CHAPTER VIII
THE END OF THE PASSAGE
Wally Selfridge was a reliable business subordinate, even though he hadslipped up in the matter of the appointment of Elliot. But when it cameto facing the physical hardships of the North he was a malingerer. TheKamatlah trip had to be taken because his chief had ordered it, but thelittle man shirked the journey in his heart just as he knew his softmuscles would shrink from the aches of the trail.
His idea of work was a set of tennis on the outdoor wooden court of theKusiak clubhouse, and even there his game was not a hard, smashing one,but an easy foursome with a girl for partner. He liked better to playbridge with attendants at hand to supply drinks and cigars. By nature hewas a sybarite. The call of the frontier found no response in hissophisticated soul.
The part of the journey to be made by water was not so bad. Left to hisown judgment, he would have gone to St. Michael's by boat and chartereda small steamer for the long trip along the coast through Bering Sea.But this would take time, and Macdonald did not mean to let him wastea day. He was to leave the river boat at the big bend and pack acrosscountry to Kamatlah. It would be a rough, heavy trail. The mosquitoeswould be a continual torment. The cooking would be poor. And at the endof the long trek there awaited him monotonous months in a wretched coalcamp far from all the comforts of civilization. No wonder he grumbled.
But though he grumbled at home and at the club and on the street abouthis coming exile, Selfridge made no complaints to Macdonald. That man ofsteel had no sympathy with the yearnings for the fleshpots. He was usedto driving himself through discomfort to his end, and he expected asmuch of his deputies. Wherefore Wally took the boat at the timescheduled and waved a dismal farewell to wife and friends assembled uponthe wharf.
Elliot said good-bye to the Pagets and Miss O'Neill ten days later.Diane was very frank with him.
"I hear you've been sleuthing around, Gordon, for facts about ColbyMacdonald. I don't know what you have heard about him, but I hope you'vegot the sense to see how big a man he is and how much this country hereowes him."
Gordon nodded agreement. "Yes, he's a big man."
"And he's good," added Sheba eagerly. "He never talks of it, but onefinds out splendid things he has done."
The young man smiled, but not at all superciliously. He liked the stanchfaith of the girl in her friend, even though his investigations had notled him to accept goodness as the outstanding quality of the Scotchman.
"I don't know what we would do without him," Diane went on. "Give himten years and a free hand and Alaska will be fit for white people tolive in. These attacks on him by newspapers and magazines are anoutrage."
"It's plain that you are a partisan," charged Gordon gayly.
"I'm against locking up Alaska and throwing away the key, if that iswhat you mean by a partisan. We need this country opened up--the farmssettled, the mines worked, the coal-fields developed, railroads built.It is one great big opportunity, the country here, and the narrow littleconservation cranks want to shut it up tight from the people who haveenergy and foresight enough to help do the building."
"The Kusiak Chamber of Commerce ought to send you out as a lecturer tochange public opinion, Diane. You are one enthusiastic little boosterfor freedom of opportunity," laughed the young man.
"Oh, well!" Diane joined in his laughter. It was one of her good pointsthat she could laugh at herself. "I dare say I do sound like a realestate pamphlet, but it's all true anyhow."
Gordon left Kusiak as reluctantly as Wally Selfridge had done, thoughhis reasons for not wanting to go were quite different. They centeredabout a dusky-eyed young woman whom he had seen for the first time afortnight before. He would have denied even to himself that he was inlove, but whenever he was alone his thoughts reverted to Sheba O'Neill.
At the big bend Gordon left the river boat for his cross-country trek.Near the roadhouse was an Indian village where he had expected to get aguide for the journey to Kamatlah. But the fishing season had begun, andthe men had all gone down river to take part in it.
The old Frenchman who kept the trading-post and roadhouse advised Gordonnot to attempt the tramp alone.
"The trail it ees what you call dangerous. Feefty-Mile Swamp ees amonster that swallows men alive, Monsieur. You wait one week--twoweek--t'ree week, and some one will turn up to take you through," heurged.
"But I can't wait. And I have an official map of the trail. Why can'tI follow it without a guide?" Elliot wanted to know impatiently.
The post-trader shrugged. "Maybeso, Monsieur--maybe not. Feefty-Mile--itees one devil of a trail. No chechakoes are safe in there without aguide. I, Baptiste, know."
"Selfridge and his party went through a week ago. I can follow thetracks they left."
"But if it rains, Monsieur, the tracks will vaneesh, n'est ce pas? Losethe way, and the little singing folk will swarm in clouds about Monsieurwhile he stumbles through the swamp."
Elliot hesitated for the better part of a day, then came to an impulsivedecision. He knew the evil fame of Fifty-Mile Swamp--that no trail inAlaska was held to be more difficult or dangerous. He knew too what afearful pest the mosquitoes were. Peter had told him a story of how heand a party of engineers had come upon a man wandering in the hills,driven mad by mosquitoes. The traveler had lost his matches and had beenunable to light smudge fires. Day and night the little singing devilshad swarmed about him. He could not sleep. He could not rest. Everymoment for forty-eight hours he had fought for his life against them.Within an hour of the time they found him the man had died a ravingmaniac.
But Elliot was well equipped with mosquito netting and with supplies. Hehad a reliable map, and anyhow he had only to follow the tracks left bythe Selfridge party. He turned his back upon the big river and plungedinto the wilderness.
There came a night when he looked up into the stars of the deep, stillsky and knew that he was hundreds of miles from any other human being.Never in all his life had he been so much alone. He was not afraid, butthere was something awesome in a world so empty of his kind. Sometimeshe sang, and the sound of his voice at first startled him. It was likeliving in a world primeval, this traverse of a land so void of all themechanism that man has built about him.
The tracks of the Selfridge party grew fainter after a night of rain.More rain fell, and they were obliterated altogether.
Gordon fished. He killed fresh game for his needs. Often he came on thetracks of moose and caribou. Sometimes, startled, they leaped into viewquite close enough for a shot, but he used his rifle only to meet hiswants. A huge grizzly faced him on the trail one afternoon, growled itsmenace, and went lumbering into the big rocks with awkward speed.
The way led through valley and morass, across hills and mountains. Itwandered in a sort of haphazard fashion through a sun-bathed universewashed clean of sordidness and meanness. Always, as he pushed forward,the path grew more faint and uncertain. Elk runs crossed it here andthere, so that often Gordon went astray and had to retrace his steps.
The maddening song of the mosquitoes was always with him. Only when heslept did he escape from it. The heavy gloves, the netting, the smudgefires were at best an insufficient protection.
It was the seventh night out that Elliot suspected he was off the trail.Rain sluiced down in torrents and next day continued to pour from a dunsky. His own tracks were blotted out and he searched for the trail invain. Before the rain stopped, he was thoroughly disturbed in mind. Itwould be a serious business if he should be lost in the bad lands of thebogs. Even though he knew the general direction he must follow, therewas no certainty that he would ever emerge from this swamp into which hehad plunged.
Before he knew it he was entangled in Fifty-Mile. His map showed him themorass stretched for fifty miles to the south, but he knew that it hadbeen charted hurriedly by a surveying party which had made no extensiveexplorations. A good deal of this country was _terra incognita_. Itran vaguely into a No Man's Land unknown to the prospector.
The going was heav
y. Gordon had to pick his way through the mossy swamp,leading the pack-horse by the bridle. Sometimes he was ankle-deep inwater of a greenish slime. Again he had to drag the animal from the bogto a hummock of grass which gave a spongy footing. This would end inanother quagmire of peat through which they must plough with the mudsucking at their feet. It was hard, wearing toil. There was nothing todo but keep moving. The young man staggered forward till dusk. Utterlyexhausted, he camped for the night on a hillock of moss that rose likean island in the swamp.
After he had eaten he fed his fire with green boughs that raised a densesmoke. He lay on the leeward side where the smoke drifted over him andfought mosquitoes till a shift of the wind lessened the plague. Towardmidnight he rigged up a net for protection and crawled into hisblankets. Instantly he fell sound asleep.
Elliot traveled next day by the compass. He had food for three daysmore, but he knew that no living man had the strength to travel for solong in such a morass. It was near midday when he lost his horse. Theanimal had bogged down several times and Gordon had wasted much time andspent a good deal of needed energy in dragging it to firmer footing.This time the pony refused to answer the whip. Its master unloaded packand saddle. He tried coaxing; he tried the whip.
"Come, Old-Timer. One plunge, and you'll make it yet," he urged.
The pack-horse turned upon him dumb eyes of reproach, struggled to freeits limbs from the mud, and sank down helplessly. It had traveled itslast yard on the long Alaska trails.
After the sound of the shot had died away, Gordon struggled with thepack to the nearest hummock. He cut holes in a gunny-sack to fit hisshoulders and packed into it his blankets, a saucepan, the beans, thecoffee, and the diminished handful of flour. Into it went too the threeslices of bacon that were left.
He hoisted the pack to his back and slipped his arms through the slitshe had made. Painfully he labored forward over the quivering peat. Everyweary muscle revolted at the demands his will imposed upon it. He drewon the last ounce of his strength and staggered forward. Sometimes hestumbled and went down into the oozing mud, minded to stay there andbe done with the struggle. But the urge of life drove him to his feetagain. It sent him pitching forward drunkenly. It carried him for wearymiles after he despaired of ever covering another hundred yards.
With old, half-forgotten signals from the football field he spurred hiswill. Perhaps his mind was already beginning to wander, though throughit all he held steadily to the direction that alone could save him.
He clapped his hands feebly and stooped for the plunge at the line ofthe enemy. "'Attaboy, Gord--'attaboy--nine, eleven, seventeen. Hit 'erlow, you Elliot."
When at last he went down to stay it was in an exhaustion so completethat not even his indomitable will could lash him to his feet again.For an hour he lay in a stupor, never stirring even to fight the swarmof mosquitoes that buzzed about him.
Toward evening he sat up and undid the pack from his back. The matches,in a tin box wrapped carefully with oilskin, were still perfectly dry.Soon he had a fire going and coffee boiling in the frying-pan. Fromthe tin cup he carried strung on his belt he drank the coffee. It wentthrough him like strong liquor. He warmed some beans and fried himself aslice of bacon, sopping up the grease with a cold biscuit left over fromthe day before.
Again he slept for a few hours. He had wound his watch mechanicallyand it showed him four o'clock when he took up the trail once more.In Seattle and San Francisco people were still asleep and darkness washeavy over the land. Here it had been day for a long time, ever sincethe summer sun, hidden for a while behind the low, distant hills, hadcome blazing forth again in a saddle between two peaks.
Gordon had reduced his pack by discarding a blanket, the frying-pan,and all the clothing he was not wearing. His rifle lay behind him in theswamp. He had cut to a minimum of safety what he was carrying, accordingto his judgment. But before long his last blanket was flung aside. Hecould not afford to carry an extra pound, for he knew he was running arace, the stakes of which were life and death.
A cloud of mosquitoes moved with him. He carried in his hand a sprucebough for defense against them. His hands were gloved, his face wascovered with netting. But in spite of the best he could do they were anadded torture.
Afternoon found him still staggering forward. The swamps were nowbehind him. He had won through at last by the narrowest margin possible.The ground was rising sharply toward the mountains. Across the rangesomewhere lay Kamatlah. But he was all in. With his food almost gone,a water supply uncertain, reserve strength exhausted, the chances ofgetting over the divide to safety were practically none.
He had come, so far as he could see, to the end of the passage.