Part 11 (2/2)
”The Kusiak Chamber of Commerce ought to send you out as a lecturer to change public opinion, Diane. You are one enthusiastic little booster for freedom of opportunity,” laughed the young man.
”Oh, well!” Diane joined in his laughter. It was one of her good points that she could laugh at herself. ”I dare say I do sound like a real estate pamphlet, but it's all true anyhow.”
Gordon left Kusiak as reluctantly as Wally Selfridge had done, though his reasons for not wanting to go were quite different. They centered about a dusky-eyed young woman whom he had seen for the first time a fortnight before. He would have denied even to himself that he was in love, 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 a guide for the journey to Kamatlah. But the fis.h.i.+ng season had begun, and the men had all gone down river to take part in it.
The old Frenchman who kept the trading-post and roadhouse advised Gordon not to attempt the tramp alone.
”The trail it ees what you call dangerous. Feefty-Mile Swamp ees a monster that swallows men alive, Monsieur. You wait one week--two week--t'ree week, and some one will turn up to take you through,” he urged.
”But I can't wait. And I have an official map of the trail. Why can't I follow it without a guide?” Elliot wanted to know impatiently.
The post-trader shrugged. ”Maybeso, Monsieur--maybe not. Feefty-Mile--it ees one devil of a trail. No chechakoes are safe in there without a guide. I, Baptiste, know.”
”Selfridge and his party went through a week ago. I can follow the tracks they left.”
”But if it rains, Monsieur, the tracks will vaneesh, n'est ce pas? Lose the way, and the little singing folk will swarm in clouds about Monsieur while he stumbles through the swamp.”
Elliot hesitated for the better part of a day, then came to an impulsive decision. He knew the evil fame of Fifty-Mile Swamp--that no trail in Alaska was held to be more difficult or dangerous. He knew too what a fearful pest the mosquitoes were. Peter had told him a story of how he and 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 been unable to light smudge fires. Day and night the little singing devils had swarmed about him. He could not sleep. He could not rest. Every moment 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 raving maniac.
But Elliot was well equipped with mosquito netting and with supplies. He had a reliable map, and anyhow he had only to follow the tracks left by the Selfridge party. He turned his back upon the big river and plunged into the wilderness.
There came a night when he looked up into the stars of the deep, still sky 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, but there was something awesome in a world so empty of his kind. Sometimes he sang, and the sound of his voice at first startled him. It was like living in a world primeval, this traverse of a land so void of all the mechanism 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 the tracks of moose and caribou. Sometimes, startled, they leaped into view quite close enough for a shot, but he used his rifle only to meet his wants. A huge grizzly faced him on the trail one afternoon, growled its menace, and went lumbering into the big rocks with awkward speed.
The way led through valley and mora.s.s, across hills and mountains. It wandered in a sort of haphazard fas.h.i.+on through a sun-bathed universe washed clean of sordidness and meanness. Always, as he pushed forward, the path grew more faint and uncertain. Elk runs crossed it here and there, so that often Gordon went astray and had to retrace his steps.
The maddening song of the mosquitoes was always with him. Only when he slept did he escape from it. The heavy gloves, the netting, the smudge fires 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 dun sky. His own tracks were blotted out and he searched for the trail in vain. Before the rain stopped, he was thoroughly disturbed in mind. It would be a serious business if he should be lost in the bad lands of the bogs. Even though he knew the general direction he must follow, there was no certainty that he would ever emerge from this swamp into which he had plunged.
Before he knew it he was entangled in Fifty-Mile. His map showed him the mora.s.s stretched for fifty miles to the south, but he knew that it had been charted hurriedly by a surveying party which had made no extensive explorations. A good deal of this country was _terra incognita_. It ran vaguely into a No Man's Land unknown to the prospector.
The going was heavy. Gordon had to pick his way through the mossy swamp, leading the pack-horse by the bridle. Sometimes he was ankle-deep in water of a greenish slime. Again he had to drag the animal from the bog to a hummock of gra.s.s which gave a spongy footing. This would end in another quagmire of peat through which they must plough with the mud sucking at their feet. It was hard, wearing toil. There was nothing to do but keep moving. The young man staggered forward till dusk. Utterly exhausted, he camped for the night on a hillock of moss that rose like an island in the swamp.
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