章节正文
walked the six hundred miles over the ice to Dyea.
Smoke met Shorty in the warm saloon, and found the latter jubilant.
"Life ain't no punkins without whiskey an' sweetenin'," was Shorty's
greeting, as he pulled lumps of ice from his thawing moustache and
flung them rattling on the floor. "An' I sure just got eighteen
pounds of that same sweetenin'. The geezer only charged three
dollars a pound for it. What luck did you have?"
"I, too, have not been idle," Smoke answered with pride. "I bought
fifty pounds of flour. And there's a man up on Adam Creek says
he'll let me have fifty pounds more to-morrow."
"Great! We'll sure live till the river opens. Say, Smoke, them
dogs of ourn is the goods. A dog-buyer offered me two hundred
apiece for the five of them. I told him nothin' doin'. They sure
took on class when they got meat to get outside of; but it goes
against the grain feedin' dog-critters on grub that's worth two and
a half a pound. Come on an' have a drink. I just got to celebrate
them eighteen pounds of sweetenin'."
Several minutes later, as he weighed in on the gold-scales for the
drinks, he gave a start of recollection.
"I plum forgot that man I was to meet in the Tivoli. He's got some
spoiled bacon he'll sell for a dollar an' a half a pound. We can
feed it to the dogs an' save a dollar a day on each's board bill.
So long."
"So long," said Smoke. "I'm goin' to the cabin an' turn in."
Hardly had Shorty left the place, when a fur-clad man entered
through the double storm-doors. His face lighted at sight of Smoke,
who recognized him as Breck, the man whose boat he had run through
the Box Canyon and White Horse rapids.
"I heard you were in town," Breck said hurriedly, as they shook
hands. "Been looking for you for half an hour. Come outside, I
want to talk with you."
Smoke looked regretfully at the roaring, red-hot stove.
"Won't this do?"
"No; it's important. Come outside."
As they emerged, Smoke drew off one mitten, lighted a match, and
glanced at the thermometer that hung beside the door. He re-
mittened his naked hand hastily as if the frost had burnt him.
Overhead arched the flamingaurora borealis, while from all Dawson
arose the mournful howling of thousands of wolf-dogs.
"What did it say?" Breck asked.
"Sixty below." Kit spat experimentally, and the spittle crackled in
the air. "And the thermometer is certainly working. It's falling
all the time. An hour ago it was only fifty-two. Don't tell me
it's a stampede."
"It is," Breck whispered back cautiously, casting anxious eyes about
in fear of some other listener. "You know Squaw Creek?--empties in
on the other side the Yukon thirty miles up?"
"Nothing doing there," was Smoke's judgment. "It was prospected
years ago."
"So were all the other rich creeks. Listen! It's big. Only eight
to twenty feet to bedrock. There won't be a claim that don't run to
half a million. It's a dead secret. Two or three of my close
friends let me in on it. I told my wife right away that I was going
to find you before I started. Now, so long. My pack's hidden down
the bank. In fact, when they told me, they made me promise not to
pull out until Dawson was asleep. You know what it means if you're
seen with a stampeding outfit. Get your partner and follow. You
ought to stake fourth or fifth claim from Discovery. Don't forget--
Squaw Creek. It's the third after you pass Swede Creek."
II.
When Smoke entered the little cabin on the hillside back of Dawson,
he heard a heavy familiar breathing.
"Aw, go to bed," Shorty mumbled, as Smoke shook his shoulder. "I'm
not on the night shift," was his next remark, as the rousing hand
became more vigorous. "Tell your troubles to the bar-keeper."
"Kick into your clothes," Smoke said. "We've got to stake a couple
of claims."
Shorty sat up and started to explode, but Smoke's hand covered his
mouth.
"Ssh!" Smoke warned. "It's a big strike. Don't wake the
neighbourhood. Dawson's asleep."
"Huh! You got to show me. Nobody tells anybody about a strike, of
course not. But ain't it plum amazin' the way everybody hits the
trail just the same?"
"Squaw Creek," Smoke whispered. "It's right. Breck gave me the
tip. Shallow bedrock. Gold from the grass-roots down. Come on.
We'll sling a couple of light packs together and pull out."
Shorty's eyes closed as he lapsed back into sleep. The next moment
his blankets were swept off him.
"If you don't want them, I do," Smoke explained.
Shorty followed the blankets and began to dress.
"Goin' to take the dogs?" he asked.
"No. The trail up the creek is sure to be unbroken, and we can make
better time without them."
"Then I'll throw 'em a meal, which'll have to last 'em till we get
back. Be sure you take some birch-bark and a candle."
Shorty opened the door, felt the bite of the cold, and shrank back
to pull down his ear-flaps and mitten his hands.
Five minutes later he returned, sharply rubbing his nose.
"Smoke, I'm sure opposed to makin' this stampede. It's colder than
the hinges of hell a thousand years before the first fire was
lighted. Besides, it's Friday the thirteenth, an' we're goin' to
trouble as the sparks fly upward."
With small stampeding packs on their backs, they closed the door
behind them and started down the hill. The display of the aurora
borealis had ceased, and only the stars leaped in the great cold,
and by their uncertain light made traps for the feet. Shorty
floundered off a turn of the trail into deep snow, and raised his
voice in blessing of the date of the week and month and year.
"Can't you keep still?" Smoke chided. "Leave the almanac alone.
You'll have all Dawson awake and after us."
"Huh! See the light in that cabin? And in that one over there?
An' hear that door slam? Oh, sure Dawson's asleep. Them lights?
Just buryin' their dead. They ain't stampedin', betcher life they
ain't."
By the time they reached the foot of the hill and were fairly in
Dawson, lights were springing up in the cabins, doors were slamming,
and from behind came the sound of many moccasins on the hard-packed
snow. Again Shorty delivered himself.
"But it beats hell the amount of mourners there is."
They passed a man who stood by the path and was callinganxiously in
a low voice: "Oh, Charley; get a move on."
"See that pack on his back, Smoke? The graveyard's sure a long ways
off when the mourners got to pack their blankets."
By the time they reached the main street a hundred men were in line
behind them, and while they sought in the deceptive starlight for
the trail that dipped down the bank to the river, more men could be
heard arriving. Shorty slipped and shot down the thirty-foot chute
into the soft snow. Smoke followed, knocking him over as he was
rising to his feet.
"I found it first," he gurgled, taking off his mittens to shake the
snow out of the gauntlets.
The next moment they were scrambling wildly out of the way of the
hurtling bodies of those that followed. At the time of the freeze-
up, a jam had occurred at this point, and cakes of ice were up-ended
in snow-covered confusion. After several hard falls, Smoke drew out
his candle and lighted it. Those in the rear hailed it with
acclaim. In the windless air it burned easily, and he led the way
more quickly.
"It's a sure stampede," Shorty decided. "Or might all them be
sleep-walkers?"
"We're at the head of the procession at any rate," was Smoke's
answer.
"Oh, I don't know. Mebbe that's a firefly ahead there. Mebbe
they're all fireflies--that one, an' that one. Look at 'em.
Believe me, they is whole strings of processions ahead."
It was a mile across the jams to the west bank of the Yukon, and
candles flickered the full length of the twisting trail. Behind
them, clear to the top of the bank they had descended, were more
candles.
"Say, Smoke, this ain't no stampede. It's a exode-us. They must be
a thousand men ahead of us an' ten thousand behind. Now, you listen
to your uncle. My medicine's good. When I get a hunch it's sure
right. An' we're in wrong on this stampede. Let's turn back an'
hit the sleep."
"You'd better save your breath if you intend to keep up," Smoke
retorted gruffly.
"Huh! My legs is short, but I slog along slack at the knees an'
don't worry my muscles none, an' I can sure walk every piker here
off the ice."
And Smoke knew he was right, for he had long since learned his
comrade's phenomenal walking powers.
"I've been holding back to give you a chance," Smoke jeered.
"An' I'm plum troddin' on your heels. If you can't do better, let
me go ahead and set pace."
Smoke quickened, and was soon at the rear of the nearest bunch of
stampeders.
"Hike along, you, Smoke," the other urged. "Walk over them unburied
dead. This ain't no funeral. Hit the frost like you was goin'
somewheres."
Smoke counted eight men and two women in this party, and before the
way across the jam-ice was won, he and Shorty had passed another
party twenty strong. Within a few feet of the west bank, the trail
swerved to the south, emerging from the jam upon smooth ice. The
ice, however, was buried under several feet of fine snow. Through
this the sled-trail ran, a narrow ribbon of packed footing barely
two feet in width. On either side one sank to his knees and deeper
in the snow. The stampeders they overtook were reluctant to give
way, and often Smoke and Shorty had to plunge into the deep snow,
and by supreme efforts flounder past.
Shorty was irrepressible and pessimistic. When the stampeders
resented being passed, he retorted in kind.
"What's your hurry?" one of them asked.
"What's yours?" he answered. "A stampede come down from Indian
River yesterday afternoon an' beat you to it. They ain't no claims
left."
"That being so, I repeat, what's your hurry?"
"WHO? Me? I ain't no stampeder. I'm workin' for the government.
I'm on official business. I'm just traipsin' along to take the
census of Squaw Creek."
To another, who hailed him with: "Where away, little one? Do you
really expect to stake a claim?" Shorty answered:
"Me? I'm the discoverer of Squaw Creek. I'm just comin' back from
recordin' so as to see no blamed chechaquo jumps my claim."
The average pace of the stampeders on the smooth going was three
miles and a half an hour. Smoke and Shorty were doing four and a
half, though sometimes they broke into short runs and went faster.
"I'm going to travel your feet clean off, Shorty," Smoke challenged.
"Huh! I can hike along on the stumps an' wear the heels off your
moccasins. Though it ain't no use. I've ben figgerin'. Creek
claims is five hundred feet. Call 'em ten to the mile. They's a
thousand stampeders ahead of us, an' that creek ain't no hundred
miles long. Somebody's goin' to get left, an' it makes a noise like
you an' me."
Before replying, Smoke let out an unexpected link that threw Shorty
half a dozen feet in the rear.
"If you saved your breath and kept up, we'd cut down a few of that
thousand," he chided.
"Who? Me? If you's get outa the way I'd show you a pace what is."
Smoke laughed, and let out another link. The whole aspect of the
adventure had changed. Through his brain was running a phrase of
Smoke met Shorty in the warm saloon, and found the latter jubilant.
"Life ain't no punkins without whiskey an' sweetenin'," was Shorty's
greeting, as he pulled lumps of ice from his thawing moustache and
flung them rattling on the floor. "An' I sure just got eighteen
pounds of that same sweetenin'. The geezer only charged three
dollars a pound for it. What luck did you have?"
"I, too, have not been idle," Smoke answered with pride. "I bought
fifty pounds of flour. And there's a man up on Adam Creek says
he'll let me have fifty pounds more to-morrow."
"Great! We'll sure live till the river opens. Say, Smoke, them
dogs of ourn is the goods. A dog-buyer offered me two hundred
apiece for the five of them. I told him nothin' doin'. They sure
took on class when they got meat to get outside of; but it goes
against the grain feedin' dog-critters on grub that's worth two and
a half a pound. Come on an' have a drink. I just got to celebrate
them eighteen pounds of sweetenin'."
Several minutes later, as he weighed in on the gold-scales for the
drinks, he gave a start of recollection.
"I plum forgot that man I was to meet in the Tivoli. He's got some
spoiled bacon he'll sell for a dollar an' a half a pound. We can
feed it to the dogs an' save a dollar a day on each's board bill.
So long."
"So long," said Smoke. "I'm goin' to the cabin an' turn in."
Hardly had Shorty left the place, when a fur-clad man entered
through the double storm-doors. His face lighted at sight of Smoke,
who recognized him as Breck, the man whose boat he had run through
the Box Canyon and White Horse rapids.
"I heard you were in town," Breck said hurriedly, as they shook
hands. "Been looking for you for half an hour. Come outside, I
want to talk with you."
Smoke looked regretfully at the roaring, red-hot stove.
"Won't this do?"
"No; it's important. Come outside."
As they emerged, Smoke drew off one mitten, lighted a match, and
glanced at the thermometer that hung beside the door. He re-
mittened his naked hand hastily as if the frost had burnt him.
Overhead arched the flamingaurora borealis, while from all Dawson
arose the mournful howling of thousands of wolf-dogs.
"What did it say?" Breck asked.
"Sixty below." Kit spat experimentally, and the spittle crackled in
the air. "And the thermometer is certainly working. It's falling
all the time. An hour ago it was only fifty-two. Don't tell me
it's a stampede."
"It is," Breck whispered back cautiously, casting anxious eyes about
in fear of some other listener. "You know Squaw Creek?--empties in
on the other side the Yukon thirty miles up?"
"Nothing doing there," was Smoke's judgment. "It was prospected
years ago."
"So were all the other rich creeks. Listen! It's big. Only eight
to twenty feet to bedrock. There won't be a claim that don't run to
half a million. It's a dead secret. Two or three of my close
friends let me in on it. I told my wife right away that I was going
to find you before I started. Now, so long. My pack's hidden down
the bank. In fact, when they told me, they made me promise not to
pull out until Dawson was asleep. You know what it means if you're
seen with a stampeding outfit. Get your partner and follow. You
ought to stake fourth or fifth claim from Discovery. Don't forget--
Squaw Creek. It's the third after you pass Swede Creek."
II.
When Smoke entered the little cabin on the hillside back of Dawson,
he heard a heavy familiar breathing.
"Aw, go to bed," Shorty mumbled, as Smoke shook his shoulder. "I'm
not on the night shift," was his next remark, as the rousing hand
became more vigorous. "Tell your troubles to the bar-keeper."
"Kick into your clothes," Smoke said. "We've got to stake a couple
of claims."
Shorty sat up and started to explode, but Smoke's hand covered his
mouth.
"Ssh!" Smoke warned. "It's a big strike. Don't wake the
neighbourhood. Dawson's asleep."
"Huh! You got to show me. Nobody tells anybody about a strike, of
course not. But ain't it plum amazin' the way everybody hits the
trail just the same?"
"Squaw Creek," Smoke whispered. "It's right. Breck gave me the
tip. Shallow bedrock. Gold from the grass-roots down. Come on.
We'll sling a couple of light packs together and pull out."
Shorty's eyes closed as he lapsed back into sleep. The next moment
his blankets were swept off him.
"If you don't want them, I do," Smoke explained.
Shorty followed the blankets and began to dress.
"Goin' to take the dogs?" he asked.
"No. The trail up the creek is sure to be unbroken, and we can make
better time without them."
"Then I'll throw 'em a meal, which'll have to last 'em till we get
back. Be sure you take some birch-bark and a candle."
Shorty opened the door, felt the bite of the cold, and shrank back
to pull down his ear-flaps and mitten his hands.
Five minutes later he returned, sharply rubbing his nose.
"Smoke, I'm sure opposed to makin' this stampede. It's colder than
the hinges of hell a thousand years before the first fire was
lighted. Besides, it's Friday the thirteenth, an' we're goin' to
trouble as the sparks fly upward."
With small stampeding packs on their backs, they closed the door
behind them and started down the hill. The display of the aurora
borealis had ceased, and only the stars leaped in the great cold,
and by their uncertain light made traps for the feet. Shorty
floundered off a turn of the trail into deep snow, and raised his
voice in blessing of the date of the week and month and year.
"Can't you keep still?" Smoke chided. "Leave the almanac alone.
You'll have all Dawson awake and after us."
"Huh! See the light in that cabin? And in that one over there?
An' hear that door slam? Oh, sure Dawson's asleep. Them lights?
Just buryin' their dead. They ain't stampedin', betcher life they
ain't."
By the time they reached the foot of the hill and were fairly in
Dawson, lights were springing up in the cabins, doors were slamming,
and from behind came the sound of many moccasins on the hard-packed
snow. Again Shorty delivered himself.
"But it beats hell the amount of mourners there is."
They passed a man who stood by the path and was callinganxiously in
a low voice: "Oh, Charley; get a move on."
"See that pack on his back, Smoke? The graveyard's sure a long ways
off when the mourners got to pack their blankets."
By the time they reached the main street a hundred men were in line
behind them, and while they sought in the deceptive starlight for
the trail that dipped down the bank to the river, more men could be
heard arriving. Shorty slipped and shot down the thirty-foot chute
into the soft snow. Smoke followed, knocking him over as he was
rising to his feet.
"I found it first," he gurgled, taking off his mittens to shake the
snow out of the gauntlets.
The next moment they were scrambling wildly out of the way of the
hurtling bodies of those that followed. At the time of the freeze-
up, a jam had occurred at this point, and cakes of ice were up-ended
in snow-covered confusion. After several hard falls, Smoke drew out
his candle and lighted it. Those in the rear hailed it with
acclaim. In the windless air it burned easily, and he led the way
more quickly.
"It's a sure stampede," Shorty decided. "Or might all them be
sleep-walkers?"
"We're at the head of the procession at any rate," was Smoke's
answer.
"Oh, I don't know. Mebbe that's a firefly ahead there. Mebbe
they're all fireflies--that one, an' that one. Look at 'em.
Believe me, they is whole strings of processions ahead."
It was a mile across the jams to the west bank of the Yukon, and
candles flickered the full length of the twisting trail. Behind
them, clear to the top of the bank they had descended, were more
candles.
"Say, Smoke, this ain't no stampede. It's a exode-us. They must be
a thousand men ahead of us an' ten thousand behind. Now, you listen
to your uncle. My medicine's good. When I get a hunch it's sure
right. An' we're in wrong on this stampede. Let's turn back an'
hit the sleep."
"You'd better save your breath if you intend to keep up," Smoke
retorted gruffly.
"Huh! My legs is short, but I slog along slack at the knees an'
don't worry my muscles none, an' I can sure walk every piker here
off the ice."
And Smoke knew he was right, for he had long since learned his
comrade's phenomenal walking powers.
"I've been holding back to give you a chance," Smoke jeered.
"An' I'm plum troddin' on your heels. If you can't do better, let
me go ahead and set pace."
Smoke quickened, and was soon at the rear of the nearest bunch of
stampeders.
"Hike along, you, Smoke," the other urged. "Walk over them unburied
dead. This ain't no funeral. Hit the frost like you was goin'
somewheres."
Smoke counted eight men and two women in this party, and before the
way across the jam-ice was won, he and Shorty had passed another
party twenty strong. Within a few feet of the west bank, the trail
swerved to the south, emerging from the jam upon smooth ice. The
ice, however, was buried under several feet of fine snow. Through
this the sled-trail ran, a narrow ribbon of packed footing barely
two feet in width. On either side one sank to his knees and deeper
in the snow. The stampeders they overtook were reluctant to give
way, and often Smoke and Shorty had to plunge into the deep snow,
and by supreme efforts flounder past.
Shorty was irrepressible and pessimistic. When the stampeders
resented being passed, he retorted in kind.
"What's your hurry?" one of them asked.
"What's yours?" he answered. "A stampede come down from Indian
River yesterday afternoon an' beat you to it. They ain't no claims
left."
"That being so, I repeat, what's your hurry?"
"WHO? Me? I ain't no stampeder. I'm workin' for the government.
I'm on official business. I'm just traipsin' along to take the
census of Squaw Creek."
To another, who hailed him with: "Where away, little one? Do you
really expect to stake a claim?" Shorty answered:
"Me? I'm the discoverer of Squaw Creek. I'm just comin' back from
recordin' so as to see no blamed chechaquo jumps my claim."
The average pace of the stampeders on the smooth going was three
miles and a half an hour. Smoke and Shorty were doing four and a
half, though sometimes they broke into short runs and went faster.
"I'm going to travel your feet clean off, Shorty," Smoke challenged.
"Huh! I can hike along on the stumps an' wear the heels off your
moccasins. Though it ain't no use. I've ben figgerin'. Creek
claims is five hundred feet. Call 'em ten to the mile. They's a
thousand stampeders ahead of us, an' that creek ain't no hundred
miles long. Somebody's goin' to get left, an' it makes a noise like
you an' me."
Before replying, Smoke let out an unexpected link that threw Shorty
half a dozen feet in the rear.
"If you saved your breath and kept up, we'd cut down a few of that
thousand," he chided.
"Who? Me? If you's get outa the way I'd show you a pace what is."
Smoke laughed, and let out another link. The whole aspect of the
adventure had changed. Through his brain was running a phrase of
- hastily [´heistili]
ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词) - working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- partner [´pɑ:tnə] n.伙伴 v.同....合作 (初中英语单词)
- hillside [´hilsaid] n.山腰 (初中英语单词)
- shallow [´ʃæləu] a.肤浅的；表面的 (初中英语单词)
- sharply [´ʃɑ:pli] ad.锋利地；剧烈地 (初中英语单词)
- uncertain [ʌn´sə:tn] a.不定的；不可靠的 (初中英语单词)
- blessing [´blesiŋ] n.祝福 (初中英语单词)
- amount [ə´maunt] n.总数；数量 v.合计 (初中英语单词)
- confusion [kən´fju:ʒən] n.混乱(状态)；骚乱 (初中英语单词)
- procession [prə´seʃən] n.队伍 v.列队行进 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- funeral [´fju:nərəl] n.葬礼，丧葬；困难 (初中英语单词)
- ribbon [´ribən] n.缎带；带子；色带 (初中英语单词)
- plunge [plʌndʒ] v.插进 n.投入；冲击 (初中英语单词)
- supreme [su:´pri:m, sju:-] a.最高的，无上的 (初中英语单词)
- yesterday [´jestədi] n.&ad.昨天；前不久 (初中英语单词)
- aspect [´æspekt] n.面貌；神色；方向 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- phrase [freiz] n.短语；词组；措词 (初中英语单词)
- saloon [sə´lu:n] n.大厅；餐车 (高中英语单词)
- thermometer [θə´mɔmitə] n.温度计；寒暑表 (高中英语单词)
- cautiously [´kɔ:ʃəsli] ad.小心地；谨慎地 (高中英语单词)
- outfit [´aut,fit] n.装备 vt.供给；装备 (高中英语单词)
- vigorous [´vigərəs] a.精力旺盛的；健壮的 (高中英语单词)
- anxiously [´æŋkʃəsli] ad.挂念地；渴望地 (高中英语单词)
- decided [di´saidid] a.明显的；决定的 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- unexpected [ʌniks´pektid] a.突然的；意外的 (高中英语单词)
- whiskey [´wiski] n.威士忌酒 =whisky (英语四级单词)
- canyon [´kænjən] n.峡谷 (英语四级单词)
- hurriedly [´hʌridli] ad.仓促地，忙乱地 (英语四级单词)
- flaming [´fleimiŋ] a.熊熊燃烧的；热情的 (英语四级单词)
- mournful [´mɔ:nful] a.令人沮丧的 (英语四级单词)
- listener [´lisənə] n.(收)听者，听众之一 (英语四级单词)
- unbroken [ʌn´brəukən] a.未破的；不间断的 (英语四级单词)
- almanac [´ɔ:lmənæk] n.历书；年鉴 (英语四级单词)
- overtook [,əuvə´tuk] overtake的过去式 (英语四级单词)
- reluctant [ri´lʌktənt] a.勉强的；难得到的 (英语四级单词)
- arched [´ɑ:tʃid] a.弓形(结构)的 (英语六级单词)
- aurora [ɔ:´rɔ:rə] n.曙光，朝霞 (英语六级单词)
- shrank [ʃræŋk] shrink的过去式 (英语六级单词)
- calling [´kɔ:liŋ] n.点名；职业；欲望 (英语六级单词)
- starlight [´stɑ:lait] n.星光 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- firefly [´faiəflai] n.萤火虫 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- footing [´futiŋ] n.立脚点；基础；地位 (英语六级单词)
- flounder [´flaundə] vi.&n.挣扎；踌躇 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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