation that 
 ensued was acrimonious. Laura Sibley did not be 
 lieve in doctors. Also, to add to her purgatory, she 
 had wellnigh ceased to believe in herself. 
 
 %Why didn t you send out for help?" Smoke 
 asked, ^ when she paused, breathless and exhausted, 
 from her iriitial tirade. " There s a camp at Stewart 
 River, and eighteen days* travel would fetch Dawson 
 from here." 
 
 "Why didn t Amos Wentworth go?" she de 
 manded, with a wrath that bordered on hysteria. 
 
 " Don t know the gentleman," Smoke countered. 
 " What s he been doing? " 
 
 " Nothing. Except that he s the only one that 
 has n t caught the scurvy. And why has n t he caught 
 the scurvy? I 11 tell -you. No, I won t." The thin 
 lips compressed so tightly that through the emaciated 
 transparency of them Smoke was almost convinced he 
 could see the teeth and the roots of the teeth. " And 
 what would have been the use? Don t I know? 
 I m not a fool. Our caches are filled with every kind 
 of fruit juice and preserved vegetables. We are better 
 situated than any other camp in Alaska to fight scurvy. 
 There is no prepared vegetable, fruit, and nut food we 
 have n t, and in plenty." 
 
 " She s got you there, Smoke," Shorty exulted. 
 " And it s a condition, not a theory. You say veg 
 etables cures. Here s the vegetables, and where s 
 the cure?" 
 
 There s no explanation I can see," Smoke ac 
 knowledged. " Yet there is no camp in Alaska like this. 
 
234 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 I ve seen scurvy <a sprinkling of cases here and 
 there; but I never saw a whole camp with it, nor did 
 I ever see such terrible cases. Which is neither here 
 nor there, Shorty. We Ve got to do what we can for 
 these people, but first we Ve got to make camp and 
 take care of the dogs. We 11 see you in the morning, 
 er Mrs. Sibley." 
 
 " Miss Sibley," she bridled. " And now, young 
 man, if you come fooling around this cabin with any 
 doctor stuff I 11 fill you full of birdshot." 
 
 This divine seeress is a sweet one," Smoke 
 chuckled, as he and Shorty felt their way back through 
 the darkness to the empty cabin next the one they 
 had first entered. 
 
 It was evident that two men had lived until recently 
 in the cabin, and the partners wondered if they 
 were n t the two suicides down the trail. Together 
 they overhauled the cache and found it filled with an 
 undreamed-of variety of canned, powdered, dried, 
 evaporated, condensed, and desiccated foods. 
 
 " What in the name of reason do they want to go 
 and get scurvy for ? " Shorty demanded, brandish 
 ing to the light packages of egg-powder and Italian 
 mushrooms. " And look at that ! And that ! " He 
 tossed out cans of tomatoes and corn and bottles of 
 stuffed olives. " And the divine steeress got the 
 scurvy, too. What d ye make of it?" 
 
 " Seeress," Smoke corrected. 
 
 " Steeress," Shorty reiterated. " Did n t she steer 
 em here to this hole in the ground ? " 
 
 Next morning, after daylight, Smoke encountered 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 235 
 
 a man carrying a heavy sled-load of firewood. He 
 was a little man, clean-looking and spry, who walked 
 briskly despite the load. Smoke experienced an im 
 mediate dislike. 
 
 " What s the matter with you? " he asked. 
 
 " Nothing," the little man answered. 
 
 " I know that," Smoke said. " That s why I asked 
 you. You re Amos Wentworth. Now why under 
 the sun have n t you the scurvy like all the rest? " 
 
 " Because I ve exercised," came the quick reply. 
 " There was n t any need for any of them to get it 
 if they d only got out and done something. What 
 did they do? Growled and kicked and grouched at 
 the cold, the long nights, the hardships, the aches and 
 pains and everything else. They loafed in their beds 
 until they swelled up and could n t leave them, that J s 
 all. Look at me. I ve worked. Come into my 
 cabin." 
 
 Smoke followed him in. 
 
 " Squint around. Clean as a whistle, eh ? You 
 bet. Everything shipshape. I would n t keep those 
 chips and shavings on the floor except for the warmth, 
 but they re clean chips and shavings. You ought to 
 see the floor in some of the shacks. Pig-pens. As 
 for me, I have n t eaten a meal off an unwashed dish. 
 No, sir. It meant work, and I ve worked, and I 
 haven t the scurvy. You can put that in your pipe 
 and smoke it." 
 
 " You Ve hit the nail on the head," Smoke admitted. 
 " But I see you ve only one bunk. Why so unsoci 
 able?" 
 
236 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Because I like to be. It s easier to clean up for 
 one than two, that s why. The lazy blanket-loafers ! 
 Do you think that I could have stood one around? 
 No wonder they got scurvy." 
 
 It was very convincing, but Smoke could not rid 
 himself of his dislike of the man. 
 
 " What s Laura Sibley got it in for you for? " he 
 asked abruptly. 
 
 Amos Wentworth shot a quick look at him. 
 " She s a crank," was the reply. " So are we all 
 cranks, for that matter. But Heaven save me from 
 the crank that won t wash the dishes that he eats 
 off of, and that s what this crowd of cranks are like." 
 
 A few minutes later, Smoke was talking with Laura 
 Sibley. Supported by a stick in either hand, she had 
 paused in hobbling by his cabin. 
 
 "What have you got it in for Wentworth for?" 
 he asked, apropos of nothing in the conversation and 
 with a suddenness that caught her off her guard. 
 
 Her green eyes flashed bitterly, her emaciated face 
 for the second was convulsed with rage, and her sore 
 lips writhed on the verge of unconsidered speech. But 
 only a splutter of gasping, unintelligible sounds issued 
 forth, and then, by a terrible effort, she controlled her 
 self. 
 
 " Because he s healthy," she panted. " Because 
 he has n t the scurvy. Because he is supremely self 
 ish. Because he won t lift a hand to help anybody 
 else. Because he d let us rot and die, as he is letting 
 us rot and die, without lifting a finger to fetch us a 
 pail of water or a load of firewood. That s the kind 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 237 
 
 of a brute he is. But let him beware ! That s all. 
 Let him beware ! " 
 
 Still panting and gasping, she hobbled on her way. 
 and five minutes afterward, coming out of the cabin 
 to feed the dogs, Smoke saw her entering Amos Went- 
 worth s cabin. 
 
 " Something rotten here, Shorty, something rotten," 
 he said, shaking his head ominously, as his partner 
 came to the door to empty a pan of dish-water. 
 
 " Sure," was the cheerful rejoinder. " An you an 
 me 11 be catchirr it yet. You see." 
 
 " I don t mean the scurvy." 
 
 " Oh. sure, if you mean the divine steeress. She d 
 rob a corpse. She s the hungriest-lookin female I 
 ever seen." 
 
 Exercise has kept you and me in condition, 
 Shorty. It s kept Wentworth in condition. You 
 see what lack of exercise has done for the rest. Now 
 it s up to us to prescribe exercise for these hospital 
 wrecks. It will be your job to see that they get it. 
 I appoint you chief nurse." 
 
 " What? Me? " Shorty shouted. " I resign." 
 
 " No, you don t. I 11 be able assistant, because it 
 is n t going to be any soft snap. We ve got to make 
 them hustle. First thing, they 11 have to bury their 
 dead. The strongest for the burial squad; then the 
 next strongest on the firewood squad (they ve been 
 lying in their blankets to save wood) ; and so on down 
 the line. And spruce-tea. Must n t forget that. All 
 tne sour-doughs swear by it. These people have 
 never even heard of it." 
 
238 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " We sure got ourn cut out for us," -Shorty grinned. 
 " First thing we know we 11 be full of lead." 
 
 " And that s our first job," Smoke said. " Come 
 
 on." 
 
 In the next hour, each of the twenty-odd cabins was 
 raided. All ammunition and every rifle, shotgun, ancf 
 revolver was confiscated. 
 
 " Come on, you invalids," was Shorty s method. 
 " Shootin -irons fork em over. We need em." 
 
 " Who says so ? " was the query at the first cabin. 
 
 :t Two doctors from D&wson," was Shorty s an 
 swer. " An what they say goes. Come on. Shell 
 out ammunition, too." 
 
 " What do you want them for? " 
 
 " To stand off a war-party of canned beef comin 
 down the canyon. And I m givin you fair warnin of 
 a spruce-tea invasion. Come across." 
 
 And this was only the beginning of the day. Men 
 were persuaded, coaxed, bullied or dragged by main 
 strength from their bunks and forced to dress. 
 Smoke selected the mildest cases for the burial squad. 
 Another squad was told off to supply the wood by 
 which the graves were burned down into the frozen 
 muck and gravel. Still another squad had to chop 
 firewood and impartially supply every cabin. Those 
 who were too weak for out door work were put to 
 cleaning and scrubbing the cabins and washing clothes. 
 One squad brought in many loads of spruce-boughs, 
 and every stove was used for the brewing of spruce- 
 tea. 
 
 But no matter what face Smoke and Shorty put on 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 239 
 
 it, the situation was grim and serious. At least thirty 
 fearful and impossible cases could not be taken from 
 the beds, as the two men, with nausea and horror, 
 learned; while one, a woman, died in Laura Sibley s 
 cabin. Yet strong measures were necessary. 
 
 " I don t like to wallop a sick man," Shorty ex 
 plained, his fist doubled menacingly. " But I d wal 
 lop his block off if it d make him well. And w r hat all 
 you lazy bums needs is a wallopin . Come on! Out 
 of that an into them duds of yourn, double quick, or 
 I 11 sure muss up the front of your face." 
 
 All the gangs groaned, and sighed, and wept, the 
 tears streaming and freezing down their cheeks as 
 they toiled; and it was patent that their agony was 
 real. The situation was desperate, and Smoke s pre 
 scription was heroic. 
 
 When the w ork-gangs came in at noon, they found 
 decently cooked dinners awaiting them, prepared by the 
 weaker members of their cabins under the tutelage and 
 drive of Smoke and Shorty. 
 
 " That 11 do," Smoke said at three in the afternoon. 
 " Knock off. Go to your bunks. You may be feel 
 ing rotten now, but you 11 be the better for it to 
 morrow. Of course it hurts to get well, but I m go 
 ing to get you well." 
 
 " Too late," Amos Wentworth sneered pallidly at 
 Smoke s efforts. " They ought to have started in that 
 way last fall." " Come along with me," Smoke an 
 swered. " Pick up those two pails. You re not ail 
 ing." 
 
 From cabin to cabin the three men went, dosing 
 
240 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 every man and woman with a full pint of spruce-tea. 
 Nor was it easy. 
 
 You might as well learn at the start that we mean 
 business/ Smoke stated to the first obdurate, who lay 
 on his back, groaning through set teeth. " Stand by, 
 Shorty." Smoke caught the patient by the nose and 
 tapped the solar-plexus section so as to make the 
 mouth gasp open. " Now, Shorty ! Down she goes ! " 
 
 And down it went, accompanied with unavoidable 
 splutterings and stranglings. 
 
 " Next time you 11 take it easier," Smoke assured 
 the victim, reaching for the nose of the man in the ad 
 joining bunk. 
 
 " I d sooner take castor oil," was Shorty s private 
 confidence, ere he downed his own portion. " Great 
 jumpin Methuselem ! " was his entirely public procla 
 mation the moment after he had swallowed the bitter 
 dose. " It s a pint long, but hogshead strong." 
 
 * We re covering this spruce-tea route four times 
 a day, and there are eighty of you to be dosed each 
 time," Smoke informed Laura Sibley. " So we Ve 
 no time to fool. Will you take it or must I hold your 
 nose? " His thumb and forefinger hovered eloquently 
 above her. " It s vegetable, so you need n t have any 
 qualms." 
 
 " Qualms ! " Shorty snorted. " No, sure, certainly 
 not. It s the deliciousest dope ! " 
 
 Laura Sibley hesitated. She gulped her apprehen 
 sion. 
 
 ;f Well ? " Smoke demanded peremptorily. 
 
 " I 11 I 11 take it," she quavered. " Hurry up ! " 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 241 
 
 That night, exhausted as by no hard day of trail, 
 Smoke and Shorty crawled into their blankets. 
 
 " I m fairly sick with it," Smoke confessed. 
 " The way they suffer is awful. But exercise is the 
 only remedy I can think of, and it must be given a 
 thorough trial. I wish we had a sack of raw pota 
 toes." 
 
 " Sparkins he can t wash no more dishes," Shorty 
 said. " It hurts him so he sweats his pain. I seen 
 him sweat it. I had to put him back in the bunk, he 
 was that helpless." 
 
 "If only we had raw potatoes," Smoke went on. 
 " The vital, essential something is missing from that 
 prepared stuff. The life has been evaporated out of 
 it." 
 
 " An if that young fellow Jones in the Brownlow 
 cabin don t croak before morning I miss my guess." 
 
 " For Heaven s sake be cheerful," Smoke chided. 
 
 " We got to bury him, ain t we ? " came the indig 
 nant snort. " I tell you that boy s something aw 
 ful " 
 
 " Shut up," Smoke said. 
 
 And after several more indignant snorts, the heavy 
 breathing of sleep arose from Shorty s bunk. 
 
 In the morning, not only was Jones dead, but one 
 of the stronger men who had worked on the firewood 
 squad was found to have hanged himself. A night 
 mare procession of days set in. For a week, steeling 
 himself to the task, Smoke enforced the exercise and 
 the spruce-tea. And one by one, and in twos and 
 threes, he was compelled to knock off the workers. 
 
242 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 As he was learning, exercise was the last thing in the 
 world for scurvy patients. The diminishing burial 
 squad was kept steadily at work, and a surplus half- 
 dozen graves were always burned down and waiting. 
 You could n t have selected a worse place for a 
 camp," Smoke told Laura Sibley. "Look at it at 
 the bottom of a narrow gorge, running east and west. 
 The noon sun does n t rise above the top of the wall. 
 You can t have had sunlight for several months." 
 
 " But how was I to know ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " I don t see why not, 
 if you could lead a hundred fools to a gold-mine." 
 
 She glared malevolently at him and hobbled on. 
 Several minutes afterward, coming back from a trip 
 to where a squad of groaning patients was gathering 
 spruce-boughs, Smoke saw the seeress entering Amos 
 Wentworth s cabin and followed after her. At the 
 door he could hear her voice, whimpering and plead 
 ing. 
 
 Just for me," she was begging, as Smoke entered. 
 " I won t tell a soul." 
 
 Both glanced guiltily at the intruder, and Smoke 
 was certain that he was on the edge of something, he 
 knew not what, and he cursed himself for not having 
 eavesdropped. 
 
 " Out with it," he commanded harshly. " What is 
 it?" 
 
 " What is what ? " Amos Wentworth asked sul 
 lenly. And Smoke could not name what was what. 
 
 Grimmer and grimmer grew the situation. In that 
 dark hole of a canyon, where sunlight never pene- 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 243 
 
 trated, the horrible death list mounted up. Each day, 
 in apprehension, Smoke and Shorty examined each 
 other s mouths for the whitening of the gums and 
 mucous membranes the invariable first symptom of 
 the disease. 
 
 " I Ve quit," Shorty announced one evening. 
 " I Ve been thinkin it over, an I quit. I can make 
 a go at slave-drivin , but cripple-drivin s too much for 
 my stomach. They go from bad to worse. They 
 ain t twenty men I can drive to work. I told Jackson 
 this afternoon he could take to his bunk. He was 
 gettin ready to suicide. I could see it stickin out all 
 over him. Exercise ain t no good." 
 
 "I ve made up my mind to the same thing," Smoke 
 answered. " We 11 knock off all but about a dozen. 
 They 11 have to lend a hand. We can relay them. 
 And we 11 keep up the spruce-tea." 
 
 " It ain t no good." 
 
 " I m about ready to agree with that, too, but at 
 any rate it does n t hurt them." 
 
 " Another suicide," was Shorty s news the follow 
 ing morning. " That Phillips is the one. I seen it 
 comin for days." 
 
 " We re up against the real thing," Smoke groaned. 
 "What would you suggest, Shorty?" 
 
 " Who ? Me ? I ain t got no suggestions. The 
 the thing s got to run its course." 
 
 " But that means they 11 all die," Smoke protested. 
 
 "Except Wentworth," Shorty snarled; for he had 
 quickly come to share his partner s dislike for that in 
 dividual. 
 
244 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 The everlasting miracle of Wentworth s immunity 
 perplexed Smoke. Why should he alone not have 
 developed scurvy? Why did Laura Sibley hate him, 
 and at the same time whine and snivel and beg from 
 him? What was it she begged from him and that 
 he would not give? 
 
 On several occasions Smoke made it a point to drop 
 into Wentworth s cabin at meal-time. But one thing 
 did he note that was suspicious, and that was Went 
 worth s suspicion of him. Next he tried sounding out 
 Laura Sibley. 
 
 " Raw potatoes would cure everybody here," he re 
 marked to the seeress. " I know it. I ve seen it 
 work before." 
 
 The flare of conviction in her eyes, followed by bit 
 terness and hatred, told him the scent was warm. 
 
 " Why did n t you bring in a supply of fresh pota 
 toes on the steamer ? " he asked. 
 
 " We did. But coming up the river we sold them 
 all out at a bargain at Fort Yukon. We had plenty 
 of the evaporated kinds, and we knew they d keep bet 
 ter. They would n t even freeze." 
 
 Smoke groaned. " And you sold them all ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes. How were we to know ? " 
 
 " Now might n t there have been a couple of odd 
 sacks left ? accidentally, you know, mislaid on the 
 steamer? " 
 
 She shook her head, as he thought, a trifle belatedly, 
 then added, " We never found any." 
 
 " But might n t there? " he persisted. 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 245 
 
 "How do I know?" she rasped angrily. "I 
 did n t have charge of the commissary." 
 
 " And Amos Wentworth did," he jumped to the 
 conclusion. : Very good. Now what is your private 
 opinion just between us two. Do you think Went 
 worth has any raw potatoes stored away somewhere? " 
 
 " No ; certainly not. Why should he? " 
 
 "Why shouldn t he?" 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 Struggle as he would with her, Smoke could not 
 bring her to admit the possibility. 
 
 " Wentworth s a swine," was Shorty s verdict, 
 when Smoke told his suspicions. 
 
 " And so is Laura Sibley," Smoke added. " She 
 believes he has the potatoes, and is keeping it quiet, 
 and trying to get him to share with her." 
 
 "An he won t come across, eh?" Shorty cursed 
 frail human nature with one of his best flights, and 
 caught his breath. " They both got their feet in the 
 trough. May God rot them dead with scurvy for their 
 reward, that s all I got to say, except I m goin right 
 up now an knock \Ventworth s block off." 
 
 But Smoke stood out for diplomacy. That night, 
 when the camp groaned and slept, or groaned and did 
 not sleep, he went to Wentworth s unlighted cabin. 
 
 " Listen to me, Wentworth," he said. " I ve got a 
 thousand dollars in dust right here in this sack. I m 
 a rich man in this country, and I can afford it. I 
 think I m getting touched. Put a raw potato in my 
 hand and the dust is yours. Here, heft it." 
 
 And Smoke thrilled when Amos Wentworth put 
 
248 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " I m for roastin him over a slow fire an make m 
 cough up," Shorty proposed earnestly. 
 
 Smoke shook his head reluctantly. 
 
 " It s murder," Shorty held on. " He s murderin 
 all them poor geezers just as much as if he knocked 
 their brains out with an ax, only worse." 
 
 Another day passed, during which they kept a steady 
 watch on Wentworth s movements. Several times, 
 when he started out, water-bucket in hand, for the 
 creek, they casually approached the cabin, and each 
 time he hurried back without the water. 
 
 " They re cached right there in his cabin," Shorty 
 said. " As sure as God made little apples, they are. 
 But where? We sure overhauled it plenty." He 
 stood up and pulled on his mittens. " I m goin to 
 find em if I have to pull the blame shack down a log 
 at a time." 
 
 He glanced at Smoke, who, with an intent, absent 
 face, had not heard him. 
 
 " What s eatin you ? " Shorty demanded wrath- 
 fully. " Don t tell me you ve gone an got the 
 scurvy! " 
 
 " Just trying to remember something, Shorty." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " I don t know. That s the trouble. But it has 
 a bearing, if only I could remember it." 
 
 " Now you look here, Smoke ; don t you go an get 
 bug-house," Shorty pleaded. "Think of me! Let 
 your think-slats rip. Come on an help me pull that 
 shack down. I d set her afire, if it wa n t for 
 roastin them spuds." 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 249 
 
 " That s it ! " Smoke exploded, as he sprang to his 
 feet. " Just what I was trying to remember. 
 Where s that kerosene-can ? I m with you, Shorty. 
 The potatoes are ours." 
 
 "What s the game?" 
 
 " Watch me, that s all," Smoke baffled. " I always 
 told you, Shorty, that a deficient acquaintance with 
 literature was a handicap, even in the Klondike. Now 
 what we re going to do came out of a book. I read 
 it when I was a kid, and it will work. Come on." 
 
 Several minutes later, under a pale-gleaming, green 
 ish aurora borealis, the two men crept up to Amos 
 Wentworth s cabin. Carefully and noiselessly they 
 poured kerosene over the logs, extra-drenching the 
 door-frame and window-sash. Then the match was 
 applied, and they watched the flaming oil gather head 
 way. They drew back beyond the growing light and 
 waited. 
 
 They saw Wentworth rush out, stare wildly at the 
 conflagration, and plunge back into the cabin. 
 Scarcely a minute elapsed when he emerged, this time 
 slowly, half doubled over, his shoulders burdened by 
 a sack heavy and unmistakable. Smoke and Shorty 
 sprang at him like a pair of famished wolves. They 
 hit him right and left, at the same instant. He 
 crumpled down under the weight of the sack, which 
 Smoke pressed over with his hands to make sure. 
 Then he felt his knees clasped by Wentw r orth s arms 
 as the man turned a ghastly face upward. 
 
 " Give me a dozen, only a dozen half a dozen 
 and you can have the rest," he squalled. He bared 
 
248 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " I m for roastin him over a slow fire an make m 
 cough up," Shorty proposed earnestly. 
 
 Smoke shook his head reluctantly. 
 
 " It s murder," Shorty held on. " He s murderin 
 all them poor geezers just as much as if he knocked 
 their brains out with an ax, only worse." 
 
 Another day passed, during which they kept a steady 
 watch on Wentworth s movements. Several times, 
 when he started out, water-bucket in hand, for the 
 creek, they casually approached the cabin, and each 
 time he hurried back without the water. 
 
 " They re cached right there in his cabin," Shorty 
 said. " As sure as God made little apples, they are. 
 But where? We sure overhauled it plenty." He 
 stood up and pulled on his mittens. " I m goin to 
 find em if I have to pull the blame shack down a log 
 at a time." 
 
 He glanced at Smoke, who, with an intent, absent 
 face, had not heard him. 
 
 " What s eatin you ? " Shorty demanded wrath- 
 fully. " Don t tell me you ve gone an got the 
 scurvy! " 
 
 " Just trying to remember something, Shorty." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " I don t know. That s the trouble. But it has 
 a bearing, if only I could remember it." 
 
 " Now you look here, Smoke ; don t you go an get 
 bug-house," Shorty pleaded. "Think of me! Let 
 your think-slats rip. Come on an help me pull that 
 shack down. I d set her afire, if it wa n t for 
 roastin them spuds." 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 249 
 
 " That s it! " Smoke exploded, as he sprang to his 
 feet. " Just what I was trying to remember. 
 Where s that kerosene-can ? I m with you, Shorty. 
 The potatoes are ours." 
 
 "What s the game?" 
 
 " Watch me, that s all," Smoke baffled. " I always 
 told you, Shorty, that a deficient acquaintance with 
 literature was a handicap, even in the Klondike. Now 
 what we re going to do came out of a book. I read 
 it when I was a kid, and it will work. Come on." 
 
 Several minutes later, under a pale-gleaming, green 
 ish aurora borealis, the two men crept up to Amos 
 Wentworth s cabin. Carefully and noiselessly they 
 poured kerosene over the logs, extra-drenching the 
 door-frame and window-sash. Then the match was 
 applied, and they watched the flaming oil gather head 
 way. They drew back beyond the growing light and 
 waited. 
 
 They saw Wentworth rush out, stare wildly at the 
 conflagration, and plunge back into the cabin. 
 Scarcely a minute elapsed when he emerged, this time 
 slowly, half doubled over, his shoulders burdened by 
 a sack heavy and unmistakable. Smoke and Shorty 
 sprang at him like a pair of famished wolves. They 
 hit him right and left, at the same instant. He 
 crumpled down under the weight of the sack, which 
 Smoke pressed over with his hands to make sure. 
 Then he felt his knees clasped by Wentworth s arms 
 as the man turned a ghastly face upward. 
 
 " Give me a dozen, only a dozen half a dozen 
 and you can have the rest," he squalled; He bared 
 
250 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 his teeth and, with mad rage, half inclined his head to 
 bite Smoke s leg, then he changed his mind and fell 
 to pleading. " Just half a dozen," he wailed. " Just 
 half a dozen. I was going to turn them over to you 
 to-morrow. Yes, to-morrow. That was my idea. 
 They re life! They re life! Just half a dozen!" 
 
 "Where s the other sack? " Smoke bluffed. 
 
 " I ate it up," was the reply, unimpeachably honest. 
 That sack s all that s left. Give me a few. You 
 can have the rest." 
 
 "Ate em up!" Shorty screamed. "A whole 
 sack ! An them geezers dyin for want of em ! This 
 for you ! An this ! An this ! An this ! You swine ! 
 You hog!" 
 
 The first kick tore Wentworth away from his em 
 brace of Smoke s knees. The second kick turned him 
 over in the snow. But Shorty went on kicking. 
 
 " Watch out for your toes," was Smoke s only in 
 terference. 
 
 " Sure ; I m usin the heel," Shorty answered. 
 " Watch me. I 11 cave his ribs in. I 11 kick his jaw 
 off. Take that ! An that ! Wisht I could give you 
 the boot instead of the moccasin. You swine ! " 
 
 There was no sleep in camp that night. Hour after 
 hour Smoke and Shorty went the rounds, doling the 
 life-renewing potato-juice, a quarter of a spoonful at 
 a dose, into the poor ruined mouths of the population. 
 And through the following day, while one slept the 
 other kept up the work. 
 
 There were no more deaths. The most awful cases 
 began to mend with an immediacy that was startling. 
 
They hit him right and left at the same instant. 
 
THE MISTAKE OF CREATION 253 
 
 By the third day, men who had not been off their 
 backs for weeks crawled out of their bunks and tot 
 tered around on crutches. And on that day, the sun, 
 two months then on its journey into northern declin 
 ation, peeped cheerfully over the crest of the canyon 
 for the first time. 
 
 " Nary a potato," Shorty told the whining, beg 
 ging Wentworth. " You ain t even touched with 
 scurvy. You got outside a whole sack, an you re 
 loaded against scurvy for twenty years. Knowin 
 you, I ve come to understand God. I always won 
 dered why he let Satan live. Now I know. He let 
 him live just as I let you live. But it s a cry in shame, 
 just the same." 
 
 " A word of advice," Smoke told Wentworth. 
 " These men are getting well fast ; Shorty and I are 
 leaving in a week, and there will be nobody to protect 
 you when these men go after you. There s the trail. 
 Dawson s eighteen days travel." 
 
 " Pull your freight, Amos," Shorty supplemented, 
 " or what I done to you won t be a circumstance to 
 what them convalescents 11 do to you." 
 
 " Gentlemen, I beg of you, listen to me," Wentworth 
 whined. " I m a stranger in this country. I don t 
 know its ways. I don t know the trail. Let me travel 
 with you. I 11 give you a thousand dollars if you 11 
 let me travel with you." 
 
 " Sure," Smoke grinned maliciously. " If Shorty 
 agrees." 
 
 "Who? Me?-" Shorty stiffened for a supreme 
 effort. " I ain t nobody. Woodticks ain t got 
 
254 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 nothin on me when it comes to humility. I m a 
 worm, a maggot, brother to the pollywog an child of 
 the blow-fly. I ain t afraid or ashamed of nothin 
 that creeps or crawls or stinks. But travel with that 
 mistake of creation! Go way, man. I ain t proud, 
 but you turn my stomach." 
 
 And Amos Wentworth went away, alone, dragging 
 a sled loaded with provisions sufficient to last him to 
 Dawson. A mile down the trail Shorty overhauled 
 him. 
 
 " Come here to me," was Shorty s greeting. 
 " Come across. Fork over. Cough up." 
 
 " I don t understand," Wentworth quavered, shiv 
 ering from recollection of the two beatings, hand and 
 foot, he had already received from Shorty. 
 
 :< That thousand dollars, d ye understand that ? 
 That thousand dollars gold Smoke bought that measly 
 potato with. Come through." 
 
 And Amos Wentworth passed the gold-sack over. 
 
 " Hope a skunk bites you an you get howlin hy- 
 drophoby," were the terms of Shorty s farewell. 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 
 
 IT was in the A. C. Company s big store at 
 Dawson, on a morning of crisp frost, that Lucille 
 Arral beckoned Smoke Bellew over to the dry- 
 goods counter. The clerk had gone on an expedition 
 into the storerooms, and, despite the huge, red-hot 
 stoves, Lucille had drawn on her mittens again. 
 
 Smoke obeyed her call with alacrity. The man 
 did not exist in Dawson who would not have been 
 flattered by the notice of Lucille Arral, the singing 
 soubrette of the tiny stock company that performed 
 nightly at the Palace Opera House. 
 
 " Things are dead," she complained, with pretty pet 
 ulance, as soon as they had shaken hands. " There 
 has n t been a stampede for a week. That masked 
 ball Skiff Mitchell was going to give us has been 
 postponed. There s no dust in circulation. There s 
 always standing-room now at the Opera House. And 
 there has n t been a mail from the Outside for two 
 whole weeks. In short, this burg has crawled into 
 its cave and gone to sleep. We ve got to do some 
 thing. It needs livening and you and I can do it. 
 We can give it excitement if anybody can. I Ve 
 broken with Wild Water, you know/ 
 
 Smoke caught two almost simultaneous visions. 
 
 255 
 
256 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 One was of Joy Gastell; the other was of himself, in 
 the midst of a bleak snow-stretch, under a cold arctic 
 moon, being pot-shotted with accurateness and de 
 spatch by the aforesaid Wild Water. Smoke s re 
 luctance at raising excitement with the aid of Lucille 
 Arral was too patent for her to miss. 
 
 " I m not thinking what you are thinking at all, 
 thank you," she chided, with a laugh and a pout. 
 14 When I throw myself at your head you 11 have to 
 have more eyes and better ones than you have now to 
 see me." 
 
 " Men have died of heart disease at the sudden an 
 nouncement of good fortune," he murmured in the 
 unveracious gladness of relief. 
 
 " Liar," she retorted graciously. " You were more 
 scared to death than anything else. Now take it 
 from me, Mr. Smoke Bellew, I m not going to make 
 love to you, and if you dare to make love to me, Wild 
 Water will take care of your case. You know him. 
 Besides, I I have n t really broken with him." 
 
 " Go on with your puzzles," he jeered. " Maybe I 
 can start guessing what you re driving at after a 
 while." 
 
 " There s no guessing, Smoke. I 11 give it to you 
 straight. Wild Water thinks I ve broken with him, 
 don t you see." 
 
 Well, have you, or have n t you ? " 
 
 " I have n t there ! But it s between you and 
 me in confidence. He thinks I have. I made a noise 
 like breaking with him, and he deserved it, too." 
 
 " Where do I come in, stalking-horse or fall-guy? " 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 257 
 
 " Neither. You make a pot of money, we put 
 across the laugh on Wild Water and cheer Dawson 
 up, and, best of all, and the reason for it all, he gets 
 disciplined. He needs it. He s well, the best way 
 to put it is, he s too turbulent. Just because he s a 
 big husky, because he owns more rich claims than he 
 can keep count of " 
 
 " And because he s engaged to the prettiest little 
 woman in Alaska," Smoke interpolated. 
 
 " Yes, and because of that, too, thank you, is no 
 reason for him to get riotous. He broke out last night 
 again. Sowed the floor of the M. & M. with gold- 
 dust. All of a thousand dollars. Just opened his 
 poke and scattered it under the feet of the dancers. 
 You ve heard of it, of course." 
 
 " Yes ; this morning. I d like to be the sweeper in 
 that establishment. But still I don t get you. Where 
 do I come in? " 
 
 " Listen. He was too turbulent. I broke our en 
 gagement, and he s going around making a noise like 
 a broken heart. Now we come to it. I like eggs. 5 
 
 " They re off ! " Smoke cried in despair. " Which 
 way ? Which way ? " 
 
 " Wait." 
 
 " But what have eggs and appetite got to do with 
 it? " he demanded. 
 
 " Everything, if you 11 only listen." 
 
 " Listening, listening," he chanted. 
 
 Then for Heaven s sake listen. I like eggs. 
 There s only a limited supply of eggs in Dawson." 
 
 " Sure. I know that, too. Slavovitch s restaurant 
 
258 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 has most of them. Ham and one egg, three dollars. 
 Ham and two eggs, five dollars. That means two dol 
 lars an egg, retail. And only the swells and the Arrals 
 and the Wild Waters can afford them." 
 
 " He likes eggs, too/ she continued. " But that s 
 not the point. I like them. I have breakfast every 
 morning at eleven o clock at Slavovitch s. I invar 
 iably eat two eggs." She paused impressively. 
 " Suppose, just suppose, somebody corners eggs." 
 
 She waited, and Smoke regarded her with admiring 
 eyes, while in his heart he backed with approval Wild 
 Water s choice of her. 
 
 " You re not following," she said. 
 
 "Go on," he replied. "I give up. What s the 
 answer? " 
 
 "Stupid! You know Wild Water. When he 
 sees I m languishing for eggs, and I know his mind 
 like a book, and I know how to languish, what will he 
 do?" 
 
 " You answer it. Go on." 
 
 " Why, he 11 just start stampeding for the man 
 that s got the corner in eggs. He 11 buy the corner, 
 no matter what it costs. Picture : I come into Slavo 
 vitch s at eleven o clock. Wild Water will be at the 
 next table. He 11 make it his business to be there. 
 * Two eggs, shirred, I 11 say to the waiter. * Sorry, 
 Miss Arral, the waiter will say ; they ain t no more 
 eggs. Then up speaks Wild Water, in that big bear 
 voice of his, Waiter, six eggs, soft boiled/ And the 
 waiter says, Yes, sir/ and the eggs are brought. 
 Picture: Wild Water looks sideways at me, and I 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 259 
 
 look like a particularly indignant icicle and summon 
 the waiter. Sorry, Miss Arral, he says, but them 
 eggs is Mr. Wild Water s. You see, Miss, he owns 
 em. Picture: Wild Water, triumphant, doing his 
 best to look unconscious while he eats his six eggs. 
 
 "Another picture: Slavovitch himself bringing 
 two shirred eggs to me and saying, Compliments of 
 Mr. Wild Water, Miss. What can I do? What can 
 I possibly do but smile at Wild Water, and then we 
 make up, of course, and he 11 consider it cheap if he 
 has been compelled to pay ten dollars for each and 
 every egg in the corner." 
 
 " Go on, go on," Smoke urged. " At what station 
 do I climb onto the choo-choo cars, or at what water- 
 tank do I get thrown off ? " 
 
 " Ninny ! You don t get thrown off. You ride 
 the egg-train straight into the Union Depot. You 
 make that corner in eggs. You start in immediately, 
 to-day. You can buy every egg in Da\vson for three 
 dollars and sell out to Wild Water at almost any ad 
 vance. And then, afterward, we 11 let the inside his 
 tory come out. The laugh \vill be on Wild W T ater. 
 His turbulence will be some subdued. You and I 
 share the glory of it. You make a pile of money. 
 And Dawson wakes up with a grand ha! ha! Of 
 course if if you think the speculation too risky, 
 I 11 put up the dust for the corner." 
 
 This last was too much for Smoke. Being only a 
 mere mortal Western man, with queer obsessions about 
 money and women, he declined with scorn the proffer 
 of her dust. 
 
260 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Hey ! Shorty ! " Smoke called across the main 
 street to his partner, who was trudging along in his 
 swift, slack- jointed way, a naked bottle with frozen 
 contents conspicuously tucked under his arm. Smoke 
 crossed over. 
 
 " Where have you been all morning? Been looking 
 for you everywhere." 
 
 " Up to Doc s," Shorty answered, holding out the 
 bottle. " Something s wrong with Sally. I seen last 
 night, at feedin -time, the hair on her tail an flanks 
 was fallin out. The Doc says " 
 
 " Never mind that," Smoke broke in impatiently. 
 "What I want " 
 
 " What s eatin you ? " Shorty demanded in indig 
 nant astonishment. " An Sally gettin naked bald in 
 this crimpy weather ! I tell you that dog s sick. Doc 
 says " 
 
 " Let Sally wait. Listen to me " 
 
 " I tell you she can t wait. It s cruelty to animals. 
 She 11 be frost-bit. What are you in such a fever 
 about anyway? Has that Monte Cristo strike proved 
 up?" 
 
 " I don t know, Shorty. But I want you to do me 
 a favor." 
 
 " Sure," Shorty said gallantly, immediately ap 
 peased and acquiescent. " What is it ? Let her rip. 
 Me for you." 
 
 " I want you to buy eggs for me " 
 
 " Sure, an Floridy water an talcum powder, if you 
 say the word. An poor Sally sheddin something 
 scand lous! Look here, Smoke, if you want to go in 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 261 
 
 for high livin you go an buy your own eggs. Beans 
 an bacon s good enough for me." 
 
 " I am going to buy, but I want you to help me to 
 buy. Now, shut up, Shorty. I ve got the floor. 
 You go right straight to Slavovitch s. Pay as high as 
 three dollars, but buy all he s got." 
 
 " Three dollars ! " Shorty groaned. " An I heard 
 tell only yesterday that he s got all of seven hundred 
 in stock! Twenty-one hundred dollars for hen-fruit! 
 Say, Smoke, I tell you what. You run right up and 
 see the Doc. He 11 tend to your case. An he 11 only 
 charge you an ounce for the first prescription. So- 
 long. I gotta to be pullin my freight." 
 
 He started off, but Smoke caught his partner by 
 the shoulder, arresting his progress and whirling him 
 around. 
 
 " Smoke, I d sure do anything for you," Shorty 
 protested earnestly. "If you had a cold in the head 
 an was layin with both arms broke, I d set by your 
 bedside, day an night, an wipe your nose for you. 
 But I 11 be everlastin ly damned if I 11 squander 
 twenty-one hundred good iron dollars on hen-fruit for 
 you or any other two-legged man." 
 
 They re not your dollars, but mine, Shorty. It s 
 a deal I have on. What I m after is to corner every 
 blessed egg in Dawson, in the Klondike, on the Yukon. 
 You ve got to help me out. I have n t the time to tell 
 you of the inwardness of the deal. I will afterward, 
 and let you go half on it if you want to. But the 
 thing right now is to get the eggs. Now you hustle 
 up to Slavovitch s and buy all he s got." 
 
262 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 "But what 11 I tell m? He ll sure know I ain t 
 goin to eat em." 
 
 " Tell him nothing. Money talks. He sells them 
 cooked for two dollars. Offer him up to three for 
 them uncooked. If he gets curious, tell him you re 
 starting a chicken ranch. What I want is the eggs. 
 And then keep on; nose out every egg in Dawson 
 and buy it. Understand? Buy it! That little joint 
 across the street from Slavovitch s has a few. Buy 
 them. I m going over to Klondike City. There s 
 an old man there, with a bad leg, who s broke and 
 who has six dozen. He s held them all winter for 
 the rise, intending to get enough out of them to pay his 
 passage back to Seattle. I 11 see he gets his passage, 
 and I 11 get the eggs. Now hustle. And they say 
 that little woman down beyond the sawmill who makes 
 moccasins has a couple of dozen." 
 
 " All right, if you say so, Smoke. But Slavovitch 
 seems the main squeeze. I 11 just get an iron-bound 
 option, black an white, an gather in the scatterin 
 first." 
 
 " All right. Hustle. And I 11 tell you the scheme 
 to-night." 
 
 But Shorty flourished the bottle. " I m goin to 
 doctor up Sally first. The eggs can wait that long. 
 If they ain t all eaten, they won t be eaten while I m 
 takin care of a poor sick dog that s saved your life 
 
 an mine more n once." 
 
 Never was a market cornered more quickly. In 
 three days every known egg in Dawson, with the ex 
 ception of several dozen, was in the hands of 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 263 
 
 Smoke and Shorty. Smoke had been more liberal in 
 purchasing. He unblushingly pleaded guilty to having 
 given the old man in Klondike City five dollars apiece 
 for his seventy-two eggs. Shorty had bought most 
 of the eggs, and he had driven bargains. He had 
 given only two dollars an egg to the woman who made 
 moccasins, and he prided himself that he had come 
 off fairly well with Slavovitch, whose seven hundred 
 and fifteen eggs he had bought at a flat rate of two 
 dollars and a half. On the other hand, he grumbled 
 because the little restaurant across the street had held 
 him up for tw r o dollars and seventy-five cents for a 
 paltry hundred and thirty-four eggs. 
 
 The several dozen not yet gathered in were in the 
 hands of two persons. One, with whom Shorty w r as 
 dealing, was an Indian woman who lived in a cabin 
 on the hill back of the hospital. 
 
 " I 11 get her to-day," Shorty announced next morn 
 ing. " You wash the dishes, Smoke. I 11 be back in 
 a jiffy, if I don t bust myself a-shovin dust at her. 
 Gimme a man to deal with every time. These blamed 
 women it s something sad the way they can hold 
 out on a buyer. The only way to get em is sellin . 
 Why, you d think them eggs of hern was solid nug 
 gets." 
 
 In the afternoon, when Smoke returned to the cabin, 
 he found Shorty squatted on the floor, rubbing oint 
 ment into Sally s tail, his countenance so expression 
 less that it was suspicious. 
 
 "What luck?" Shorty asked carelessly, after sev 
 eral minutes had passed. 
 
264 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Nothing doing/ Smoke answered. " How did 
 you get on with the squaw? " 
 
 Shorty cocked his head triumphantly toward a tin 
 pail of eggs on the table. " Seven dollars a clatter, 
 though," he confessed, after another minute of silent 
 rubbing. 
 
 " I offered ten dollars finally," Smoke said, " and 
 then the fellow told me he d already sold his eggs. 
 Now that looks bad, Shorty. Somebody else is in the 
 market. Those twenty-eight eggs are liable to cause 
 us trouble. You see, the success of the corner con 
 sists in holding every last " 
 
 He broke off to stare at his partner. A pronounced 
 change was coming over Shorty one of agitation 
 masked by extreme deliberation. He closed the salve- 
 box, wiped his hands slowly and thoroughly on Sally s 
 furry coat, stood up, went over to the corner and 
 looked at the thermometer, and came back again. He 
 spoke in a low, toneless, and super-polite voice. 
 
 " Do you mind kindly just repeating over how many 
 eggs you said the man did n t sell to you? " he asked. 
 
 " Twenty-eight." 
 
 " Hum," Shorty communed to himself, with a slight 
 duck of the head of careless acknowledgment. Then 
 he glanced with slumbering anger at the stove. 
 " Smoke, we 11 have to dig up a new stove. That 
 fire-box is burned plumb into the oven so it blacks the 
 biscuits." 
 
 " Let the fire-box alone," Smoke commanded, " and 
 tell me what s the matter." 
 
 " Matter ? An you want to know what s the mat- 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 265 
 
 ter? Well, kindly please direct them handsome eyes 
 of yotirn at that there pail settin on the table. See 
 it? " 
 
 Smoke nodded. 
 
 " Well, I want to tell you one thing, just one thing. 
 They s just exactly, preecisely, nor nothin more or 
 anythin less n twenty-eight eggs in the pail, an they 
 cost, every danged last one of em, just exactly seven 
 great big round iron dollars a throw. If you stand 
 in cryin need of any further items of information, I m 
 willin and free to impart." 
 
 " Go on," Smoke requested. 
 
 " Well, that geezer you was dickerin with is a big 
 buck Indian. Am I right ? " 
 
 Smoke nodded, and continued to nod to each ques 
 tion. 
 
 " He s got one cheek half gone where a bald- face 
 grizzly swatted him. Am I right? He s a dog- 
 trader right, eh ? His name is Scar-Face Jim. 
 That s so, ain t it? D ye get my drift? " 
 
 " You mean we ve been bidding " 
 
 "Against each other. Sure thing. That squaw s 
 his wife, an they keep house on the hill back of the 
 hospital. I could a got them eggs for two a throw 
 if you had n t butted in." 
 
 " And so could I," Smoke laughed, " if you d kept 
 out, blame you ! But it does n t amount to anything. 
 We know that we ve got the corner. That s the big 
 thing." 
 
 Shorty spent the next hour wrestling with a stub 
 of a pencil on the margin of a three-year-old news- 
 
266 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 paper, and the more interminable and hieroglyphic 
 grew his figures the more cheerful he became. 
 
 " There she stands," he said at last. " Pretty? I 
 guess yes. Lemme give you the totals. You an* me 
 has right now in our possession exactly nine hundred 
 an seventy-three eggs. They cost us exactly two 
 thousand, seven hundred an sixty dollars, reckonin 
 dust at sixteen an ounce an not countin time. An 
 now listen to me. If we stick up Wild Water for ten 
 dollars a egg we stand to win, clean net an all to the 
 good, just exactly six thousand nine hundred and 
 seventy dollars. Now that s a book-makin what is, 
 if anybody should ride up on a dog-sled an ask you. 
 An I m in half on it ! Put her there, Smoke. I m 
 that thankful I m sure droolin gratitude. Book- 
 makin ! Say, I d sooner run with the chicks than the 
 ponies any day." 
 
 At eleven that night Smoke was routed from sound 
 sleep by Shorty, whose fur parka exhaled an atmos 
 phere of keen frost and whose hand was extremely 
 cold in its contact with Smoke s cheek. 
 
 "What is it now?" Smoke grumbled. "Rest of 
 Sally s hair fallen out?" 
 
 " Nope. But I just had to tell you the good news. 
 I seen Slavovitch. Or Slavovitch seen me, I guess, be 
 cause he started the seance. He says to me : Shorty, 
 I want to speak to you about them eggs. I ve kept it 
 quiet. Nobody knows I sold em to you. But if 
 you re speculatin , I can put you wise to a good thing. 
 An he did, too, Smoke. Now what d you guess that 
 good thing is ? " 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 267 
 
 " Go on. Name it." 
 
 " Well, maybe it sounds uncredible, but that good 
 thing was Wild Water Charley. He s lookin to buy 
 eggs. He goes around to Slavovitch an offers him 
 five dollars an egg, an before he quits he s offerin 
 eight. An Slavovitch ain t got no eggs. Last thing 
 Wild Water says to Slavovitch is that he 11 beat the 
 head offen him if he ever finds out Slavovitch has eggs 
 cached away somewheres. Slavovitch had to tell m 
 he d sold the eggs, but that the buyer was secret. 
 
 " Slavovitch says to let him say the word- to Wild 
 Water who s got the eggs. Shorty, he says to me, 
 Wild Water 11 come a-runnin . You can hold him 
 up for eight dollars. Eight dollars, your grand 
 mother, I says. He 11 fall for ten before I m done 
 with him. Anyway, I told Slavovitch I d think it 
 over and let him know in the mornin . Of course 
 we 11 let m pass the word on to Wild Water. Am I 
 right?" 
 
 " You certainly are, Shorty. First thing in the 
 morning tip off Slavovitch. Have him tell Wild 
 Water that you and I are partners in the deal." 
 
 Five minutes later Smoke was again aroused by 
 Shorty. 
 
 "Say! Smoke! Oh, Smoke!" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Not a cent less than ten a throw. Do you get 
 that?" 
 
 " Sure thing all right," Smoke returned sleepily. 
 
 In the morning Smoke chanced upon Lucille Arral 
 again at the dry-goods counter of the A. C. Store. 
 
268 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 "It s working," he jubilated. "It s working. 
 Wild Water s been around to Slavovitch, trying to buy 
 or bully eggs out of him. And by this time Slavo 
 vitch has told him that Shorty and I own the corner." 
 
 Lucille Arral s eyes sparkled with delight. " I m 
 going to breakfast right now," she cried. " And I 11 
 ask the waiter for eggs, and be so plaintive when there 
 are n t any as to melt a heart of stone. And you know 
 Wild Water s been around to Slavovitch, trying to buy 
 the corner if it costs him one of his mines. I know 
 him. And hold out for a stiff figure. Nothing less 
 than ten dollars will satisfy me, and if you sell for 
 anything less, Smoke, I 11 never forgive you." 
 
 That noon, up in their cabin, Shorty placed on the 
 table a pot of beans, a pot of coffee, a pan of sour 
 dough biscuits, a tin of butter and a tin of condensed 
 cream, a smoking platter of moose-meat and bacon, 
 a plate of stewed dried peaches, and called : " Grub s 
 ready. Take a slant at Sally first." 
 
 Smoke put aside the harness on which he was sew 
 ing, opened the door, and saw Sally and Bright 
 spiritedly driving away a bunch of foraging sled- 
 dogs that belonged to the next cabin. Also he saw 
 something else that made him close the door hurriedly 
 and dash to the stove. The frying-pan, still hot from 
 the moose-meat and bacon, he put back on the front 
 lid. Into the frying-pan he put a generous dab of 
 butter, then reached for an egg, which he broke and 
 dropped spluttering into the pan. As he reached for 
 a second egg, Shorty gained his side and clutched his 
 arm in an excited grip. 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 269 
 
 " Hey! What you doin ? " he demanded. 
 
 " Frying eggs," Smoke informed him, breaking the 
 second one and throwing off Shorty s detaining hand. 
 " What s the matter with your eyesight ? Did you 
 think I was combing my hair? " 
 
 "Don t you feel well?" Shorty queried anxiously, 
 as Smoke broke a third egg and dexterously thrust 
 him back with a stiff-arm jolt on the breast. " Or are 
 you just plain loco? That s thirty dollars worth of 
 eggs already." 
 
 " And I m going to make it sixty dollars worth," 
 was the answer, as Smoke broke the fourth. " Get 
 out of the way, Shorty. Wild Water s coming up 
 the hill, and he 11 be here in five minutes." 
 
 Shorty sighed vastly with commingled comprehen 
 sion and relief, and sat down at the table. By the 
 time the expected knock came at the door, Smoke was 
 facing him across the table, and, before each, was a 
 plate containing three hot, fried eggs. 
 
 " Come in! " Smoke called. 
 
 Wild Water Charley, a strapping young giant just 
 a fraction of an inch under six feet in height and 
 carrying a clean weight of one hundred and ninety 
 pounds, entered and shook hands. 
 
 " Set down an have a bite, Wild Water," Shorty 
 invited. " Smoke, fry him some eggs. I 11 bet he 
 ain t scoffed an egg in a coon s age." 
 
 Smoke broke three more eggs into the hot pan, and 
 in several minutes placed them before his guest, who 
 looked at them with so strange and strained an expres 
 sion that Shorty confessed afterward his fear that 
 
270 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Wild Water would slip them into his pocket and carry 
 them away. 
 
 " Say, them swells down in the States ain t got 
 nothin over us in the matter of eats," Shorty gloated. 
 " Here s you an me an Smoke gettin outside ninety 
 dollars worth of eggs an not battin an eye." 
 
 Wild Water stared at the rapidly disappearing eggs 
 and seemed petrified. 
 
 " Pitch in an eat/ Smoke encouraged. 
 
 "They they ain t worth no ten dollars," Wild 
 Water said slowly. 
 
 Shorty accepted the challenge. " A thing s worth 
 what you can get for it, ain t it ? " he demanded, 
 
 "Yes, but " 
 
 " But nothin . I m tellin you what we can get 
 for em. Ten a throw, just like that. We re the 
 egg trust, Smoke an me, an don t you forget it. 
 When we say ten a throw, ten a throw goes." He 
 mopped his plate with a biscuit. " I could almost 
 eat a couple more," he sighed, then helped himself to 
 the beans. 
 
 " You can t eat eggs like that," Wild Water objected. 
 "It it ain t right." 
 
 "We just dote on eggs, Smoke an me," was Shorty s 
 excuse. 
 
 Wild Water finished his own plate in a half-hearted 
 way and gazed dubiously at the two comrades. " Say, 
 you fellows can do me a great favor," he began tenta 
 tively. " Sell me, or lend me, or give me, about a 
 dozen of them eggs." 
 
 " Sure," Smoke answered. " I know what a yearn- 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 271 
 
 ing for eggs is myself. But we re not so poor that we 
 have to sell our hospitality. They 11 cost you noth 
 ing " Here a sharp kick under the table admon 
 ished him that Shorty was getting nervous. " A 
 dozen, did you say, Wild Water ? " 
 
 Wild Water nodded. 
 
 " Go ahead, Shorty," Smoke went on. " Cook 
 them up for him. I can sympathize. I ve seen the 
 time myself when I could eat a dozen, straight off the 
 bat." 
 
 But Wild Water laid a restraining hand on the eager 
 Shorty as he explained. " I don t mean cooked. I 
 want them with the shells on." 
 
 " So that you can carry em away? " 
 
 " That s the idea." 
 
 "But that ain t hospitality," Shorty objected. 
 It s it s tradinV 
 
 Smoke nodded concurrence. " That s different. 
 Wild Water. I thought you just wanted to eat them. 
 You see, we went into this for a speculation." 
 
 The dangerous blue of Wild Water s eyes began to 
 grow more dangerous. " I 11 pay you for them," he 
 said sharply. "How much?" 
 
 " Oh, not a dozen," Smoke replied. " We could n t 
 sell a dozen. We re not retailers ; we re speculators. 
 We can t break our own market. We ve got a hard 
 and fast corner, and when we sell out it s the whole 
 corner or nothing." 
 
 " How many have you got, and how much do you 
 want for them? " 
 
 "How many have we, Shorty?" Smoke inquired. 
 
272 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Shorty cleared his throat and performed mental 
 arithmetic aloud. " Lemme see. Nine hundred an 
 seventy-three minus nine, that leaves nine hundred 
 an sixty-two. An the whole shootin -match, at ten a 
 throw, will tote up just about nine thousand six hun 
 dred an twenty iron dollars. Of course, Wild Water, 
 we re playin fair, an* it s money back for bad ones, 
 though they ain t none. That J s one thing I never 
 seen in the Klondike a bad egg. No man J s fool 
 enough to bring in a bad egg." 
 
 " That s fair," Smoke added. " Money back for 
 the bad ones, Wild Water. And there s our proposi 
 tion nine thousand six hundred and twenty dollars 
 for every egg in the Klondike." 
 
 You might play them up to twenty a throw an* 
 double your money," Shorty suggested. 
 
 Wild Water shook his head sadly and helped him 
 self to the beans. :( That would be too expensive, 
 Shorty. I only want a few. I 11 give you ten dollars 
 for a couple of dozen. I 11 give you twenty but 
 I can t buy em all." 
 
 " All or none," was Smoke s ultimatum. 
 
 " Look here, you two," Wild Water said in a burst 
 of confidence. " I 11 be perfectly honest with you, 
 an don t let it go any further. You know Miss Arral 
 an I was engaged. Well, she s broken everything 
 off. You know it. Everybody knows it. It s for 
 her I want them eggs." 
 
 " Huh ! " Shorty jeered. " It s clear an plain why 
 you want em with the shells, on. But I never thought 
 it of you." 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 273 
 
 "Thought what?" 
 
 " It s low-down mean, that s what it is," Shorty 
 rushed on, virtuously indignant. " I would n t won 
 der somebody filled you full of lead for it, an you d 
 deserve it, too." 
 
 Wild Water began to flame toward the verge of 
 one of his notorious Berserker rages. His hands 
 clenched until the cheap fork in one of them began 
 to bend, while his blue eyes flashed warning sparks. 
 "Now look here, Shorty, just what do you mean? 
 If you think anything underhanded " 
 
 " I mean what I mean," Shorty retorted doggedly, 
 " an you bet your sweet life I don t mean anything 
 underhanded. Overhand s the only way to do it. 
 You can t throw em any other way." 
 
 "Throw what?" 
 
 " Eggs, prunes, baseballs, anything. But Wild 
 Water, you re makin a mistake. They ain t no 
 crowd ever sat at the Opery House that 11 stand for it. 
 Just because she s a actress is no reason you can 
 publicly lambaste her with hen-fruit." 
 
 For the moment it seemed that Wild Water was 
 going to burst or have apoplexy. He gulped down a 
 mouthful of scalding coffee and slowly recovered 
 himself. 
 
 You re in wrong, Shorty," he said with cold de 
 liberation. " I m not going to throw eggs at her. 
 Why, man," he cried, with growing excitement, " I 
 want to give them eggs to her, on a platter, shirred 
 that s the way she likes em." 
 
 " I knowed I was wrong," Shorty cried generously. 
 
274 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " I knowed you could n t do a low-down trick like 
 that." 
 
 " That s all right, Shorty," Wild Water forgave 
 him. " But let s get down to business. You see 
 why I want them eggs. I want em bad." 
 
 " Do you want em ninety-six hundred an twenty 
 dollars worth? " Shorty queried. 
 
 " It s a hold-up, that s what it is," Wild Water 
 declared irately. 
 
 " It s business," Smoke retorted. " You don t 
 think we re peddling eggs for our health, do you?" 
 
 " Aw, listen to reason," Wild Water pleaded. " I 
 only want a couple of dozen. I 11 give you twenty 
 apiece for em. What do I want with all the rest of 
 them eggs ? I ve went years in this country without 
 eggs, an I guess I can keep on managin without em 
 somehow." 
 
 " Don t get het up about it," Shorty counseled. " If 
 you don t want em, that settles it. We ain t a-forcin 
 em on you." 
 
 " But I do want em," Wild Water complained. 
 
 " Then you know what they 11 cost you ninety- 
 six hundred an twenty dollars, an if my figurin s 
 wrong, I 11 treat." 
 
 " But maybe they won t turn the trick," Wild Water 
 objected. " Maybe Miss Arral s lost her taste for 
 eggs by this time." 
 
 " I should say Miss Arral s worth the price of the 
 eggs," Smoke put in quietly. 
 
 "Worth it!" Wild Water stood up in the heat 
 of his eloquence. " She s worth a million dollars. 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 275 
 
 She s worth all I ve got. She s worth all the dust in 
 Klondike." He sat down, and went on in a calmer 
 voice. " But that ain t no call for me to gamble ten 
 thousand dollars on a breakfast for her. Now I ve 
 got a proposition. Lend me a couple of dozen of 
 them eggs. I 11 turn em over to Slavovitch. He 11 
 feed em to her with my compliments. She ain t 
 smiled to me for a hundred years. If them eggs gets 
 a smile for me, I 11 take the whole boiling off your 
 hands." 
 
 " Will you sign a contract to that effect? " Smoke 
 said quickly; for he knew that Lucille Arral had agreed 
 to smile. 
 
 "Wild Water gasped. " You re almighty swift with 
 business up here on the hill," he said, with a hint of a 
 snarl. 
 
 " We re only accepting your own proposition," 
 Smoke answered. 
 
 " All right bring on the paper make it out, 
 hard and fast," Wild Water cried in the anger of sur 
 render. 
 
 Smoke immediately wrote out the document, wherein 
 Wild Water agreed to take every egg delivered to him 
 at ten dollars per egg, provided that the two dozen ad 
 vanced to him brought about a reconciliation with 
 Lucille Arral. 
 
 Wild Water paused, with uplifted pen, as he was 
 about to sign. " Hold on," he said. " When I buy 
 eggs I buy good eggs." 
 
 " They ain t a bad egg in the Klondike," Shorty 
 snorted. 
 
276 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Just the same, if I find one bad egg you Ve got to 
 come back with the ten I paid for it." 
 
 " That s all right," Smoke placated. " It s only 
 fair." 
 
 " An* every bad egg you come back with I 11 eat," 
 Shorty declared. 
 
 Smoke inserted the word " good " in the contract, 
 and Wild Water sullenly signed, received the trial two 
 dozen in a tin pail, pulled on his mittens, and opened 
 the door. 
 
 " Good-by, you robbers," he growled back at them, 
 and slammed the door. 
 
 Smoke was a witness to the play next morning in 
 Slavovitch s. He sat, as Wild Water s guest, at the 
 table adjoining Lucille Arral s. Almost to the letter, 
 as she had forecast it, did the scene come off. 
 
 "Haven t you found any eggs yet?" she mur 
 mured plaintively to the waiter. 
 
 " No, ma am," came the answer. " They say some 
 body s cornered every egg in Dawson. Mr. Slavo- 
 vitch is trying to buy a few just especially for you. 
 But the fellow that s got the corner won t let loose." 
 
 It was at this juncture that Wild Water beckoned 
 the proprietor to him, and, with one hand on his 
 shoulder, drew his head down. " Look here, Slavo- 
 vitch," Wild Water whispered hoarsely, " I turned 
 over a couple of dozen eggs to you last night. Where 
 are they?" 
 
 " In the safe, all but that six I have all thawed and 
 ready for you any time you sing out." 
 
 "I don t want em for myself," Wild Water 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 277 
 
 breathed in a still lower voice. " Shir em up and 
 present em to Miss Arral there." 
 
 " I 11 attend to it personally myself," Slavovitch 
 assured him. 
 
 " An don t forget compliments of me," Wild 
 Water concluded, relaxing his detaining clutch on the 
 proprietor s shoulder. 
 
 Pretty Lucille Arral was gazing forlornly at the 
 strip of breakfast bacon and the tinned mashed po 
 tatoes on her plate when Slavovitch placed before her 
 two shirred eggs. 
 
 " Compliments of Mr. Wild Water," they at the 
 next table heard him say. 
 
 Smoke acknowledged to himself that it was a fine 
 bit of acting the quick, joyous flash in the face of 
 her, the impulsive turn of the head, the spontaneous 
 forerunner of a smile that was only checked by a su 
 perb self-control which resolutely drew her face back 
 so that she could say something to the restaurant 
 proprietor. 
 
 Smoke felt the kick of Wild Water s moccasined 
 foot under the table. 
 
 {t Will she eat em ? that s the question will 
 she eat em ? " the latter whispered agonizingly. 
 
 And with sidelong glances they saw Lucille Arral 
 hesitate, almost push the dish from her, then surrender 
 to its lure. 
 
 " I 11 take them eggs," Wild Water said to Smoke. 
 
 The contract holds. Did you see her? Did you see 
 
 her ! She almost smiled. I know her. It s all fixed. 
 
 Two more eggs to-morrow an she 11 forgive an make 
 
278 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 up. If she was n t here I d shake hands, Smoke, I s m 
 that grateful. You ain t a robber ; you re a philan 
 thropist." 
 
 Smoke returned jubilantly up the hill to the cabin, 
 only to find Shorty playing solitaire in black despair. 
 Smoke had long since learned that whenever his 
 partner got out the cards for solitaire it was a warning 
 signal that the bottom had dropped out of the world. 
 
 " Go way, don t talk to me," was the first rebuff 
 Smoke received. 
 
 But Shorty soon thawed into a freshet of speech. 
 
 "It s all off with the big Swede," he groaned. 
 " The corner s busted. They 11 be sellin sherry an 
 egg in all the saloons to-morrow at a dollar a flip. 
 They ain t no starvin orphan child in Dawson that 
 won t be wrappin its tummy around eggs. What 
 d ye think I run; into ? a geezer with three thousan 
 eggs d ye get me? Three thousan , an just 
 freighted in from Forty Mile." 
 
 " Fairy stories," Smoke doubted. 
 
 " Fairy hell ! I seen them eggs. Gautereaux s his 
 name a whackin big, blue-eyed French-Canadian 
 husky. He asked for you first, then took me to the 
 side and jabbed me straight to the heart. It was our 
 cornerin eggs that got him started. He knowed about 
 them three thousan at Forty Mile an just went an got 
 em. Show em to me, I says. An he did. There 
 was his dog-teams, an a couple of Indian drivers, 
 restin down the bank where they d just pulled in from 
 Forty Mile. An on the sleds was soap-boxes teeny 
 wooden soap-boxes. 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 279 
 
 " We took one out behind a ice-jam in the middle 
 of the river an busted it open. Eggs ! full of em, 
 all packed in sawdust. Smoke, you an me lose. 
 We ve been gamblin . D ye know what he had the 
 gall to say to me ? that they was all ourn at ten dol 
 lars a egg. D ye know what he was doin when I left 
 his cabin? drawin a sign of eggs for sale. Said 
 he d give us first choice, at ten a throw, till 2 p. M., 
 an after that, if we did n t come across, he d bust the 
 market higher n a kite. Said he was n t no business 
 man, but that he knowed a good thing when he seen 
 it meanin you an me, as I took it." 
 
 "It s all right," Smoke said cheerfully. "Keep 
 your shirt on an let me think a moment. Quick action 
 and team play is all that s needed. I 11 get Wild 
 Water here at two o clock to take delivery of eggs. 
 You buy that Gautereaux s eggs. Try and make a 
 bargain. Even if you pay ten dollars apiece for them, 
 Wild Water will take them off our hands at the same 
 price. If you can get them cheaper, why, we make a 
 profit as well. Now go to it. Have them here by 
 not later than two o clock. Borrow Colonel Bowie s 
 dogs and take our team. Have them here by two 
 sharp." 
 
 " Say, Smoke," Shorty called, as his partner started 
 down the hill. " Better take an umbrella. I would n t 
 be none surprised to see the weather rainin eggs be 
 fore you get back." 
 
 Smoke found Wild Water at the M. & M., and a 
 stormy half-hour ensued. 
 
 " I warn you we Ve picked up some more eggs," 
 
280 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Smoke said, after Wild Water had agreed to bring his 
 dust to the cabin at two o clock and pay on delivery. 
 
 " You re luckier at finding eggs than me," Wild 
 Water admitted, " Now, how many eggs have you 
 got now ? an how much dust do I tote up the hill ? " 
 
 Smoke consulted his notebook. " As it stands now, 
 according to Shorty s figures, we Ve three thousand 
 nine hundred and sixty-two eggs. Multiply by ten - 
 
 " Forty thousand dollars ! " Wild Water bellowed. 
 " You said there was only something like nine hun 
 dred eggs. It s a stickup! I won t stand for it! " 
 
 Smoke drew the contract from his pocket and 
 pointed to the pay on delivery. " No mention is made 
 of the number of eggs to be delivered. You agreed 
 to pay ten dollars for every egg w r e delivered to you. 
 Well, we Ve got the eggs, and a signed contract is a 
 signed contract. Honestly, though, W r ild Water, we 
 did n t know about those other eggs until afterward. 
 Then we had to buy them in order to make our corner 
 good." 
 
 For five long minutes, in choking silence, Wild 
 Water fought a battle with himself, then reluctantly 
 gave in. 
 
 " I m in bad," he said brokenly. " The landscape s 
 fair sproutin eggs. An the quicker I get out the bet 
 ter. There might come a landslide of em. I 11 be 
 there at two o clock. But forty thousand dollars ! " 
 
 " It s only thirty-nine thousand six hundred an 
 twenty," Smoke corrected. " It 11 weigh two hun 
 dred pounds," Wild Water raved on. " I 11 have to 
 freight it up with a dog-team." 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 281 
 
 " We 11 lend you our teams to carry the eggs away," 
 Smoke volunteered. 
 
 "But where 11 I cache em? Never mind. I ll 
 be there. But as long as I live I 11 never eat another 
 egg. I m full sick of em." 
 
 At half-past one, doubling the dog-teams for the 
 steep pitch of the hill, Shorty arrived with Gauter- 
 eaux s eggs. " We dang near double our winnings," 
 Shorty told Smoke, as they piled the soap-boxes inside 
 the cabin. " I holds m down to eight dollars, an 
 after he cussed loco in French he falls for it. Now 
 that s two dollars clear profit to us for each egg, an 
 they re three thousan of em. I paid m in full. 
 Here s the receipt." 
 
 While Smoke got out the gold-scales and prepared 
 for business, Shorty devoted himself to calculation. 
 
 " There s the riggers," he announced triumphantly. 
 " We win twelve thousan nine hundred an seventy 
 dollars. An we don t do Wild Water no harm. He 
 wins Miss Arral. Besides, he gets all them eggs. It s 
 sure a bargain-counter all around. Nobody loses." 
 
 " Even Gautereaux s twenty-four thousand to the 
 good," Smoke laughed, " minus, of course, what the 
 eggs and the freighting cost him. And if Wild Water 
 plays the corner, he may make a profit out of the eggs 
 himself." 
 
 Promptly at two o clock, Shorty, peeping, saw Wild 
 Water coming up the hill. When he entered he was 
 bris 1 and businesslike. He took off his big bearskin 
 coat, hung it on a nail, and sat down at the table. 
 
 " Bring on them eggs, you pirates," he commenced. 
 
282 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " An after this day, if you know what s good for 
 you, never mention eggs to me again. 
 
 They began on the miscellaneous assortment of the 
 original corner, all three men counting. When two 
 hundred had been reached, Wild Water suddenly 
 cracked an egg on the edge of the table and opened it 
 deftly with his thumbs. 
 
 " Hey ! Hold on ! " Shorty objected. 
 
 "It s my egg, ain t it?" Wild Water snarled. 
 " I m paying ten dollars for it, ain t I ? But I ain t 
 buying no pig in a poke. When I cough up ten bucks 
 an egg I want to know what I m gettin ." 
 
 " If you don t like it, I 11 eat it," Shorty volunteered 
 maliciously. 
 
 Wild Water looked and smelled and shook his head. 
 " No, you don t, Shorty. That s a good egg. 
 Gimme a pail. I m goin to eat it myself for 
 supper." 
 
 Thrice again Wild Water cracked good eggs ex 
 perimentally and put them in the pail beside him. 
 
 " Two more than you figgered, Shorty," he said at 
 the end of the count. " Nine hundred an sixty-four, 
 not sixty-two." 
 
 " My mistake," Shorty acknowledged handsomely. 
 " We 11 throw em in for good measure." 
 
 " Guess you can afford to," Wild Water accepted 
 grimly. " Pass the batch. Nine thousan six hun 
 dred an twenty dollars. I 11 pay for it now. Write 
 a receipt, Smoke." 
 
 " Why not count the rest," Smoke suggested, " and 
 pay all at once? " 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 283 
 
 Wild Water shook his head. " I m no good at 
 figgers. One batch at a time an no mistakes." 
 
 Going to his fur coat, from each of the side pockets 
 he drew forth two sacks of dust, so rotund and long 
 that they resembled bologna sausages. When the first 
 batch had been paid for, there remained in the gold- 
 sacks not more than several hundred dollars. 
 
 A soap-box was carried to the table, and the count 
 of the three thousand began. At the end of one hun 
 dred, Wild Water struck an egg sharply against the 
 edge of the table. There was no crack. The result 
 ant sound was like that of the striking of a sphere of 
 solid marble. 
 
 " Frozen solid," he remarked, striking more sharply. 
 
 He held the egg up, and they could see the shell 
 powdered to minute fragments along the line of im 
 pact. 
 
 " Huh ! " said Shorty. " It ought to be solid, seein 
 it has just been freighted up from Forty Mile. It 11 
 take an ax to bust it." 
 
 " Me for the ax," said Wild Water. 
 
 Smoke brought the ax, and Wild Water, with the 
 clever hand and eye of the woodsman, split the egg 
 cleanly in half. The appearance of the egg s interior 
 was anything but satisfactory. Smoke felt a premon 
 itory chill. Shorty was more valiant. He held one 
 of the halves to his nose. 
 
 " Smells all right," he said. 
 
 " But it looks all wrong," Wild Water contended. 
 " An how can it smell when the smell s frozen along 
 with the rest of it? Wait a minute." 
 
284 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 He put the two halves into a frying-pan and placed 
 the latter on the front lid of the hot stove. Then the 
 three men, with distended, questing nostrils, waited in 
 silence. Slowly an unmistakable odor began to drift 
 through the room. Wild Water forbore to speak, and 
 Shorty remained dumb despite conviction. 
 
 Throw it out," Smoke cried, gasping. 
 
 " What s the good? " asked Wild Water. " We Ve 
 got to sample the rest." 
 
 " Not in this cabin." Smoke coughed and con 
 quered a qualm. " Chop them open, and we can test 
 by looking at them. Throw it out, Shorty Throw 
 it out ! Phew ! And leave the door open ! " 
 
 Box after box was opened; egg after egg, chosen 
 at random, was chopped in two ; and every egg carried 
 the same message of hopeless, irremediable decay. 
 
 " I won t ask you to eat em, Shorty," Wild Water 
 jeered, " an , if you don t mind, I can t get outa here 
 too quick. My contract called for good eggs. If 
 you 11 loan me a sled an team I 11 haul them good 
 ones away before they get contaminated." 
 
 Smoke helped in loading the sled. Shorty sat at 
 the table, the cards laid before him for solitaire. 
 
 " Say, how long you been holdin that corner ? " was 
 Wild Water s parting gibe. 
 
 Smoke made no reply, and, with one glance at his 
 absorbed partner, proceeded to fling the soap boxes 
 out into the snow. 
 
 " Say, Shorty, how much did you say you paid for 
 that three thousand? " Smoke queried gently. 
 
 " Eight dollars. Go way. Don t talk to me. I 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 285 
 
 can figger as well as you. We lose seventeen thou- 
 san on the flutter, if anybody should ride up on a 
 dog-sled an ask you. I figgered that out while waitin 
 for the first egg to smell." 
 
 Smoke pondered a few minutes, then again broke 
 silence. " Say, Shorty. Forty thousand dollars gold 
 weighs two hundred pounds. Wild Water borrowed 
 our sled and team to haul away his eggs. He came 
 up the hill without a sled. Those two sacks of dust 
 in his coat pockets weighed about twenty pounds each. 
 The understanding was cash on delivery. He brought 
 enough dust to pay for the good eggs. He never ex 
 pected to pay for those three thousand. He knew they 
 were bad. Now how did he know they were bad? 
 What do you make of it, anyway? " 
 
 Shorty gathered the cards, started to shuffle a new 
 deal, then paused. " Huh ! That ain t nothin . A 
 child could answer it. We lose seventeen thousan . 
 Wild Water wins seventeen thousan . Them eggs of 
 Gautereaux s was Wild Water s all the time. Any 
 thing else you re curious to know? " 
 
 " Yes. Why in the name of common sense did n t 
 you find out whether those eggs were good before you 
 paid for them? " 
 
 " Just as easy as the first question. Wild Water 
 swung the bunco game timed to seconds. I had n t 
 no time to examine them eggs. I had to hustle to get 
 em here for delivery. An now, Smoke, lemme 
 ask you one civil question. What did you say was the 
 party s name that put this egg corner idea into your 
 head?" 
 
286 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Shorty had lost the sixteenth consecutive game of 
 solitaire, and Smoke was casting about to begin the 
 preparation of supper, when Colonel Bowie knocked 
 at the door, handed Smoke a letter, and went on to 
 his own cabin. 
 
 " Did you see his face?" Shorty raved. " He was 
 almost bustin to keep it straight. It s the big ha ! ha ! 
 for you an me, Smoke. We won t never dast show 
 our faces again in Dawson." 
 
 The letter was from Wild Water, and Smoke read 
 it aloud : 
 
 Dear Sm oke and Shorty: I write to ask, with compliments 
 of the season, your presence at a supper to-night at Slavovitch s 
 joint. Miss Arral will be there and so will Gautereaux. Him and 
 me was pardners down at Circle five years ago. He is all right 
 and is going to be best man. About them eggs. They come 
 into the country four years back. They was bad when they 
 come in. They was bad when they left California. They al 
 ways was bad. They stopped at Carluk one winter, and one 
 winter at Nutlik, and last winter at Forty Mile, where they was 
 sold for storage. And this winter I guess they stop at Dawson. 
 Don t keep them in a hot room. Lucille says to say you and her 
 and me has sure made some excitement for Dawson. And I 
 say the drinks is on you, and that goes. 
 
 Respectfully your friend, 
 
 W. W. 
 
 "Well? What have you got to say?" Smoke 
 queried. "We accept the invitation, of course?" 
 
 " I got one thing to say," Shorty answered. " An* 
 that is Wild Water won t never suffer if he goes broke. 
 He s a good actor a gosh-blamed good actor. An* 
 I got another thing to say: my riggers is all wrong. 
 Wild Water wins seventeen thousan all right, but he 
 
A FLUTTER IN EGGS 287 
 
 wins more n that. You air me has made him a pres 
 ent of every good egg in the Klondike nine hun 
 dred an sixty- four of em, two thrown in for good 
 measure. An he was that ornery, mean cussed that 
 he packed off the three opened ones in the pail. An 
 I got a last thing to say. You an me is legitimate 
 prospectors an practical gold-miners. But when it 
 comes to fi-nance we re sure the fattest suckers that 
 ever fell for the get-rich-quick bunco. After this it s 
 you an me for the high rocks an tall timber, an if 
 you ever mention eggs to me we dissolve pardnership 
 there an then. Get me?" 
 
XI 
 
 THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 
 
 QMOKE and Shorty encountered each other, going 
 ^ in opposite directions, at the corner where stood 
 the Elkhorn saloon. The former s face wore a 
 pleased expression, and he was walking briskly. 
 Shorty, on the other hand, was slouching along in a 
 depressed and indeterminate fashion. 
 
 "Whither away?" Smoke challenged gaily. 
 
 " Danged if I know," came the disconsolate answer. 
 " Wisht I did. They ain t nothin to take me any 
 wheres. I ve set two hours in the deadest game of 
 draw nothing excitin , no hands, an broke even. 
 Played a rubber of cribbage with Skiff Mitchell for 
 the drinks, an now I m that languid for somethin 
 doin that I m perambulatin the streets on the chance 
 of seein a dogfight, or a argument, or somethin ." 
 
 " I ve got something better on hand," Smoke an 
 swered. " That s why I was looking for you. Come 
 on along." 
 
 "Now?" 
 
 " Sure." 
 
 "Whereto?" 
 
 " Across the river to make a call on old Dwight 
 Sanderson." 
 
 " Never heard of him," Shorty said dejectedly. 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 289 
 
 " An never heard of no one living across the river 
 anyway. What s he want to live there for ? Ain t 
 he got no sense? " 
 
 " He s got something to sell," Smoke laughed. 
 
 " Dogs ? A gold-mine ? Tobacco ? Rubber 
 boots?" 
 
 Smoke shook his head to each question. " Come 
 along on and find out, because I m going to buy it 
 from him on a spec, and if you want you can come 
 in half." 
 
 "Don t tell me it s eggs!" Shorty cried, his face 
 twisted into an expression of facetious and sarcastic 
 alarm. 
 
 " Come on along," Smoke told him. " And I 11 
 give you ten guesses while we re crossing the ice." 
 
 They dipped down the high bank at the foot of the 
 street and came out upon the ice-covered Yukon. 
 Three-quarters of a mile away, directly opposite, the 
 other bank of the stream uprose in precipitous bluffs 
 hundreds of feet in height. Toward these bluffs, 
 winding and twisting in and out among broken and 
 upthrown blocks of ice, ran a slightly traveled trail. 
 Shorty trudged at Smoke s heels, beguiling the time 
 with guesses at what Dwight Sanderson had to sell. 
 
 "Reindeer? Copper-mine or brick-yard? That s 
 one guess. Bear-skins, or any kind of skins? Lot 
 tery tickets ? A potato-ranch ? " 
 
 " Getting near it," Smoke encouraged. " And bet 
 ter than that." 
 
 Two potato-ranches? A cheese-factory? A moss- 
 farm?" 
 
2 9 o SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " That s not so bad, Shorty. It s not a thousand 
 miles away." 
 
 "A quarry?" 
 
 " That s as near as the moss- farm and the potato- 
 ranch." 
 
 " Hold on. Let me think. I got one guess comin ." 
 Ten silent minutes passed. " Say, Smoke, I ain t 
 goin to use that last guess. When this thing you re 
 buyin sounds like a potato-ranch, a moss-farm, an 
 a stone-quarry, I quit. An I don t go in on the deal 
 till I see it an size it up. What is it? " 
 
 " Well, you 11 see the cards on the table soon 
 enough. Kindly cast your eyes up there. Do you 
 see the smoke from that cabin ? That s where Dwight 
 Sanderson lives. He s holding down a town-site 
 location." 
 
 " What else is he holdin down? " 
 
 " That s all," Smoke laughed. " Except rheuma 
 tism. I hear he s been suffering from it." 
 
 "Say!" Shorty s hand flashed out and with an 
 abrupt shoulder grip brought his comrade to a halt. 
 " You ain t telling me you re buyin a town-site at 
 this fallin -off place?" 
 
 " That s your tenth guess, and you win. Come 
 on." 
 
 " But wait a moment," Shorty pleaded. " Look at 
 it nothin but bluffs an slides, all up-and-down. 
 Where could the town stand? " 
 
 " Search me." 
 
 " Then you ain t buyin it for a town ? " 
 
 " But Dwight Sanderson s selling it for a town," 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 291 
 
 Smoke baffled. " Come on. We ve got to climb this 
 slide." 
 
 The slide was steep, and a narrow trail zigzagged 
 up it on a formidable Jacob s ladder. Shorty moaned 
 and groaned over the sharp corners and the steep 
 pitches. 
 
 " Think of a town-site here. They ain t a flat 
 space big enough for a postage-stamp. An it s the 
 wrong side of the river. All the freightin goes the 
 other way. Look at Dawson there. Room to spread 
 for forty thousand more people. Say, Smoke. You J re 
 a meat-eater. I know that. An I know you ain t 
 buyin it for a town. Then what in Heaven s name 
 are you buyin it for?" 
 
 " To sell, of course." 
 
 " But other folks ain t as crazy as old man Sander 
 son an you." 
 
 " Maybe not in the same way, Shorty. Now I m 
 going to take this town-site, break it up in parcels, 
 and sell it to a lot of sane people w r ho live over in 
 Dawson." 
 
 " Huh ! All Dawson s still laughing at you an me 
 an them eggs. You want to make em laugh some 
 more, hey? " 
 
 " I certainly do." 
 
 " But it s too danged expensive, Smoke. I helped 
 you make em laugh on the eggs, an my share of the 
 laugh cost me nearly nine thousan dollars." 
 
 " All right. You don t have to come in on this. 
 The profits will be all mine, but you ve got to help 
 me just the same." 
 
292 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Oh, I 11 help all right. An they can laugh at me 
 some more. But nary a ounce do I drop this time. 
 
 " What s old Sanderson holdin it at? A couple of 
 hundred?" 
 
 " Ten thousand. I ought to get it for five." 
 
 " Wisht I was a minister," Shorty breathed fer 
 vently. 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " So I could preach the gosh-dangdest, eloquentest 
 sermon on a text you may have hearn to wit: a 
 fool an his money." 
 
 " Come in," they heard Dwight Sanderson yell ir 
 ritably, when they knocked at his door, and they en 
 tered to find him squatted by a stone fireplace and 
 pounding coffee wrapped in a piece of flour-sacking. 
 
 " What d ye want? " he demanded harshly, empty 
 ing the pounded coffee into the coffee-pot that stood 
 on the coals near the front of the fireplace. 
 
 " To talk business," Smoke answered. " You ve 
 a town-site located here, I understand. What do you 
 want for it?" 
 
 " Ten thousand dollars," came the answer. " And 
 now that I ve told you, you can laugh, and get out. 
 There s the door. Good-by." 
 
 " But I don t want to laugh. I know plenty of fun 
 nier things to do than to climb up this cliff of yours. 
 I want to buy your town-site." 
 
 "You do, eh? Well, I m glad to hear sense." 
 Sanderson came over and sat down facing his visitors, 
 his hands resting on the table and his eyes cocking 
 apprehensively toward the coffee-pot. " I ve told you 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 293 
 
 my price, and I ain t ashamed to tell you again ten 
 thousand. And you can laugh or buy, it s all one to 
 
 me." 
 
 To show his indifference he drummed with his 
 knobby knuckles on the table and stared at the coffee 
 pot. A minute later he began to hum a monotonous, 
 " Tra-la-loo, tra-la-lee, tra-la-lee, tra-la-loo." 
 
 " Now look here, Mr. Sanderson," said Smoke. 
 " This town-site is n t worth ten thousand. If it was 
 worth that much it would be worth a hundred thou 
 sand just as easily. If it is n t worth a hundred thou 
 sand and you know it is n t then it is n t worth 
 ten cents." 
 
 Sanderson drummed with his knuckles and hummed, 
 "Tra-la-loo, tra-la-lee," until the coffee-pot boiled 
 over. Settling it with a part cup of cold water, and 
 placing it to one side of the warm hearth, he resumed 
 his seat. " How much will you offer? " he asked of 
 Smoke. 
 
 " Five thousand." 
 
 Shorty groaned. 
 
 Again came an interval of drumming and of tra- 
 loo-ing and tra-lee-ing. 
 
 * You ain t no fool," Sanderson announced to 
 Smoke. " You said if it was n t worth a hundred 
 thousand it wasn t worth ten cents. Yet you offer 
 five thousand for it. Then it is worth a hundred 
 thousand." 
 
 * You can t make twenty cents out of it," Smoke 
 replied heatedly. " Not if you stayed here till you 
 rot." 
 
294 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " I 11 make it out of you." 
 
 " No, you won t. " 
 
 " Then I reckon I 11 stay an rot," Sanderson an 
 swered with an air of finality. 
 
 He took no further notice of his guests, and went 
 about his culinary tasks as if he were alone. When 
 he had warmed over a pot of beans and a slab of sour 
 dough bread, he set the table for one and proceeded 
 to eat. 
 
 " No, thank you," Shorty murmured. " We ain t 
 a bit hungry. We et just before we come." 
 
 " Let s see your papers," Smoke said at last. San 
 derson fumbled under the head of his bunk and tossed 
 out a package of documents. "It s all tight and 
 right," he said. " That long one there, with the big 
 seals, come all the way from Ottawa. Nothing terri 
 torial about that. The national Canadian govern 
 ment cinches me in the possession of this town-site." 
 
 " How many lots you sold in the two years you ve 
 had it? " Shorty queried. 
 
 " None of your business," Sanderson answered 
 sourly. " There ain t no law against a man living 
 alone on his town-site if he wants to." 
 
 " I 11 give you five thousand," Smoke said. San 
 derson shook his head. 
 
 " I don t know which is the craziest," Shorty la 
 mented. " Come outside a minute, Smoke. I want 
 to whisper to you." 
 
 Reluctantly Smoke yielded to his partner s persua 
 sions. 
 
 " Ain t it never entered your head," Shorty said, as 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 295 
 
 they stood in the snow outside the door, " that they s 
 miles an miles of cliffs on both sides this fool town- 
 site that don t belong to nobody an that you can have 
 for the locatin and stakin ? " 
 
 " They \von t do," Smoke answered. 
 
 "Why won t they?" 
 
 " It makes you wonder, with all those miles and 
 miles, why I m buying this particular spot, does n t 
 it?" 
 
 " It sure does," Shorty agreed. 
 
 " And that s the very point," Smoke went on tri 
 umphantly. "If it makes you wonder, it will make 
 others wonder. And when they wonder they 11 come 
 a-running. By your own wondering you prove it s 
 sound psychology. Now, Shorty, listen to me ; I m 
 going to hand Dawson a package that will knock the 
 spots out of the egg-laugh. Come on inside." 
 
 " Hello," said Sanderson, as they re-entered. " I 
 thought I d seen the last of you." 
 
 " Now what is your lowest figure ? " Smoke asked. 
 
 " Twenty thousand." 
 _^_I 11 give you ten thousand." 
 
 " All right, I 11 sell at that figure. It s all I wanted 
 in the first place. But when will you pay the dust 
 over?" 
 
 " To-morrow, at the Northwest Bank. But there 
 are two other things I want for that ten thousand. 
 In the first place, when you receive your money you 
 pull down the river to Forty Mile and stay there the 
 rest of the winter." 
 
 "That s easy. What else?" 
 
296 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " I m going to pay you twenty-five thousand, and 
 you rebate me fifteen of it. " 
 
 " I m agreeable." Sanderson turned to Shorty. 
 " Folks said I was a fool when I come over here an 
 town-sited," he jeered. " Well, I m a ten thousand 
 dollar fool, ain t I?" 
 
 " The Klondike s sure full of fools," was all Shorty 
 could retort, " an when they s so many of em some 
 has to be lucky, don t they? " 
 
 Next morning the legal transfer of Dwight Sander 
 son s town-site was made " henceforth to be known 
 as the town-site of Tra-Lee," Smoke incorporated in 
 the deed. Also, at the Northwest Bank, twenty- 
 five thousand of Smoke s gold was weighed out by the 
 cashier, while half a dozen casual onlookers noted the 
 weighing, the amount, and the recipient. 
 
 In a mining-camp all men are suspicious. Any un 
 toward act of any man is likely to be the cue to a se 
 cret gold strike, whether the untoward act be no more 
 than a hunting trip for moose or a stroll after dark 
 to observe the aurora borealis. And when it became 
 known that so prominent a figure as Smoke Bellew 
 had paid twenty-five thousand dollars to old Dwight 
 Sanderson, Dawson wanted to know what he had paid 
 it for. What had Dwight Sanderson, starving on his 
 abandoned town-site, ever owned that was worth 
 twenty-five thousand? In lieu of an answer, Dawson 
 was justified in keeping Smoke in feverish contempla 
 tion. 
 
 By mid-afternoon it was common knowledge that 
 several score of men had made up light stampeding- 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 297 
 
 packs and cached them in the convenient saloons along 
 Main Street. Wherever Smoke moved, he was the 
 observed of many eyes. And as proof that he was 
 taken seriously, not one man of the many of his ac 
 quaintance had the effrontery to ask him about his 
 deal with Dwight Sanderson. On the other hand, no 
 one mentioned eggs to Smoke. Shorty was under 
 similar surveillance and delicacy of friendliness. 
 
 " Makes me feel like I d killed somebody, or had 
 smallpox, the w r ay they watch me an seem afraid to 
 speak," Shorty confessed, when he chanced to meet 
 Smoke in front of the Elkhorn. " Look at Bill Salt- 
 man there acrost the way just dyin to look, an 
 keepin his eyes down the street all the time. Would n t 
 think he d knowed you an me existed, to look at 
 him. But I bet you the drinks, Smoke, if you an me 
 flop around the corner quick, like \ve was goin some- 
 wheres, an then turn back from around the next 
 corner, that we run into him a-hikin hell-bent." 
 
 They tried the trick, and, doubling back around the 
 second corner, encountered Saltman swinging a long 
 trail-stride in pursuit. 
 
 "Hello, Bill," Smoke greeted. "Which way?" 
 
 " Hello. Just a-strollin , " Saltman answered, 
 " just a-strollin . Weather s fine, ain t it? " 
 
 " Huh ! " Shorty jeered. " If you call that strollin , 
 what might you walk real fast at?" 
 
 When Shorty fed the dogs that evening, he was 
 keenly conscious that from the encircling darkness a 
 dozen pairs of eyes were boring in upon him. And 
 when he stick-tied the dogs, instead of letting them 
 
298 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 forage free through the night, he knew that he had ad 
 ministered another jolt to the nervousness of Daw- 
 son. 
 
 According to program, Smoke ate supper down 
 town and then proceeded to enjoy himself. Wherever 
 he appeared, he was the center of interest, and he 
 purposely made the rounds. Saloons filled up after 
 his entrance and emptied following upon his depar 
 ture. If he bought a stack of chips at a sleepy rou 
 lette-table, inside five minutes a dozen players were 
 around him. He avenged himself, in a small way, 
 on Lucille Arral, by getting up and sauntering out of 
 the Opera House just as she came on to sing her most 
 popular song. In three minutes two-thirds of her au 
 dience had vanished after him. 
 
 At one in the morning he walked along an unus 
 ually populous Main Street and took the turning that 
 led up the hill to his cabin. And when he paused on 
 the ascent, he could hear behind him the crunch of 
 moccasins in the snow. 
 
 For an hour the cabin was in darkness, then he 
 lighted a candle, and, after a delay sufficient for a 
 man to dress in, he and Shorty opened the door and 
 began harnessing the dogs. As the light from the 
 cabin flared out upon them and their work, a soft 
 whistle went up from not far away. This whistle 
 was repeated down the hill. 
 
 " Listen to it," Smoke chuckled. " They Ve relayed 
 on us and are passing the word down to town. I 11 
 bet you there are forty men right now rolling out of 
 their blankets and climbing into their pants." 
 
THE TOWX-SITE OF TRA-LEE 299 
 
 " Ain t folks fools," Shorty giggled back. " Say, 
 Smoke, they ain t nothin in hard graft. A geezer 
 that d work his hands these days is a well, a geezer. 
 The world s sure bustin full an dribblin over the 
 edges with fools a-honin to be separated from their 
 dust. An before we start down the hill I want to an 
 nounce, if you re still agreeable, that I come in half 
 on this deal." 
 
 The sled was lightly loaded with a sleeping- and a 
 grub-outfit. A small coil of steel cable protruded in 
 conspicuously from underneath a grub-sack, while a 
 crowbar lay half hidden along the bottom of the sled 
 next to the lashings. 
 
 Shorty fondled the cable with a swift-passing mit 
 ten, and gave a last affectionate touch to the crowbar. 
 " Huh! " he whispered. " I d sure do some tall think 
 ing myself if I seen them objects on a sled on a dark 
 night." 
 
 They drove the dogs dow-n the hill with cautious 
 silence, and when, emerged on the flat, they turned 
 the team north along Main Street toward the sawmill 
 and directly away from the business part of town, 
 they observed even greater caution. They had seen 
 no one, yet when this change of direction was initi 
 ated, out of the dim starlit darkness behind arose a 
 whistle. Past the sawmill and the hospital, at lively 
 speed, they went for a quarter of a mile. Then they 
 turned about and headed back over the ground they 
 had just covered. At the end of the first hundred 
 yards they barely missed colliding with five men rac 
 ing along at a quick dog-trot. All were slightly 
 
300 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 stooped to the weight of stampeding-packs. One of 
 them stopped Smoke s lead-dog, and the rest clustered 
 around. 
 
 " Seen a sled goin the other way? " was asked. 
 
 "Nope," Smoke answered. "Is that you, Bill?" 
 
 "Well, I ll be danged!" Bill Saltman ejaculated 
 in honest surprise. " If it ain t Smoke! " 
 
 What are you doing out this time of night?" 
 Smoke inquired. "Strolling?" 
 
 Before Bill Saltman could make reply, two running 
 men joined the group.* These were followed by sev 
 eral more, while the crunch of feet on the snow 
 heralded the imminent arrival of many others. 
 
 "Who are your friends?" Smoke asked. 
 "Where s the stampede?" 
 
 Saltman, lighting his pipe, which was impossible for 
 him to enjoy with lungs panting from the run, did not 
 reply. The ruse of the match was too obviously for 
 the purpose of seeing the sled to be misunderstood, 
 and Smoke noted every pair of eyes focus on the coil 
 of cable and the crowbar. Then the match went out. 
 
 " Just heard a rumor, that s all, just a rumor," 
 Saltman mumbled with ponderous secretiveness. 
 
 " You might let Shorty and me in on it," Smoke 
 urged. 
 
 Somebody snickered sarcastically in the back 
 ground. 
 
 "Where are you bound?" Saltman demanded. 
 
 " And who are you ? " Smoke countered. " Com 
 mittee of safety? " 
 
 " Just interested, just interested," Saltman said. 
 
THE TOWX-SITE OF TRA-LEE 301 
 
 " You bet your sweet life we ? re interested," another 
 voice spoke up out of the darkness. 
 
 " Say," Shorty put in, " I wonder who s feelin 
 the foolishest?" 
 
 Everybody laughed nervously. 
 
 " Come on, Shorty; we 11 be getting along," Smoke 
 said, mushing the dogs. 
 
 The crowd formed in behind and followed. 
 
 " Say, ain t you-all made a mistake? " Shorty gibed. 
 " \Yhen we met you you was goin , an now you re 
 comin without bein anywheres. Have you lost your 
 tag?" 
 
 You go to the devil," was Saltman s courtesy. 
 * \Ye go and come just as we danged feel like. We 
 don t travel with tags." 
 
 And the sled, with Smoke in the lead and Shorty 
 at the pole, went on down Main Street escorted by 
 three score men, each of whom, on his back, bore a 
 stampeding-pack. It was three in the morning, and 
 only the all-night rounders saw the procession and 
 were able to tell Dawson about it next day. 
 
 Half an hour later, the hill was climbed and the 
 dogs unharnessed at the cabin door, the sixty stam- 
 peders grimly attendant. 
 
 " Good-night, fellows," Smoke called, as he closed 
 the door. 
 
 In five minutes the candle was put out, but before 
 half an hour had passed Smoke and Shorty emerged 
 .softly, and without lights began harnessing the dogs. 
 
 " Hello, Smoke ! " Saltman said, stepping near 
 enough for them to see the loom of his form. 
 
302 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Can t shake you, Bill, I see," Smoke replied cheer 
 fully. " Where re your friends ? " 
 
 " Gone to have a drink. They left me to keep an 
 eye on you, and keep it I will. What s in the wind 
 anyway, Smoke? You can t shake us, so you might 
 as well let us in. We re all your friends. You know 
 that." 
 
 " There are times when you can let your friends 
 in," Smoke evaded, " and times when you can t. And, 
 Bill, this is one of the times when we can t. You d 
 better go to bed. Good-night." 
 
 " Ain t goin to be no good-night, Smoke. You 
 don t know us. We re woodticks." 
 
 Smoke sighed. " Well, Bill, if you will have your 
 will, I guess you 11 have to have it. Come on. Shorty, 
 we can t fool around any longer." 
 
 Saltman emitted a shrill whistle as the sled started, 
 and swung in behind. From down the hill and across 
 the fiat came the answering whistles of the relays. 
 Shorty was at the gee-pole, and Smoke and Saltman 
 walked side by side. 
 
 " Look here, Bill," Smoke said. " I 11 make you a 
 proposition. Do you want to come in alone on 
 this?" 
 
 Saltman did not hesitate. " An throw the gang 
 down? No, sir. We ll all come in." 
 
 " You first, then," Smoke exclaimed, lurching into 
 a clinch and tipping the other into deep snow beside 
 the trail. 
 
 Shorty hawed tlje dogs and swung the team to the 
 south on the trail that led among the scattered cabins 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 303 
 
 on the rolling slopes to the rear of Dawson. Smoke 
 and Saltman, locked together, rolled in the snow. 
 Smoke considered himself in gilt-edged condition, but 
 Saltman outweighed him by fifty pounds of clean, 
 trail-hardened muscle and repeatedly mastered him. 
 Time and time again he got Smoke on his back, and 
 Smoke lay complacently and rested. But each time 
 Saltman attempted to get off him and get away, Smoke 
 reached out a detaining, tripping hand that brought 
 about a new clinch and wrestle. 
 
 " You can go some," Saltman acknowledged, pant 
 ing at the end of ten minutes, as he sat astride Smoke s 
 chest. " But I down you every time." 
 
 " And I hold you every time," Smoke panted back. 
 " That s what I m here for, just to hold you. Where 
 do you think Shorty s getting to all this time?" 
 
 Saltman made a wild effort to go clear, and all but 
 succeeded. Smoke gripped his ankle and threw 7 him 
 in a headlong tumble. From down the hill came anx 
 ious questioning whistles. Saltman sat up and whis 
 tled a shrill answer, and was grappled by Smoke, who 
 rolled him face upward and sat astride his chest, his 
 knees resting on Saltman s biceps, his hands on Salt- 
 man s shoulders and holding him down. And in this 
 position the stampeders found them. Smoke laughed 
 and got up. 
 
 11 Well, good-night, fellows," he said, and started 
 down the hill, with sixty exasperated and grimly de 
 termined stampeders at his heels. 
 
 He turned north past the sawmill and the hospital 
 and took the river trail along the precipitous bluffs at 
 
304 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 the base of Moosehide Mountain. Circling the Indian 
 village, he held on to the mouth of Moose Creek, then 
 turned and faced his pursuers. 
 
 " You make me tired," he said, with a good imita 
 tion of a snarl. 
 
 " Hope we ain t a-forcin you," Saltman murmured 
 politely. 
 
 " Oh, no, not at all," Smoke snarled with an even 
 better imitation, as he passed among them on the back- 
 trail to Dawson. Twice he attempted to cross the 
 trailless icejams of the river, still resolutely followed, 
 and both times he gave up and returned to the Daw- 
 son shore. Straight down Main Street he trudged, 
 crossing the ice of Klondike River to Klondike City 
 and again retracing to Dawson. At eight o clock, as 
 gray dawn began to show, he led his weary gang to 
 Slavovitch s restaurant, where tables were at a pre 
 mium for breakfast. 
 
 " Good-night fellows," he said, as he paid his reck 
 oning. 
 
 And again he said good-night, as he took the climb 
 of the hill. In the clear light of day they did not fol 
 low him, contenting themselves with watching him up 
 the hill to his cabin. 
 
 For two days Smoke lingered about town, contin 
 ually under vigilant espionage. Shorty, with the sled 
 and dogs, had disappeared. Neither travelers up and 
 down the Yukon, nor from Bonanza, Eldorado, nor 
 the Klondike, had seen him. Remained only Smoke, 
 who, soon or late, was certain to try to connect with 
 his missing partner; and upon Smoke everybody s at- 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 305 
 
 tention was centered. On the second night he did 
 not leave his cabin, putting out the lamp at nine in the 
 evening and setting the alarm for two next morning. 
 The watch outside heard the alarm go off, so that 
 when, half an hour later, he emerged from the cabin, 
 he found waiting him a band, not of sixty men, but 
 of at least three hundred. A flaming aurora borealis 
 lighted the scene, and, thus hugely escorted, he walked 
 down to town and entered the Elkhorn. The place 
 was immediately packed and jammed by an anxious 
 and irritated multitude that bought drinks, and for four 
 weary hours watched Smoke play cribbage with his 
 old friend Breck. Shortly after six in the morning, 
 with an expression on his face of commingled hatred 
 and gloom, seeing no one, recognizing no one, Smoke 
 left the Elkhorn and went up Main Street, behind 
 him the three hundred, formed in disorderly ranks, 
 chanting: " Hay- foot! Straw-foot! Hep! Hep! Hep! " 
 
 " Good-night, fellows," he said bitterly, at the edge 
 of the Yukon bank where the winter trail dipped 
 down. " I m going to get breakfast and then go to 
 bed." 
 
 The three hundred shouted that they were with 
 him, and followed him out upon the frozen river on 
 the direct path he took for Tra-Lee. At seven in the 
 morning he led his stampeding cohort up the zigzag 
 trail, across the face of the slide, that led to Dwight 
 Sanderson s cabin. The light of a candle showed 
 through the parchment-paper window, and smoke 
 curled from the chimney. Shorty threw open the 
 door. 
 
306 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Come on in, Smoke," he greeted. " Breakfast s 
 ready. Who-all are your friends ? " 
 
 Smoke turned about on the threshold. " Well, 
 good-night, you fellows. Hope you enjoyed your pas- 
 ear!" 
 
 " Hold on a moment, Smoke/ Bill Saltman cried, 
 his voice keen with disappointment. " Want to talk 
 with you a moment." 
 
 " Fire away," Smoke answered genially. 
 
 " What d you pay old Sanderson twenty-five 
 thousan for. Will you answer that ? " 
 
 " Bill, you give me a pain," was Smoke s reply. 
 " I came over here for a country residence, so to say, 
 and here are you and a gang trying to cross-examine 
 me when I m looking for peace an quietness an 
 breakfast. What s a country residence good for, ex 
 cept for peace and quietness?" 
 
 " You ain t answered the question," Bill Saltman 
 came back with rigid logic. 
 
 " And I m not going to, Bill. That affair is pecul 
 iarly a personal affair between Dwight Sanderson and 
 me. Any other question?" 
 
 " How about that crowbar an steel cable then, 
 what you had on your sled the other night? " 
 
 " It s none of your blessed and ruddy business, 
 Bill. Though if Shorty here wants to tell you about 
 it, he can." 
 
 " Sure ! " Shorty cried, springing eagerly into the 
 breach. His mouth opened, then he faltered and 
 turned to his partner. " Smoke, confidentially, just 
 between you an me, I don t think it is any of their 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 307 
 
 darn business. Come on in. The life s gettin boiled 
 outa that coffee." 
 
 The door closed and the three hundred sagged into 
 forlorn and grumbling groups. 
 
 " Say, Saltman," one man said, " I thought you 
 was goin to lead us to it." 
 
 "Not on your life," Saltman answered crustily. 
 " I said Smoke would lead us to it." 
 
 "An this is it?" 
 
 " You know as much about it as me, an* we all 
 know Smoke s got something salted down some- 
 wheres. Or else for what did he pay Sanderson the 
 twenty-five thousand? Not for this mangy town- 
 site, that s sure an certain." 
 
 A chorus of cries affirmed Saltman s judgment. 
 
 "Well, what are we goin to do now?" some one 
 queried dolefully. 
 
 " Me for one for breakfast," Wild Water Charley 
 said cheerfully. " You led us up a blind alley this 
 time, Bill." 
 
 " I tell you I did n t," Saltman objected. " Smoke^ 
 led us. An just the same, what about them twenty- 
 five thousand ? " 
 
 At half -past eight, when daylight had grown 
 strong, Shorty carefully opened the door and peered 
 out. "Shucks," he exclaimed. " They-all s hiked 
 back to Dawson. I thought they was goin to camp 
 here." 
 
 "Don t worry; they ll come sneaking back," 
 Smoke reassured him. " If I don t miss my guess 
 you ? 11 see half Dawson over here before we re done 
 
308 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 with it. Now jump in and lend me a hand. We Ve 
 got work to do." 
 
 " Aw, for Heaven s sake put me on," Shorty com 
 plained, when, at the end of an hour, he surveyed the 
 result of their toil a windlass in the corner of the 
 cabin, with an endless rope that ran around double 
 logrollers. 
 
 Smoke turned it with a minimum of effort, and 
 the rope slipped and creaked. " Now, Shorty, you 
 go outside and tell me what it sounds like." 
 
 Shorty, listening at the closed door, heard all the 
 sounds of a windlass hoisting a load, and caught 
 himself unconsciously attempting to estimate the 
 depth of shaft out of which this load was being 
 hoisted. Next came a pause, and in his mind s eye 
 he saw the bucket swinging short to the windlass. 
 Then he heard the quick lower-away and the dull 
 sound as of the bucket coming to abrupt rest on the 
 edge of the shaft. He threw open the door, beaming. 
 
 " I got you," he cried. " I almost fell for it my 
 self. What next?" 
 
 The next was the dragging into the cabin of a 
 dozen sled-loads of rock. And through an exceed 
 ingly busy day there were many other nexts. 
 
 " Now you run the dogs over to Dawson this 
 evening," Smoke instructed, when supper was fin 
 ished. " Leave them with Breck. He 11 take care 
 of them. They 11 be watching what you do, so get 
 Breck to go to the A. C. Company and buy up all 
 the blasting-powder - there s only several hundred 
 pounds in stock. And have Breck order half a dozen 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 309 
 
 hard-rock drills from the blacksmith. Breck s a 
 quartz-man, and he 11 give the blacksmith a rough 
 idea of what he wants made. And give Breck these 
 location descriptions, so that he can record them at 
 the gold commissioner s to-morrow. And finally, at 
 ten o clock, you be on Main Street listening. Mind 
 you, I don t want them to be too loud. Dawson must 
 just hear them and no more than hear them. I 11 let 
 off three, of different quantities, and you note which 
 is more nearly the right thing." 
 
 At ten that night Shorty, strolling down Main 
 Street, aware of many curious eyes, his ears keyed 
 tensely, heard a faint and distant explosion. Thirty 
 seconds later there was a second, sufficiently loud to 
 attract the attention of others on the street. Then 
 came a third, so violent that it rattled the windows 
 and brought the inhabitants into the street. 
 
 " Shook em up beautiful," Shorty proclaimed 
 breathlessly, an hour afterward, when he arrived at 
 the cabin on Tra-Lee. He gripped Smoke s hand. 
 " You should a-saw em. Ever kick over a ant-hole ? 
 Dawson s just like that. Main Street was crawlin 
 an hummin when I pulled my freight. You won t 
 see Tra-Lee to-morrow for folks. An if they ain t 
 some a-sneakin acrost right now I don t know minin 
 nature, that s all." 
 
 Smoke grinned, stepped to the fake windlass, and 
 gave it a couple of creaking turns. Shorty pulled 
 out the moss-chinking from between the logs so as 
 to make peep-holes on every side of the cabin. Then 
 he blew out the candle. 
 
3 io SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Now," he whispered at the end of half an hour. 
 
 Smoke turned the windlass slowly, paused after 
 several minutes, caught up a galvanized bucket filled 
 with earth and struck it with slide and scrape and 
 grind against the heap of rocks they had hauled in. 
 Then he lighted a cigarette, shielding the flame of 
 the match in his hands. 
 
 " They s three of em," Shorty whispered. " You 
 oughta saw em. Say, when you made that bucket- 
 dump noise they was fair quiverin . They s one at 
 the window now tryin to peek in." 
 
 Smoke glowed his cigarette, and glanced at his 
 watch. 
 
 " We Ve got to do this thing regularly," he 
 breathed. " We 11 haul up a bucket every fifteen 
 minutes. And in the meantime " 
 
 Through triple thicknesses of sacking, he struck a 
 cold-chisel on the face of a rock. 
 
 " Beautiful, beautiful," Shorty moaned with de 
 light. He crept over noiselessly from the peep-hole. 
 " They Ve got their heads together, an I can almost 
 see em talkin ." 
 
 And from then until four in the morning, at 
 fifteen-minute intervals, the seeming of a bucket was 
 hoisted on the windlass that creaked and ran around 
 on itself and hoisted nothing. Then their visitors 
 departed, and Smoke and Shorty went to bed. 
 
 After daylight, Shorty examined the moccasin- 
 marks. " Big Bill Saltman was one of them," he 
 concluded. " Look at the size of it ! " 
 
 Smoke looked out over the river. " Get ready for 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 311 
 
 visitors. There are two crossing the ice now." 
 
 " Huh ! Wait till Breck files that string of claims 
 at nine o clock. There 11 be two thousand crossing 
 over. " 
 
 " And every mother s son of them yammering 
 mother-lode/ " Smoke laughed. " The source of 
 Klondike placers found at last/ 
 
 Shorty, who had clambered to the top of a steep 
 shoulder of rock, gazed with the eye of a connois 
 seur at the strip they had staked. 
 
 " It sure looks like a true fissure vein," he said. 
 " A expert could almost trace the lines of it under 
 the snow. It d fool anybody. The slide fills the 
 front of it an see them outcrops? Look like the 
 real thing, only they ain t." 
 
 When the two men, crossing the river, climbed 
 the zigzag trail up the slide, they found a closed 
 cabin. Bill Saltman, who led the way, went softly 
 to the door, listened, then beckoned Wild Water 
 Charley up to him. From inside came the creak and 
 whine of a windlass bearing a heavy load. They 
 waited at the final pause, then heard the lower-away 
 and the impact of a bucket on rock. Four times, 
 in the next hour, they heard the thing repeated. Then 
 Wild Water knocked on the door. From inside 
 came low furtive noises, then silences, and more 
 furtive noises, and at the end of five min 
 utes Smoke, breathing heavily, opened the door an 
 inch and peered out. They saw on his face and 
 shirt powdered rock- fragments. His greeting was 
 suspiciously genial. 
 
 
 
312 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Wait a minute," he added, " and I 11 be with 
 you." 
 
 Pulling on his mittens, he slipped through the door 
 and confronted the visitors outside in the snow. 
 Their quick eyes noted his shirt, across the shoulders, 
 discolored and powdery, and the knees of his overalls 
 that showed signs of dirt brushed hastily but not 
 quite thoroughly away. 
 
 " Rather early for a call," he observed. " What 
 brings you across the river? Going hunting?" 
 
 "We re on, Smoke," Wild Water said confiden 
 tially. " An you d just as well come through. 
 You ve got something here." 
 
 " If you re looking for eggs " Smoke began. 
 
 " Aw, forget it. We mean business." 
 
 You mean you want to buy lots, eh?" Smoke 
 rattled on swiftly. " There s some dandy building 
 sites here. But, you see, we can t sell yet. We 
 have n t had the town surveyed. Come around next 
 week, Wild Water, and for peace and quietness, I 11 
 show you something swell, if you re anxious to live 
 over here. Next week, sure, it will be surveyed. 
 Good-by. Sorry I can t ask you inside, but Shorty 
 well, you know him. He s peculiar. He says he 
 came over for peace and quietness, and he s asleep 
 now. I would n t wake him for the world." 
 
 As Smoke talked he shook their hands warmly in 
 farewell. Still talking and shaking their hands, he 
 stepped inside and closed the door. 
 
 They looked at each other and nodded signifi 
 cantly. 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 313 
 
 " See the knees of his pants?" Saltman whispered 
 hoarsely. 
 
 " Sure. An his shoulders. He s been bumpin 
 an crawlin around in a shaft." As Wild Water 
 talked, his eyes wandered up the snow-covered ra 
 vine until they were halted by something that brought 
 a whistle to his lips. " Just cast your eyes up there, 
 Bill. See where I m pointing? If that ain t a pros 
 pect-hole ! An follow it out to both sides you 
 can see where they tramped in the snow. If it ain t 
 rim-rock on both sides I don t know what rim-rock 
 is. It s a fissure vein, all right." 
 
 "An look at the size of it!" Saltman cried. 
 " They ve got something here, you bet." 
 
 " An run your eyes down the slide there see 
 them bluffs standin out an* slopin in. The whole 
 slide s in the mouth of the vein as well." 
 
 " And just keep a-lookin on, out on the ice there, 
 on the trail," Saltman directed. " Looks like most 
 of Dawson, don t it?" 
 
 Wild Water took one glance and saw the trail 
 black with men clear to the far Dawson bank, down 
 which the same unbroken string of men was pouring. 
 
 " Well, I m goin to get a look-in at that prospect- 
 hole before they get here," he said, turning and start 
 ing swiftly up the ravine. 
 
 But the cabin door opened, and the two occupants 
 stepped out. 
 
 "Hey!" Smoke called. "Where are you going?" 
 
 "To pick out a lot," Wild Water called back. 
 " Look at the river. All Dawson s stampeding to 
 
3H SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 buy lots, an we re going to beat em to it for the 
 choice. That s right, ain t it, Sill?" 
 
 " Sure thing," Saltman corroborated. " This has 
 the makin s of a Jim-dandy suburb, an it sure looks 
 like it 11 be some popular." 
 
 " Well, we re not selling lots over in that section 
 where you re heading," Smoke answered. " Over 
 to the right there, and back on top of the bluffs are 
 the lots. This section, running from the river and 
 over the tops, is reserved. So come on back." 
 
 " That s the spot we Ve gone and selected," Saltman 
 argued. 
 
 " But there s nothing doing, I tell you," Smoke 
 said sharply. 
 
 "Any objections to our strolling, then?" Saltman 
 persisted. 
 
 " Decidedly. Your strolling is getting monoto 
 nous. Come on back out of that." 
 
 " I just reckon we 11 stroll anyways," Saltman re 
 plied stubbornly. " Come on, Wild Water." 
 
 " I warn you, you are trespassing," was Smoke s 
 final word. 
 
 " Nope, just strollin ," Saltman gaily retorted, turn 
 ing his back and starting on. 
 
 " Hey ! Stop in your tracks, Bill, or I 11 sure bore 
 you ! " Shorty thundered, drawing and leveling two 
 Colt s forty-fours. " Step another step in your steps 
 an I let eleven holes through your danged ornary 
 carcass. Get that?" 
 
 Saltman stopped, perplexed. 
 
 " He sure got me," Shorty mumbled to Smoke. 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 315 
 
 "But if he goes on I m up against it hard. I can t 
 shoot. What 11 I do?" 
 
 " Look here, Shorty, listen to reason," Saltman 
 begged. 
 
 " Come here to me an we 11 talk reason," was 
 Shorty s retort. 
 
 And they were still talking reason when the head 
 of the stampede emerged from the zigzag trail and 
 came upon them. 
 
 " You can t call a man a trespasser when he s on 
 a town-site lookin to buy lots," Wild Water was 
 arguing, and Shorty was objecting : " But they s 
 private property in town-isites, an that there strip is 
 private property, that s all. I tell you again, it ain t 
 for sale." 
 
 " Now we ve got to swing this thing on the jump," 
 Smoke muttered to Shorty. " If they ever get out 
 of hand " 
 
 " You ve sure got your nerve, if you think you can 
 hold them," Shorty muttered back. " They s two 
 thousan of em an more a-comin . They 11 break 
 this line any minute." 
 
 The line ran along the near rim of the ravine, 
 and Shorty had formed it by halting the first arrivals 
 when they got that far in their invasion. In the 
 crowd were half a dozen Northwest policemen and 
 a lieutenant. With the latter Smoke conferred in 
 undertones. 
 
 They re still piling out of Dawson," he said, 
 " and before long there will be five thousand here. 
 The danger is if they start jumping claims. 
 
3 i6 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 When you figure there are only five claims, it means 
 a thousand men to a claim, and four thousand out 
 of the five will try to jump the nearest claim. It 
 can t be done, and if it ever starts, there 11 be more 
 dead men here than in the whole history of Alaska. 
 Besides, those five claims were recorded this morn 
 ing and can t be jumped. In short, claim- jumping 
 must n t start." 
 
 " Right-o," said the lieutenant. " I 11 get my men 
 together and station them. We can t have any trou 
 ble here, and we won t have. But you d better get 
 up and talk to them." 
 
 * There must be some mistake, fellows," Smoke 
 began in a loud voice. " We re not ready to sell 
 lots. The streets are not surveyed yet. But next 
 week we shall have the grand opening sale." 
 
 He was interrupted by an outburst of impatience 
 and indignation. 
 
 " We don t want lots," a young miner cried out. 
 " We don t want what s on top of the ground. 
 We Ve come for what s under the ground." 
 
 " We don t know what we ve got under the 
 ground," Smoke answered. " But we do know we J ve 
 got a fine town-site on top of it." 
 
 " Sure," Shorty added. " Grand for scenery an 
 solitude. Folks lovin solitude come a-flockin here 
 by thousands. Most popular solitude on the Yukon." 
 
 Again the impatient cries arose, and Saltman, who 
 had been talking with the later comers, came to the 
 front. 
 
 " We re here to stake claims," he opened, " We 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 317 
 
 know what you Ye did filed a string of five quartz 
 claims on end, and there they are over there run 
 ning across the town-site on the line of the slide and 
 the canyon. Only you misplayed. Two of them 
 entries is fake. Who is Seth Bierce? No one ever 
 heard of him. You filed a claim this mornin in his 
 name. An you filed a claim in the name of Harry 
 Maxwell. Now Harry Maxwell ain t in the coun 
 try. He s down in Seattle. Went out last fall. 
 Them two claims is open to relocation." 
 
 " Suppose I have his power of attorney?" Smoke 
 queried. 
 
 " You ain t," Saltman answered. " An if you 
 have you got to show it. Anyway, here s where we 
 relocate. Come on, fellows." 
 
 Saltman, stepping across the dead-line, had turned 
 to encourage a following, when the police lieuten 
 ant s voice rang out and stopped the forward surge 
 of the great mass. 
 
 " Hold on there ! You can t do that, you know ! " 
 
 " Can t, eh?" said Bill Saltman. "The law says 
 a fake location can be relocated, don t it?" 
 
 "Thet s right, Bill! Stay with it!" the crowd 
 cheered from the safe side of the line. 
 
 "It s the law, ain t it?" Saltman demanded truc 
 ulently of the lieutenant. 
 
 " It may be the law," came the steady answer. 
 " But I can t and won t allow a mob of five thou 
 sand men to attempt to jump two claims. It would 
 be a dangerous riot, and we re here to see there is 
 no riot. Here, now, on this spot, the Northwest 
 
318 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 police constitute the law. The next man who crosses 
 that line will be shot. You, Bill Saltman, step back 
 across it. 
 
 Saltman obeyed reluctantly. But an ominous rest 
 lessness became apparent in the mass of men, irreg 
 ularly packed and scattered as it was over a land 
 scape that was mostly up-and-down. 
 
 " Heavens," the lieutenant whispered to Smoke. 
 " Look at them like flies on the edge of the cliff 
 there. Any disorder in that mass would force hun 
 dreds of them over." 
 
 Smoke shuddered and got up. " I m willing to 
 play fair, fellows. If you insist on town lots, I 11 
 sell them to you, one hundred apiece, and you can 
 raffle locations when the survey is made." With 
 raised hand he stilled the movement of disgust. 
 " Don t move, anybody. If you do, there 11 be hun 
 dreds of you shoved over the bluff. The situation is 
 dangerous." 
 
 :t Just the same, you can t hog it," a voice went up. 
 " We don t want lots. We want to relocate." 
 
 " But there are only two disputed claims," Smoke 
 argued. " When they re relocated where will the 
 rest of you be ? " 
 
 He mopped his forehead with his shirt-sleeve, and 
 another voice cried out: 
 
 " Let us all in, share and share alike ! " 
 
 Nor did those who roared their approbation dream 
 that the suggestion had been made by a man primed to 
 make it when he saw Smoke mop his forehead. 
 
 " Take your feet out of the trough an pool the 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 319 
 
 town-site," the man went on. " Pool the mineral 
 rights with the town-site, too." 
 
 " But there is n t anything in the mineral rights, I 
 tell you," Smoke objected. 
 
 " Then pool them with the rest. We 11 take our 
 chances on it." 
 
 " Fellows, you re forcing me," Smoke said. " I 
 wish you d stayed on your side of the river." 
 
 But wavering indecision was so manifest that with 
 a mighty roar the crowd swept him on to agreement. 
 Saltman and others in the front rank demurred. 
 
 " Bill Saltman, here, and Wild Water don t want 
 you all in," Smoke informed the crowd. " Who s 
 hogging it now? " 
 
 And thereat Saltman and Wild Water became 
 profoundly unpopular. 
 
 " Now how are we going to do it? " Smoke asked. 
 " Shorty and I ought to keep control. We discov 
 ered this town-site." 
 
 " That s right ! " many cried. " A square deal ! " 
 "It s only fair!" 
 
 " Three-fifths to us," Smoke suggested, " and you 
 fellows come in for two-fifths. And you J ve got to 
 pay for your shares." 
 
 Ten cents on the dollar ! " was a cry. " And 
 non-assessable ! " 
 
 " And the president of the company to come 
 around personally and pay you your dividends on a 
 silver platter," Smoke sneered. " No, sir. You fel 
 lows have got to be reasonable. Ten cents on the 
 dollar will help start things. You buy two-fifths of 
 
320 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 the stock, hundred dollars par, at ten dollars. That s 
 the best I can do. And if you don t like it, just start 
 jumping the claims. I can t stand more than a two- 
 fifths gouge." 
 
 " No big capitalization ! " a voice called, and it 
 was this voice that crystallized the collective mind 
 of the crowd into consent. 
 
 There s about five thousand of you, which will 
 make five thousand shares," Smoke worked the prob 
 lem aloud. " And five thousand is two-fifths of 
 twelve thousand, five hundred. Therefore the Tra- 
 Lee Town-Site Company is capitalized for one 
 million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, there 
 being twelve thousand, five hundred shares, hundred 
 par, you fellows buying five thousand of them at 
 ten dollars apiece. And I don t care a whoop whether 
 you accept it or not. And I call you all to witness 
 that you re forcing me against my will." 
 
 With the assurance of the crowd that they had 
 caught him with the goods on him, in the shape of 
 the two fake locations, a committee was formed and 
 the rough organization of the Tra-Lee Town-Site 
 Company effected. Scorning the proposal of deliv 
 ering the shares next day in Dawson, and scorning 
 it because of the objection that the portion of Daw- 
 son that had not engaged in the stampede would ring 
 in for shares, the committee, by a fire on the ice at 
 the foot of the slide, issued a receipt to each stam- 
 peder in return for ten dollars in dust duly weighed 
 on two dozen gold-scales which were obtained from 
 Dawson. 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 321 
 
 By twilight the work was accomplished and Tra- 
 Lee was deserted, save for Smoke and Shorty, who 
 ate supper in the cabin and chuckled at the list of 
 shareholders, four thousand eight hundred and sev 
 enty-four strong, and at the gold-sacks, which they 
 knew contained approximately forty-eight thousand 
 seven hundred and forty dollars. 
 
 " But you ain t swung it yet," Shorty objected. 
 
 " He 11 be here," Smoke asserted with conviction. 
 " He s a born gambler, and when Breck whispers 
 the tip to him not even heart disease would stop 
 him." 
 
 Within the hour came a knock at the door, and 
 Wild W r ater entered, followed by Bill Saltman. 
 Their eyes swept the cabin eagerly, coming to rest 
 on the windlass elaborately concealed by blankets. 
 
 " But suppose I did want to vote twelve hundred 
 shares," Wild Water was arguing half an hour later. 
 " With the other five thousand sold to-day it d make 
 only sixty-two hundred shares. That d leave you 
 and Shorty with sixty-three hundred. You d still 
 control." 
 
 " But what d you want with all that of a town- 
 site?" Shorty queried. 
 
 " You can answer that better n me," Wild Water 
 replied. " An between you an me," his gaze 
 drifted over the blanket-draped windlass, " it J s a pretty 
 good-looking town-site." 
 
 " But Bill wants some," Smoke said grudgingly, 
 " and we simply won t part with more than five 
 hundred shares." 
 
322 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " How much you got to invest ? " Wild Water 
 asked Saltman. 
 
 " Oh, say five thousand. It was all I could scare 
 up." 
 
 f>( Wild Water," Smoke went on, in the same grudg 
 ing, complaining voice, " if I did n t know you so 
 well, I would n t sell you a single besotted share. 
 And, anyway, Shorty and I won t part with more 
 than five hundred, and they 11 cost you fifty dollars 
 apiece. That s the last word, and if you don t like 
 it, good-night. Bill can take a hundred and you can 
 have the other four hundred." 
 
 Next day Dawson began its laugh. It started early 
 in the morning, just after daylight, when Smoke went 
 to the bulletin-board outside the A. C. Company store 
 and tacked up a notice. Men gathered and were 
 reading and snickering over his shoulder ere he had 
 driven the last tack. Soon the bulletin-board was 
 crowded by hundreds who could not get near enough 
 to read. Then a reader was appointed by acclama 
 tion, and thereafter, throughout the day, many men 
 were acclaimed to read in loud voice the notice 
 Smoke Bellew had nailed up. And there were num 
 bers of men who stood in the snow and heard it read 
 several times in order to memorize the succulent items 
 that appeared in the following order : 
 
 The Tra-Lee Town-Site Company keeps its accounts on the 
 wall. This is its first account and its last. 
 
 Any shareholder who objects to donating ten dollars to the 
 Dawson General Hospital may obtain his ten dollars on personal 
 application to Wild Water Charley, or, failing that, will abso 
 lutely obtain it on . application to Smoke Bellew. 
 
THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE 323 
 
 Moneys Received and Disbursed 
 
 From 4874 shares at $10.00 $48,740.00 
 
 To Dwight Sanderson for Town-Site of Tra-Lee 10,000.00 
 
 To incidental expenses, to wit : powder, drills, windlass, 
 
 gold commissioner s office, etc 1,000.00 
 
 To Dawson General Hospital 37,74.oo 
 
 Total , $48,740.00 
 
 From Bill Saltman, for 100 shares privately purchased 
 
 at $50.00 $ 5,000.00 
 
 From Wild Water Charley, for 400 shares privately pur 
 chased at $50.00 20,000.00 
 
 To Bill Saltman, in recognition of services as volunteer 
 
 stampede promoter 5,000.00 
 
 To Dawson General Hospital 3,000.00 
 
 To Smoke Bellew and Jack Short, balance in full on 
 
 egg deal and morally owing 17,000.00 
 
 Total $25,000.00 
 
 Shares remaining to account for 7126. These shares, held 
 by Smoke Bellew and Jack Short, value nil, may be obtained 
 gratis, for the asking, by any and all residents of Dawson de 
 siring change of domicile to the peace and solitude of the town 
 of Tra-Lee. 
 
 (Note: Peace and solitude always and perpetually guar 
 anteed in town of Tra-Lee) 
 
 (Signed) SMOKE BELLEW, President. 
 
 (Signed) JACK SHORT, Secretary. 
 
XII 
 
 WONDER OF WOMAN 
 
 "TUST the same, I notice you ain t tumbled over 
 J yourself to get married," Shorty remarked, con 
 tinuing a conversation that had lapsed some few 
 minutes before. 
 
 Smoke, sitting on the edge of the sleeping-robe 
 and examining the feet of a dog he had rolled snarl 
 ing on ks back in the snow, did not answer. And 
 Shorty, turning a steaming moccasin propped on a 
 stick before the fire, studied his partner s face 
 keenly. 
 
 " Cock your eye up at that there aurora borealis," 
 Shorty went -on. " Some frivolous, eh ? Just like 
 any shilly-shallyin , shirt-dancing woman. The best 
 of them is frivolous, when they ain t foolish. And 
 they s cats, all of em, the littlest an the biggest, the 
 nicest and the otherwise. They re sure devourin 
 lions an roarin hyenas when they get on the trail 
 of a man they ve cottoned to." 
 
 Again the monologue languished. Smoke cuffed 
 the dog when it attempted to snap his hand, and 
 went on examining its bruised and bleeding pads. 
 
 " Huh! " pursued Shorty. " Mebbe I could n t V 
 married if I d a mind to ! An mebbe I would n t a 
 been married without a mind to, if I had n t hiked 
 
 324 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 325 
 
 for tall timber. Smoke, d you want to know what 
 saved me? I 11 tell you. My wind. I just kept a- 
 runnin . I d like to see any skirt run me outa 
 breath." 
 
 Smoke released the animal and turned his own 
 steaming, stick-propped moccasins. " We ve got to 
 rest over to-morrow and make moccasins," he vouch 
 safed. " That little crust is playing the devil with 
 their feet." 
 
 " We oughta keep goin somehow," Shorty ob 
 jected. " We ain t got grub enough to turn back 
 with, and we gotta strike that run of caribou or them 
 white Indians almighty soon or we 11 be eatin the 
 dogs, sore feet an all. Now who ever seen them 
 white Indians anyway? Nothin but hearsay. An 
 how can a Indian be white ? A black white man d 
 be as natural. Smoke, we just oughta travel to-mor 
 row. The country s plumb dead of game. We ain t 
 seen even a rabbit-track in a week, you know that. 
 An we gotta get out of this dead streak into some 
 where that meat s runnin ." 
 
 " They 11 travel all the better with a day s rest for 
 their feet and moccasins all around," Smoke coun 
 seled. "If you get a chance at any low divide, take 
 a peep over at the country beyond. We re likely 
 to strike open rolling country any time now. That s 
 what La Perle told us to look for." 
 
 " Huh ! By his own story, it w r as ten years ago 
 that La Perle come through this section, an he was 
 that loco from hunger he could n t know what he did 
 see. Remember what he said of whoppin big flags 
 
326 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 floatin from the tops of the mountains? That shows 
 how loco he was. An he said himself he never seen 
 any white Indians that was Anton s yarn. An , 
 besides, Anton kicked the bucket two years before 
 you an me come to Alaska. But I 11 take a look 
 to-morrow. An mebbe I might pick up a moose. 
 What d you say we turn in ? " 
 
 Smoke spent the morning in camp, sewing dog- 
 moccasins and repairing harnesses. At noon he 
 cooked a meal for two, ate his share, and began to 
 look for Shorty s return. An hour later he strapped 
 on his snow-shoes and went out on his partner s trail. 
 The way led up the bed of the stream, through a 
 narrow gorge that widened suddenly into a moose- 
 pasture. But no moose had been there since the first 
 snow of the preceding fall. The tracks of Shorty s 
 snow-shoes crossed the pasture and went up the easy 
 slope of a low divide. At the crest Smoke halted. 
 The tracks continued down the other slope. The 
 first spruce-trees, in the creek bed, were a mile away, 
 and it was evident that Shorty had passed through 
 them and gone on. Smoke looked at his watch, re 
 membered the oncoming darkness, the dogs, and the 
 camp, and reluctantly decided against going farther. 
 But before he retraced his steps he paused for a 
 long look. All the eastern sky-line was saw-toothed 
 by the snowy backbone of the Rockies. The whole 
 mountain system, range upon range, seemed to trend 
 to the northwest, cutting athwart the course to the 
 open country reported by La Perle. The effect was 
 as if the mountains conspired to thrust back the 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 327 
 
 traveler toward the west and the Yukon. Smoke 
 wondered how many men in the past, approaching 
 as he had approached, had been turned aside by that 
 forbidding aspect. La Perle had not been turned 
 aside, but, then, La Perle had crossed over from 
 the eastern slope of the Rockies. 
 
 Until midnight Smoke maintained a huge fire for 
 the guidance of Shorty. And in the morning, wait 
 ing with camp broken and dogs harnessed for the 
 first break of light, Smoke took up the pursuit. In 
 the narrow pass of the canyon, his lead-dog pricked 
 up its ears and whined. Then Smoke came upon 
 the Indians, six of them, coming toward him. They 
 were traveling light, without dogs, and on each 
 man s back was the smallest of pack outfits. Sur 
 rounding Smoke, they immediately gave him several 
 matters for surprise. That they were looking for 
 him was clear. That they talked no Indian tongue 
 of which he knew a word was also quickly made 
 clear. They were not white Indians, though they 
 were taller and heavier than the Indians of the 
 Yukon basin. Five of them carried the old-fash 
 ioned, long-barreled Hudson Bay Company musket, 
 and in the hands of the sixth was a Winchester rifle 
 which Smoke knew to be Shorty s. 
 
 Nor did they waste time in making him a prisoner. 
 Unarmed himself, Smoke could only submit. The 
 contents of the sled were distributed among their 
 own packs, and he was given a pack composed of 
 his and Shorty s sleeping-furs. The dogs were un 
 harnessed, and when Smoke protested, one of the In- 
 
328 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 dians, by signs, indicated a trail too rough for sled- 
 travel. Smoke bowed to the inevitable, cached the 
 sled end-on in the snow on the bank above the stream, 
 and trudged on with his captors. Over the divide to 
 the north they went, down to the spruce-trees which 
 Smoke had glimpsed the preceding afternoon. They 
 followed the stream for a dozen miles, abandoning it 
 when it trended to the west and heading directly 
 eastward up a narrow tributary. 
 
 The first night was spent in a camp which had 
 been occupied for several days. Here was cached a 
 quantity of dried salmon and a sort of pemmican, 
 which the Indians added to their packs. From this 
 camp a trail of many snow-shoes led off Shorty s 
 captors, was Smoke s conclusion ; and before dark 
 ness fell he succeeded in making out the tracks 
 Shorty s narrower snow-shoes had left. On ques 
 tioning the Indians by signs, they nodded affirmation 
 and pointed to the north. 
 
 Always, in the days that followed, they pointed 
 north; and always the trail, turning and twisting 
 through a jumble of upstanding peaks, trended north. 
 Everywhere, in this bleak snow-solitude, the way 
 seemed barred, yet ever the trail curved and coiled, 
 finding low divides and avoiding the higher and un- 
 traversable chains. The snow-fall was deeper than 
 in the lower valleys, and every step of the way was 
 snow-shoe work. Furthermore, Smoke s captors, all 
 young men, traveled light and fast; and he could 
 not forbear the prick of pride in the knowledge that 
 he easily kept up with them. They were travel- 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 329 
 
 hardened and trained to snow-shoes from infancy; 
 yet such was his condition that the traverse bore no 
 more of ordinary hardship to him than to them. 
 
 In six days they gained and crossed the central 
 pass, low in comparison with the mountains it 
 threaded, yet formidable in itself and not possible 
 for loaded sleds. Five days more of tortuous wind 
 ing, from lower altitude to lower altitude, brought 
 them to the open, rolling, and merely hilly country 
 La Perle had found ten years before. Smoke knew 
 it with the first glimpse, on a sharp cold day, the ther 
 mometer forty below zero, the atmosphere so clear 
 that he could see a hundred miles. Far as he could 
 see rolled the open country. High in the east the 
 Rockies still thrust their snowy ramparts heaven 
 ward. To the south and west extended the broken 
 ranges of the projecting spur-system they had 
 crossed. And in this vast pocket lay the country La 
 Perle had traversed snow-blanketed, but assuredly 
 fat with game at some time in the year, and in the 
 summer a smiling, forested, and flowered land. 
 
 Before midday, traveling down a broad stream, 
 past snow-buried willows and naked aspens, and 
 across heavily timbered flats of spruce, they came 
 upon the site of a large camp, recently abandoned. 
 Glancing as he went by, Smoke estimated four or 
 five hundred fires, and guessed the population to 
 be in the thousands. So fresh was the trail, and so 
 well packed by the multitude, that Smoke and his 
 captors took off their snow-shoes and in their moc 
 casins struck a swifter pace. Signs of game appeared 
 
330 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 and grew plentiful tracks of wolves and lynxes 
 that without meat could not be. Once, one of the In 
 dians cried out with satisfaction and pointed to a 
 large area of open snow, littered with fang-polished 
 skulls of caribou, trampled and disrupted as if an 
 army had fought upon it. And Smoke knew that a 
 big killing had been made by the hunters since the 
 last snow-flurry. 
 
 In the long twilight no sign was manifested of 
 making camp. They held steadily on through a deep 
 ening gloom that vanished under a sky of light 
 great, glittering stars half veiled by a greenish vapor 
 of pulsing aurora borealis. His dogs first caught the 
 noises of the camp, pricking their ears and whining 
 in low eagerness. Then it came to the ears of the 
 humans, a murmur, dim with distance, but not in 
 vested with the soothing grace that is common to 
 distant murmurs. Instead, it was in a high, wild 
 key, a beat of shrill sound broken by shriller sounds 
 the long wolf -howling of many wolf-dogs, a 
 screaming of unrest and pain, mournful with hope 
 lessness and rebellion. Smoke swung back the crys 
 tal of his watch and by the feel of finger-tips on the 
 naked hands made out eleven o clock. The men 
 about him quickened. The legs that had lifted 
 through a dozen strenuous hours lifted in a still 
 swifter pace that was half a run and mostly a run 
 ning jog. Through a dark spruce-flat they burst 
 upon an abrupt glare of light from many fires and 
 upon an abrupt increase of sound. The great camp 
 lay before them. 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 331 
 
 And as they entered and threaded the irregular 
 runways of the hunting-camp, a vast tumult, as in a 
 wave, rose to meet them and rolled on with them 
 cries, greetings, questions and answers, jests and 
 jests thrust back again, the snapping snarl of wolf- 
 dogs rushing in furry projectiles of wrath upon 
 Smoke s stranger dogs, the scolding of squaws, 
 laughter, the whimpering of children and wailing of 
 infants, the moans of the sick aroused afresh to pain, 
 all the pandemonium of a camp of nerveless, primi 
 tive wilderness folk. 
 
 Striking with clubs and the butts of guns, Smoke s 
 party drove back the attacking dogs, while his own 
 dogs, snapping and snarling, awed by so many ene 
 mies, shrank in among the legs of their human pro 
 tectors, and bristled along stiff-legged in menacing 
 prance. 
 
 They Raited in the trampled snow by an open fire, 
 where Shorty and two young Indians, squatted on 
 their hams, were broiling strips of caribou meat. 
 Three other young Indians, lying in furs on a mat of 
 spruce-boughs, sat up. Shorty looked across the fire 
 at his partner, but with a sternly impassive face, like 
 those of his companions, made no sign and went on 
 broiling the meat. 
 
 " What s the matter?" Smoke demanded, half in 
 irritation. " Lost your speech? " 
 
 The old familiar grin twisted on Shorty s face. 
 " Nope," he answered. " I m a Indian. I m learn- 
 in not to show surprise. When did they catch 
 you?" 
 
332 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Next day after you left." 
 
 " Hum," Shorty said, the light of whimsy dancing 
 in his eyes. " Well, I m doin fine, thank you most 
 to death. This is the bachelor s camp." He waved 
 his hand to embrace its magnificence, which consisted 
 of a fire, beds of spruce-boughs laid on top of the 
 snow, flies of caribou skin, and wind-shields of 
 twisted spruce and willow withes. " An these are 
 the bachelors." This time his hand indicated the 
 young men, and he spat a few spoken gutturals in 
 their own language that brought the white flash of 
 acknowledgment from eyes and teeth. " They re 
 glad to meet you, Smoke. Set down an* dry your 
 moccasins, an I 11 cook up some grub. I m gettin 
 the hang of the lingo pretty well, ain t I ? You 11 
 have to come to it, for it looks as if we 11 be with 
 these folks a long time. They s another white man 
 here. Got caught six years ago. He s a Irishman 
 they picked up over Great Slave Lake way. Danny 
 McCan is what he goes by. He s settled down with 
 a squaw. Got two kids already, but he 11 skin out 
 if ever the chance opens up. See that low fire over 
 there to the right? That s his camp." 
 
 Apparently this was Smoke s appointed domicile, 
 for his captors left him and his dogs, and went on 
 deeper into the big camp. While he attended to his 
 foot-gear and devoured strips of hot meat, Shorty 
 cooked and talked. 
 
 " This is a sure peach of a pickle, Smoke you 
 listen to me. An we got to go some to get out. 
 These is the real, blowed-in-the-glass, wild Indians. 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 333 
 
 They ain t white, but their chief is. He talks like a 
 mouthful of hot mush, an if he ain t full-blood 
 Scotch they ain t no such thing as Scotch in the world. 
 He s the hi-yu, skookum top-chief of the whole 
 caboodle. What he says goes. You want to get 
 that from the start-off. Danny McCan s been tryin 
 to get away from him for six years. Danny s all 
 right, but he ain t got go in him. He knows a way 
 out learned it on huntin trips to the west of 
 the way you an me came. He ain t had the nerve 
 to tackle it by his lonely. But we can pull it off, 
 the three of us. Whiskers is the real goods, but he s 
 mostly loco just the same." 
 
 "Who s Whiskers?" Smoke queried, pausing in 
 the wolfing-down of a hot strip of meat. 
 
 " Why, he s the top geezer. He s the Scotcher. 
 He s gettin old, an he s sure asleep now, but he 11 
 see you to-morrow an show you clear as print what 
 a measly shrimp you are on his stompin -grounds. 
 These grounds belong to him. You got to get that 
 into your noodle. They ain t never been explored, 
 nor no thin , an they re hisn. An he won t let you 
 forget it. He s got about twenty thousand square 
 miles of huntin country here all his own. He s 
 the white Indian, him an the skirt. Huh! Don t 
 look at me that way. Wait till you see her. Some 
 looker, an all white, like her dad he s Whiskers. 
 An say, caribou ! I ve saw em. A hundred thousan 
 of good running meat in the herd, an ten thousan 
 wolves an cats a-followin j an livin off the stragglers 
 an the leavin s. We leave the leavin s. The herd s 
 
334 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 movin to the east, an we 11 be f ollowin em any 
 day now. We eat our dogs, an what we don t 
 eat we smoke n cure for the spring before the 
 salmon-run gets its sting in. Say, what Whiskers 
 don t know about salmon an caribou nobody knows, 
 take it from me. 
 
 " Here comes Whiskers lookin like he ? s goin 
 somewheres," Shorty whispered, reaching over and 
 wiping greasy hands on the coat of one of the sled- 
 dogs. 
 
 It was morning, and the bachelors were squatting 
 over a breakfast of caribou-meat, which they ate as 
 they broiled. Smoke glanced up and saw a small and 
 slender man, skin-clad like any savage, but unmistak 
 ably white, striding in advance of a sled team and a 
 following of a dozen Indians. Smoke cracked a hot 
 bone, and while he sucked out the steaming marrow 
 gazed at his approaching host. Bushy whiskers and 
 yellowish gray hair, stained by camp smoke, con 
 cealed most of the face, but failed wholly to hide 
 the gaunt, almost cadaverous, cheeks. It was a 
 healthy leanness, Smoke decided, as he noted the wide 
 flare of the nostrils and the breadth and depth of 
 chest that gave spaciousness to the guaranty of 
 oxygen and life. 
 
 " How do you do," the man said, slipping a mitten 
 and holding out his bare hand. " My name is Snass," 
 he added, as they shook hands. 
 
 " Mine s Bellew," Smoke returned, feeling pecul 
 iarly disconcerted as he gazed into the keen-search 
 ing black eyes. 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 335 
 
 " Getting plenty to eat, I see." 
 
 Smoke nodded and resumed his marrow-bone, the 
 purr of Scottish speech strangely pleasant in his 
 ears. 
 
 " Rough rations. But we don t starve often. And 
 it s more natural than the hand-reared meat of the 
 cities." 
 
 " I see you don t like cities/ Smoke laughed, in 
 order to be saying something; and was immediately 
 startled by the transformation Snass underwent. 
 
 Quite like a sensitive plant, the man s entire form 
 seemed to wilt and quiver. Then the recoil, tense 
 and savage, concentered in the eyes, in which ap 
 peared a hatred that screamed of immeasurable pain. 
 He turned abruptly away, and, recollecting himself, 
 remarked casually over his shoulder : 
 
 " I 11 see you later, Mr. Bellew. The caribou are 
 moving east, and I m going ahead to pick out a 
 location. You 11 all come on to-morrow." 
 
 "Some Whiskers, that, eh?" Shorty muttered, as 
 Snass pulled on at the head of his outfit. 
 
 Again Shorty wiped his hands on the wolf-dog, 
 which seemed to like it as it licked off the delectable 
 grease. 
 
 Later on in the morning Smoke went for a stroll 
 through the camp, busy with its primitive pursuits. 
 A big body of hunters had just returned, and the 
 men were scattering to their various fires. Women 
 and children were departing with dogs harnessed to 
 empty toboggan-sleds, and women and children and 
 dogs were hauling sleds heavy with meat fresh from 
 
336 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 the killing- and already frozen. An early spring 
 cold-snap was on, and the wildness of the scene was 
 painted in a temperature of thirty below zero. Woven 
 cloth was not in evidence. Furs and soft-tanned 
 leather clad all alike. Boys passed with bows in 
 their hands, and quivers of bone-barbed arrows; 
 and many a skinning-knife of bone or stone Smoke 
 saw in belts or neck-hung sheaths. Women toiled 
 over the fires, smoke-curing the meat, on their backs 
 infants that stared round-eyed and sucked at lumps 
 of tallow. Dogs, full-kin to wolves, bristled up to 
 Smoke to endure the menace of the short club he 
 carried and to whiff the odor of this newcomer whom 
 they must accept by virtue of the club. 
 
 Segregated in the heart of the camp, Smoke came 
 upon what was evidently Snass s fire. Though tem 
 porary in every detail, it was solidly constructed and 
 was on a large scale. A great heap of bales of skins 
 and outfit was piled on a scaffold out of reach of the 
 dogs. A large canvas fly, almost half-tent, sheltered 
 the sleeping- and living-quarters. To one side was a 
 silk tent the sort favored by explorers and 
 wealthy big-game hunters. Smoke had never seen 
 such a tent, and stepped closer. As he stood looking, 
 the flaps parted and a young woman came out. So 
 quickly did she move, so abruptly did she appear, 
 that the effect on Smoke was as that of an appari 
 tion. He seemed to have the same effect on her, and 
 for a long moment they gazed at each other. 
 
 She was dressed entirely in skins, but such skins 
 and such magnificently beautiful fur- work Smoke 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 337 
 
 had never dreamed of. Her parka, the hood thrown 
 back, was of some strange fur of palest silver. The 
 mukluks, with walrus-hide soles, were composed of 
 the silver-padded feet of many lynxes. The long- 
 gauntleted mittens, the tassels at the knees, all the 
 varied furs of the costume, were pale silver that 
 shimmered in the frosty light; and out of this shim 
 mering silver, poised on slender, delicate neck, lifted 
 her head, the rosy face blonde as the eyes were blue, 
 the ears like two pink shells, the light chestnut hair 
 touched with frost-dust and coruscating frost-glints. 
 
 All this and more, as in a dream, Smoke saw; 
 then, recollecting himself, his hand fumbled for his 
 cap. At the same moment the wonder-stare in the 
 girl s eyes passed into a smile, and, with movements 
 quick and vital, she dipped a mitten and extended 
 her hand. 
 
 " How do you do," she murmured gravely, with a 
 queer, delightful accent, her voice, silvery as the furs 
 she wore, coming w r ith a shock to Smoke s ears, at 
 tuned as they were to the harsh voices of the camp 
 squaws. 
 
 Smoke could only mumble phrases that were awk 
 wardly reminiscent of his best society manner. 
 
 " I am glad to see you," she went on slowly and 
 gropingly, her face a ripple of smiles. " My Eng 
 lish you will please excuse. It is not good. I am 
 English like you," she gravely assured him. " My 
 father he is Scotch. My mother she is dead. She is 
 French, and English, and a little Indian, too. Her 
 father was a great man in the Hudson Bay Company. 
 
338 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Brrr! It is cold/ She slipped on her mitten and 
 rubbed her ears, the pink of which had already turned 
 to white. " Let us go to the fire and talk. My name 
 is Labiskwee. What is your name?" 
 
 And so Smoke came to know Labiskwee, the 
 daughter of Snass, whom Snass called Margaret. 
 
 " Snass is not my father s name," she informed 
 Smoke. " Snass is only an Indian name." 
 
 Much Smoke learned that day, and in the days 
 that followed, as the hunting-camp moved on in the 
 trail of the caribou. These were real wild Indians 
 - the ones Anton had encountered and escaped from 
 long years before. This was nearly the western limit 
 of their territory, and in the summer they ranged 
 north to the tundra shores of the Arctic, and east 
 ward as far as the Luskwa. What river the Luskwa 
 was Smoke could not make out, nor could Labisk 
 wee tell him, nor could McCan. On occasion Snass, 
 with parties of strong hunters, pushed east across 
 the Rockies, on past the lakes and the Mackenzie 
 and into the Barrens. It was on the last traverse in 
 that direction that the silk tent occupied by Labiskwee 
 had been found. 
 
 "It belonged to the Millicent-Adbury expedition, " 
 Snass told Smoke. f 
 
 " Oh ! I remember. They went after musk-oxen. 
 The rescue expedition never found a trace of them. " 
 
 " I found them," Snass said. " But both were 
 dead." 
 
 " The world still does n t know. The word never 
 got out." 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 339 
 
 " The word never gets out/ Snass assured him 
 pleasantly. 
 
 " You mean if they had been alive when you found 
 them ?" 
 
 Snass nodded. " They would have lived on with 
 me and my people." 
 
 " Anton got out," Smoke challenged. 
 
 " I do not remember the name. How long ago ? " 
 
 " Fourteen or fifteen years," Smoke answered. 
 
 " So he pulled through, after all. Do you know, 
 I Ve wondered about him. We called him Long 
 Tooth. He was a strong man, a strong man." 
 
 " La Perle came through here ten years ago." 
 
 Snass shook his head. 
 
 " He found traces of your camps. It was summer 
 time." 
 
 " That explains it," Snass answered. " We are 
 hundreds of miles to the north in the summer." 
 
 But, strive as he would, Smoke could get no clew 
 to Snass s history in the days before he came to live 
 in the northern wilds. Educated he was, yet in all 
 the intervening years he had read no books, no news 
 papers. What had happened in the world he knew 
 not, nor did he show desire to know. He had 
 heard of the miners on the Yukon, and of the Klon 
 dike strike. Gold-miners had never invaded his ter 
 ritory, for w r hich he was glad. But the outside world 
 to him did not exist. He tolerated no mention of it. 
 
 Nor could Labiskwee help Smoke with earlier in 
 formation. She had been born on the hunting- 
 grounds. Her mother had lived for six years after. 
 
340 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Her mother had been very beautiful the only white 
 woman Labiskwee had ever seen. She said this wist 
 fully, and wistfully, in a thousand ways, she showed 
 that she knew of the great outside world on which 
 her father had closed the door. But this knowledge 
 was secret. She had early learned that mention of it 
 threw her father into a rage. 
 
 Anton had told a squaw of her mother, and that 
 her mother had been a daughter of a high official 
 in the Hudson Bay Company. Later, the squaw had 
 told Labiskwee. But her mother s name she had 
 never learned. 
 
 As a source of information, Danny McCan was im 
 possible. He did not like adventure. Wild life was 
 a horror, and he had had nine years of it. Shanghaied 
 in San Francisco, he had deserted the whaleship at 
 Point Barrow with three companions. Two had 
 died, and the third had abandoned him on the 
 terrible traverse south. Two years he had lived with 
 the Eskimos before raising the courage to attempt the 
 south traverse, and then, within several days of a 
 Hudson Bay Company post, he had been gathered in 
 by a party of Snass s young men. He was a small, 
 stupid man, afflicted with sore eyes, and all he 
 dreamed or could talk about was getting back to his 
 beloved San Francisco and his blissful trade of brick 
 laying. 
 
 " You re the first intelligent man we ve had." 
 Snass complimented Smoke one night by the fire. 
 " Except old Four Eyes. The Indians named 
 him so. He wore glasses and was short-sighted. 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 341 
 
 He was a professor of zoology." (Smoke noted the 
 correctness of the pronunciation of the word.) " He 
 died a year ago. My young men picked him up 
 strayed from an expedition on the upper Porcupine. 
 He was intelligent, yes ; but he was also a fool. That 
 was his weakness straying. He knew geology, 
 though, and working in metals. Over on the Luskwa, 
 where there s coal, we have several creditable hand- 
 forges he made. He repaired our guns and taught 
 the young men how. He died last year, and we really 
 missed him. Strayed that s how it happened 
 froze to death within a mile of camp." 
 
 It was on the same night that Snass said to Smoke : 
 
 " You d better pick out a wife and have a fire of 
 your own. You will be more comfortable than with 
 those young bucks. The maidens fires a sort of 
 feast of the virgins, you know are not lighted until 
 full summer and the salmon, but I can give orders 
 earlier if you say the word." 
 
 Smoke laughed and shook his head. 
 
 " Remember," Snass concluded quietly, " Anton is 
 the only one that ever got away. He was lucky, un 
 usually lucky." 
 
 Her father had a will of iron, Labiskwee told 
 Smoke. 
 
 " Four Eyes used to call him the Frozen Pirate 
 whatever that means the Tyrant of the Frost, the 
 Cave Bear, the Beast Primitive, the King of the Cari 
 bou, the Bearded Pard, and lots of such things. Four 
 Eyes loved words like these. He taught me most of 
 my English. He was always making fun. You 
 
342 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 could never tell. He called me his cheetah-chum af 
 ter times when I was angry. What is cheetah ? He 
 always teased me with it." 
 
 She chattered on with all the eager naivete of a 
 child, which Smoke found hard to reconcile with the 
 full womanhood of her form and face. 
 
 Yes, her father was very firm. Everybody feared 
 him. He was terrible when angry. There were the 
 Porcupines. It was through them, and through the 
 Luskwas, that Snass traded his skins at the posts and 
 got his supplies of ammunition and tobacco. He was 
 always fair, but the chief of the Porcupines began 
 to cheat. And after Snass had warned him twice, 
 he burned his log village, and over a dozen of the 
 Porcupines were killed in the fight. But there was 
 no more cheating. Once, when she was a little girl, 
 there was one white man killed while trying to es 
 cape. No, her father did not do it, but he gave the 
 order to the young men. No Indian ever disobeyed 
 her father. 
 
 And the more Smoke learned from her, the more 
 the mystery of Snass deepened. 
 
 " And tell me if it is true," the girl was saying, 
 " that there was a man and a woman whose names 
 were Paolo and Francesca and who greatly loved each 
 other?" 
 
 Smoke nodded. 
 
 " Four Eyes told me all about it," she beamed hap 
 pily. " And so he did n t make it up, after all. You 
 see, I was n t sure. I asked father, but, oh, he was 
 angry. The Indians told me he gave poor Four Eyes 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 343 
 
 an awful talking to., Then there were Tristan and 
 Iseult two Iseults. It was very sad. But I 
 should like to love that way. Do all the young men 
 and women in the world do that? They don t here. 
 They just get married. They don t seem to have 
 time. I am English, and I will never marry an In 
 dian would you ? That is why I have not lighted 
 my maiden s fire. Some of the young men are both 
 ering father to make me do it. Libash is one of 
 them. He is a great hunter. And Mahkook comes 
 around singing songs. He is funny. To-night, if 
 you come by my tent after dark, you will hear him 
 singing out in the cold. But father says I can do as 
 I please, and so I shall not light my fire. You see, 
 when a girl makes up her mind to get married, that is 
 the way she lets young men know. Four Eyes 
 always said it was a fine custom. But I noticed he 
 never took a wife. Maybe he was too old. He 
 did n t have much hair, but I don t think he was really 
 very old. And how do you know when you are in 
 love? like Paolo and Francesca, I mean." 
 
 Smoke was disconcerted by the clear gaze of her 
 blue eyes. " Why, they say," he stammered, " those 
 who are in love say it, that love is dearer than life. 
 When one finds out that he or she likes somebody 
 better than everybody else in the world why, then, 
 they know they are in love. That s the way it goes, 
 but it s awfully hard to explain. You just know it, 
 that s all." 
 
 She looked off across the camp-smoke, sighed, and 
 resumed work on the fur mitten she was sewing. 
 
344 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Well," she announced with finality, " I shall never 
 get married anyway." 
 
 " Once we hit out we 11 sure have some tall run 
 ning" Shorty said dismally. 
 
 " The place is a big trap," Smoke agreed. 
 
 From the crest of a bald knob they gazed out over 
 Snass s snowy domain. East, west, and south they 
 were hemmed in by the high peaks and jumbled 
 ranges. Northward, the rolling country seemed in 
 terminable; yet they knew, even in that direction, 
 that half a dozen transverse chains blocked the way. 
 
 " At this time of the year I could give you three 
 days start," Snass told Smoke that evening. " You 
 can t hide your trail, you see. Anton got away when 
 the snow was gone. My young men can travel as 
 fast as the best white man; and, besides, you would 
 be breaking trail for them. And when the snow is 
 off the ground, I 11 see to it that you don t get the 
 chance Anton had. It s a good life. And soon the 
 world fades. I have never quite got over the sur 
 prise of finding how easy it is to get along without the 
 world." 
 
 " What s eatin me is Danny McCan," Shorty con 
 fided to Smoke. " He s a weak brother on any trail. 
 But he swears he knows the way out to the westward, 
 an so we got to put up with him, Smoke, or you sure 
 get yours." 
 
 " We re all in the same boat," Smoke answered. 
 
 " Not on your life. It s a-comin to you straight 
 down the pike." 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 345 
 
 "What is?" 
 
 "You ain t heard the news? " 
 
 Smoke shook his head. 
 
 " The bachelors told me. They just got the word. 
 To-night it comes off, though it s months ahead of 
 the calendar." 
 
 Smoke shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Ain t interested in hearin ? " Shorty teased. 
 
 " I m waiting to hear." 
 
 "Well, Danny s wife just told the bachelors," 
 Shorty paused impressively. " An the bachelors told 
 me, of course, that the maidens fires is due to be 
 lighted to-night. That s all. Now how do you like 
 it?" 
 
 " I don t get your drift, Shorty." 
 
 " Don t, eh ? Why, it s plain open and shut. 
 They s a skirt after you, an that skirt is goin to 
 light a fire, an that skirt s name is Labiskwee. Oh, 
 I ve been watchin her watch you when you ain t 
 lookin . She ain t never lighted her fire. Said she 
 would n t marry a Indian. An now, when she lights 
 her fire, it s a cinch it s my poor old friend Smoke." 
 
 " It sounds like a syllogism," Smoke said, with a 
 sinking heart reviewing Labiskwee s actions of the 
 past several days. 
 
 " Cinch is shorter to pronounce," Shorty returned. 
 " An that s always the way just as we re workin 
 up our get-away, along comes a skirt to complicate 
 everything. We ain t got no luck. Hey! Listen 
 to that, Smoke!" 
 
 Three ancient squaws had halted midway between 
 
346 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 the bachelors camp and the camp of McCan, and the 
 oldest was declaiming in shrill falsetto. 
 
 Smoke recognized the names, but not all the words, 
 and Shorty translated with melancholy glee. 
 
 " Labiskwee, the daughter of Snass, the Rain 
 maker, the Great Chief, lights her first maiden s fire 
 to-night. Maka, the daughter of Owits, the Wolf- 
 Runner " 
 
 The recital ran through the names of a dozen maid 
 ens, and then the three heralds tottered on their way 
 to make announcement at the next fires. 
 
 The bachelors, who had sworn youthful oaths to 
 speak to no maidens, were uninterested in the ap 
 proaching ceremony, and to show their disdain they 
 made preparations for immediate departure on a mis 
 sion set them by Snass and upon which they had 
 planned to start the following morning. Not satis 
 fied with the old hunters estimates of the caribou, 
 Snass had decided that the run was split. The task 
 set the bachelors was to scout to the north and west 
 in quest of the second division of the great herd. 
 
 Smoke, troubled by Labiskwee s fire-lighting, an 
 nounced that he would accompany the bachelors. But 
 first he talked with Shorty and with McCan. 
 
 " You be there on the third day, Smoke," Shorty 
 said. " We 11 have the outfit an the dogs." 
 
 " But remember," Smoke cautioned, " if there is any 
 slip-up in meeting me, you keep on going and get out 
 to the Yukon. That s flat. If you make it, you can 
 come back for me in the summer. If I get the chance, 
 I 11 make it, and come back for you." 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 347 
 
 McCan, standing by his fire, indicated with his eyes 
 a rugged mountain where the high western range out- 
 jutted on the open country. 
 
 " That s the one," he said. " A small stream on 
 the south side. We go up it. On the third day you 
 meet us. We ll pass by on the third day. Any 
 where you tap that stream you 11 meet us or our trail." 
 
 But the chance did not come to Smoke on the third 
 day. The bachelors had changed the direction of 
 their scout, and while Shorty and McCan plodded up 
 the stream with their dogs, Smoke and the bachelors 
 were sixty miles to the northeast picking up the trail 
 of the second caribou herd. Several days later, 
 through a dim twilight of falling snow, they came 
 back to the big camp. A squaw ceased from wailing 
 by a fire and darted up to Smoke. Harsh tongued, 
 with bitter, venomous eyes, she cursed him, waving 
 her arms toward a silent, fur-wrapped form that still 
 lay on the sled which had hauled it in. 
 
 \Vhat had happened, Smoke could only guess, and 
 as he came to McCan s fire he was prepared for a sec 
 ond cursing. Instead, he saw McCan himself in 
 dustriously chewing a strip of caribou meat. 
 
 " I m not a fightin man," he whiningly explained. 
 " But Shorty got away, though they re still after him. 
 He put up a hell of a fight. They 11 get him, too. He 
 ain t got a chance. He plugged two bucks that 11 
 get around all right. An he croaked one square 
 through the chest." 
 
 " Yes, I know," Smoke answered. " I just met 
 the widow." 
 
348 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Old Snass 11 be wantin to see you," McCan 
 added. " Them s his orders. Soon as you come in 
 you was to go to his fire. I ain t squealed. You 
 don t know nothing. Keep that in mind. Shorty 
 went off on his own along with me." 
 
 At Snass s fire Smoke found Labiskwee. She met 
 him with eyes that shone with such softness and ten 
 derness as to frighten him. 
 
 " I m glad you did n t try to run away," she said. 
 " You see, I " She hesitated, but her eyes did n t 
 drop. They swam with a light unmistakable. " I 
 lighted my fire, and of course it was for you. It has 
 happened. I like you better than everybody else in the 
 world. Better than my father. Better than a thou 
 sand Libashes and Mahkooks. I love. It is very 
 strange. I love as Francesca loved, as Iseult loved. 
 Old Four Eyes spoke true. Indians do not love this 
 way. But my eyes are blue, and I am white. We 
 are white, you and I." 
 
 Smoke had never been proposed to in his life, and 
 he was unable to meet the situation. Worse, it was 
 not even a proposal. His acceptance was taken for 
 granted. So thoroughly was it all arranged in Labis- 
 kwee s mind, so warm was the light in her eyes, that 
 he was amazed that she did not throw her arms 
 around him and rest her head on his shoulder. Then 
 he realized, despite her candor of love, that she did 
 not know the pretty ways of love. Among the primi 
 tive savages such ways did not obtain. She had had 
 no chance to learn. 
 
 She prattled on, chanting the happy burden of her 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 349 
 
 love, while he strove to grip himself in the effort, 
 somehow, to wound her with the truth. This, at the 
 very first, was the golden opportunity. 
 
 " But, Labiskwee, listen," he began. " Are you 
 sure you learned from Four Eyes all the story of the 
 love of Paolo and Francesca? " 
 
 She clasped her hands and laughed with an im 
 mense certitude of gladness. " Oh! There is more! 
 I knew there must be more and more of love ! I have 
 thought much since I lighted my fire. I have " 
 
 And .then Snass strode in to the fire through the 
 falling snowflakes, and Smoke s opportunity was lost. 
 
 " Good evening," Snass burred gruffly. " Your 
 partner has made a mess of it. I am glad you had 
 better sense." 
 
 " You might tell me what s happened," Smoke 
 urged. 
 
 The flash of white teeth through the stained beard 
 was not pleasant. " Certainly, I 11 tell you. Your 
 partner has killed one of my people. That sniveling 
 shrimp, McCan, deserted at the first shot. He 11 
 never run away again. But my hunters have got 
 your partner in the mountains, and they 11 get him. 
 He 11 never make the Yukon basin. As for you, 
 from now on you sleep at my fire. And there 11 be 
 no more scouting with the young men, I shall have 
 my eye on you." 
 
 Smoke s new situation at Snass s fire was embar 
 rassing. He saw more of Labiskwee than ever. In 
 its sweetness and innocence, the frankness of her love 
 was terrible. Her glances were love glances; every 
 
350 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 look was a caress. A score of times he nerved him 
 self to tell her of Joy Gastell, and a score of times he 
 discovered that he was a coward. The damnable part 
 of it was that Labiskwee was so delightful. She was 
 good to look upon. Despite the hurt to his self-es 
 teem of every moment spent with her, he pleasured 
 in every such moment. For the first time in his life 
 he was really learning woman, and so clear was La- 
 biskwee s soul, so appalling in its innocence and igno 
 rance, that he could not misread a line of it. All the 
 pristine goodness of her sex was in her, uncultured by 
 the conventionality of knowledge or the deceit of self- 
 protection. In memory he reread his Schopenhauer 
 and knew beyond all cavil that the sad philosopher 
 was wrong. To know woman, as Smoke came to 
 know Labiskwee, was to know that all woman-haters 
 were sick men. 
 
 Labiskwee was wonderful, and yet, beside her face 
 in the flesh burned the vision of the face of Joy Gas- 
 tell. Joy had control, restraint, all the feminine in 
 hibitions of civilization, yet, by the trick of his fancy 
 and the living preachment of the woman before him, 
 Joy Gastell was stripped to a goodness at par with 
 Labiskwee s. The one but appreciated the other, and 
 all women of all the world appreciated by what Smoke 
 saw in the soul of Labiskwee at Snass s fire in the 
 snow-land. 
 
 And Smoke learned about himself. He remem 
 bered back to all he knew of Joy Gastell, and he knew 
 that he loved her. Yet he delighted in Labiskwee. 
 And what was this feeling of delight but love? He 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 351 
 
 could demean it by no less a name. Love it was. 
 Love it must be. And he was shocked to the roots of 
 his soul by the discovery of this polygamous strain 
 in his nature. He had heard it argued, in the San 
 Francisco studios, that it was possible for a man to 
 love two women, or even three women, at a time. 
 But he had not believed it. How could he believe it 
 when he had not had the experience? Now it was 
 different. He did truly love two women, and though 
 most of the time he was quite convinced that he loved 
 Joy Gastell more, there were other moments when 
 he felt with equal certainty that he loved Labiskwee 
 more. 
 
 " There must be many women in the world," she 
 said one day. " And women like men. Many wo 
 men must have liked you. Tell me." 
 
 He did not reply. 
 
 " Tell me," she insisted. 
 
 " I have never married," he evaded. 
 
 "And there is no one else? No other Iseult out 
 there beyond the mountains ? " 
 
 Then it was that Smoke knew himself a coward. 
 He lied. Reluctantly he did it, but he lied. He shook 
 his head with a slow indulgent smile, and in his face 
 was more of fondness than he dreamed as he noted 
 Labiskwee s swift joy-transfiguration. 
 
 He excused himself to himself. His reasoning 
 w r as Jesuitical beyond dispute, and yet he was not 
 Spartan enough to strike this child-woman a quiver 
 ing heart-stroke. 
 
 Snass, too, was a perturbing factor in the problem. 
 
352 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Little escaped his keen black eyes, and he spoke sig 
 nificantly. 
 
 " No man cares to see his daughter married," he 
 said to Smoke. " At least, no man of imagination. 
 It hurts. The thought of it hurts, I tell you. Just 
 the same, in the natural order of life, Margaret must 
 marry some time." 
 
 A pause fell, and Smoke caught himself wonder 
 ing for the thousandth time what Snass s history must 
 be. 
 
 " I am a harsh, cruel man," Snass went on. " Yet 
 the law is the law, and I am just. Nay, here with this 
 primitive people, I am the law and the justice. Be 
 yond my will no man goes. Also, I am a father, and 
 all my days I have been cursed with imagination." 
 
 Whither his monologue tended, Smoke did not 
 learn, for it was interrupted by a burst of chiding 
 and silvery laughter from Labiskwee s tent, where 
 she played with a new-caught wolf-cub. A spasm of 
 pain twitched Snass s face. 
 
 " I can stand it," he muttered grimly. " Margaret 
 must be married, and it is my fortune, and hers, that 
 you are here. I had little hopes of Four Eyes. 
 McCan was so hopeless I turned him over to a squaw 
 who had lighted her fire twenty seasons. If it had n t 
 been you, it would have been an Indian. Libash 
 might have become the father of my grandchildren." 
 
 And then Labiskwee came from her tent to the fire, 
 the wolf-cub in her arms, drawn as by a magnet, to 
 gaze upon the man, in her eyes the love that art had 
 never taught to hide. 
 
And there is no one else? No other Iseult out there 
 beyond the mountains?" 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 355 
 
 " Listen to me," said McCan. " The spring thaw 
 ie here, an the crust is comin on the snow. 
 It s the time to travel, exceptin for the spring 
 blizzards in the mountains. I know them. I would 
 run with no less a man than you." 
 
 " But you can t run," Smoke contradicted. 
 You can keep up with no man. Your backbone is 
 limber as thawed marrow. If I run, I run alone. 
 The world fades, and perhaps I shall never run. 
 Caribou meat is very good, and soon will come sum 
 mer and the salmon." 
 
 Said Snass : * Your partner is dead. My hunters 
 did not kill him. They found the body, frozen in the 
 first of the spring storms in the mountains. No man 
 can escape. When shall we celebrate your mar 
 riage?" 
 
 And Labiskwee : " I watch you. There is trouble 
 in your eyes, in your face. Oh, I do know all your 
 face. There is a little scar on your neck, just under 
 the ear. When you are happy, the corners of your 
 mouth turn up. When you think sad thoughts they 
 turn down. When you smile there are three and -four 
 wrinkles at the corners of your eyes. When you 
 laugh there are six. Sometimes I have almost 
 counted seven. But I cannot count them now. I 
 have never read books. I do not know how to read. 
 But Four Eyes taught me much. My grammar is 
 good. He taught me. And in his own eyes I have 
 seen the trouble of the hunger for the world. K-c 
 was often hungry for the world. Yet here was good 
 meat, and fish in plenty, and the berries and the roots, 
 
356 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 and often flour came back for the furs through the 
 Porcupines and the Luskwas. Yet was he hungry 
 for the world. Is the world so good that you, too, 
 are hungry for it? Four Eyes had nothing. But 
 you have me." She sighed and shook her head. 
 " Four Eyes died still hungry for the world. And 
 if you lived here always would you, too, die hungry 
 for the world? I am afraid I do not know the world. 
 Do you want to run away to the world ? " 
 
 Smoke could not speak, but by his mouth-comer 
 lines was she convinced. 
 
 Minutes of silence passed, in which she visibly 
 struggled, while Smoke cursed himself for the un- 
 guessed weakness that enabled him to speak the truth 
 about his hunger for the world while it kept his 
 lips tight on the truth of the existence of the 
 other woman. i 
 
 Again Labiskwee sighed. 
 
 " Very well. I love you more than I fear my fath 
 er s anger, and he is more terrible in anger than a 
 mountain storm. You told me what love is. This is 
 the test of love. I shall help you to run away back 
 to the world." 
 
 Smoke awakened softly and without movement. 
 Warm small fingers touched his cheek and slid gently 
 to a pressure on his lips. Fur, with the chill of frost 
 clinging in it, next tingled his skin, and the one word, 
 " Come/ was breathed in his ear. He sat up care 
 fully and listened. The hundreds of wolf-dogs in 
 the camp had lifted their nocturnal song, but under 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 357 
 
 the volume of it, close at hand, he could distinguish 
 the light, regular breathing of Snass. 
 
 Labiskwee tugged gently at Smoke s sleeve, and he 
 knew she wished him to follow. He took his mocca 
 sins and German socks in his hand and crept out into 
 the snow in his sleeping moccasins. Beyond the glow 
 from the dying embers of the fire, she indicated to 
 him to put on his outer foot-gear, and while he 
 obeyed, she went back under the fly where Snass 
 slept. 
 
 Feeling the hands of his watch Smoke found it 
 was one in the morning. Quite warm it was, he de 
 cided, not more than ten below zero. Labiskwee re 
 joined him and led him on through the dark runways 
 of the sleeping camp. Walk lightly as they could, 
 the frost crunched crisply under their moccasins, but 
 the sound was drowned by the clamor of the dogs, 
 too deep in their howling to snarl at the man and 
 woman who passed. 
 
 " Now we can talk," she said, when the last fire 
 had been left half a mile behind. 
 
 And now, in the starlight, facing him, Smoke noted 
 for the first time that her arms were burdened, 
 and, on feeling, discovered she carried his snowshoes, 
 a rifle, two belts of ammunition, and his sleeping- 
 robes. 
 
 " I have everything fixed," she said, with a happy 
 little laugh. " I have been two days making the 
 cache. There is meat, even flour, matches, and 
 skees, which go best on the hard crust and, when they 
 break through, the webs will hold up longer. Oh, 
 
358 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 I do know snow-travel, and we shall go fast, my 
 lover." 
 
 Smoke checked his speech. That she had been ar 
 ranging his escape was surprise enough, but that she 
 had planned to go with him was more than he was 
 prepared for. Unable to think immediate action, he 
 gently, one by one, took her burdens from her. He 
 put his arm around her and pressed her close, and 
 still he could not think what to do. 
 
 " God is good," she whispered. [< He sent me a 
 lover." 
 
 Yet Smoke was brave enough not to suggest his 
 going alone. And before he spoke again he saw all 
 his memory of the bright world and the sun-lands reel 
 and fade. 
 
 " We will .go back, Labiskwee," he said. " You 
 will be my wife, and we shall live always with the 
 Caribou People." 
 
 " No! no! " She shook her head; and her body, in 
 the circle of his arm, resented his proposal. " I 
 know. I have thought much. The hunger for the 
 world would come upon you, and in the long nights it 
 would devour your heart. Four Eyes died of hun 
 ger for the world. So would you die. All men 
 from the world hunger for it. And I will not have 
 you die. We will go on across the snow mountains 
 on the south traverse." 
 
 " Dear, listen," he urged. " We must go back." 
 
 She pressed her mitten against his lips to prevent 
 further speech. " You love me. Say that you love 
 
 me." 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 359 
 
 " I do love you, Labiskwee. You are my wonder 
 ful sweetheart." 
 
 Again the mitten was a caressing obstacle to utter 
 ance. 
 
 " We shall go on to the cache," she said with de 
 cision. " It is three miles from here. Come." 
 
 He held back, and her pull on his arm could not 
 move him. Almost was he tempted to tell her of the 
 other woman beyond the south traverse. 
 
 " It would be a great wrong to you to go back," 
 she said. "I I am only a wild girl, and I am 
 afraid of the world; but I am more afraid for you. 
 You see, it is as you told me. I love you more than 
 anybody else in the world. I love you more than my 
 self. The Indian language is not a good language. 
 The English language is not a good language. The 
 thoughts in my heart for you, as bright and as many 
 as the stars there is no language for them. How 
 can I tell you them ? They are there see ? " 
 
 As she .spoke she slipped the mitten from his hand 
 and thrust the hand inside the warmth of her parka 
 until it rested against her heart. Tightly and steadily 
 she pressed his hand in its position. And in the long 
 silence he felt the beat, beat of her heart, and knew 
 that every beat of it was love. And then, slowly, 
 almost imperceptibly, still holding his hand, her body 
 began to incline away from his and toward the direc 
 tion of the cache. Nor could he resist. It was as if 
 he were drawn by her heart itself that so nearly lay in 
 the hollow of his hand. 
 
 So firm was the crust, frozen during the night after 
 
360 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 the previous day s surface-thaw, that they slid along 
 rapidly on their skees. 
 
 " Just here, in the trees, is the cache," Labiskwee told 
 Smoke. 
 
 The next moment she caught his arm with a startle 
 of surprise. The flames of a small fire were dancing 
 merrily, and crouched by the fire was McCan. Labisk 
 wee muttered something in Indian, and so lashlike was 
 the sound that Smoke remembered she had been called 
 " cheetah " by Four Eyes. 
 
 " I was minded you d run without me," McCan ex 
 plained when they came up, his small peering eyes glim 
 mering with cunning. " So I kept an eye on the girl, 
 an* when I seen her caching skees an* grub, I was on. 
 I Ve brought my own skees an* webs an* grub. The 
 fire ? Sure, an* it was no danger. The camp s asleep 
 an* snorin , an* the waitin was cold. Will we be 
 startin now? " 
 
 Labiskwee looked swift consternation at Smoke, as 
 swiftly achieved a judgment on the matter, and spoke. 
 And in the speaking she showed, child-woman though 
 she was in love, the quick decisiveness of one who in 
 other affairs of life would be no clinging vine. 
 
 " McCan, you are a dog," she hissed, and her eyes 
 were savage with anger. " I know it is in your heart 
 to raise the camp if we don t take you. Very well. 
 We must take you. But you know my father. I am 
 like my father. You will do your share of the work. 
 You will obey. And if you play one dirty trick, it 
 it would be better for you if you had never run." 
 
 McCan looked up at her, his small pig-eyes hating 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 361 
 
 and cringing, while in her eyes, turned to Smoke, the 
 anger melted into luminous softness. 
 
 " Is it right, what I have said? " she queried. 
 
 Daylight found them in the belt of foothills that lay 
 between the rolling country and the mountains. Mc- 
 Can suggested breakfast, but they held on. Not until 
 the afternoon thaw softened the crust and prevented 
 travel would they eat. 
 
 The foothills quickly grew rugged, and the stream, 
 up whose frozen bed they journeyed, began to thread 
 deeper and deeper canyons. The signs of spring were 
 less frequent, though in one canyon they found foam 
 ing bits of open water, and twice they came upon 
 clumps of dwarf willow upon which were the first 
 hints of swelling buds. 
 
 Labiskwee explained to Smoke her knowledge of 
 the country and the way she planned to baffle pursuit. 
 There were but two ways out, one west, the other 
 south. Snass w r ould immediately despatch parties of 
 young men to guard the two trails. But there w r as an- 
 y)ther way south. True, it did no more than penetrate 
 half-way into the high mountains, then, twisting to 
 the west and crossing three divides, it joined 
 the regular trail. When the young men found no 
 traces on the regular trail they would turn back in the 
 belief that the escape had been made by the west tra 
 verse, never dreaming that the runaways had ventured 
 the harder and longer way around. 
 
 Glancing back at McCan, in the rear, Labiskwee 
 spoke in an undertone to Smoke. " He is eating," 
 she said. " It is not good." 
 
362 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Smoke looked. The Irishman was secretly munch 
 ing caribou suet from the pocketful he carried. 
 
 " No eating between meals, McCan," he commanded. 
 " There s no game in the country ahead, and the 
 grub will have to be whacked in equal rations from the 
 start. The only way you can travel with us is by play 
 ing fair." 
 
 By one o clock the crust had thawed so that the skees 
 broke through, and before two o clock the web-shoes 
 were breaking through. Camp was made and the first 
 meal eaten. Smoke took stock of the food. McCan s 
 supply was a disappointment. So many silver fox- 
 skins had he stuffed in the bottom of the meat bag 
 that there was little space left for meat. 
 
 " Sure an* I did n t know there was so many," he 
 explained. " I done it in the dark. But they re 
 worth good money. An with all this ammunition 
 we 11 be gettin game a-plenty." 
 
 " The wolves will eat you a-plenty," was Smoke s 
 hopeless comment, while Labiskwee s eyes flashed their 
 anger. 
 
 Enough food for a month, with careful husbanding 
 and appetites that never blunted their edge, was 
 Smoke s and Labiskwee s judgment. Smoke appor 
 tioned the weight and bulk of the packs, yielding in the 
 end to Labiskwee s insistence that she, too, should 
 carry a pack. 
 
 Next day the stream shallowed out in a wide moun 
 tain valley, and they were already breaking through 
 the crust on the flats when they gained the harder sur 
 face of the slope of the divide. 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 363 
 
 " Ten minutes later and we would n t have got across 
 the flats," Smoke said, when they paused for breath on 
 the bald crest of the summit. " We must be a thou 
 sand feet higher here." 
 
 But Labiskwee, without speaking, pointed down to 
 an open flat among the trees. In the midst of it, scat 
 tered abreast, were five dark specks that scarcely 
 moved. 
 
 " The young men," said Labiskwee. 
 
 " They are wallowing to their hips," Smoke said. 
 They will never gain the hard footing this day. We 
 have hours the start of them. Come on, McCan. 
 Buck up. We don t eat till we can t travel." 
 
 McCan groaned, but there was no caribou suet in 
 his pocket, and he doggedly brought up the rear. 
 
 In the higher valley in which they now found them 
 selves, the crust did not break till three in the after 
 noon, at which time they managed to gain the shadow 
 of mountain where the crust was already freezing 
 again. Once only they paused to get out McCan s 
 confiscated suet, which they ate as they walked. The 
 meat was frozen solid, and could be eaten only after 
 thawing over a fire. But the suet crumbled in their 
 mouths and eased the palpitating faintness in their 
 stomachs. 
 
 Black darkness, with an overcast sky, came on after 
 a long twilight at nine o clock, when they made camp 
 in a clump of dwarf spruce. McCan was whining and 
 helpless. The day s march had been exhausting, but 
 in addition, despite his nine years experience in the 
 arctic, he had been eating snow and was in agony with 
 
364 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 his parched and burning mouth. He crouched by the 
 fire and groaned, while they made the camp. 
 
 Labiskwee was tireless, and Smoke could not but 
 marvel at the life in her body, at the endurance of 
 mind and muscle. Nor was her cheerfulness forced. 
 She had ever a laugh or a smile for him, and her hand 
 lingered in caress whenever it chanced to touch his. 
 Yet, always, when she looked at McCan, her face 
 went hard and pitiless and her eyes flashed frostily. 
 
 In the night came wind and snow, and through a day 
 of blizzard they fought their way blindly, missing the 
 turn of the way that led up a small stream and crossed 
 a divide to the west. For two more days they wan 
 dered, crossing other and wrong divides, and in those 
 two days they dropped spring behind and climbed up 
 into the abode of winter. 
 
 The young men have lost our trail, an* what s 
 to stop us restin a day? " McCan begged. 
 
 But no rest was accorded. Smoke and Labiskwee 
 fcnew their danger. They were lost in the high moun 
 tains, and they had seen no game nor signs of game. 
 Day after day they struggled on through an iron con 
 figuration of landscape that compelled them to laby 
 rinthine canyons and valleys that led rarely to the west. 
 Once in such a canyon, they could only follow it, no 
 matter where it led, for the cold peaks and higher 
 ranges on either side were unscalable and unendur 
 able. The terrible toil and the cold ate up energy, yet 
 they cut down the size of the ration they permitted 
 themselves. 
 
 One night Smoke was awakened by a sound of 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 365 
 
 struggling. Distinctly he heard a gasping and stran 
 gling from where McCan slept. Kicking -the fire into 
 flame, by its light he saw Labiskwee, her hands at the 
 Irishman s throat and forcing from his mouth a chunk 
 of partly chewed meat. Even as Smoke saw this, her 
 hand went to her hip and flashed with the sheath-knife 
 in it. 
 
 " Labiskwee ! " Smoke cried, and his voice was per 
 emptory. 
 
 The hand hesitated. 
 
 " Don t," he said, coming to her side. 
 
 She was shaking with anger, but the hand, after hesi 
 tating a moment longer, descended reluctantly to the 
 sheath. As if fearing she could not restrain herself, 
 she crossed to the fire and threw on more wood. Mc 
 Can sat up, whimpering and snarling, between fright 
 and rage spluttering an inarticulate explanation. 
 
 " Where did you get it? " Smoke demanded. 
 
 " Feel around his body," Labiskwee said. 
 
 It was the first word she had spoken, and her 
 quivered with the anger she could not suppress. 
 
 McCan strove to struggle, but Smoke gripped him 
 cruelly and searched him, drawing forth from under 
 his armpit, where it had been thawed by the heat of 
 his body, a strip of caribou meat. A quick exclama 
 tion from Labiskwee drew Smoke s attention. She 
 had sprung to McCan s pack and was opening it. In 
 stead of meat, out poured moss, spruce-needles, chips 
 all the light refuse that had taken the place of the 
 meat and given the pack its due proportion minus its 
 weight. 
 
366 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 Again Labiskwee s hand went to her hip, and she 
 flew at the culprit only to be caught in Smoke s arms, 
 where she surrendered herself, sobbing with the fu 
 tility of her rage. 
 
 " Oh, lover, it is not the food," she panted. " It is 
 you, your life. The dog ! He is eating you, he is 
 eating you ! " 
 
 " We will yet live," Smoke comforted her. " Here 
 after he shall carry the flour. He can t eat that raw, 
 and if he does I 11 kill him myself, for he will be eat 
 ing your life as well as mine." He held her closer. 
 " Sweetheart, killing is men s work. Women do not 
 kill." 
 
 " You would not love me if I killed the dog? " she 
 questioned in surprise. 
 
 " Not so much," Smoke temporized. 
 
 She sighed with resignation. " Very well," she 
 said. " I shall not kill him." 
 
 The pursuit by the young men was relentless. By 
 miracles of luck, as well as by deduction from the to 
 pography of the way the runaways must take, the 
 young men picked up the blizzard-blinded trail and 
 clung to it. \Vhen the snow flew, Smoke and Labisk- 
 wee took the most improbable courses, turning east 
 when the better way opened south or west, rejecting a 
 low divide to climb a higher. Being lost, it did not 
 matter. Yet they could not throw the young men off. 
 Sometimes they gained days, but always the young men 
 appeared again. After a storm, when all trace was 
 lost, they would cast out like a pack of hounds, and he 
 
WOXDER OF WOMAN 367 
 
 who caught the later trace made smoke signals to call 
 his comrades on. 
 
 Smoke lost count of time, of days and nights and 
 storms and camps. Through a vast mad phantasma 
 goria of suffering and toil he and Labiskwee struggled 
 on, with McCan somehow stumbling along in the rear, 
 babbling of San Francisco, his everlasting dream. 
 Great peaks, pitiless and serene in the chill blue, 
 towered about them. They fled down black canyons 
 with walls so precipitous that the rock frowned naked, 
 or wallowed across glacial valleys where frozen lakes 
 lay far beneath their feet. And one night, between 
 two storms, a distant volcano glared the sky. They 
 never saw it again, and wondered whether it had been 
 a dream. 
 
 Crusts were covered with yards of new snow, that 
 crusted and were snow-covered again. There were 
 places, in canyon- and pocket-drifts, where they 
 crossed snow hundreds of feet deep, and they crossed 
 tiny glaciers, in drafty rifts, wind-scurried and bare of 
 any snow. They crept like silent wraiths across the 
 faces of impending avalanches, or roused from ex 
 hausted sleep to the thunder of them. They made fire- 
 less camps above timber-line, thawing their meat-ra 
 tions with the heat of their bodies ere they could eat. 
 And through it all Labiskwee remained Labiskwee. 
 Her cheer never vanished, save when she looked at Mc 
 Can, and the greatest stupor of fatigue and cold never 
 stilled the eloquence of her love for Smoke. 
 
 Like a cat she watched the apportionment of the 
 meager ration, and Smoke could see that she grudged 
 
368 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 MrCan every munch of his jaws. Once, she distrib 
 uted the ration. The first Smoke knew was a wild 
 harangue of protest from McCan. Not to him alone, 
 but to herself, had she given a smaller portion than to 
 Smoke. After that, Smoke divided the meat himself. 
 Caught in a small avalanche one morning after a night 
 of snow, and swept a hundred yards down the moun 
 tain, they emerged half-stifled and unhurt, but McCan 
 emerged without his pack in which was all the flour. 
 A second and larger snow-slide buried it beyond hope 
 of recovery. After that, though the disaster had been 
 through no fault of his, Labiskwee never looked at Mc 
 Can, and Smoke knew it was because she dared not. 
 
 It was a morning, stark still, clear blue above, with 
 white sun-dazzle on the snow. The way led up a 
 long, wide slope of crust. They moved like weary 
 ghosts in a dead world. No wind stirred in the stag 
 nant, frigid calm. Far peaks, a hundred miles away, 
 studding the backbone of the Rockies up and down, 
 were as distinct as if no more than five miles away. 
 
 " Something is going to happen," Labiskwee whis 
 pered. " Don t you feel it ? here, there, everywhere ? 
 Everything is strange." 
 
 " I feel a chill that is not of cold," Smoke answered. 
 " Nor is it of hunger." 
 
 " It is in your head, your heart," she agreed ex 
 citedly. " That is the way I feel it." 
 
 " It is not of my senses," Smoke diagnosed. " I 
 sense something, from without, that is tingling me with 
 ice; it is a chill of my nerves." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later they paused for breath. 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 369 
 
 " I can no longer see the far peaks," Smoke said. 
 
 " The air is getting thick and heavy/ said Labisk 
 wee. " It is hard to breathe." 
 
 " There be three suns," McCan muttered hoarsely, 
 reeling as he clung to his staff for support. 
 
 They was a mock sun on either side the real sun. 
 There are five," said Labiskwee ; and as the} 
 looked, new suns formed and flashed before their eyes. 
 
 " By Heaven, the sky is filled with suns beyant all 
 countin ," McCan cried in fear. 
 
 Which was true, for look where they would, half the 
 circle of the sky dazzled and blazed with new suns 
 forming. 
 
 McCan yelped sharply with surprise and pain. 
 " I m stung! " he cried out, then yelped again. 
 
 Then Labiskwee cried out, and Smoke felt a prick 
 ling stab on his cheek so cold that it burned like acid. 
 It reminded him of swimming in the salt sea and be 
 ing stung by the poisonous filaments of Portuguese 
 men-of-war. The sensations were so similar that he 
 automatically brushed his cheek to rid it of the sting 
 ing substance that was not there. 
 
 And then a shot rang out, strangely muffled. Down 
 the slope were the young men, standing on their skees, 
 and one after another opened fire. 
 
 " Spread out ! " Smoke commanded. " And climb 
 for it ! We re almost to the top. They re a quarter 
 of a mile below, and that means a couple of miles the 
 start of them on the down-going of the other side." 
 
 With faces prickling and stinging from invisible at 
 mospheric stabs, the three scattered widely on the snow; 
 
370 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 surface and toiled upward. The muffled reports of the 
 rifles were weird to their ears. 
 
 " Thank the Lord," Smoke panted to Labiskwee, 
 " that four of them are muskets, and only one a Win 
 chester. Besides, all these suns spoil their aim. They 
 are fooled. They have n t come within a hundred 
 feet oi^us." 
 
 " It shows my father s temper," she said. " They 
 have orders to kill." 
 
 " How strange you talk," Smoke said. " Your 
 voice sounds far away." 
 
 " Cover your mouth," Labiskwee cried suddenly. 
 " And don t talk. I know what it is. Cover your 
 mouth with your sleeve, thus, and do not talk." 
 
 McCan fell first, and struggled wearily to his feet. 
 And after that all fell repeatedly ere they reached the 
 summit. Their wills exceeded their muscles, they 
 knew not why, save that their bodies were oppressed by 
 a numbness and heaviness of movement. From the 
 crest, looking back, they saw the young men stumbling 
 and falling on the upward climb. 
 
 " They will never get here," Labiskwee said. " It 
 is the white death. I know it, though I have never 
 seen it. I have heard the old men talk. Soon will 
 come a mist unlike any mist or fog or frost-smoke 
 you ever saw. Few have seen it and lived." 
 
 McCan gasped and strangled. 
 
 " Keep your mouth covered," Smoke commanded. 
 
 A pervasive flashing of light from all about them 
 drew Smoke s eyes upward to the many suns. They 
 were shimmering and veiling. The air was filled with 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 371 
 
 microscopic fire-glints. The near peaks were being 
 blotted out by the weird mist; the young men, reso 
 lutely struggling nearer, were being engulfed in it. 
 McCan had sunk down, squatting, on his skees, his 
 mouth and eyes covered by his arms. 
 
 " Come on, make a start," Smoke ordered. 
 
 " I can t move," McCan moaned. 
 
 His doubled body set up a swaying motion. Smoke 
 went toward him slowly, scarcely able to will move 
 ment through the lethargy that weighed his flesh. He 
 noted that his brain was clear. It was only the body 
 that was afflicted. 
 
 " Let him be," Labiskwee muttered harshly. 
 
 But Smoke persisted, dragging the Irishman to his 
 feet and facing him down the long slope they must go. 
 Then he started him with a shove, and McCan, braking 
 and steering with his staff, shot into the sheen of dia 
 mond-dust and disappeared. 
 
 Smoke looked at Labiskwee, who smiled, though it 
 was all she could do to keep from sinking down. He 
 nodded for her to push off, but she came near to him, 
 and side by side, a dozen feet apart, they flew down 
 through the stinging thickness of cold fire. 
 
 Brake as he would, Smoke s heavier body carried 
 him past her, and he dashed on alone, a long way, at 
 tremendous speed that did not slacken till he came out 
 on a level, crusted plateau. Here he braked till La 
 biskwee overtook him, and they went on, again side by 
 side, with diminishing speed which finally ceased. 
 The lethargy had grown more pronounced. The wild 
 est effort of will could move them no more than at a 
 
372 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 snail s pace. They passed McCan, again crouched 
 down on his skees, and Smoke roused him with his 
 staff in passing. 
 
 " Now we must stop," Labiskwee whispered pain 
 fully, " or we will die. We must cover up so the 
 old men said." 
 
 She did not delay to untie knots, but began cutting 
 her pack-lashings. Smoke cut his, and, with a last 
 look at the fiery death-mist and the mockery of suns, 
 they covered themselves over with the sleeping-furs 
 and crouched in each other s arms. They felt a body 
 stumble over them and fall, then heard feeble whimper 
 ing and blaspheming drowned in a violent coughing fit, 
 and knew it was} McCan who huddled against them as 
 he wrapped his robe about him. 
 
 Their own lung-strangling began, and they were 
 racked and torn by a dry cough, spasmodic and uncon 
 trollable. Smoke noted his temperature rising in a 
 fever, and Labiskwee suffered similarly. Hour after 
 hour the coughing spells increased in frequency and 
 violence, and not till late afternoon was the worst 
 reached. After that the mend came slowly, and be 
 tween spells they dozed in exhaustion. 
 
 McCan, however, steadily coughed worse, and from 
 his groans and howls they knew he was in delirium. 
 Once, Smoke made as if to throw the robes back, but 
 Labiskwee clung to him tightly. 
 
 " No," she begged. " It is death to uncover now. 
 Bury your face here, against my parka, and breathe 
 gently and do no talking see, the way I am doing/ 
 
 They dozed on through the darkness, though the de- 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 373 
 
 creasing fits of coughing of one invariably aroused 
 the other. It was after midnight, Smoke judged, 
 when McCan coughed his last. After that he emitted 
 low and bestial meanings that never ceased. 
 
 Smoke awoke with lips touching his lips. He lay 
 partly in Labiskwee s arms, his head pillowed on her 
 breast. Her voice was cheerful and usual. The 
 muffled sound of it had vanished. 
 
 " It is day," she said, lifting the edge of the robes a 
 trifle. " See, O my lover. It is day; we have lived 
 through ; and we no longer cough. Let us look at the 
 world, though I could stay here thus forever and al 
 ways. This last hour has been sweet. I have been 
 awake, and I have been loving you." 
 
 " I do not hear McCan," Smoke said. " And what 
 has become of the young men that they have not found 
 us?" 
 
 He threw back the robes and saw a normal and soli 
 tary sun in the sky. A gentle breeze was blowing, 
 crisp with frost and hinting of warmer days to come. 
 All the world was natural again. McCan lay on his 
 back, his unwashed face, swarthy from camp-smoke, 
 frozen hard as marble. The sight did not affect 
 Labiskwee. 
 
 " Look! " she cried. " A snow bird! It is a good 
 sign." 
 
 There was no evidence of the young men. Either 
 they had died on the other side of the divide or they 
 had turned back. 
 
 There was so little food that they dared not eat a 
 tithe of what they needed, nor a hundredth part of 
 
374 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 what they desired, and in the days that followed, wan 
 dering through the lone mountain-land, the sharp sting 
 of life grew blunted and the wandering merged half 
 into a dream. Smoke would become abruptly con 
 scious, to find himself staring at the never-ending 
 hated snow-peaks, his senseless babble still ringing in 
 his ears. And the next he would know, after seeming 
 centuries, was that again he was roused to the sound of 
 his own maunderings. Labiskwee, too, was light 
 headed most of the time. In the main their efforts 
 were unreasoned, automatic. And ever they worked 
 toward the west, and ever they were baffled and thrust 
 north or south by snow-peaks and impassable ranges. 
 
 " There is no way south," Labiskwee said. " The 
 old men know. West, only west, is the way." 
 
 The young men no longer pursued, but famine 
 crowded on the trail. 
 
 Came a day when it turned cold, and a thick snow, 
 that was not snow but frost crystals of the size of 
 grains of sand, began to fall. All day and night it fell, 
 and for three days and nights it continued to fall. It 
 was impossible to travel until it crusted under the 
 spring sun, so they lay in their furs and rested, and ate 
 less because they rested. So small was the ration they 
 permitted that it gave no appeasement to the hunger 
 pang that was much of the stomach, but more of the 
 brain. And Labiskwee, delirious, maddened by the 
 taste of her tiny portion, sobbing and mumbling, yelp 
 ing sharp little animal cries of joy, fell upon the next 
 day s portion and crammed it into her mouth. 
 
 Then it was given to Smoke to see a wonderful 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 375 
 
 thing. The food between her teeth roused her to 
 consciousness. She spat it out, and with a great anger 
 struck herself with her clenched fist on the offending 
 mouth. 
 
 It was given to Smoke to see many wonderful things 
 in the days yet to come. After the long snow-fall 
 came on a great wind that drove the dry and tiny frost- 
 particles as sand is driven in a sand-storm. All 
 through the night the sand-frost drove by, and in the 
 full light of a clear and wind-blown day, Smoke looked 
 with swimming eyes and reeling brain upon what he 
 took to be the vision of a dream. All about towered 
 great peaks and small, lone sentinels and groups and 
 councils of mighty Titans. And from the tip of every 
 peak, swaying, undulating, flaring out broadly against 
 the azure sky, streamed gigantic snow-banners, miles 
 in length, milky and nebulous, ever waving lights and 
 shadows and flashing silver from the sun. 
 
 " Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the 
 Lord," Smoke chanted, as he gazed upon these dusts of 
 snow wind-driven into sky-scarfs of shimmering silken 
 light. 
 
 And still he gazed, and still the bannered peaks did 
 not vanish, and still he considered that he dreamed, 
 until Labiskwee sat up among the furs. 
 
 " I dream, Labiskwee/ he said. " Look. Do you, 
 too, dream within my dream ? " 
 
 " It is no dream," she replied. " This have the old 
 men told me. And after this will blow the warm 
 winds, and we shall live and win west." 
 
 Smoke shot a snow-bird, and they divided it. Once, 
 
376 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 in a valley where willows budded standing in the snow, 
 he shot a snowshoe rabbit. Another time he got a 
 lean, white weasel. This much of meat they encoun 
 tered, and no more, though, once, half-mile high and 
 veering toward the west and the Yukon, they saw a 
 wild-duck wedge drive by. 
 
 " It is summer in the lower valleys," said Labiskwee. 
 " Soon it will be summer here." 
 
 Labiskwee s face had grown thin, but the bright, 
 large eyes were brighter and larger, and when she 
 looked at him she was transfigured by a wild, unearthly 
 beauty. 
 
 The days lengthened, and the snow began to sink. 
 Each day the crust thawed, each night it froze again ; 
 and they were afoot early and late, being compelled 
 to camp and rest during the midday hours of thaw 
 when the crust could not bear their weight. When 
 Smoke grew snow-blind, Labiskwee towed him on a 
 thong tied to her waist. And when she was so blinded, 
 she towed behind a thong to his waist. And starving, 
 in a deeper dream, they struggled on through an awak 
 ening land bare of any life save their own. 
 
 Exhausted as he was, Smoke grew almost to fear 
 sleep, so fearful and bitter were the visions of that mad, 
 twilight land. Always were they of food, and always 
 was the food, at his lips, snatched away by the malign 
 deviser of dreams. He gave dinners to his comrades 
 of the old San Francisco days, himself, with whetting 
 appetite and jealous eye, directing the arrangements, 
 decorating the table with crimson-leafed runners of 
 the autumn grape. The guests were dilatory, and 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 377 
 
 while he greeted them and all sparkled with their latest 
 cleverness, he was frantic with desire for the table. 
 He stole to it, unobserved, and clutched a handful of 
 black ripe olives, and turned to meet still another guest. 
 And others surrounded him, and the laugh and play of 
 wit went on, while all the time, hidden in his closed 
 hand, was this madness of ripe olives. 
 
 He gave many such dinners, all with the same empty 
 ending. He attended Gargantuan feasts, where multi 
 tudes fed on innumerable bullocks roasted whole, pry 
 ing them out of smoldering pits and with sharp knives 
 slicing great strips of meat from the steaming car 
 casses. He stood, with mouth agape, beneath long 
 rows of turkeys which white-aproned shopmen sold. 
 And everybody bought save Smoke, mouth still agape, 
 chained by a leadenness of movement to the pavement. 
 A boy again, he sat with spoon poised high above great 
 bowls of bread and milk. He pursued shy heifers 
 through upland pastures and centuries of torment in 
 vain effort to steal from them their milk, and in 
 noisome dungeons he fought with rats for scraps and 
 refuse. There was no food that was not a madness 
 to him, and he wandered through vast stables, where 
 fat horses stood in mile-long rows of stalls, and sought 
 but never found the bran-bins from which they fed. 
 
 Once, only, he dreamed to advantage. Famishing, 
 shipwrecked or marooned, he fought with the big Pa 
 cific surf for rock-clinging mussels, and carried them 
 up the sands to the dry flotsam of the spring tides. Of 
 thjs he built a fire, and among the coals he laid his 
 precious trove. He watched the steam jet forth and the 
 
378 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 locked shells pop apart, exposing the salmon-colored 
 meat. Cooked to a turn he knew it ; and this time 
 there was no intruding presence to whisk the meal 
 away. At last so he dreamed within the dream 
 the dream would come true. This time he would eat. 
 Yet in his certitude he doubted, and he was steeled for 
 the inevitable shift of vision until the salmon-colored 
 meat, hot and savory, was in his mouth. His teeth 
 closed upon it. He ate! The miracle had happened! 
 The shock aroused him. He awoke in the dark, lying 
 on his back, and heard himself mumbling little piggish 
 squeals and grunts of joy. His jaws were moving, 
 and between his teeth meat was crunching. He did 
 not move, and soon small fingers felt about his lips, and 
 between them was inserted a tiny sliver of meat. And 
 in that he would eat no more, rather than that he was 
 angry, Labi sk wee cried and in his arms sobbed herself 
 to sleep. But he lay on awake, marveling at the love 
 and the wonder of woman. 
 
 The time came when the last food was gone. The 
 high peaks receded, the divides became lower, and the 
 way opened promisingly to the west. But their re 
 serves of strength were gone, and, without food, the 
 time quickly followed when they lay down at night 
 and in the morning did not arise. Smoke weakly 
 gained his feet, collapsed, and on hands and knees 
 crawled about the building of a fire. But try as she 
 would Labiskwee sank back each time in an extremity 
 of weakness. And Smoke sank down beside her, a 
 wan sneer on his face for the automatism that had 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 379 
 
 made him struggle for an unneeded fire. There was 
 nothing to cook, and the day was warm. A gentle 
 breeze sighed in the spruce-trees, and from everywhere, 
 under the disappearing snow, came the trickling music 
 of unseen streamlets. 
 
 Labiskwee lay in a stupor, her breathing so imper 
 ceptible that often Smoke thought her dead. In the 
 afternoon the chattering of a squirrel aroused him. 
 Dragging the heavy rifle, he wallowed through the 
 crust that had become slush. He crept on hands and 
 knees, or stood upright and fell forward in the direc 
 tion of the squirrel that chattered its wrath and fled 
 slowly and tantalizingly before him. He had not the 
 strength for a quick shot, and the squirrel was never 
 still. At times Smoke sprawled in the wet snow-melt 
 and cried out of weakness. Other times the flame of 
 his life flickered, and blackness smote him. How long 
 he lay in the last faint he did not know, but he came to, 
 shivering in the chill of evening, his wet clothing frozen 
 to the re-forming crust. The squirrel was gone, and 
 after a weary struggle he won back to the side of 
 Labiskwee. So profound was his weakness that he 
 lay like a dead man through the night, nor did dreams 
 disturb him. 
 
 The sun was in the sky, the same squirrel chattering 
 through the trees, when Labiskwee s hand on Smoke s 
 cheek awakened him. 
 
 " Put your hand on my heart, lover," she said, her 
 voice dear but faint and very far away. " My heart 
 is my love, and you hold it in your hand." 
 
 A long time seemed to go by, ere she spoke again. 
 
380 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 " Remember always, there is no way south. That 
 is well known to the Caribou People. West that is 
 the way and you are almost there and you will 
 make it." 
 
 And Smoke drowsed in the numbness that is near to 
 death, until once more she aroused him. 
 
 " Put your lips on mine," she said. " I will die 
 so." 
 
 " We will die together, sweetheart," was his answer. 
 
 " No." A feeble flutter of her hand checked him, 
 and so thin was her voice that scarcely did he hear it, 
 yet did he hear all of it. Her hand fumbled and 
 groped in the hood of her parka, and she drew forth a 
 pouch that she placed in his hand. " And now your 
 lips, my lover. Your lips on my lips, and your hand 
 on my heart." 
 
 And in that long kiss darkness came upon him again, 
 and when again he was conscious he knew that he was 
 alone and he knew that he was to die. He was wearily 
 glad that he was to die. 
 
 He found his hand resting on the pouch. With an 
 inward smile at the curiosity that made him pull the 
 draw-string, he opened it. Out poured a tiny flood of 
 food. There was no particle of it that he did not 
 recognize, all stolen by Labiskwee from Labiskwee 
 bread- fragments saved far back in the days ere McCan 
 lost the flour ; strips and strings of caribou-meat, partly 
 gnawed ; crumbles of suet ; the hind-leg of the snow- 
 shoe rabbit, untouched; the hind-leg and part of the 
 fore-leg of the white weasel ; the wing dented still by 
 her reluctant teeth, and the leg of the snow-bird 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 381 
 
 pitiful remnants, tragic renunciations, crucifixions of 
 life, morsels stolen from her terrible hunger by her in 
 credible love. 
 
 With maniacal laughter Smoke flung it all out on the 
 hardening snow-crust and went back into the blackness. 
 
 He dreamed. The Yukon ran dry. In its bed, 
 among muddy pools of water and ice-scoured rocks, 
 he wandered, picking up fat nugget-gold. The weight 
 of it grew to be a burden to him, till he discovered that 
 it was good to eat. And greedily he ate. After all, 
 of what worth was gold that men should prize it so, 
 save that it was good to eat ? 
 
 He awoke to another sun. His brain was strangely 
 clear. No longer did his eyesight blur. The familiar 
 palpitation that had vexed him through all his frame 
 was gone. The juices of his body seemed to sing, as 
 if the spring had entered in. Blessed well-being had 
 come to him. He turned to awaken Labiskwee, and 
 saw, and remembered. He looked for the food flung 
 out on the snow. It \vas gone. And he knew that in 
 delirium and dream it had been the Yukon nugget- 
 gold. In delirium and dream he had taken heart of 
 life from the life sacrifice of Labiskwee, who had put 
 her heart in his hand and opened his eyes to woman 
 and wonder. 
 
 He was surprised at the ease of his movements, 
 astounded that he was able to drag her fur-wrapped 
 body to the exposed thawed gravel-bank, which he 
 undermined with the ax and caved upon her. 
 
 Three days, with no further food, he fought west 
 
382 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 In the mid third day he fell beneath a lone spruce be 
 side a wide stream that ran open and which he knew 
 must be the Klondike. Ere blackness conquered him, 
 he unlashed his pack, said good-by to the bright world, 
 and rolled himself in the robes. 
 
 Chirping, sleepy noises awoke him. The long twi 
 light was on. Above him, among the spruce boughs, 
 were ptarmigan. Hunger bit him into instant action, 
 though the action was infinitely slow. Five minutes 
 passed before he was able to get his rifle to his 
 shoulder, and a second five minutes passed ere he 
 dared, lying on his back and aiming straight upward, to 
 pull the trigger. It was a clean miss. No bird fell, 
 but no bird flew. They ruffled and rustled stupidly 
 and drowsily. His shoulder pained him. A second 
 shot was spoiled by the involuntary wince he made as 
 he pulled trigger. Somewhere, in the last three days, 
 though he had no recollection how, he must have fallen 
 and injured it. 
 
 The ptarmigan had not flown. He doubled and re 
 doubled the robe that had covered him, and humped it 
 in the hollow between his right arm and his side. 
 Resting the butt of the rifle on the fur, he fired again, 
 and a bird fell. He clutched it greedily and found that 
 he had shot most of the meat out of it. The large- 
 caliber bullet had left little else than a mess of mangled 
 feathers. Still the ptarmigan did not fly, and he de 
 cided that it was heads or nothing. He fired only at 
 heads. He reloaded and reloaded the magazine. He 
 missed; he hit; and the stupid ptarmigan, that were 
 loth to fly, fell upon him in a rain of food lives dis- 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 383 
 
 rupted that his life might feed and live. There had 
 been nine of them, and in the end he clipped the head 
 of the ninth, and lay and laughed and wept he knew not 
 why. 
 
 The first he ate raw. Then he rested and slept, 
 while his life assimilated the life of it. In the darkness 
 he awoke, hungry, with strength to build a fire. And 
 until early dawn he cooked and ate, crunching the 
 bones to powder between his long-idle teeth. He slept, 
 awoke in the darkness of another night, and slept again 
 to another sun. 
 
 He noted with surprise that the fire crackled with 
 fresh fuel and that a blackened coffee-pot steamed on 
 the edge of the coals. Beside the fire, within arm s 
 length, sat Shorty, smoking a brown-paper cigarette 
 and intently watching him. Smoke s lips moved, but 
 a throat paralysis seemed to come upon him, while his 
 chest was suffused with the menace of tears. He 
 reached out his hand for the cigarette and drew the 
 smoke deep into his lungs again and again. 
 
 " I have not smoked for a long time," he said at last, 
 in a low calm voice. " For a very long time." 
 
 " Nor eaten, from your looks," Shorty added gruffly. 
 
 Smoke nodded and waved his hand at the ptarmigan 
 feathers that lay all about. 
 
 " Not until recently," he returned. " Do you know, 
 I d like a cup of coffee. It will taste strange. Also 
 flapjacks and a strip of bacon." 
 
 " And beans? " Shorty tempted. 
 
 " They would taste heavenly. I find I am quite 
 hungry again." 
 
384 SMOKE BELLEW 
 
 While the one cooked and the other ate, they told 
 briefly what had happened to them in the days since 
 their separation. 
 
 " The Klondike was breakin up," Shorty concluded 
 his recital, " an* we just had to wait for open water. 
 Two polin boats, six other men you know em all, 
 an crackerjacks an all kinds of outfit. An* we Ve 
 sure been a-comin polin , linin* up, and portagin . 
 But the falls 11 stick em a solid week. That s where I 
 left em a-cuttin a trail over the tops of the bluffs for 
 the boats. I just had a sure natural hunch to keep a- 
 comin . So I fills a pack with grub an starts. I knew 
 I d find you a-driftin an all in." 
 
 Smoke nodded, and put forth his hand in a silent 
 grip. " Well, let s get started," he said. 
 
 " Started hell ! " Shorty exploded. " We stay right 
 here an rest you up an feed you up for a couple of 
 days." 
 
 Smoke shook his head. 
 
 " If you could just see yourself," Shorty pro 
 tested. 
 
 And what he saw was not nice. Smoke s face, 
 wherever the skin showed, was black and purple and 
 scabbed from repeated frost-bite. The cheeks were 
 fallen in, so that, despite the covering of beard, the 
 upper rows of teeth ridged the shrunken flesh. Across 
 the forehead and about the deep-sunk eyes, the skin 
 was stretched drum-tight, while the scraggly beard, that 
 should have been golden, was singed by fire and filthy 
 with camp-smoke. 
 
 " Better pack up," Smoke said. " I m going on." 
 
WONDER OF WOMAN 385 
 
 " But you re feeble as a kid baby. You can t hike. 
 What s the rush?" 
 
 " Shorty, I am going after the biggest thing in the 
 Klondike, and I can t wait. That s all. Start pack 
 ing. It s the biggest thing in the world. It s bigger 
 than lakes of gold and mountains of gold, bigger than 
 adventure, and meat-eating, and bear-killing." 
 
 Shorty sat with bulging eyes. " In the name of the 
 Lord, what is it? " he queried huskily. " Or are you 
 just simple loco? " 
 
 " No, I m all right. Perhaps a fellow has to stop 
 eating in order to see things. At any rate, I have seen 
 things I never dreamed were in the world. I know 
 what a woman is, now." 
 
 Shorty s mouth opened, and about the lips and in the 
 light of the eyes was the whimsical advertisement of 
 the sneer forthcoming. 
 
 " Don t, please," Smoke said gently. " You don t 
 know. I do." 
 
 Shorty gulped and changed his thought. " Huh ! I 
 don t need no hunch to guess her name. The rest of 
 J em has gone up to the drainin of Surprise Lake, but 
 Joy Gastell allowed she would n t go. She s stickin 
 around Dawson, waitin to see if I come back with you. 
 An she sure swears, if I don t, she 11 sell her holdin s 
 an hire a army of gun-fighters, an go into the Caribou 
 Country an knock the everlastin stuffin outa old 
 Snass an* his whole gang. An if you 11 hold your 
 horses a couple of shakes, I reckon I 11 get packed up 
 an ready to hike along with you." 
 
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