Part 11 (1/2)
”And there's the gold,” Daylight said. ”I tell you-all boys they ain't never been gold like that in the blower before. Look at the color of it.”
”A trifle darker,” Curly Parson said. ”Most likely Carmack's been carrying a couple of silver dollars along in the same sack. And what's more, if there's anything in it, why ain't Bob Henderson smoking along to record?”
”He's up on Gold Bottom,” Carmack explained. ”We made the strike coming back.”
A burst of laughter was his reward.
”Who-all'll go pardners with me and pull out in a poling-boat to-morrow for this here Bonanza?” Daylight asked.
No one volunteered.
”Then who-all'll take a job from me, cash wages in advance, to pole up a thousand pounds of grub?”
Curly Parsons and another, Pat Monahan, accepted, and, with his customary speed, Daylight paid them their wages in advance and arranged the purchase of the supplies, though he emptied his sack in doing so.
He was leaving the Sourdough, when he suddenly turned back to the bar from the door.
”Got another hunch?” was the query.
”I sure have,” he answered. ”Flour's sure going to be worth what a man will pay for it this winter up on the Klondike. Who'll lend me some money?”
On the instant a score of the men who had declined to accompany him on the wild-goose chase were crowding about him with proffered gold-sacks.
”How much flour do you want?” asked the Alaska Commercial Company's storekeeper.
”About two ton.”
The proffered gold-sacks were not withdrawn, though their owners were guilty of an outrageous burst of merriment.
”What are you going to do with two tons?” the store-keeper demanded.
”Son,” Daylight made reply, ”you-all ain't been in this country long enough to know all its curves. I'm going to start a sauerkraut factory and combined dandruff remedy.”
He borrowed money right and left, engaging and paying six other men to bring up the flour in half as many more poling-boats. Again his sack was empty, and he was heavily in debt.
Curly Parsons bowed his head on the bar with a gesture of despair.
”What gets me,” he moaned, ”is what you're going to do with it all.”
”I'll tell you-all in simple A, B, C and one, two, three.” Daylight held up one finger and began checking off. ”Hunch number one: a big strike coming in Upper Country. Hunch number two: Carmack's made it.
Hunch number three: ain't no hunch at all. It's a cinch. If one and two is right, then flour just has to go sky-high. If I'm riding hunches one and two, I just got to ride this cinch, which is number three. If I'm right, flour'll balance gold on the scales this winter.
I tell you-all boys, when you-all got a hunch, play it for all it's worth. What's luck good for, if you-all ain't to ride it? And when you-all ride it, ride like h.e.l.l. I've been years in this country, just waiting for the right hunch to come along. And here she is. Well, I'm going to play her, that's all. Good night, you-all; good night.”
CHAPTER X
Still men were without faith in the strike. When Daylight, with his heavy outfit of flour, arrived at the mouth of the Klondike, he found the big flat as desolate and tenantless as ever. Down close by the river, Chief Isaac and his Indians were camped beside the frames on which they were drying salmon. Several old-timers were also in camp there. Having finished their summer work on Ten Mile Creek, they had come down the Yukon, bound for Circle City. But at Sixty Mile they had learned of the strike, and stopped off to look over the ground. They had just returned to their boat when Daylight landed his flour, and their report was pessimistic.
”d.a.m.ned moose-pasture,” quoth one, Long Jim Harney, pausing to blow into his tin mug of tea. ”Don't you have nothin' to do with it, Daylight. It's a blamed rotten sell. They're just going through the motions of a strike. Harper and Ladue's behind it, and Carmack's the stool-pigeon. Whoever heard of mining a moose-pasture half a mile between rim-rock and G.o.d alone knows how far to bed-rock!”