Part 29 (1/2)

”But, how about the dust?” asked the Captain, ”If they don't come, we've got to find the camp.”

Claw laughed: ”You'll have a h.e.l.l of a time doin' it! With the snow piled twenty foot deep along them ledges. If they don't show up, we'll shove on to the Injuns. It's clost to a hundred an' fifty mile to the camp, accordin' to the Dog Rib, an' it'll take us anyways a week to make it, with the goin' as bad as it is.”

”An' if we hang around here fer a couple o' days, that'll make nine days, with a week's grub. What ye goin' to do 'bout that? I told ye we'd ort to take more.”

”Yer head don't hurt you none--the way you work it, does it?” sneered Claw, ”I s'pose we couldn't send the Dog Rib back fer some more grub while we was awaitin'? An' while he's gone you kin git a belly full of rootin' up the snow to find the camp.”

For two days Claw laid in the tent and laughed at the Captain's sporadic efforts to uncover Brent's camp. ”If you'd help, 'stead of layin' around laughin', we might find it!” flared the Captain.

”I don't want to find it,” jeered Claw, ”I'm usin' my head--me. The main reason I come here was to kill Ace-In-The-Hole, so he couldn't b.u.t.t in on the other business. If the storm saved me the trouble, all right.”

”But, the dust!”

”Sure--the dust,” mocked Claw. ”If we find the camp, an' locate the dust, I divide it up with you. If we don't--I slip up here in the spring, when you're chasin' whales, an' with the snow melted off all I got to do is reach down an' pick it up--an' they won't be no dividin', neither.”

”What's to hinder me from slippin' in here long about that time? Two kin play that game.”

”Help yerself,” grinned Claw, ”Only, the Mounted patrol will be along in the spring, an' they'll give you a chanct to explain about winterin'

them klooches on the _Belva Lou_. You've forgot, mebbe, that such customs is frowned on.”

”Ye d.a.m.n double dealin' houn'!” cried the Captain, angrily.

”Double dealin', eh? I s'pose I'd ort to be out there breakin' my back diggin' in the snow, so I could divvy up with you dust that I could have all to myself, by takin' it easy. I offered to share the dust with you, cause I figgered I needed yer help in b.u.mpin' off them two. If you don't help, you don't git paid, an' that's all there is to it.”

The Indian returned with the provisions, and in the morning of the third day they struck out up the Coppermine, with the Indian breaking trail ahead of the dogs.

”I didn't expect 'em to show up,” grinned Claw, as he trudged along behind the Captain. ”I figgered if they didn't make camp that first stretch, they never would make it. Full of hooch, a man ain't fit to hit the trail even in good weather. He thinks he kin stand anything--an' he can't stand nothin'. The cold gits him. Here's what happened. The storm gits thick, an' they git off the course. The Siwash is lost an' he tries to wake up Ace-In-The-Hole. He finds the bottle of hooch--and that's the end of the Siwash. Somewheres out on the sea-ice, or in under the snow on the flats they's two frozen corpses--an' d.a.m.n good reddence, I says.”

Shortly after noon of the sixth day on the trail, the Dog Rib halted abruptly and stood staring in bewilderment at a little log cabin, half buried in the snow, that showed between the spruce trunks upon the right bank of the stream. Claw hastened forward, and spoke to him in jargon.

The Indian shook his head, and by means of signs and bits of jargon, conveyed the information that the cabin did not belong to the Indian camp, and that it had not been there at the time he fled from the camp.

He further elucidated that the camp was several miles along.

”Must be some of 'em got sore at the rest, an' moved up here an' built the shack,” opined Claw, ”Anyways, we got to find out--but we better be heeled when we do it.” He looked to his revolver, and stooping, picked up a rifle from the sled. The Captain followed his example, and Claw ordered the Indian to proceed. No one had appeared, and at the foot of the ascent to the cabin, Claw paused to examine a snow-covered mound.

The Captain was about to join him when, with a loud yell of terror, he suddenly disappeared from sight, and the next moment the welkin rang with his curses, while Claw laughing immoderately at the mishap, stood peering into Brent's brush-covered shaft. It was but the work of a few moments to haul the discomfited Captain from the hole. ”Shaft, an' an ore dump,” explained Claw. ”This here's a white man's layout, an' he's up to date, too. They ain't be'n burnin' in, even on the Yukon, only a year or so. Wonder who he is?”

The two followed the Indian who had halted before the cabin, and stood looking down at the snowshoe trail that led from the door.

”Off huntin', I guess. Er over to the Injun camp. Looks like them tracks was made yesterday. He ain't done no work in the shaft though sence the storm. We'll go in an' make ourself to home till he gits back, anyhow. I don't like the idee of no white man in here. 'Cordin' to who it is--but----”

”Mebbe it ain't a white man,” ventured the Captain.

”Sure it's a white man. Didn't I jest tell you that burnin' in ain't no Injun trick?”

”Dog Rib snowshoes,” suggested the Indian in jargon, pointing to the tracks.

”That don't prove nothin',” retorted Claw, ”He could of got 'em from the Injuns, couldn't he? They's two of 'em lives here,” he added, from the interior. ”Unharness the dogs, while I build up a fire.”

From the moment of Brent's departure, Snowdrift bent all her energies persuading the Indians to burn into the gravel for gold. At first her efforts were unavailing. Even Wananebish refused to take any interest in the proceeding, so the girl was forced to cut her own wood, tend her own fire, and throw out her own gravel. When, however, at the end of a week she panned out some yellow gold in the little cabin, as she had seen Brent do, the old squaw was won completely over, and thereafter the two women worked side by side, with the result that upon the test panning, Snowdrift computed that they, too, were taking out almost an ounce a day apiece. When the other Indians saw the gold they also began to sc.r.a.pe away the snow, and to cut wood and to build their fires on the gravel.