CHAPTER IV
PARTNERS
For a long time Waseche Bill sat tilted back against the wall. His pipewent out unheeded and remained black and cold, gripped between hisclenched teeth. At length he arose and, noiselessly crossing the room,stood looking down at the tousled yellow curls that shone dully in thelamp-light at the end of the roll of blankets. Making sure that the boyslept, he began silently to assemble his trail pack. Tent, blankets,grub, and rifle he bound firmly onto the strong dog-sled, and returningto the room, slid back a loose board from its place in the floor. Fromthe black hole beneath he withdrew a heavy buckskin pouch and, pouringthe contents onto a folded paper, proceeded to divide equally the pileof small glittering particles, and the flattened black nuggets ofwater-worn gold. One portion he stuffed into a heavy canvas money beltwhich he strapped about him, the other he placed in the pouch andreturned to its hiding place under the floor. He fumbled in his pocketfor the stub of a lead pencil and, with a sheet of brown paper beforehim, sat down at the table and began laboriously to write.
"Making sure that the boy slept, he began silently toassemble his trail pack."]
Waseche Bill had never written a letter, nor had he ever received one.There was no one to write to, for, during an epidemic of smallpox in adirty, twenty-two calibre town of a river State, he had seen his motherand father placed in long, black, pine boxes, by men who worked swiftlyand silently, and wore strange-looking white masks with sponges at themouth, and terrible straight, black robes which smelled strongly, likethe open door of a drug store, and he had seen the boxes carried out atnight and placed on a flat dray which drove swiftly away in thedirection of the treeless square of sand waste, within whosewhite-fenced enclosure a few cheap marble slabs gleamed whitely amongmany wooden ones. All this he watched from the window, tearful,terrorized, alone, and from the same window watched the dray drivenhurriedly back through the awful silence of the deserted street and stopbefore other houses where other black boxes were carried out by thestrange, silent men dressed in their terrible motley.
The next day other men came and took him away to the "home." That is,the men called it a "home," but it was not at all like the home he hadleft where there was always plenty to eat, and where mother and father,no matter how tired and worried they were, always found time to smile orromp, and in the long evenings, to tell stories. But in this new homewere a matron and a superintendent, instead of mother and father, and,except on visiting days, there was rarely enough to eat, and many rulesto be obeyed, and irksome work to be done that tired small bodies. Andinstead of smiles and romps and stories there were frowns and whippingsand quick, terrifying shakings and scoldings over hard lessons. Heremembered how one day he stole out through an unlocked gate and hiduntil dark in a weed patch, and then trudged miles and miles throughthe long night and in the morning found himself in the bewilderingoutskirts of a great city--he was not Waseche Bill then, but just WillieAntrum, a small boy, who at the age of nine faced the great world alone.
The solving of the problem of existence had left scant time for booklearning, and the man regretted the fact now when he was called upon forthe first time to express himself in writing. He had never examined aletter; his brief excursions into the field of literature having beenconfined to the recording of claim papers, and the painful spelling outof various notices, handbills, and placards, which were posted from timeto time in conspicuous places about trading posts or docks. He puzzledlong over how to begin, and at each word paused to tug at his longmoustache, and glower helplessly and gnaw the end of his stubby pencil.At last he finished, and weighting the paper with his own new,six-bladed jackknife crossed again to the bunk and stood for a longtime looking down at the sleeping boy.
"I sho' do hate to go 'way an' leave yo' li'l' pa'd," he murmured."Feels like pullin' teeth in yere." The big fingers pressed the front ofhis blue flannel shirt. "But it cain't neveh be tole how Waseche Billdone helt his pa'dneh to a bad ba'gain afteh his own claim run out--an'him only a kid. Ef yo' was a man 'twould be dif'ent, but yo' ain't, an'when you' grow'd up yo' might think I tuk advantage of yo'."
"Sam Mo'gan unlucky!" he exclaimed, under his breath, "Why ef yo' was myreg'lar own boy, pa'd, I'd be the luckiest man in Alaska--if I nevehstruck coleh. Unlucky, sho'!" And with a suspicious winking of the eyes,and a strange lump in his throat, Waseche Bill blew out the lamp, closedthe door softly behind him, harnessed his dogs, and swung out onto themoonlit trail which gleamed white and cold between low-lying ridges ofstunted spruce.
Connie Morgan awoke next morning with a feeling that all was not well.It was dark in the cabin, but his ears could detect no sound of heavybreathing from the direction of his partner's bunk. Hastily he slippedfrom under his blankets and lighted the tin reflector lamp. As theyellow light flooded the room the boy's heart almost stopped beating andthere was a strange sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach, like thatday at Anvik when the little Yukon steamer churned noisily away from thelog pier. For Waseche Bill's bunk was empty and his blankets were gone,and so was the tent that had lain in a compact bale in the corner, andWaseche Bill's rifle was missing from its pegs over the window.
Suddenly his glance was arrested by the scrap of paper upon the table,where the rays of light glinted on the backs of the polished blades. Hesnatched up the paper and holding it close to the light, spelled out,with difficulty, the scrawling lines:
NOTISS.
dere Pard an' to Whom it may consern
this here is to Notissfy that me W. Bill [he never could remember how to spell Waseche, and the name of Antrum had long been forgotten] has quit pardners with C. Morgan. him to hev both claims which mine aint no good no moar it havin Petered Out an sloped off into hissen. i, W. BILL done tuk wat grub i nead an 1/2 the dust which was ourn, leavin hissen into the poke which i hid as per always him noin whar its at--an also to hev the cabin an geer.
SINED an SWORE TO befor ME OKT. 3 at ten Bow camp. so long. Kep the jack nife Kid fer to rember me with. do like i tole yo an dont drink no booz nor buck faro layouts like yer daddy never done an sum day yull be like him barrin his heft which he was a big man but mebe yull gro which ef yo dont dont wory none. ive saw runty size men for now which they was _good men_ like Peat Moar down to rapid City. play the game squr an tak adviz offen Mak Doogle an Duch Henery an Scotty an D colton but not othes til yo no em wel. I aimed to see yo thru but things turnin out as they done i caint. but the boys will hand it to yo strate--thems GOOD MEN yurse troole W. bill.
The boy finished reading and, dropping his head in his folded arms,sobbed as if his heart would break.
Big McDougall was aroused in the early grey of the cold Alaska dawn byan insistent pounding upon his door.
"Come in, can't ye! D'ye want to break doon the hoose?" And as ConnieMorgan burst into the room, he sat upon the edge of his bunk and grinnedsleepily.
"What's ailin' ye lad, ye look flustered?"
"Waseche's gone!" cried the boy, in a choking voice, as he thrust thepaper into the great hairy hand.
"Gone?" questioned the man, and began slowly to decipher the scrawl. Atlength he glanced at the boy who stood impatiently by.
"Weel?" the Scotchman asked.
"I want your dogs!"
The man scratched his head.
"What'll ye be up to wi' the dogs?"
"I'm going to find Waseche, of course. He's my pardner, and I'm going tostay by him!" McDougall slowly drew on his boots, and when he looked uphis bearded face was expressionless.
"D'ye onderstan' that Waseche's claim's no gude? It sloped off shallowrock onto yourn, an' it's worked out a'ready. Waseche, he's gone, an'ye're full owner o' the best claim on the Ten Bow. You ain't got nopardner to divide up wi'--it's all yourn."
The boy regarded him with blazing eyes:
"What do you mean, I have no pardner? Waseche _is_ my pardner, and youbet he'll find that out when I catch him! I'll stick by him no matterwhat he sa
ys, and if he won't come back, I won't either! Of course I'vegot the best claim on Ten Bow, but Waseche put me onto it, and gave meold Boris, and--" his voice broke and the words came choking between drysobs--"and that day in Anvik he said he owed my father a hundreddollars, and the others all chipped in--I thought it was true then--butI know now--and I shut up about it because they thought I never knew!
"I don't want the claim, I want Waseche! And I'll stick by him if I haveto abandon the claim. Pardners are pardners! and when I catch that old_tillicum_ I'll--I'll bring him back if I have to _beat him up_! My dadlicked British Kronk at Candle--and British was bigger! He's _got_ tocome back!" The small fists were doubled and the small voice rang shrilland high with righteous indignation. Suddenly Big McDougall's hand shotout and gripped the little fist, which he wrung in a mighty grip.
"Ah, laddie, fer all yer wee size, ye're a _mon_! Run ye the noo, an'pack the sled whilst I harness the dogs. Wi' that ten-team ye'll comeup wi' Waseche anent Ragged Falls Post." Twenty minutes later the boyappeared with his own dogs unleashed.
"McDougall's prize _malamutes_ shot out on the trail."]
"Mush! Boris, find Waseche! Mush!" And the old dog, in perfectunderstanding, uttered a low whine of eagerness, and headed northward ata run. The next instant the boy threw himself belly-wise onto the sledand McDougall's prize _malamutes_ shot out on the trail of the old leaddog, with big Mutt and the red-eyed Slasher running free in their wake.
Standing in his doorway, the Scotchman watched them dwindle in thedistance, while distinctly to his ears, through the still, keen air,was borne the sharp creak of runners and the thin shouts of the boy ashe urged the dogs over the hard-packed trail:
"Hi! Hi! Mush-u! Mush-u! Chook-e-e-e!"