Part 99 (1/2)
”I don't imagine you'll be quite alone.”
”No? Why, there's only between five and six hundred expectin' to board a boat that'll be crowded before she gets here.”
”Does everybody want to go to Dawson?”
”Everybody except a few boomers who mean to stay long enough to play off their misery on someone else before they move on.”
The Colonel looked a trifle anxious.
”I hadn't thought of that. I suppose there will be a race for the boat.”
”There'll be a race all the way up the river for all the early boats.
Ain't half enough to carry the people. But you look to me like you'll stand as good a chance as most, and anyhow, you're the one man I know, I'll trust my dough to.”
The Colonel stared.
”You see, I want to get some money to my kiddie, an' besides, I got m'self kind o' scared about keepin' dust in my cabin. I want it in a bank, so's if I should kick the bucket (there'll be some pretty high rollin' here when there's been a few boats in, and my life's no better than any other feller's), I'd feel a lot easier if I knew the kiddie'd have six thousand clear, even if I did turn up my toes. See?”
”A--yes--I see. But----”
The door of the cabin next the saloon opened suddenly. A graybeard with a young face came out rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He stared interrogatively at the river, and then to the world in general:
”What time is it?”
”Half-past four.”
”Mornin' or evenin'?” and no one thought the question strange.
Maudie lowered her voice.
”No need to mention it to pardners and people. You don't want every feller to know you're goin' about loaded; but will you take my dust up to Dawson and get it sent to 'Frisco on the first boat?”
”The ice! the ice! It's moving!”
”The ice is going out!”
”Look! the ice!”
From end to end of the settlement the cry was taken up. People darted out of cabins like beavers out of their burrows. Three little half-breed Indian boys, yelling with excitement, tore past the Gold Nugget, crying now in their mother's Minook, now in their father's English, ”The ice is going out!” From the depths of the store-box whereon his master had sat, Nig darted, howling excitedly and waving a muddy tail like a draggled banner, saying in Mahlemeut: ”The ice is going out! The fish are coming in.” All the other dogs waked and gave tongue, running in and out among the huddled rows of people gathered on the Ramparts.
Every ear full of the rubbing, grinding noise that came up out of the Yukon--noise not loud, but deep--an undercurrent of heavy sound. As they stood there, wide-eyed, gaping, their solid winter world began to move. A compact ma.s.s of ice, three-quarters of a mile wide and four miles long, with a great grinding and crus.h.i.+ng went down the valley.
Some distance below the town it jammed, building with incredible quickness a barrier twenty feet high.
The people waited breathless. Again the ice-ma.s.s trembled. But the watchers lifted their eyes to the heights above. Was that thunder in the hills? No, the ice again; again crus.h.i.+ng, grinding, to the low accompaniment of thunder that seemed to come from far away.
Sections a mile long and half a mile wide were forced up, carried over the first ice-pack, and summarily stopped below the barrier. Huge pieces, broken off from the sides, came crunching their way angrily up the bank, as if acting on some independent impulse. There they sat, great fragments, glistening in the sunlight, as big as cabins. It was something to see them come walking up the shelving bank! The cheechalkos who laughed before are contented now with running, leaving their goods behind. Sour-dough Saunders himself never dreamed the ice would push its way so far.
In mid-channel a still unbroken sheet is bent yet more in the centre.
Every now and then a wide crack opens near the margin, and the water rushes out with a roar. Once more the ma.s.s is nearly still, and now all's silent. Not till the water, dammed and thrown back by the ice, not until it rises many feet and comes down with a volume and momentum irresistible, will the final conflict come.