CHAPTER XI
ON THE DEAD MAN'S LONELY TRAIL
Connie Morgan pushed aside the flap of his sleeping bag and blinkedsleepily into the blue-gray Arctic dawn. Far to the north-west, the thinrays of the belated winter sun pinked the edges of the ice god'schiselled peaks where the great white range guarded grimly the secretsof the man-feared Lillimuit.
The boy closed his eyes and pressed his face close against the warmfleece. Was it all a dream, he wondered vaguely--the crashing wall ofthe canyon--the trail of the white death--the blazing aurora--the searchfor the Tatonduk pass--the buried _igloo_, and the man who died? Werethese things real? Or, was he still following the trail of Waseche Bill,with the unknown Lillimuit before him, and the men of Eagle behind?
Again his eyes opened and he chuckled aloud as he thought of the mancalled Joe, and Fiddle Face, and big Jim Sontag, and the others in thehotel at Eagle. It was not a dream. There, by the fire, was Waseche, thecoffeepot was boiling with a low bubbly sound, and beyond was theround-topped _igloo_, its white side scarred by the sled-blockedentrance to the tunnel.
"What's so funny?" grinned Waseche as, frying pan in hand, he turned atthe sound of the boy's laughter. "This heah mess we ah into ain't nojoke, fah's I c'n see. Whateveh yo' laughin' at, anyhow?"
The boy wriggled from his sleeping bag and joined the man by thefireside, where the preparation of breakfast was well under way.
"Oh, nothing--I was just wondering what they thought, next morning--themen back in Eagle, who wouldn't let me come to you."
"Me'be it w'd be'n betteh if yo' hadn't of," answered the man, with aglance toward the towering snow peaks.
"Well, it _wouldn't_!" flashed the boy; "and, you bet, it would takemore than just saying so to hold me back! You know you're glad Icame--Anyway, I _did_ come, and I'd rather be _lost_ here, with you,than own the best claim on Ten Bow, and go it alone. You and I are goingto beat the Lillimuit, pardner, and even Carlson couldn't do that!"
"No, he couldn't," agreed the man, eyeing the boy proudly. "An' theh'splenty othehs, too, that's tried it. Some come back--but, mostly, theydidn't. Carlson, in theh--he was a _man_--he died huntin' up hispahdneh. I wondeh how much of a strike they made oveh on this heahIgnatook?"
"It must be something _big_. The notebook said there was lots and lotsof gold----"
"Yeh--an' it said they was creeks that don't freeze--an' frozenfohests--an' things that come in the night--an' steam. Yo' see, kid,Carlson was too long alone. It's boun' to get a man--the big, whitecountry is--if he stays too long from his kind. It gets 'em with itsflashin', hissin' lights, an' the roah of shiftin' ice--but, most ofall, with its silence--the dead, awful stillness of the land of frozenthings. It gets 'em in heah"--he pointed significantly to his forehead."Somethin' goes wrong, sometimes all of a sudden--sometimesgradual--but, it's all the same--they might betteh died.
"But, come on, let's eat, an' then hunt up Carlson's _cache_. I sho'hope he was all theah when he made that map, 'cause, if he wasn't, yo'an' me is in fo' a hahd winteh. Rampsin' th'ough the Lillimuit followin'a crazy man's map ain't no Sunday school picnic--not what yo' c'nnotice--an' when we-all come to the end of the trail, we'll know we be'nsomewheahs."
The _cache_ was easily located near the centre of the thicket. It was arude crotch and pole affair, elevated beyond reach of prowling animals.A couple of blows from Waseche's axe brought the structure crashing intothe snow, and they proceeded to cut the lashings of the caribou skinsthat served as tarpaulins.
"Theah's meat a plenty wheah he come from. Look at them quahte's ofcaribou, an' the hides."
"He didn't need to go to so much trouble with his _cache_. There isnothing here to bother it."
"How about the foxes--an' wolves, too? Wheah theah's caribou theah'swolves. An' how about his dawgs?"
"That's so!" exclaimed Connie. "I wonder what became of the dogs? Andwhere is his sled?"
"Sled's undeh the snow, somewheahs--dawgs, too, me'be--'less they pulledout. It's owin' to what kind they was. _Malamutes_ would of tu'ned wolf,an' when they found they couldn't bust the _cache_, they'd of hit outfo' the caribou heahd. Hudson Bays an' Mackenzie Riveh dawgs w'd donesim'lah, only they'd stahved to death tryin' it. An' mongrels, they'd ofjest humped up an' died wheah they happen' to be standin'."
In addition to several saddles of caribou venison, the _cache_ containedcoffee, flour, salt, a small bottle of saccharin, and three bags of fishfor the dogs. Bound securely to the coffee bag was a rough map of thetrail to the preceding _cache_, which Carlson had numbered 2, and theylost no time in comparing it with the notebook which Connie producedfrom his pocket.
"He wasn't plumb loco, anyhow," remarked Waseche, with a deep breath ofrelief. "His maps checks up all right, an' a crazy man couldn't make twomaps hit out the same to save him, I don't reckon. Anyhow, I'm glad wefound this otheh one. Neah's I c'n make out, it's three days to the next_cache_, an' me'be the'll be anotheh map to check up with."
The remainder of the forenoon was spent in packing the supplies to thecamp, and at noon the two made a prodigious dinner of fresh caribouvenison, thawed out and broiled over the smokeless larch coals.
"The dawgs is ga'nted up some consid'ble, s'pose we jest feed twicttoday. They be'n on half ration since we-all left the canyon. 'Tain'tgood policy to feed _malamutes_ twict, an' if we don't hit it out rightto the next _cache_, we'll wisht we hadn't, but, somehow, findin' thatlast map kind of clinched it with me. Whad'yo say, pahdneh?"
Connie glanced at the brutes lying about in the snow apparentlyuninterested in the saddles of venison and bags of fish piled near thecamp fire. Only Mutt, the huge mongrel "wheel dog" of Connie's own team,whimpered and sniffed at the newly found food, for Mutt lacked thestoicism of the native dogs of the North, who knew that feed time washours away. The boy regarded them with judicious eye and pondered hispartner's proposition gravely.
"Well, we might try it, just this once. They _do_ look a little gauntand ribby," and the boy smiled broadly as he broke out a bag of fish;for the same thought had been in his own mind for an hour and he hadbeen just on the point of broaching it to Waseche, at the risk of beingthought a chicken-hearted _chechako_.
Connie returned to the fire as the dogs gnawed and snarled at theirunexpected meal. There was plenty of coffee, now, and while the boytossed the grounds onto the snow and refilled the pot, Waseche Billwhittled a pipe of tobacco, and stretched lazily upon his robe in thewarmth of the crackling flames.
"We-all must bury him decent," he began, with a nod toward the _igloo_,as they sipped at the black coffee. "An' we must remembeh that name,Pete Mateese, the man he was huntin' fo'. If he's alive, he'd like toknow. He was his pa'dneh, I reckon. Seems like, from what the book says,he neveh know'd about the strike." The man's eyes roved for a momentover the distant peaks, and he continued: "It's too bad we cain't dig noreg'lar grave fo' him, but it would take a good week to thaw out theground, an' them fish ain't goin' to hold out only to the next _cache_.But I know anotheh way that's good, heah. The rock wall yondeh shadesthe _igloo_ so it won't neveh melt; leastwise, it ain't apt to. Las'summeh's sun neveh fazed it 'cept to sog it down all the mo' solid.We'll give him a coffin of ice, an' his _igloo_ fo' a tomb of snow. I'da heap sooneh have it that-a-way than like them ol' king of Egyp's,that's buried in the stone pyramids out on the aidge of the desert,somewheahs. I seen one, onct, in the dime museum in Chicago. FerryO'Tolliveh, his name was, I recollect, an' the man that run the placegive a consid'able lecture about him. Seems like he was embalmed, theycall it, which means he was spiced an' all wrapped up in, I think hesaid it was a mile an' three-quahtehs of bandages, anyhow, they was araft of 'em, 'cause I counted mo'n a hund'ed layehs of cloth wheahthey'd cut th'ough to get to his face. Which it must of be'n a heap ofwo'k without they put him in a lathe; anyways, theah he was, afteh bein'dead mo'n two thousan' yeahs!
"The man said how the embalmin' of them ol' Egyp' undehtakehs is a lostaht, an' I reckon, afteh takin' a look at Mr. Ferry O'Tolliveh, fo'ks isglad it i
s. He looked like the bottom row of a kit of herring. The mansaid his mummy was theah, too, but I didn't stop fo' to look at her--Iseen all I wanted of the O'Tollivehs from lookin' at Ferry, but himbein' the only king I eveh seen, I'm glad I done it, even if he hadn'tkep' well.
"Now, with Carlson, heah, it will be diffe'nt. He'll be jest the sametwo thousan' yeahs from now as he is today, an' was the day he died. Iceis ice, an' if it don't melt it'll stay ice till the crack of doom."
The two set about the work with a will. The provisions were carriedoutside, the dead man's effects ranged about the base of the circularwall, and his robes spread in the centre of the igloo upon thehard-packed floor of snow. The body was wrapped in its blankets and laidupon the robes, and Connie Morgan and Waseche Bill gazed for the lasttime upon the face of Carlson, the intrepid man of the North who, likehundreds of others, lured by the call of gold, braved the unknownterrors of the silent land to pass for ever from the haunts of man.There was that in the strong, clean-cut features of the bearded face tomake them pause. Here was a _man_! A man who, in the very strength andforce of him, pushed beyond the barriers, defied the frozen desert, andfrom her ice-locked bosom tore the secret of the great white wilderness;and then, in the bigness of his heart, turned his back upon the goal ofhis heart's desire and faced death calmly in vain search for his absentpartner.
"The boy's lips moved in prayer, the only one he had everlearned."]
Instinctively, the small boy removed his cap and dropped to his kneesbeside the dead man, and opposite him, awkwardly, reverently, with baredhead, knelt Waseche Bill. The boy's lips moved and in the cold, deadgloom of the snow _igloo_, his voice rang high and thin in the words ofthe only prayer he had ever learned:
"Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
"Amen."
"Amen," repeated Waseche Bill huskily, and together they left the_igloo_.
Blocks were cut from the surface of the hard crusted snow and packedclosely about the body. Snow was melted at the fire and the blockssoaked with water, which froze almost instantly, cementing the wholeinto a solid mass of opaque ice. In the same manner, the _igloo_ wassealed, and the body of Carlson was protected both from the fangs ofprowling beasts and the ravages of time. From the trunk of a youngspruce, Waseche Bill fashioned a rude cross, into which Connie burneddeep the name:
SVEN CARLSON DIED JAN. 10-19--.
The cross was planted firmly and, having completed the task to theirsatisfaction, the two ate supper in silence and sought their sleepingbags.
Dogs were harnessed next morning by the little light of the stars, andlong before the first faint streak of the late winter dawn greyed thenorth-east, the outfit swung onto the trail--the year-old trail ofCarlson, the man who found gold.
Before passing from sight around a point of the spruce thicket, theyhalted the sleds for a last look at the solitary _igloo_. There, in theshifting glow of the paling aurora, the little cross stood out sharp andblack against its unending background of dead white snow, and below itshowed the rounded outline of the low mound that was the fittingsepulchre of this man of the North.