North

Front matter

oNc * ft S A . O *y

C* y ft r i> o

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. —Burr MacShane. 3

II. —In the Big Camp . .13

CHAPTER I BURR MacSHANE

It was just before Christmas, and into Dawson, a straggling camp of tents and log cabins, the sour¬ doughs were drifting from the outlying creeks and washes. It was in that portentous year of the Yukon when in August, Henderson’s strike on Gold Bottom was followed immediately by Carmack’s strike on Bonanza, and the men of Fortymile and of Circle looked into the blowers and saw coarse gold that had been panned from the grass roots. Whereupon, claims paying “better than wages’’ were abandoned, outfits hastily thrown together, and in poling boats and in canoes, the sourdoughs stampeded up river. The traders, the saloon keepers, and the girls from the dance halls followed the gold hunters and on the flat in the shadow of Moosehide Mountain the camp of Dawson was born of the life blood of Circle and Fortymile.

But, from the first the new camp differed essen¬ tially from the older camps where it had been the wont of the sourdoughs to foregather for a winter of idleness and revelry. For, close upon the discov¬ ery of gold in the upper country, came the discovery of the process of ‘'burning in,” and in that year the Yukon saw the first winter mining of her history. These were the days of the unspoiled Yukon, be¬ fore the stampede from the outside filled the valleys and the creek beds with its hordes of tin-horns and chechakos —the days when a man’s word was as good as his pile and a card would be turned unques¬ tionably upon a finger bet for thousands.

But with Christmas hard upon them, despite the fact of the new found winter mining, and despite the fact that the sourdoughs were gouging in gravel richer by far than the gravel of their fondest dreams, one by one the fires were allowed to die out in the shafts along the creek beds. The sourdoughs were drifting into the new camp. For Christmas is Christmas—and what is a week or two of work, when the bulk of the winter is still ahead, and when each test pan shows coarse gold and more of it than the luckiest of them had ever taken from many test pans? And what is a week or two of work when the white lights are calling—the clang of the dance hall piano, the feel of a woman held close, the smooth purr of the wheel, the run of the cards at the poker tables, the warm grip and glow of the liquor, and the comrader>^ of men who thudded heavy sacks onto the bar from the mouths of which coarse gold was shaken onto the scales?

Burr MacShane

There had been no prearranged plan for a general celebration at Christmas—no looking forward in anticipation of a grand hurrah. But the spirit of Christmas was in the air. And each sourdough, independent of his neighbor, harnessed his dogs and silently hit the trail, knowing instinctively that at the end of the trail he would find his neighbor. For man is by instinct gregarious, and he will travel far to answer the primordial call of his kind. For a month, a year—longer, he may remain alone. But the passive act of remaining is a distinct effort of will, a continued and continuous throttling of desire, until at last the time comes when desire may no longer be throttled. A man may remake himself, may completely change the sequence of act, the sequence of thought, that has differentiated him from other men, he may thus change what men are pleased to call his nature. But, the fundamental law that has decreed him a social animal he cannot change—and remain a man. The fugitive from justice, though he know himself to be beyond thought of capture in some far fastness of the . wilderness will, when the time comes, count prison bars, and even the hangman’s noose, as naught, and will deliberately risk capture in seeking the society of his kind. And the man of the far North will brave the hardships of the long trail, will laugh at the strong cold, will bore through the blinding bliz¬ zard, will risk thin ice, and uncomplaining accept the gruelling labor of the snow trail for no other thing than that he may intermingle with his own kind. It is the law. Men have broken the law and have paid the fullness of its fearsome penalty. The brain that makes man man explodes, and the man of a moment before is a raving insentient brute which in a fume of unreasoning fury seeks only to destroy until in a final paroxysm of malignity he destroys himself. Or, the dissolution of the brain may come gently and the breaker of the law of kind, maundering, and prattling, and babbling, may live on, and on, and on.

A short distance above the mouth of a dry wash that emptied into the wide valley of Bonanza, Burr MacShane threw the last shovelful of gravel onto his dump and methodically kindled his fire on the iron-hard gravel at the bottom of his shallow shaft. An enormous malamute turned with a sneeze of disgust from his contemplation of the shaft as the acrid smoke filled his nostrils, and MacShane laughed: '‘Surprised as hell, ain’t you. Highball, that fire gives off smoke? Every day you stand there an’ get a noseful, an’ then down goes your tail an’ you sneeze out the smoke. You act like a fool pup—an’ you the best trail dog in the North!” At the words the tail of the great dog snapped erect, and rearing upward he placed two large forefeet upon the man’s chest. The ensuing tussle during which each tried to put the other in the snow was interrupted by the tiny tinkle of bells. Man and dog paused to watch an outfit pass the mouth of the wash far out on the trail. MacShane grinned:

Burr MacShane

“Headin’ for Dawson,” he confided to the dog, “That’s the sixth one in three days, an’ the Lord knows how many that we didn’t see. An’ in a week or so they’ll be headin’ out again. Ain’t men fools, Highball ? They ought to stay with tlie gravel.”

That afternoon MacShane cut cordwood and from the vantage point of the rim saw three more outfits pull by. When it was too dark to see he descended to the cabin, built a roaring fire in the stove and proceeded to fill a tin boiler that had originally been a petrol can, with ice.

“Kind of like to hear how the rest of ’em are makin’ it,” he muttered to himself while the ice melted. “I’d kind of like to know if any of ’em have struck bed rock. That’s what’s goin’ to tell the story of this strike: What’s on bed rock? This shallow gravel is sure shot full, but the real stuff will lay where it can’t work down any farther.”

The ice melted, he added more, and when the tin boiler was half full of water he stepped outside and carried in a piece of old tarpaulin onto which he had shoveled a hundred pounds or so of gravel from the morning’s digging. The gravel was frozen into a solid mass and he set it beside the stove while he stripped off his clothing and took a bath, using the water sparingly. Dressing himself, he proceeded to wash his discarded underclothing, shirt and socks in the boiler. Hanging these gar¬ ments on the drying rack, he produced a pan and when the gravel had thawed sufficiently, dumped in a batch and filled the pan from his wash water. Squatting upon the floor close beside the lamp which he moved to the edge of the table, he began to work the pan with a peculiar circular motion that threw the lighter dross splashing over the edge onto the floor. The coarser gravel he removed with his hands, tossing it aside. As the gravel and water lowered in the pan he examined the residue care¬ fully until with a final flirt he ridded the pan of the last remaining bit of muddy water. Then he turned the contents onto a piece of wrapping paper spread out to receive it, and sorted the gold from the re¬ maining dross. Flour gold, dust, and nuggets, that single pan weighed in at one hundred and forty dollars! MacShane rose, carried the tarpaulin with the remaining gravel out to the dump and with the water that remained in the boiler he washed his floor. Crossing to his bunk he withdrew from be¬ neath the blankets a buckskin pouch and pouring its contents onto the paper, sat for a while and looked at the yellow pile. He consulted a memorandum book, and added a notation.

“That makes close to eight thousand dollars out of the test pans,” he figured, “an’ at that rate there's over a hundred thousand on the dump, an’ God knows how much on down. This is sure some strike! Wait till the news of it gets outside! I would like to have a dance or two. I guess most of the girls have hit the new camp by now. This

Burr MacShane new strike sure raised hell with Circle an* Fortymile !” As the words unbidden expressed his trend of thought, the man’s fingers abstractedly separated the larger nuggets from the little pile of gold. He returned a handful to the sack and dumped the coarse gold and the dust in after them. Then he prepared his supper and as he ate it he cooked up a meal of tallow and rice for his seven dogs.

‘T expect Horse Face Joe come up along with the rest,” he mused as he washed and dried his dishes, “He sure is a doleful bird, but he can make the piano talk. Reminds a fellow of—I don’t know— sort of just lifts him up an’ out of it all. From about the fourth drink on, he’s a wonder. It’s a gift—music like he makes is. When he’s feelin* right he can just play on an’ on, makin’ it up as he goes, an* all of it’s better than anything that’s be’n wrote down—somehow it gets right to a man.” He apportioned the dog food into seven separate dishes and carried them out the door, then he re¬ turned and lighted his pipe. “Noticed the tea was gettin* a little low, an* another hundred of flour wouldn’t hurt. She was two dollars a pound when I come in, chances are she’ll go an ounce to the pound by spring.” Ensued a silence during which MacShane’s pipe went out. “That mitten I burnt the end of ain’t goin’ to last long either. Horse Face would be just about hittin’ his gait by now.” He stepped to the door and glanced toward the mouth of his shaft where the red glow proclaimed that it was time to throw on more wood. Closing the door he put on cap and mittens, but instead of going to the shaft he pulled off his mittens, filled his pipe and sat down. ^‘They’re sayiff that this is the last big strike,” he mused, “That when this peters out there won’t be any more poor man’s gold—^but hell! There’s always another strike. There always has be’n, an’ there always will be.” He jerked the cap from his head and tossed it onto his bunk. “To hell with the fire! I’ll pull in the mornin’. Got to get that tea, an’ flour, an’ another pair of mittens. You can’t trust burnt moosehide.” He fired up the stove and put on another batch of dog food. “I’ll hit the trail early tomorrow, an’ I’ll burn her up!” While the dog food cooked, MacShane sat and stoked the fire and thought. Most men would have passed the time by reading, but not Burr MacShane. He preferred to think, to envision long trails—trails he had mushed alone with his dogs, and trails no man had ever mushed.

Just turned thirty years old, he was chiefest among all the sourdoughs of the mighty North. And he knew the North as no other man ever knew it. Cabin boy on a whaler, he deserted at the age of fourteen at St. Michaels, and for several years he knocked about the Russian settlements and the Eskimo villages of the lower Yukon, gradually widening his circle of adventure until in the eighties, and early nineties, men who thought they were ex¬ ploring virgin territory were continually crossing

Burr MacShane

II his trail. Indians who had seen no other white man knew him by name, and little, isolated tribes there were who years afterward still called all white men Burrmacshane, believing it to be the name of the whole white race. He was the first white man to explore the Kuskokwim, and the first to traverse the mighty waste eastward from Kotsebue Sound up the Kobuk and down the Koyukuk to the Yukon. Always he played a lone hand, and among the sour¬ doughs he was regarded as a super man. No boast¬ ing of adventure where men foregathered but what some adventure of Burr MacShane out-topped them all. Yet, of these adventures MacShane, himself, never talked. For no adventure could there be in the North of which MacShane had not tasted the fullness. He had fought starvation, strong cold, blizzard, thin ice, rotten ice, fire, famine, water, and disease, and always he had won. By the very force and indomitable nerve of him he had won, and by the strength of his iron-hard frame. Every camp in the gold country had at some time or other boasted his habitat, but none had boasted for long. The wild, restless spirit of him forever goaded him on. The long trail beckoned, and he would hit the long trail. The strong cold descending upon a camp would drive men to the shelter of their fires, and MacShane, defying the strong cold, would throw his outfit together and mush a thousand miles. Men whispered that every safe in Alaska and in the Canadian Yukon held some of MacShane’s gold.

But not for his gold was he held in regard, for no man ever thought of MacShane as rich. His deeds outshadowed his gold—in a land where gold is God.

So MacShane mused, half dozing by the fire while the dog food cooked. “She's a great strike, all right, but she ain’t the last great strike—by a damn sight. An’ next year this country won’t bq fit to live in. When the news gets outside there’ll be fifty thousand chechakos pilin’ in here. The damned fools! Most of ’em will go broke, an’ a lot of ’em will die, an’ a few will take out some dust—but what good will it do ’em? They '11 go back outside an’ buy ’em a chicken ranch. The big country will never get to ’em. They’ll think they’re skookunt, but it’ll all be luck. The strike’s be’n made, an’ all they got to do is shovel out the gravel. I’d rather be a Siwash than the best of ’em—a Siwash has got a chance to see something new, to follow a trail that ain’t packed, to tear his meat from the teeth of the land, an’ not buy it at the tradin’ company’s store. Damn chechakos! .^But I won’t be here to see ’em. There ain’t anyone tried the Colville river yet, an’ even the Koyukuk ain’t be’n scratched. God, but she’s bleak up there, with the long night, an’ the strong cold. But she ain’t b’en scratched, an’ combed, an’ raked, an’ the cricks ain’t be’n punched full of holes. I’ve got a hunch. North, it says. North!” and with a smile on his lips the man removed the dog food, blew out his light, and rolled between his blankets.

Chapter II In The Big Camp

It was' Dawson’s first Christmas eve. The Golden North Saloon was a blaze of light. Sour¬ doughs from the creeks crowding the bar kept weighers and bartenders working as they had never worked before. For in the new order of winter mining, the sourdoughs were bent on crowding a whole* winter’s hilarity into the space of a few days and nights. Sound filled the air, the blare of the dance hall piano as two step and waltz crashed forth under the sure touch of the nimble fingered Horse Face Joe, and the screech and scrape and moan of the accompanying violin. With punctuat¬ ing stabs sounded the voice of the caller as, at some¬ one’s vociferous demand, the music swung into a square dance. All this was the crescendo of sound. But other sounds there were, audible, distinguish¬ able, blending a minor theme into the wild harmony of the whole. The soft scraping of moccasined feet on the floor boards, the clink and tinkle of glasses, the crackling rustle of silk petticoats as some sourdough in a sudden excess of exuberance swung his partner high in the air, the drone of

H voices, the purr of the wheel, an occasional burst of laughter. It was a good night—as nights go— for the pervading spirit was Fun. And the men from the creeks had earned their fun. By the gruelling toil of their two hands they had earned it, by the chopping of cordwood, the tending of fires, and by the gouging and hoisting of frozen gravel from the black mouths of shafts. It was their night, and in the fullness of their several capacities, they were enjoying it.

At the bar the talk was of gold. “Fve cleaned up more than an ounce to the pan—not once, but a dozen times,” said Moosehide Charlie.

“I took five ounces out of a test pan, an’ didn’t get all the flour gold, at that,” interrupted Camillo Bill,, “an’ I’m bettin’ my whole dump will run better than an ounce to the pan.”

“I’m tellin’ ye,” said Old Stuart Gordon, “Ye’re goin’ to see a hundred dollars to the pan before this winter’s out.”

A general laugh followed: “Have another shot of hootch. Old Timer, an’ make it two hundred, an’ we’ll all get rich!” bantered Ace-In-The-Hole Brent.

The old man wagged his head sagely, and re¬ doubled his prophecy: “Aye, an’ ye’ll see two hundred to the pan before bed rock is reached. I’m tellin’ ye we’re right now ridin’ the biggest strike the world ever seen. But don’t let me hinder the orderin’ of the round of drinks. A wee bit tipple on a night like this hurts no man. Don’t the Gude Book say ^take a leetle wine for thy stomach’s sake’ ? An’ the wine not bein’ handy, we’ll have to make whusky do.”

The men laughed and drank, and the glasses were refilled, for Old Man Gordon, as he was called by the men of the Yukon, was a general favorite among them. He was not old, probably in his early fifties, but his grizzled beard and grey hair made him appear a veritable patriarch among them. For Dawson was a camp of young men. But grey hairs were not his sole distinction. He was the only man in camp who had brought his family with him. Originally a Hudson’s Bay Company employee, he had married the daughter of a factor in the Mackenzie River country, and several years before, bringing his wife and little daughter, had built a cabin on Birch Creek. When news of the up-river strike reached him, he abandoned his claim, loaded his family into a poling boat and was among the first to erect a cabin in the new camp. Another thing that differentiated him from the general run of his associates was his religious turn of mind. The deep-rooted Calvinism of his ancestors had taken firm hold of his rugged nature. No provoca¬ tion could wring an oath from his lips, and his con¬ versation was liberally besprinkled with quotations, and misquotations from “the Gude Book.” Strangely enough, this strict Calvinism, while it held him to a certain stern code of morals, seemed i6 to take small offence at his occasional lapses from sobriety. He never gambled, but there were those who laughingly whispered that his natural Scotch canniness, more than his religion, was responsible for his aversion to the gaming tables. Be that as it may, gamble he would not, and the suggestion of poker or roulette generally called forth a vehement discourse upon the frivolity and worldliness of “riskin’ gude gold on the turn of a card or the spin of a wheel!”

“An’ so ye think,” continued the old man, warm¬ ing to the liquor “that I’m touched i’ the head wi’ my talk of a hundred, an’ two hundred dollars to the pan?” He paused and glared a challenge into the faces of the five men grouped about him.

Camillo Bill laughed: “No, no, nothin’ like that, Gordon! Only if this here camp ever feels the need of a booster’s club. I’ll sure nominate you for the first president of it.”

“You said we was goin’ to see two hundred dollars to the pan before we struck bed rock,” re¬ minded Moosehide Charlie, “What’s she goin’ to run when we do hit the bottom?”

“Ye’ll see four and five hundred dollars weighed from a single pan when bed rock is reached,” re¬ plied Gordon, “Ye think I’m crazy—but, wait an’ see.”

“Mebbe bed rock will be a solid floor of gold, an’ we can just blast her out in chunks,” suggested Stoell, the gambler. “It’ll sure be hell on the mahogany when the boys get to tossin’ them big chunks across the bar/’

“Whoopie!” cried Betties, “Five hundred to the pan? I sure feel rich! Come on, boys, liquor up so I can spend some of this here fabulous wealth! You’ll do me a favor by helpin’ me lighten my sack. I feel weighted down with gold, an’ that’s a hell of a fix to be in.”

“It’s my turn to buy,” interrupted Camillo Bill, “Here you. Jack, shove out a bottle! Hold on!” he cried in mock solicitude, as the bottle thumped down on the bar. “You’ll sure have to learn to set them glasses an’ bottles down careful. Old Man Gordon, here, has got gold cornin’ in chunks so big you’ll have to cover yer bar with boiler plate to keep her from wearin’ out.”

“Have yer fun, ye addle pates!” grinned the old man, “But the days ain’t far off when ye’ll be sayin’ how Old Man Gordon was the only one that could see ahead of his nose. An’ speakin’ of b’iler plate, I wish I had a good b’iler here right now.”

Shouts of laughter greeted the announcement. “Give him a boiler for his. Jack. It’s my treat!” snickered Camillo Bill.

“He’s goin’ to melt ice an’ run a winter flume.”

“He’s goin’ to rig a steam h’stin’ derrick to lift them big chunks of gold out of his shaft.”

“Borrow the boiler out of the steamboat fer the winter. They won’t need it till spring.”

“Dogs can’t pull no such output of gold, nohow.

' He’s figgerin’ on startin’ a steam sled line out to his claim.”

And so it went, one preposterous suggestion fol¬ lowed by a more preposterous one. And in the centre of the group, Old Stuart Gordon poured his drink in owlish solemnity, and let them rave.

“I believe they’re jokin’ at you, Gordpn,” said Betties, with solemn countenance, ‘‘But, layin’ jokes aside, what in thunder do you want of a boiler?”

“To thaw out the gravel wi’ steam,” and undis¬ turbed, he waited for the laughter to subside. “Ye’ll see it done,” he continued, with conviction. “Ye’d of all laughed an’ babbled yer brainless jokes last winter if anyone told ye there’d be winter minin’ on the Yukon. An’ now ye’re used to the winter minin’ by thawin’ the gravel wi’ cordwood fires, an’ ye think it’ll always be thawed that way. But it won’t. It’s a waste of wood, an’ a waste of time, an’ a waste of hard labor. Wi’ a b’iler, now, an’ a steam hose runnin’ to the bottom of the shaft, ye could thaw the muck an’ gravel faster, an’ use half, an’ less than half the wood.”

The door opened and a man entered in a cloud of steam that swirled about his knees. Shaking his hands from a pair of heavy fur mittens which dangled upon their thongs, he fumbled at the tie strings of his cap. He was a lean man, with the rugged leanness of perfect health, and he advanced into the room with the springy step that bespoke perfect coordination of tireless muscles.

“It’s MacShane!” cried Moosehide Charlie, and instantly the name passed from lip to lip through¬ out the length and breadth of the room. Men called greeting from the poker tables, the dancers paused amid the whirl of a waltz to wave a hand at him, and the onlookers at the wheel and the faro layouts crowded forward to the bar. The newcomer was deluged with invitations to drink. For in the camp of the sourdoughs, the name of MacShane was a name to conjure with.

“Merry Christmas, you trail-mushers an’ sour¬ doughs!” he called, “Merry Christmas, you frosthounds, an’ dancin’ girls!”

McCarty, owner of the Golden North Saloon rapped loudly upon the bar : “The family’s all here !” he cried, “An’ the house buys! Mush up, an’ name yer liquor. We’re goin’ to drink to a Merry Christ¬ mas—an’ many of ’em!”

The music ceased abruptly in the middle of a dance. The girls crowded forward on the arms of their partners, shouting greetings to MacShane, who called most of them by name as he returned the pleasantries. As the glasses were filled, MacShane was busy greeting old acquaintances, recalling with unfailing accuracy the last place he had seen them. It was: “How’s everything at Nulato?” “When did you quit the Tananna?” “How’s everyone at Eagle?” “What’s doin’ on the White River?” and so on, until McCarty interrupted, holding his glass aloft.

"A Merry Christmas!” he cried, and ^^erry Christmas!” arose from the throats of the crowd in a mighty surge of sound.

“Come over here, Horse Face I” cried MacShane, when the empty glasses had been returned to the bar, “I figured you’d be here. One drink calls for an¬ other, an’ while you’re all bunched up handy, you’ll drink with me.” He nodded to McCarty. “Have the boys fill ’em up again,” he ordered, “an’ we’ll drink to the luck of the camp 1 I want Horse Face right here beside me so I can see that he gets a good sizeable noggin’, ’cause he’s sure got to make that old music box talk this night.” He paused and looked around: “All set?” he asked, “Here goes, then: ‘To the luck of the camp!’ ” And once more a mighty surge of sound filled the room: “To the luck of the camp!”

Someone else wanted to buy, but MacShane laughingly shook his head: “Not too fast!” he cried, “We all have got a day or two yet, or a week for this here jollification, an’ we don’t want to get drunk to start off with, ’cause if we do we’ll have to either stay drunk or feel sick, an’ I don’t aim to do neither one. An* besides, Christmas ain’t till tomorrow, anyhow.”

A few ordered drinks, but for the most part the crowd, with the words of approbation on its lips, went back to its cards, and its dancing. MacShane joined the little group of sourdoughs, who still stood at the forward end of the bar: “How’s everything?” he asked, “How you all makln’ it?”

The answers were unanimously optimistic, and Camillo Bill laughed: “But you ought to be'n here a while back an’ heard Old Man Gordon speak his piece.”

The old Scotchman interrupted, stepping for¬ ward: “Ye’re Burr MacShane, I take it? I’ve crossed ye’re trail, but I never had the luck to meet up with ye.”

MacShane laughed: “I’m Burr MacShane,” he answered, “an’ where was it you crossed my trail?”

“It was two or three years back, an’ the trail was three or four years old, then—but still fresh.”

Moosehide Charlie grinned: “That’s the way with Old Man Gordon,” he explained, “He mostly talks in riddles—when he ain’t prophysin’ some fool thing or other.”

“ ’Tis no riddle at all, but clear as the spoken word to any man blessed wi’ better than a louse-sized brain. Ye’ll recollect an’ old Injun named Amos, that lives way up on the head of the Porcupine, where a little swift river piles down out of the Nahoni Mountains?”

MacShane nodded: “Yes, I believe I do.”

“Well, there’s where I crossed ye’re trail.” He turned to the others. “Amos broke through thin ice. A minute more an’ he’d of be’n caught by the suck of a rapids when MacShane went im after him.

He went in all over, an’ it was thirty below, an* no camp made!”

Exclamations broke from the lips of the men of the North as their eyes sought MacShane’s face.

MacShane laughed: “You don’t want to believe everything an Injun tells you. Mostly, they’re lyin’.”

“This one wasn’t,” answered Gordon, with con¬ viction. “An’ that’s what I meant by say in’ yer trail is fresh yet on the Porcupine. An’ Injun never forgets.”

“Hell! Thirty below ain’t so cold,” answered MacShane, with just a trace of annoyance in his tone. “We got a fire built right away, an’ in half a day we was dried out an’ good as ever. But, what’s doin’ on the creeks? How far down you got, an’ what does she show?”