Part 22 (1/2)
”Them an' us, both,” replied the man in the bunk, and groaned as a hot pain shot through his injured leg.
Breakfast over, Connie picked up his rifle, fastened on his snowshoes, and stepped on the wind-softened snow. He had taken scarcely a half-dozen steps when he was forced to halt--anch.o.r.ed fast in the soggy snow. In vain he tried to raise first one foot and then the other--it was no use. The snow clung to his rackets in huge b.a.l.l.s and after repeated efforts he loosened the thongs and stepped on the melting snow, into which he promptly sank to his middle. He freed his rackets, tossed them toward the cabin, and wallowed to the door.
”Back a'ready?” grinned Waseche. ”How's the huntin'?” Connie laughed.
”You wait--I haven't started yet!”
”Betteh keep inside, son. Yo' cain't do no good out theah. They cain't no game move in a thaw like this.”
”Rabbits and ground squirrels and ptarmigan can,” answered the boy.
”Yeh--but yo' cain't!”
”I'm not going far. I'm wet now, and I'm not going to give up without trying.” Three hours later he stumbled again through the door, bearing proudly a bedraggled ptarmigan and a lean ground squirrel, each neatly beheaded by a bullet from his high-power rifle. As he dried his clothing beside the rusty stove, the boy dressed his game, carefully dividing the offal between old Boris, Mutt, and Slasher, and the dogs greedily devoured it to the last hair and feather.
”Every little bit helps,” he smiled. ”But it sure is a little bit of meat for such a lot of work. I bet I didn't get a quarter of a mile away.”
For three days the wind held, the sun shone, and the snow melted.
Streams forced their way to the river and the surface of the Kandik became a raging torrent--a river on top of a river! Each day Connie hunted faithfully, sometimes in vain, but generally his efforts were rewarded by a ptarmigan, or a brace of lank snowshoe rabbits or ground squirrels, lured from their holes by the feel of the false spring.
On the fourth night it turned cold, and in the morning the snow was crusted over sufficiently to support a man's weight on the rackets. The countless tiny rills that supplied the river were dried and the flood subsided and narrowed to the middle of the stream, while upon the edges the slush and anchor-ice froze rough and uneven.
Waseche Bill's injured leg was much swollen and caused him great pain, but he bore it unflinchingly and laughed and joked gaily. But Connie was not deceived, for from the little fan of wrinkles at the corners of the man's eyes, and the hard, drawn look about his mouth, the boy knew that his big partner suffered intensely even while his lips smiled and his words fell lightly in droll banter.
Thanks to the untiring efforts of the boy, their supply of provisions remained nearly intact, his rifle supplying the meat for their frugal meals. For two days past, O'Brien had brooded in silence, sitting for hours at a time with his back against the log wall and his gaze fixed, now upon the wounded man, and again upon the boy, or the great s.h.a.ggy _malamutes_ that lay sprawled upon the floor. He did his full share of the work: chopped the firewood, washed the dishes, and did whatever else was necessary about the camp while Connie hunted. But when he had finished he lapsed into a gloomy reverie, during which he would speak no word.
With the return of cold weather, the dogs had been expelled from the cabin and had taken up their quarters close beside the wall at the back.
”Me'be tomorrow we c'n hit the trail,” said Waseche, as he noticed that the sun of the fourth day failed to soften the stiffening crust.
”We ought to make good time, now!” exclaimed the boy. But Waseche shook his head.
”No, son, we won't make no good time the way things is. The trail is rough an' the sha'p ice'll cut the dawg's feet so they'll hate to pull.
Likewise, yo'n an' O'Brien's--them _mukluks_ won't last a day, an' the sleds'll be hahd to manage, sluein' sideways an' runnin' onto the dawgs.
I've ice-trailed befo' now, an' it's wo'se even than soft snow. If yo'
c'n travel light so yo' c'n ride an' save yo' feet an' keep the dawgs movin' fast, it ain't so bad--but mus.h.i.+n' slow, like we got to, an'
sho't of grub besides--” The man shook his head dubiously and relapsed into silence, while, with his back against the wall, O'Brien listened and hugged closer his cans of gold.
CHAPTER XX
THE DESERTER
Connie Morgan opened his eyes and blinked sleepily. Then, instantly he became wide awake, with a strange, indescribable feeling that all was not well. Waseche Bill stirred uneasily in his sleep and through the cracks about the edges of the blanket-hung window and beneath the door a dull grey light showed. The boy frowned as he tossed back his robes and drew on his _mukluks_. This was the day they were to hit the trail and O'Brien should have had the fire going and called him early. Suddenly the boy paused and stared hard at the cold stove, and then at the floor beside the stove--at the spot where O'Brien's blankets and robes should have shown an untidy heap in the dull light of morning. Lightning-like, his glance flew to the place at the base of the wall where the Irishman kept his gold--but the blankets and robes were gone, and the gold was gone, and O'Brien--? Swiftly the boy flew to the door--the big sled was missing, the harness, and McDougall's dogs were gone, and O'Brien was nowhere to be seen!
For a long, long time the boy stood staring out over the dim trail of the river and then with clenched fists he stepped again into the room. A hurried inspection of the pack showed that the man had taken most of the remaining fish and considerable of the food, also Waseche Bill's rifle was missing from its place in the far corner. With tight-pressed lips, Connie laid the fire in the little stove and watched dumbly as the tiny yellow sparks shot upward past the holes in the rusty pipe. Vainly the mind of the boy strove to grasp the situation, but his lips formed only the words which he repeated over and over again, as if seeking their import:
”He's gone--he's gone--O'Brien's gone.” He could not understand it.
Among the dwellers in the great white land the boy had known only men whose creed was to stick together until the end. From the hour he first set foot upon the dock at Anvik, to this very moment, with the single exception of the little rat-faced man at Ten Bow, the boy had learned to love the big men of the North--men whose vices were rugged vices--flaunting and unashamed and brutish, perhaps--but men, any one of whom would face privation, want, and toil--death itself--with a laugh in his teeth for the privilege of helping a friend--and who would fight to divide his last ounce of bacon with his enemy. For not by rule of life--but life itself men live upon the edges of the world, where little likes and hates are forgotten, and all stand shoulder to shoulder against their common enemy--the North! These were the men the boy had known. And now, for the first time, he was confronted by another kind of man--a man so yellow that, rather than face the perils and hards.h.i.+ps of the trail, he had deserted those who had rescued him from a band of savages--and not only deserted, but had taken with him the only means by which the others could hope to reach civilization, and had left a wounded man and a little boy to die in the wilderness--bushed!