Part 51 (1/2)

Dillon swore a blood-curdling string of curses and cracked his whip over the leader.

”Why, you comin' back?”

”Bet your life!”

And n.o.body who looked at the face of the Yukon pioneer could doubt he meant what he said.

They went indoors. The cabin wore an unwonted and a rakish air. The stools seemed to have tried to dance the lancers and have fallen out about the figure. Two were overturned. The unwashed dishes were tossed helter-skelter. A tipsy Christmas tree leaned in drunken fas.h.i.+on against the wall, and under its boughs lay a forgotten child asleep. On the other side of the cabin an empty whisky bottle caught a ray of light from the fire, and glinted feebly back. Among the ashes on the hearth was a screw of paper, charred at one end, and thrown there after lighting someone's pipe. The Boy opened it. The famous programme of the Yukon Symposium!

”It's been a different sort of Christmas from what we planned,”

observed the Colonel, not quite as gaily as you might expect.

”Begob!” says O'Flynn, stretching out his interminable legs; ”ye can't say we haven't hearrd Glad Tidings of gr-reat j'y--”

”Colonel,” interrupts the Boy, throwing the Programme in the fire, ”let's look at your nugget again.”

And they all took turns. Except Potts. He was busy digging the remaining gold-grains out of the crack and the knothole.

CHAPTER IX

A CHRISTIAN AGNOSTIC

”--giver mig Rum!

Himlen bar Stjerner Natten er stum.”

It was a good many days before they got the dazzle of that gold out of their eyes. They found their tongues again, and talked ”Minook” from morning till night among themselves and with the rare pa.s.ser up or down the trail.

Mac began to think they might get dogs at Anvik, or at one of the Ingalik villages, a little further on. The balance of opinion in the camp was against this view. But he had Potts on his side. When the New Year opened, the trail was in capital condition. On the second of January two lots of Indians pa.s.sed, one with dogs hauling flour and bacon for Benham, and the other lot without dogs, dragging light hand-sleds. Potts said restlessly:

”After all, _they_ can do it.”

”So can we if we've a mind to,” said Mac.

”Come on, then.”

The camp tried hard to dissuade them. Naturally neither listened. They packed the Boy's sled and set off on the morning of the third, to Kaviak's unbounded surprise and disgust, his view of life being that, wherever Mac went, he was bound to follow. And he did follow--made off as hard as his swift little feet could carry him, straight up the Yukon trail, and Farva lost a good half of that first morning bringing him home.

Just eight days later the two men walked into the Cabin and sat down--Potts with a heart-rending groan, Mac with his jaw almost dislocated in his cast-iron attempt to set his face against defeat; their lips were cracked with the cold, their faces raw from frostbite, their eyes inflamed. The weather--they called it the weather--had been too much for them. It was obvious they hadn't brought back any dogs, but--

”What did you think of Anvik?” says the Boy.

”Anvik? You don't suppose we got to Anvik in weather like this!”

”How far _did_ you get?”

Mac didn't answer. Potts only groaned. He had frozen his cheek and his right hand.