CHAPTER X.
When we went out to the gulch, on the following morning, we overtook a heavily loaded sled, pulled by worn dogs. Toiling along, and floundering here and there in the snow at the side, was a man with the gee pole in one hand, and a rope across his shoulder, dragging to his full strength; and behind, bent far forward, and planting her moccasins heavily on the snow to get solid foothold, was a squaw. We came abreast of them, and discovered that it was Constantine and his sister, Mary, the Big Chicken, taking their outfit up to Marook's claim on Hunter Creek. The girl's face had lost its cheerfulness of the night before, and she looked sullen and discontented. Constantine was grave and steady.
Remembering the story told me by Cavanaugh, I eyed them with much interest, and paused long enough to exchange a few words, and to tell Constantine where there was a short cut which would save him some work.
“Gee! But doesn't the Big Chicken look ugly this mornin'?” Kentucky laughed, after we had passed them. “Don't blame her. If I had gold moccasins, and was a klootch, I'd want to dog it a while, instead of slippin' off my glad rags, gettin' into a denim parka, and heavin' myself against a sled.”
I wondered if he suspected all that was told by the red gold; but, on thought, was certain that he did not, for I doubted whether even Bessie Wilton was aware of the details.
“I wouldn't mind havin' those golden shoes along about now, myself,” he said, with a sigh, and I felt sorry for him, knowing that money alone was all that prevented him from fulfillment of his happiness. My twinge of jealousy returned for an instant, and I had to fight it down.
As we plodded along in the brightness of the morning and the bracing cold, we heard some one swinging through the turn of the trail coming from the creek, and in a minute more a voice shouted: “Hello, there! Is that you, Kentucky? I've been looking for you. You're just the man I want.”
It was the prosperous McGraw, who had the best claim on our gulch.
“What's up?” questioned Kentucky hopefully.
“You aren't doing anything, are you, just now?”
“No. Sorry to admit it. Want a good, husky young feller like me?”
“Yes. I want you to do some assessment work for me. I've got two claims on Hunter Creek, and you can do them both. Cavanaugh tells me that a native named Constantine is going to be on the creek with his sister. They've got a cabin there, and when they come maybe you could arrange to get in their cabin and save a tent and big outfit.”
“Good! You're on,” exclaimed Kentuck, in delight. “And they're on the way out now, with an outfit. I'll go right back with you, and find out about the cabin. You don't mind, do you, Tom?”
“Mind?” I laughed at his boyish question. “No, I'm glad you've struck something. Certainly it's best for you to go back and ask them.”
They left me to finish my journey alone, and tell Dan of the reappearance of the gaudy footwear that had been connected with so much of tragedy.
Kentucky was not a laggard. Before the day was over he appeared, pulling a sled with some tools, food, and blankets, and announced that he had made his arrangements with Constantine, and was going over to begin work.
“I'll run over and see you every evening or two,” he called back, as he went hurrying on down the trail.
And he kept his promise, for he was in our cabin but three nights later, and threw himself on the spare bunk to smoke and talk. He was in higher spirits, and was amused by his new quarters.
“Funniest mix-up I ever saw,” he declared. “The Big Chicken's got a grouch that makes the candles smoky, and I reckon that Constantine's got a mighty big job to keep her from desertin' the ship, and goin' back to the igloos. They don't know I can understand 'em, and so I just sit around and try to look like a fool. And the funniest part of it is that the Hatchet showed up the second day, and he's got the hypnotic eye on the Big Chicken, and Constantine don't like that; but can't just see how to help himself. The Hatchet loves me! Oh, yes! Maybe he thinks I want to win that squaw. And say!”
He suddenly sat up on the edge of the bunk, and bumped his head against the one above it. He rubbed the bruise, but went on, without referring to it:
“I've seen the golden shoes! They're peaches, all right! The Big Chicken showed 'em to me, and Constantine was sore. He says there's a cuss on the gold they're made of; but the Big Chicken thinks it's a right good sort of a cuss, and I agreed with her.”
“Wouldn't mind if this claim was cursed with it a while, myself,” said Dan gloomily, remembering the fact that we were still without pay dirt, although we had crosscut more than two-thirds of the way across the gulch.
Doubtless he was thinking of all those dependent on the remittances from the Ocean Bank that had failed and left them without means, and cut off from communication with their protector. After that Kentucky's cheerful remarks sounded like chatter, and I was not sorry when he left. It seemed as if that night were the beginning of more afflictions for Dan, for he woke up in the morning with a badly swollen face, and all indications that he would suffer from an abscess on his cheek bone.
“Better go down and see Doctor Sidebotham,” I said; but he insisted on working that day and the next, and even the dogs were neglected by him, though they leaped around him for the touch of his caressing hand, and the sound of his caressing voice.
I had heated hot-water bottles, and put them against his swaddled face, and was just preparing to blow out the light, when we heard a sound out in the stillness of the night, where the solitude was so vast that even the fall of snow from a pine bough became a crash. It was some one coming hastily up the trail. We waited for the visitor, who banged at the door, and then opened it. It was Kentucky Smith.
He was breathless as he shut the door behind him, and leaned against it for a moment, then looked around.
“Late, ain't I?” he said. “But I couldn't wait to tell you all what I heard. Hello! What's the matter with you, Dan? Got toothache?”
My partner nodded, and I explained in words; but Kentucky's sympathy was overcome by his anxiety to explain his errand.
“Say,” he blurted out excitedly, “I ran most of the way here to tell you somethin'. You know I told you that the Hatchet, that Sioux, was makin' goo-goo eyes at the Big Chicken, and that Constantine didn't stand for it very well, and that none of 'em knew I understood their lingo? Well, there's big doin's about to come off. Three or four days, I reckon. The Hatchet and the Big Chicken are goin' to gallop off together, and you cain't calculate where! They're goin' after the ground where that sorrel gold comes front! True, I swear it!”
He threw himself on a stool, and Dan forgot his miseries, and lifted himself to his elbow, intent. Kentuck tossed his hat on the bunk, and wiped his forehead, and pulled his blue parka over his head, and smoothed down his hair. He began talking again, pouring out his words in a far more rapid flow than his accustomed drawl, and rolled a cigarette as he talked.
“I don't get all of it, you understand, but I get the run of it—the conversation, I mean. I had been up to fix my fires, because I'm mighty eager to give McGraw somethin' more than assessment work. I want to find somethin' for him, so I'm sinkin' in what seems to be the best place in the draw. The trail around the cabin's soft, because there ain't been many people walkin' over it.
“Just as I came to one side of the cabin, it seemed to me I heard somethin' on the other, and I was right curious. I stood still. The door opened after a minute, and out comes a black shape that I recognized as that fool, Big Chicken. She slips around the corner away from me, and so I just naturally slips around the other. I had an idea Constantine, who is all right, and a good feller, was asleep.
“There's another black shape out there when I pokes my head around, and it was the Hatchet. I pulled back mighty sudden, because they were not more than three feet from me, and I could hear everything they said. As far as I can make out, whoever gave her those moccasins told her where the gold came from, and the Hatchet has talked her into goin' after it. They'd have taken Constantine, but he doesn't like the Hatchet. So they're goin' to leave him. She'd put it up to him before, but he's afraid of the ghosts, and set his foot down, and said she shouldn't go anywhere or tell any one if he could help it.”
He paused to roll a cigarette for Dan, and then went on:
“The Big Chicken's some soft on this Hatchet man, because he's different from a Siwash. She's agreed to go with him. They're goin' to pull out. I cain't understand that native way of tellin' days by the full moon; but as near as I can make out, the Hatchet leaves in a day or so for Taninaw. She's to tell Constantine that she's sick of livin' on Hunter Creek, and is goin' down to the village; but she goes right on. She is to meet the Hatchet down by the Ramparts. Then they go to Taninaw, and tell folks they're buck and squaw, all right, lay in some grub, and pull out.
“And they don't go up the Taninaw the way they're to make believe. They start in that direction, then make a big circle and come back on the north side of the Yukon in that little river that comes in about there, and they're to go up to its head, and over the Yukon hills and off north, to where it seems they reckon Sam Barstow found that gold. Now, what do you think of that?”
He paused, with an air of triumph, and Dan lifted himself still higher in his bunk, while I thought of all that was involved.
“You mean that the thing to do is to trail 'em?” Dan mumbled.
“Sure! Get after 'em, and stake the claims next to theirs. They cain't grab it all!”
Dan, holding his hand to his swollen face, looked wistful.
“I'd think over takin' a chance,” he said, “if my jaw was better. But pshaw! Tom and me'd be fools! We're bound to get somethin' here, sooner or later. What's the use!”
He settled back into his bunk again, and nestled his aching face against the water bottles. Kentucky looked his disappointment.
“You can't tell anything about the reliability of these native yarns, anyway,” Dan added. “If I'd follered every trail of that kind I've heard about since I've been in this country, I'd have been trail-worn to a shadow, and so sore-footed my moccasins wouldn't hold my feet. Of course, Barstow got it somewhere; but nobody can see whether the Big Chicken or anybody else has any idea. And Sam's dead.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell them what I knew, and the words were fluttering in my mouth, when I checked myself, remembering that Cavanaugh had told me in a confidential mood. I did not share the trader's superstition, nor the Indian belief, that this gold, or any gold taken from the earth, was foredoomed to bring evil on those who found it. I saw in the gruesome tale connected with it merely a history of oversuffering in the case of Bill Wilton, and coincidence in the turgid drama played by Pitkok, Barstow, Marie Devinne, and Spider Riggs.
Gold, being inanimate, might not choose its masters, and on them rested the responsibility for its use. To attempt to trail the Big Chicken and her Sioux lover would be no pygmy's task; but, with our own claim proving fallow, I might have undertaken it had Dan been agreeable. Now it was out of the question, and, moreover, there was nothing but Kentucky's eavesdropping, conjectures, and partial knowledge of the native tongue, to cause consideration.
“Oh, forget all about it,” I said. “It might be a chance, but the odds are it would prove a fake. Go home, and go to bed, and make up your mind that if you can find something for McGraw, he'll do better by you than lead you off on a wild-goose chase.”
I saw the boyish enthusiasm in Kentuck's eyes die away to a look of disappointment, and he put his hat on his head.
“Mind you, Kentuck,” I added, “we're grateful to you for coming over to tell us about this; but we are the singed ducks. We have stampeded too many times. If it goes to anything more certain, there will be time enough for us to join in. How does McGraw's claim look? Any colors, or have you got down to the gravel yet?”
He would not permit me to change the subject, and sat there for an hour offering arguments in favor of his hope. And he went away dejected because we had not immediately enthused with him, and grasped what he believed to be an opportunity. In five minutes after he left, our cabin was dark and.still, and Dan, worn out from work and two restless nights, was asleep, while I, on my back, and with wide eyes, stared at the window opening, whose little squares, befogged by the outer frost, looked like pallid sheets stuck upon the wall.
But Dan could bear the pain no longer, and even his fortitude gave way, when on the following morning he arose from his bunk.
“I think,” he grumbled, “that I'll have to go down to the camp and see the doctor. That means stayin' down there for two or three days, I suppose, while he opens this thing up, and drains it. You won't mind, will you, Tom?”
“You go ahead,” I retorted. “I'll keep things going ahead. That is what I asked you to do in the first place. And you stay down there until that jaw of yours is well, and don't worry about the claim. I'll keep on drifting and sinking, and will dump the waste back into the drifts we know are no good. I can't see any utility in making a big waste dump.”
I watched him as he trudged off down the trail with his parka hood muffled, until his head looked inordinately large, waved my hand in response to his parting salute, and did not realize that it was to be long weeks before I should see him again, and that I was to suffer as men rarely suffer before I again felt the clasp of his sturdy and faithful hand.