章节正文
attended by a young squaw. He sniffed the coffee and looked back to
the girl.
"I'm a chechaquo," he said.
Her bored expression told him that he was stating the obvious. But
he was unabashed.
"I've shed my shooting-irons," he added.
Then she recognized him, and her eyes lighted.
"I never thought you'd get this far," she informed him.
Again, and greedily, he sniffed the air.
"As I live, coffee!" He turned and directly addressed her. "I'll
give you my little finger--cut it right off now; I'll do anything;
I'll be your slave for a year and a day or any other odd time, if
you'll give me a cup out of that pot."
And over the coffee he gave his name and learned hers--Joy Gastell.
Also, he learned that she was an old-timer in the country. She had
been born in a trading post on the Great Slave, and as a child had
crossed the Rockies with her father and come down to the Yukon. She
was going in, she said, with her father, who had been delayed by
business in Seattle, and who had then been wrecked on the ill-fated
Chanter and carried back to Puget Sound by the rescuing steamer.
In view of the fact that she was still in her blankets, he did not
make it a long conversation, and, heroically declining a second cup
of coffee, he removed himself and his quarter of a ton of baggage
from her tent. Further, he took several conclusions away with him:
she had a fetching name and fetching eyes; could not be more than
twenty, or twenty-one or -two; her father must be French; she had a
will of her own and temperament to burn; and she had been educated
elsewhere than on the frontier.
VI.
Over the ice-scoured rocks, and above the timber-line, the trail ran
around Crater Lake and gained the rocky defile that led toward Happy
Camp and the first scrub pines. To pack his heavy outfit around
would take days of heart-breaking toil. On the lake was a canvas
boat employed in freighting. Two trips with it, in two hours, would
see him and his ton across. But he was broke, and the ferryman
charged forty dollars a ton.
"You've got a gold-mine, my friend, in that dinky boat," Kit said to
the ferryman. "Do you want another gold-mine?"
"Show me," was the answer.
"I'll sell it to you for the price of ferrying my outfit. It's an
idea, not patented, and you can jump the deal as soon as I tell you
it. Are you game?"
The ferryman said he was, and Kit liked his looks.
"Very well. You see that glacier. Take a pick-axe and wade into
it. In a day you can have a decentgroove from top to bottom. See
the point? The Chilcoot and Crater Lake Consolidated Chute
Corporation, Limited. You can charge fifty cents a hundred, get a
hundred tons a day, and have no work to do but collect the coin."
Two hours later, Kit's ton was across the lake, and he had gained
three days on himself. And when John Bellew overtook him, he was
well along toward Deep Lake, another volcanic pit filled with
glacial water.
VII.
The last pack, from Long Lake to Linderman, was three miles, and the
trail, if trail it could be called, rose up over a thousand-foot
hogback, dropped down a scramble of slippery rocks, and crossed a
wide stretch of swamp. John Bellew remonstrated when he saw Kit
arise with a hundred pounds in the straps and pick up a fifty-pound
sack of flour and place it on top of the pack against the back of
his neck.
"Come on, you chunk of the hard," Kit retorted. "Kick in on your
bear-meat fodder and your one suit of underclothes."
But John Bellew shook his head.
"I'm afraid I'm getting old, Christopher."
"You're only forty-eight. Do you realize that my grandfather, sir,
your father, old Isaac Bellew, killed a man with his fist when he
was sixty-nine years old?"
John Bellew grinned and swallowed his medicine.
"Avuncular, I want to tell you something important. I was raised a
Lord Fauntleroy, but I can outpack you, outwalk you, put you on your
back, or lick you with my fists right now."
John Bellew thrust out his hand and spoke solemnly.
"Christopher, my boy, I believe you can do it. I believe you can do
it with that pack on your back at the same time. You've made good,
boy, though it's too unthinkable to believe."
Kit made the round trip of the last pack four times a day, which is
to say that he daily covered twenty-four miles of mountain climbing,
twelve miles of it under one hundred and fifty pounds. He was
proud, hard, and tired, but in splendid physical condition. He ate
and slept as he had never eaten and slept in his life, and as the
end of the work came in sight, he was almost half sorry.
One problem bothered him. He had learned that he could fall with a
hundredweight on his back and survive; but he was confident, if he
fell with that additional fifty pounds across the back of his neck,
that it would break it clean. Each trail through the swamp was
quickly churned bottomless by the thousands of packers, who were
compelled continually to make new trails. It was while pioneering
such a new trail, that he solved the problem of the extra fifty.
The soft, lush surface gave way under him; he floundered, and
pitched forward on his face. The fifty pounds crushed his face in
the mud and went clear without snapping his neck. With the
remaining hundred pounds on his back, he arose on hands and knees.
But he got no farther. One arm sank to the shoulder, pillowing his
cheek in the slush. As he drew this arm clear, the other sank to
the shoulder. In this position it was impossible to slip the
straps, and the hundredweight on his back would not let him rise.
On hands and knees, sinking first one arm and then the other, he
made an effort to crawl to where the small sack of flour had fallen.
But he exhausted himself without advancing, and so churned and broke
the grass surface, that a tiny pool of water began to form in
perilous proximity to his mouth and nose.
He tried to throw himself on his back with the pack underneath, but
this resulted in sinking both arms to the shoulders and gave him a
foretaste of drowning. With exquisitepatience, he slowly withdrew
one sucking arm and then the other and rested them flat on the
surface for the support of his chin. Then he began to call for
help. After a time he heard the sound of feet sucking through the
mud as some one advanced from behind.
"Lend a hand, friend," he said. "Throw out a life-line or
something."
It was a woman's voice that answered, and he recognized it.
"If you'll unbuckle the straps I can get up."
The hundred pounds rolled into the mud with a soggy noise, and he
slowly gained his feet.
"A pretty predicament," Miss Gastell laughed, at sight of his mud-
covered face.
"Not at all," he replied airily. "My favourite physical exercise
stunt. Try it some time. It's great for the pectoral muscles and
the spine."
He wiped his face, flinging the slush from his hand with a snappy
jerk.
"Oh!" she cried in recognition. "It's Mr--ah--Mr Smoke Bellew."
"I thank you gravely for your timelyrescue and for that name," he
answered. "I have been doubly baptized. Henceforth I shall insist
always on being called Smoke Bellew. It is a strong name, and not
without significance."
He paused, and then voice and expression became suddenly fierce.
"Do you know what I'm going to do?" he demanded. "I'm going back to
the States. I am going to get married. I am going to raise a large
family of children. And then, as the evening shadows fall, I shall
gather those children about me and relate the sufferings and
hardships I endured on the Chilcoot Trail. And if they don't cry--I
repeat, if they don't cry, I'll lambaste the stuffing out of them."
VIII.
The arctic winter came down apace. Snow that had come to stay lay
six inches on the ground, and the ice was forming in quiet ponds,
despite the fierce gales that blew. It was in the late afternoon,
during a lull in such a gale, that Kit and John Bellew helped the
cousins load the boat and watched it disappear down the lake in a
snow-squall.
"And now a night's sleep and an early start in the morning," said
John Bellew. "If we aren't storm-bound at the summit we'll make
Dyea to-morrow night, and if we have luck in catching a steamer
we'll be in San Francisco in a week."
"Enjoyed your vacation?" Kit asked absently.
Their camp for that last night at Linderman was a melancholy
remnant. Everything of use, including the tent, had been taken by
the cousins. A tattered tarpaulin, stretched as a wind-break,
partially sheltered them from the driving snow. Supper they cooked
on an open fire in a couple of battered and discarded camp utensils.
All that was left them were their blankets, and food for several
meals.
From the moment of the departure of the boat, Kit had become absent
and restless. His uncle noticed his condition, and attributed it to
the fact that the end of the hard toil had come. Only once during
supper did Kit speak.
"Avuncular," he said, relevant of nothing, "after this, I wish you'd
call me Smoke. I've made some smoke on this trail, haven't I?"
A few minutes later he wandered away in the direction of the village
of tents that sheltered the gold-rushers who were still packing or
building their boats. He was gone several hours, and when he
returned and slipped into his blankets John Bellew was asleep.
In the darkness of a gale-driven morning, Kit crawled out, built a
fire in his stocking feet, by which he thawed out his frozen shoes,
then boiled coffee and fried bacon. It was a chilly, miserable
meal. As soon as finished, they strapped their blankets. As John
Bellew turned to lead the way toward the Chilcoot Trail, Kit held
out his hand.
"Good-bye, avuncular," he said.
John Bellew looked at him and swore in his surprise.
"Don't forget my name's Smoke," Kit chided.
"But what are you going to do?"
Kit waved his hand in a general direction northward over the storm-
lashed lake.
"What's the good of turning back after getting this far?" he asked.
"Besides, I've got my taste of meat, and I like it. I'm going on."
"You're broke," protested John Bellew. "You have no outfit."
"I've got a job. Behold your nephew, Christopher Smoke Bellew!
He's got a job at a hundred and fifty per month and grub. He's
going down to Dawson with a couple of dudes and another gentleman's
man--camp-cook, boatman, and general all-around hustler. And O'Hara
and the Billow can go to hell. Good-bye."
But John Bellew was dazed, and could only mutter:
"I don't understand."
"They say the baldface grizzlies are thick in the Yukon Basin," Kit
explained. "Well, I've got only one suit of underclothes, and I'm
going after the bear-meat, that's all."
THE MEAT.
I.
Half the time the wind blew a gale, and Smoke Bellew staggered
against it along the beach. In the gray of dawn a dozen boats were
being loaded with the precious outfits packed across Chilcoot. They
were clumsy, home-made boats, put together by men who were not boat-
builders, out of planks they had sawed by hand from green spruce
trees. One boat, already loaded, was just starting, and Kit paused
to watch.
The wind, which was fair down the lake, here blew in squarely on the
beach, kicking up a nasty sea in the shallows. The men of the
departing boat waded in high rubber boots as they shoved it out
toward deeper water. Twice they did this. Clambering aboard and
failing to row clear, the boat was swept back and grounded. Kit
the girl.
"I'm a chechaquo," he said.
Her bored expression told him that he was stating the obvious. But
he was unabashed.
"I've shed my shooting-irons," he added.
Then she recognized him, and her eyes lighted.
"I never thought you'd get this far," she informed him.
Again, and greedily, he sniffed the air.
"As I live, coffee!" He turned and directly addressed her. "I'll
give you my little finger--cut it right off now; I'll do anything;
I'll be your slave for a year and a day or any other odd time, if
you'll give me a cup out of that pot."
And over the coffee he gave his name and learned hers--Joy Gastell.
Also, he learned that she was an old-timer in the country. She had
been born in a trading post on the Great Slave, and as a child had
crossed the Rockies with her father and come down to the Yukon. She
was going in, she said, with her father, who had been delayed by
business in Seattle, and who had then been wrecked on the ill-fated
Chanter and carried back to Puget Sound by the rescuing steamer.
In view of the fact that she was still in her blankets, he did not
make it a long conversation, and, heroically declining a second cup
of coffee, he removed himself and his quarter of a ton of baggage
from her tent. Further, he took several conclusions away with him:
she had a fetching name and fetching eyes; could not be more than
twenty, or twenty-one or -two; her father must be French; she had a
will of her own and temperament to burn; and she had been educated
elsewhere than on the frontier.
VI.
Over the ice-scoured rocks, and above the timber-line, the trail ran
around Crater Lake and gained the rocky defile that led toward Happy
Camp and the first scrub pines. To pack his heavy outfit around
would take days of heart-breaking toil. On the lake was a canvas
boat employed in freighting. Two trips with it, in two hours, would
see him and his ton across. But he was broke, and the ferryman
charged forty dollars a ton.
"You've got a gold-mine, my friend, in that dinky boat," Kit said to
the ferryman. "Do you want another gold-mine?"
"Show me," was the answer.
"I'll sell it to you for the price of ferrying my outfit. It's an
idea, not patented, and you can jump the deal as soon as I tell you
it. Are you game?"
The ferryman said he was, and Kit liked his looks.
"Very well. You see that glacier. Take a pick-axe and wade into
it. In a day you can have a decentgroove from top to bottom. See
the point? The Chilcoot and Crater Lake Consolidated Chute
Corporation, Limited. You can charge fifty cents a hundred, get a
hundred tons a day, and have no work to do but collect the coin."
Two hours later, Kit's ton was across the lake, and he had gained
three days on himself. And when John Bellew overtook him, he was
well along toward Deep Lake, another volcanic pit filled with
glacial water.
VII.
The last pack, from Long Lake to Linderman, was three miles, and the
trail, if trail it could be called, rose up over a thousand-foot
hogback, dropped down a scramble of slippery rocks, and crossed a
wide stretch of swamp. John Bellew remonstrated when he saw Kit
arise with a hundred pounds in the straps and pick up a fifty-pound
sack of flour and place it on top of the pack against the back of
his neck.
"Come on, you chunk of the hard," Kit retorted. "Kick in on your
bear-meat fodder and your one suit of underclothes."
But John Bellew shook his head.
"I'm afraid I'm getting old, Christopher."
"You're only forty-eight. Do you realize that my grandfather, sir,
your father, old Isaac Bellew, killed a man with his fist when he
was sixty-nine years old?"
John Bellew grinned and swallowed his medicine.
"Avuncular, I want to tell you something important. I was raised a
Lord Fauntleroy, but I can outpack you, outwalk you, put you on your
back, or lick you with my fists right now."
John Bellew thrust out his hand and spoke solemnly.
"Christopher, my boy, I believe you can do it. I believe you can do
it with that pack on your back at the same time. You've made good,
boy, though it's too unthinkable to believe."
Kit made the round trip of the last pack four times a day, which is
to say that he daily covered twenty-four miles of mountain climbing,
twelve miles of it under one hundred and fifty pounds. He was
proud, hard, and tired, but in splendid physical condition. He ate
and slept as he had never eaten and slept in his life, and as the
end of the work came in sight, he was almost half sorry.
One problem bothered him. He had learned that he could fall with a
hundredweight on his back and survive; but he was confident, if he
fell with that additional fifty pounds across the back of his neck,
that it would break it clean. Each trail through the swamp was
quickly churned bottomless by the thousands of packers, who were
compelled continually to make new trails. It was while pioneering
such a new trail, that he solved the problem of the extra fifty.
The soft, lush surface gave way under him; he floundered, and
pitched forward on his face. The fifty pounds crushed his face in
the mud and went clear without snapping his neck. With the
remaining hundred pounds on his back, he arose on hands and knees.
But he got no farther. One arm sank to the shoulder, pillowing his
cheek in the slush. As he drew this arm clear, the other sank to
the shoulder. In this position it was impossible to slip the
straps, and the hundredweight on his back would not let him rise.
On hands and knees, sinking first one arm and then the other, he
made an effort to crawl to where the small sack of flour had fallen.
But he exhausted himself without advancing, and so churned and broke
the grass surface, that a tiny pool of water began to form in
perilous proximity to his mouth and nose.
He tried to throw himself on his back with the pack underneath, but
this resulted in sinking both arms to the shoulders and gave him a
foretaste of drowning. With exquisitepatience, he slowly withdrew
one sucking arm and then the other and rested them flat on the
surface for the support of his chin. Then he began to call for
help. After a time he heard the sound of feet sucking through the
mud as some one advanced from behind.
"Lend a hand, friend," he said. "Throw out a life-line or
something."
It was a woman's voice that answered, and he recognized it.
"If you'll unbuckle the straps I can get up."
The hundred pounds rolled into the mud with a soggy noise, and he
slowly gained his feet.
"A pretty predicament," Miss Gastell laughed, at sight of his mud-
covered face.
"Not at all," he replied airily. "My favourite physical exercise
stunt. Try it some time. It's great for the pectoral muscles and
the spine."
He wiped his face, flinging the slush from his hand with a snappy
jerk.
"Oh!" she cried in recognition. "It's Mr--ah--Mr Smoke Bellew."
"I thank you gravely for your timelyrescue and for that name," he
answered. "I have been doubly baptized. Henceforth I shall insist
always on being called Smoke Bellew. It is a strong name, and not
without significance."
He paused, and then voice and expression became suddenly fierce.
"Do you know what I'm going to do?" he demanded. "I'm going back to
the States. I am going to get married. I am going to raise a large
family of children. And then, as the evening shadows fall, I shall
gather those children about me and relate the sufferings and
hardships I endured on the Chilcoot Trail. And if they don't cry--I
repeat, if they don't cry, I'll lambaste the stuffing out of them."
VIII.
The arctic winter came down apace. Snow that had come to stay lay
six inches on the ground, and the ice was forming in quiet ponds,
despite the fierce gales that blew. It was in the late afternoon,
during a lull in such a gale, that Kit and John Bellew helped the
cousins load the boat and watched it disappear down the lake in a
snow-squall.
"And now a night's sleep and an early start in the morning," said
John Bellew. "If we aren't storm-bound at the summit we'll make
Dyea to-morrow night, and if we have luck in catching a steamer
we'll be in San Francisco in a week."
"Enjoyed your vacation?" Kit asked absently.
Their camp for that last night at Linderman was a melancholy
remnant. Everything of use, including the tent, had been taken by
the cousins. A tattered tarpaulin, stretched as a wind-break,
partially sheltered them from the driving snow. Supper they cooked
on an open fire in a couple of battered and discarded camp utensils.
All that was left them were their blankets, and food for several
meals.
From the moment of the departure of the boat, Kit had become absent
and restless. His uncle noticed his condition, and attributed it to
the fact that the end of the hard toil had come. Only once during
supper did Kit speak.
"Avuncular," he said, relevant of nothing, "after this, I wish you'd
call me Smoke. I've made some smoke on this trail, haven't I?"
A few minutes later he wandered away in the direction of the village
of tents that sheltered the gold-rushers who were still packing or
building their boats. He was gone several hours, and when he
returned and slipped into his blankets John Bellew was asleep.
In the darkness of a gale-driven morning, Kit crawled out, built a
fire in his stocking feet, by which he thawed out his frozen shoes,
then boiled coffee and fried bacon. It was a chilly, miserable
meal. As soon as finished, they strapped their blankets. As John
Bellew turned to lead the way toward the Chilcoot Trail, Kit held
out his hand.
"Good-bye, avuncular," he said.
John Bellew looked at him and swore in his surprise.
"Don't forget my name's Smoke," Kit chided.
"But what are you going to do?"
Kit waved his hand in a general direction northward over the storm-
lashed lake.
"What's the good of turning back after getting this far?" he asked.
"Besides, I've got my taste of meat, and I like it. I'm going on."
"You're broke," protested John Bellew. "You have no outfit."
"I've got a job. Behold your nephew, Christopher Smoke Bellew!
He's got a job at a hundred and fifty per month and grub. He's
going down to Dawson with a couple of dudes and another gentleman's
man--camp-cook, boatman, and general all-around hustler. And O'Hara
and the Billow can go to hell. Good-bye."
But John Bellew was dazed, and could only mutter:
"I don't understand."
"They say the baldface grizzlies are thick in the Yukon Basin," Kit
explained. "Well, I've got only one suit of underclothes, and I'm
going after the bear-meat, that's all."
THE MEAT.
I.
Half the time the wind blew a gale, and Smoke Bellew staggered
against it along the beach. In the gray of dawn a dozen boats were
being loaded with the precious outfits packed across Chilcoot. They
were clumsy, home-made boats, put together by men who were not boat-
builders, out of planks they had sawed by hand from green spruce
trees. One boat, already loaded, was just starting, and Kit paused
to watch.
The wind, which was fair down the lake, here blew in squarely on the
beach, kicking up a nasty sea in the shallows. The men of the
departing boat waded in high rubber boots as they shoved it out
toward deeper water. Twice they did this. Clambering aboard and
failing to row clear, the boat was swept back and grounded. Kit
- obvious [´ɔbviəs]
a.明显的；显而易见的 (初中英语单词) - greedily [´gri:dili] ad.贪婪地 (初中英语单词)
- charge [tʃɑ:dʒ] v.收费；冲锋 n.费用 (初中英语单词)
- grandfather [´grænd,fɑ:ðə] n.(外)祖父；祖先 (初中英语单词)
- thrust [θrʌst] v.&n.猛推；冲；刺；挤进 (初中英语单词)
- physical [´fizikəl] a.物质的；有形的 (初中英语单词)
- survive [sə´vaiv] vt.幸存；残存 (初中英语单词)
- additional [ə´diʃənəl] a.附加的，额外的 (初中英语单词)
- underneath [,ʌndə´ni:θ] ad.&prep.在底下 (初中英语单词)
- patience [´peiʃəns] n.忍耐(力)；耐心；坚韧 (初中英语单词)
- advanced [əd´vɑ:nst] a.先进的；高级的 (初中英语单词)
- recognition [,rekəg´niʃən] n.认出；认识；承认 (初中英语单词)
- gravely [´greivli] ad.庄重地，严肃地 (初中英语单词)
- rescue [´reskju:] vt.&n.救援；挽救 (初中英语单词)
- henceforth [´hens´fɔ:θ] ad.今后；从今以后 (初中英语单词)
- relate [ri´leit] v.阐明；使联系；涉及 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- departure [di´pɑ:tʃə] n.离开，出发 (初中英语单词)
- restless [´restləs] a.没有休息的 (初中英语单词)
- stocking [´stɔkiŋ] n.长统袜 (初中英语单词)
- frozen [´frəuzn] freeze 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- chilly [´tʃili] a.凉飕飕的 (初中英语单词)
- nephew [´nevju:, ´nɛfju] n.侄子；外甥 (初中英语单词)
- rubber [´rʌbə] n.(摩)擦的人；橡皮 (初中英语单词)
- aboard [ə´bɔ:d] ad.&prep.在...上 (初中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- temperament [´tempərəmənt] n.气质；性格 (高中英语单词)
- outfit [´aut,fit] n.装备 vt.供给；装备 (高中英语单词)
- decent [´di:sənt] a.体面的，正派的 (高中英语单词)
- limited [´limitid] a.有限(制)的 (高中英语单词)
- scramble [´skræmbəl] v.&n.爬；争夺；炒(蛋) (高中英语单词)
- slippery [´slipəri] a.滑的；不稳固的 (高中英语单词)
- confident [´kɔnfidənt] a.有信心的，自信的 (高中英语单词)
- continually [kən´tinjuəli] ad.不断地，频繁地 (高中英语单词)
- exquisite [ik´skwizit] a.精巧的；敏锐的 (高中英语单词)
- arctic [´ɑ:ktik] a.北极的 (高中英语单词)
- summit [´sʌmit] n.顶(点)；绝顶 (高中英语单词)
- relevant [´relivənt] a.有关的；中肯的 (高中英语单词)
- northward [´nɔ:θwəd] ad.&a.向北(的) n.北 (高中英语单词)
- clumsy [´klʌmzi] a.笨拙的；粗俗的 (高中英语单词)
- glacier [´glæsiə] n.冰河，冰川 (英语四级单词)
- groove [gru:v] n.槽 vt.在...作槽 (英语四级单词)
- overtook [,əuvə´tuk] overtake的过去式 (英语四级单词)
- volcanic [vɔl´kænik] a.(象)火山的；爆发的 (英语四级单词)
- tattered [´tætəd] a.(衣服等)破烂的 (英语四级单词)
- boatman [´bəutmən] n.船夫；出租游艇者 (英语四级单词)
- billow [´biləu] n.巨浪 v.(使)翻腾 (英语四级单词)
- squarely [´skwɛəli] ad.成方形地；正直地 (英语四级单词)
- crater [´kreitə] n.火山口；弹坑 (英语六级单词)
- defile [di´fail] vt.弄脏，玷污 (英语六级单词)
- fodder [´fɔdə] n.饲料；创作素材 (英语六级单词)
- timely [´taimli] a.及时的；适合的 (英语六级单词)
- doubly [´dʌbli] ad.加倍地，双重地 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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