CHAPTER XII
IN THE HEART OF THE SILENT LAND
Waseche Bill and his little partner followed blindly the directions uponCarlson's map, which led them across snow as trackless and unscarred asthe day it fell.
"Fr. C 3 N 3d. to FLAT MT. C 2 on rock-ledge at flagpole," read thedirections on the map found in the _cache_, which was the exact reverseof the directions in the notebook which read: "Fr. FLAT MT. C 2. S 3d.to C 3. in spruce grove at _igloo_." The man had carefully mapped histrail as he proceeded, and then reversed the notes for the benefit ofany chance backtrailer.
So far, the trail of Carlson was but a projection of their own trail insearch of the Tatonduk divide, and for two days they mushed steadilynorthward, skirting the great range that lay to the westward. To thenorth-east and east, as far as the eye could reach, stretched vast levelsnow barrens, and to the southward rolled the low-lying foothills towardthe glacier-studded range which was still visible, its jagged peaksflashing blue-white in the distance. Hour after hour they threaded inand out among the foothills, avoiding the deeper ravines, and with tailrope and gee pole working the outfit across coulees.
Toward evening of the third day, both Connie and Waseche scanned therange eagerly for a glimpse of the flat mountain, but the early winterdarkness settled about them without the sight of a mountain that could,by any stretch of imagination, be called "flat."
"Prob'ly we-all ah mushin' sloweh than what he done," ventured Waseche,as he peered into the gloom from the top of a rounded hill. "I hate tocamp, an' I hate to mush on an' pass the landmahk in the dahk. It's mo'or less guesswo'k, followin' a cold trail. Landmahks change some, an'even if they don't, the time of yeah makes a diffe'nce, an' then,things looks diffe'nt to one man from what they look to anotheh.Likewise, things looks diffe'nt nights, than daytimes. Of co'se, a flatmountain couldn't hahdly look like nothin' else but a flat mountainnohow, but yo' cain't tell----"
"I'm sure we haven't passed it," interrupted the boy.
"No, we ain't _passed_ it. What's pestehin' me is, did Carlson knowwhetheh he mushed three days or ten? An' whetheh he c'd tell a flatmountain from a peaked one? I've saw fog hang so that eveh' mountain yo'seen looked flat--cut right squah acrost in the middle."
"Let's mush on for a couple of hours. There is light enough to see themountains, and we might as well be lost one place as another." The mangrinned at the philosophical suggestion.
"All right, kid. Keep yo' eyes peeled, an' when yo' get enough jest yelpan' we 'll camp."
Hour after hour they pushed northward among the little hills. The sledrunners slipped smoothly over the hard, dry snow, and overhead amillion stars glittered in cold brilliance against the blue-black pallof the night sky. And in all the vast solitude of the great white worldthe only living things were the fur-clad man and boy and theshaggy-coated dogs that drew the sleds steadily northward. Gradually itgrew lighter and the stars paled before the increasing glow of theaurora. Broad banners flashed and waned in the heavens, and thinstreamers of changing lights writhed and twisted sinuously, illuminatingthe drear landscape with a dull, uncanny light in which objects appearedstrangely distorted and unreal.
Was it possible that other eyes had looked upon these cold, deadmountains? That other feet had trodden the snows of this forsakenworld-waste? It seemed to the tired boy that they had passed theuttermost reach of men, and gazed for the first time upon a new andlifeless land.
They eased out of a ravine on a long slant, and at the top Connie haltedMcDougall's _malamutes_ and waited for Waseche Bill, whose sled hadnosed deep into the soft snow of a huge drift. The man wrenched it freeand urged on his dogs, which humped to the pull and clawed their way tothe top, sending little showers of flinty snow rustling into the ravine.As the boy started the big ten-team, the light grew suddenly brighter.The whole North seemed bathed in a weird, greenish glow. Directly beforehim a broad banner flashed and blazed, and in the bright flare of light,upon the very edge of the vast frozen plain, loomed a great whitemountain whose top seemed sheared by a single stroke of a giant sword!The boy's heart leaped with joy.
"The flat mountain! It's here! It's here!" he cried, and up over the rimof the ravine rushed Waseche Bill, and in silence they gazed upon thewelcome sight until the light disappeared in a final blaze of glory--andit was night.
_Cache_ number two was easily located upon a shelf of rock before whicha wind-whipped piece of cloth fluttered dejectedly at the top of asapling firmly embedded in the snow. In spite of the increasedconfidence in Carlson's map, it was not without some trepidation thatthe partners set out the following day upon the second lap of the deadman's lonely trail.
"Fr. FLAT MT. C 2. DUE E 4d C 1 STONE CAIRN RT. BANK FORK OF RIV. FOL.RIV. N-E." were the directions upon the trail map pinned with a sliverto a caribou haunch. It had been well enough to skirt the great mountainrange beyond which, to the westward, lay Alaska. It was quite anotherthing, however, to turn their backs upon this range and strike due eastacross the vast snow-covered plain which stretched, far as the eye couldreach, as level as the surface of a frozen sea. For four days they mustmush eastward across this white expanse, without so much as a hill or athicket to guide--must hold, by compass alone, a course so true that itwould bring them, at the end of four days, to a certain solitary rockcairn at the fork of an unnamed river. Even the hardened old _tillicum_,Waseche Bill, hesitated as the dogs stood harnessed, awaiting the wordof command, and glanced questioningly into the upturned face of thesmall boy:
"It's a long shot, son, what do yo' say?" His answer was the thin whineof the boy's long-lashed dog whip that ended in a vicious crack at theears of McDougall's leaders:
"Mush-u, mush-u, hi!" and the boy whirled the long ten-team away fromthe mountains, straight into the heart of the Lillimuit.
The crust of the snow that lay deep over the frozen muskeg and tundrawas ideal for sled-travel and, of course, rendered unnecessary the useof snowshoes. All day long the steel-blue, cold fog hung in the north,obliterating the line of the flat horizon. The bitter wind that whippedand tore out of the Arctic died down at nightfall and, for the firsttime in their lives, the two felt the awful depression of the realArctic silence. Mountain men, these, used to the mighty uproar offrost-tortured nature. The silence they knew was punctuated by the longcrash of snow cornices as they tore loose from mountain crags andplunged into deep valleys to the roar of a riven forest; by the suddenboom of exploding trees; and the wild bellowing of lake ice, split fromshore to wooded shore in the mighty grip of the frost king.
But here, on the frozen muskeg, was no sound--only the dead, unearthlysilence that pressed upon them like an all-pervading _thing_. Closer andcloser it pressed, until their lungs breathed, not air--but_silence_--the dreaded, surcharged silence of the void--the uncannysilence that has caused strong men to leap, screaming and shrieking,upon it and, bare-handed, seek to wring its awful secrets from itsheart--and then to fall back upon the snow and maunder and laugh at theblood stains where the claw-like nails have bitten deep into theirpalms--but they feel no pain and gloat foolishly--for to their poor,tortured brains this blood is the heart's blood of the Silence of theNorth.
On the fourth day the ground rose slightly from the low level of themuskeg. All day they traversed long, low hills--which were not hills atall, but the roll of the barren ground, and in the evening came upon thebank of the river, but whether above or below the fork they could nottell.
"We'll follow it down--nawthwahd--fo' that's what the map says, an' ifwe do miss the _cache_, we'll strike the Ignatook camp in two mo' days.We got grub enough if a stawm don't hit us. I sho' am glad we-all didn'tget catched out yondeh." The man's eyes swept the wide expanse ofbarrens that lay between them and the distant peaks. "It's a goodhund'ed an' fifty mile acrost them flats--we sho' was lucky!"
The ice-locked river upon which they found themselves was a stream ofconsiderable size which flowed north, with a decided trend to theeastward. The muskeg and tundra had given place to the rocky formationof the ba
rren lands which cropped out upon the banks of the river inrock reefs and ledges. Scrub trees and bushes in sickly patches fringedthe banks, their leafless branches rattling in the wind.
An hour's travel on the snow-covered ice of the river brought them to asharp bend where a river flowed in from the eastward, and there, almostat the confluence of the two streams, stood the solitary rock cairn, amonument some seven feet in height and five feet in diameter at itsbase.
"He didn't _cache_ no great sight of meat heah," observed Waseche as,one by one, they removed the stones of the cairn. "We got a plenty, butI counted on this fo' the dawgs." Even as he spoke, they came upon aflat stone midway of the pile, which required their combined strength todisplace. With a harsh, grating sound it slid sidewise into the snow,disclosing a considerable cavity, in the centre of which lay, not theexpected _cache_ of caribou meat, but a human skull, whose fleshlessjaws grinned into their startled faces in sardonic mockery. Beside theskull lay a leaf torn from Carlson's notebook, and in Carlson'shandwriting the words:
FOL. RIV. 2d N to CREEK OF STEAM. FOL. UP CREEK 2m. CAMP W BANK IN OLD MINE TUNNEL. DISCOVERY 100ft. E. TUNNEL MOUTH. 1 ABOVE CLAIM--STAKED FOR PETE MATEESE. LOOK OUT FOR WHITE INJUNS.
"Ol' mine tunnel! White Injuns!" exclaimed Waseche. "I tell yo' what,son: so fah, Carlson's maps has hit out, but when he begins writin'about white Injuns an' ol' mine tunnels, an' _cachin'_ skull bones,'stead of meat! It's jest as I tol' yo'! We-all got to keep on now, butI sho' wisht we'd neveh found Carlson an' his crazy maps."
"Whose skull do you suppose it is? And why did he _cache_ it, I wonder?"asked Connie, as he handled gingerly the gruesome object.
"Seahch me!" said the man, glancing at the weather blackened skull."Come on, le's mush."
As they advanced the surface of the surrounding land became more brokenand the river descended rapidly in a series of falls, enclosed by thefreezing spray, in huge irregular masses of green-hued ice, whichimpeded their progress and taxed to the utmost the skill of the driversand the tricks of the trail-wise dogs in preventing the sleds from beingdashed to pieces upon the slope of the ice domes, from whose hollowinteriors came the muffled roar of the plunging falls.
The dogs were again on half ration, and even this was a serious drainupon the supply of meat. The walls of the river became higher until, onthe second day, they were threading a veritable canyon. At noon thelight dimmed suddenly, and the two gazed in surprise at the sun whichglowed with a sickly, vapoury glare, while all about them the air wasfilled with tiny glittering frost flakes, which lay thick and fluffyunder their feet and collected in diamond flashing clusters on the rocksand bushes of the canyon walls.
"It's snowing!" cried Connie, excitedly. "Snowing at forty below!"
"'Tain't snow, son. It's frozen fog, an' I cain't sense it. I c'n seehow it might thick up an' snow, even at forty below, but fog! Doggoneit! It takes wahm weatheh to _make_ fog--_an' it ain't wahm!_"
Toggling the lead dogs, they selected a spot where the wall of thecanyon was riven by the deep gash of a small feeder and climbedlaboriously to the top for a better view of the puzzling phenomenon.
Scarcely a quarter of a mile ahead a great bank of fog ascended, rollingand twisting toward the heavens. Slowly it rose from out of the snow,spreading into the motionless air like a giant mushroom of glitteringdiamond points which danced merrily earthward, converting the wholelandscape into a mystic tinsel world. Far to the westward the bankextended, winding and twisting like some great living monster.
"It's the creek of the steam!" cried Waseche Bill. "It's theah wheahCarlson's camp is." But, so entranced was the boy with the weird beautyof the scene, that he scarcely heard. He pointed excitedly toward a lowhill whose sides were wooded with the scrub timber of the country, whereeach stunted tree, each limb and spiney leaf curved gracefully under itsweight of flashing rime. Towers, battlements, and spires glinted in thebrilliant splendour, for, out of the direct line of the fog bank thathung above the course of the narrow creek, the sun shone as clear andbright as the low-hung winter sun of the sub-Arctic ever does shine, andits slanting rays flashed sharply from a billion tiny facets.
"It's the frozen forest that he wrote about!" exclaimed the delightedboy. "It's the most beautiful thing in the world! Now, aren't you gladyou came?" But Waseche Bill shook his head dubiously, and began thedescent to the canyon.
"Why! Where are the dogs!" cried the boy, who was first upon the surfaceof the river. Waseche hurried to his side; sure enough, neither dogs norsleds were in sight and the man leaped forward to examine the thickcarpet of rime.
"The two partners stared open-mouthed at the apparition._The face was white!_"]
"It's Injuns!" he announced. "Nine or ten of 'em, an' they headednawth!" And, even as he spoke, a grotesquely feathered, beaver-toppedhead appeared above a frost-coated rock, almost at his elbow, and thetwo partners stared open-mouthed at the apparition. _The face waswhite!_