章节正文
the mad philosopher--"the transvaluation of values." In truth, he
was less interested in staking a fortune than in beating Shorty.
After all, he concluded, it wasn't the reward of the game but the
playing of it that counted. Mind, and muscle, and stamina, and
soul, were challenged in a contest with this Shorty, a man who had
never opened the books, and who did not know grand opera from rag-
time, nor an epic from a chilblain.
"Shorty, I've got you skinned to death. I've reconstructed every
cell in my body since I hit the beach at Dyea. My flesh is as
stringy as whipcords, and as bitter and mean as the bite of a
rattlesnake. A few months ago I'd have patted myself on the back to
write such words, but I couldn't have written them. I had to live
them first, and now that I'm living them there's no need to write
them. I'm the real, bitter, stinging goods, and no scrub of a
mountaineer can put anything over on me without getting it back
compound. Now, you go ahead and set pace for half an hour. Do your
worst, and when you're all in I'll go ahead and give you half an
hour of the real worst."
"Huh!" Shorty sneered genially. "An' him not dry behind the ears
yet. Get outa the way an' let your father show you some goin'."
Half-hour by half-hour they alternated in setting pace. Nor did
they talk much. Their exertions kept them warm, though their breath
froze on their faces from lips to chin. So intense was the cold
that they almost continually rubbed their noses and cheeks with
their mittens. A few minutes cessation from this allowed the flesh
to grow numb, and then most vigorous rubbing was required to produce
the burning prickle of returning circulation.
Often they thought they had reached the lead, but always they
overtook more stampeders who had started before them. Occasionally,
groups of men attempted to swing in behind to their pace, but
invariably they were discouraged after a mile or two, and
disappeared in the darkness to the rear.
"We've been out on trail all winter," was Shorty's comment. "An'
them geezers, soft from laying around their cabins, has the nerve to
think they can keep our stride. Now, if they was real sour-doughs
it'd be different. If there's one thing a sour-dough can do it's
sure walk."
Once, Smoke lighted a match and glanced at his watch. He never
repeated it, for so quick was the bite of the frost on his bared
hands, that half an hour passed before they were again comfortable.
"Four o'clock," he said, as he pulled on his mittens, "and we've
already passed three hundred."
"Three hundred and thirty-eight," Shorty corrected. "I ben keepin'
count. Get outa the way, stranger. Let somebody stampede that
knows how to stampede."
The latter was addressed to a man, evidently exhausted, who could no
more than stumble along, and who blocked the trail. This, and one
other, were the only played-out men they encountered, for they were
very near to the head of the stampede. Nor did they learn till
afterwards the horrors of that night. Exhausted men sat down to
rest by the way, and failed to get up. Seven were freeze 的过去分词">frozen to death,
while scores of amputations of toes, feet, and fingers were
performed in the Dawson hospitals on the survivors. For of all
nights for a stampede, the one to Squaw Creek occurred on the
coldest night of the year. Before morning, the spirit thermometers
at Dawson registered seventy degrees below zero. The men composing
the stampede, with few exceptions, were new-comers in the country
who did not know the way of the cold.
The other played-out man they found a few minutes later, revealed by
a streamer of aurora borealis that shot like a searchlight from
horizon to zenith. He was sitting on a piece of ice beside the
trail.
"Hop along, sister Mary," Shorty gaily greeted him. "Keep movin'.
If you sit there you'll freeze stiff."
The man made no response, and they stopped to investigate.
"Stiff as a poker," was Shorty's verdict. "If you tumbled him over
he'd break."
"See if he's breathing," Smoke said, as, with bared hands, he sought
through furs and woollens for the man's heart.
Shorty lifted one ear-flap and bent to the iced lips.
"Nary breathe," he reported.
"Nor heart-beat," said Smoke.
He mittened his hand and beat it violently for a minute before
exposing it to the frost to strike a match. It was an old man,
incontestably dead. In the moment of illumination, they saw a long
grey beard, massed with ice to the nose, cheeks that were white with
frost, and closed eyes with frost-rimmed lashes freeze 的过去分词">frozen together.
Then the match went out.
"Come on," Shorty said, rubbing his ear. "We can't do nothing for
the old geezer. An' I've sure frosted my ear. Now all the blamed
skin'll peel off and it'll be sore for a week."
A few minutes later, when a flamingribbon spilled pulsating fire
over the heavens, they saw on the ice a quarter of a mile ahead two
forms. Beyond, for a mile, nothing moved.
"They're leading the procession," Smoke said, as darkness fell
again. "Come on, let's get them."
At the end of half an hour, not yet having overtaken the two in
front, Shorty broke into a run.
"If we catch 'em we'll never pass 'em," he panted. "Lord, what a
pace they're hittin'. Dollars to doughnuts they're no chechaquos.
They're the real sour-dough variety, you can stack on that."
Smoke was leading when they finally caught up, and he was glad to
ease to a walk at their heels. Almost immediately he got the
impression that the one nearer him was a woman. How this impression
came, he could not tell. Hooded and furred, the dark form was as
any form; yet there was a haunting sense of familiarity about it.
He waited for the next flame of the aurora, and by its light saw the
smallness of the moccasined feet. But he saw more--the walk; and
knew it for the unmistakable walk he had once resolved never to
forget.
"She's a sure goer," Shorty confided hoarsely. "I'll bet it's an
Indian."
"How do you do, Miss Gastell," Smoke addressed.
"How do you do," she answered, with a turn of the head and a quick
glance. "It's too dark to see. Who are you?"
"Smoke,"
She laughed in the frost, and he was certain it was the prettiest
laughter he had ever heard.
"And have you married and raised all those children you were telling
me about?" Before he could retort, she went on. "How many
chechaquos are there behind?"
"Several thousand, I imagine. We passed over three hundred. And
they weren't wasting any time."
"It's the old story," she said bitterly. "The new-comers get in on
the rich creeks, and the old-timers who dared and suffered and made
this country, get nothing. Old-timers made this discovery on Squaw
Creek--how it leaked out is the mystery--and they sent word up to
all the old-timers on Sea Lion. But it's ten miles farther than
Dawson, and when they arrive they'll find the creek staked to the
skyline by the Dawson chechaquos. It isn't right, it isn't fair,
such perversity of luck."
"It is too bad," Smoke sympathized. "But I'm hanged if I know what
you're going to do about it. First come, first served, you know."
"I wish I could do something," she flashed back at him. "I'd like
to see them all freeze on the trail, or have everything terrible
happen to them, so long as the Sea Lion stampede arrived first."
"You've certainly got it in for us, hard," he laughed.
"It isn't that," she said quickly. "Man by man, I know the crowd
from Sea Lion, and they are men. They starved in this country in
the old days, and they worked like giants to develop it. I went
through the hard times on the Koyokuk with them when I was a little
girl. And I was with them in the Birch Creek famine, and in the
Forty Mile famine. They are heroes, and they deserve some reward,
and yet here are thousands of green softlings who haven't earned the
right to stake anything, miles and miles ahead of them. And now, if
you'll forgive my tirade, I'll save my breath, for I don't know when
you and all the rest may try to pass dad and me."
No further talk passed between Joy and Smoke for an hour or so,
though he noticed that for a time she and her father talked in low
tones.
"I know'm now," Shorty told Smoke. "He's old Louis Gastell, an' the
real goods. That must be his kid. He come into this country so
long ago they ain't nobody can recollect, an' he brought the girl
with him, she only a baby. Him an' Beetles was tradin' partners an'
they ran the first dinkey little steamboat up the Koyokuk."
"I don't think we'll try to pass them," Smoke said. "We're at the
head of the stampede, and there are only four of us."
Shorty agreed, and another hour of silence followed, during which
they swung steadily along. At seven o'clock, the blackness was
broken by a last display of the aurora borealis, which showed to the
west a broad opening between snow-clad mountains.
"Squaw Creek!" Joy exclaimed.
"Goin' some," Shorty exulted. "We oughtn't to ben there for another
half hour to the least, accordin' to my reckonin'. I must a' ben
spreadin' my legs."
It was at this point that the Dyea trail, baffled by ice-jams,
swerved abruptly across the Yukon to the east bank. And here they
must leave the hard-packed, main-travelled trail, mount the jams,
and follow a dim trail, but slightly packed, that hovered the west
bank.
Louis Gastell, leading, slipped in the darkness on the rough ice,
and sat up, holding his ankle in both his hands. He struggled to
his feet and went on, but at a slower pace and with a perceptible
limp. After a few minutes he abruptly halted.
"It's no use," he said to his daughter. "I've sprained a tendon.
You go ahead and stake for me as well as yourself."
"Can't we do something?" Smoke asked.
Louis Gastell shook his head.
"She can stake two claims as well as one. I'll crawl over to the
bank, start a fire, and bandage my ankle. I'll be all right. Go
on, Joy. Stake ours above the Discovery claim; it's richer higher
up."
"Here's some birch bark," Smoke said, dividing his supply equally.
"We'll take care of your daughter."
Louis Gastell laughed harshly.
"Thank you just the same," he said. "But she can take care of
herself. Follow her and watch her."
"Do you mind if I lead?" she asked Smoke, as she headed on. "I know
this country better than you."
"Lead on," Smoke answered gallantly, "though I agree with you it's a
darned shame all us chechaquos are going to beat that Sea Lion bunch
to it. Isn't there some way to shake them?"
She shook her head.
"We can't hide our trail, and they'll follow it like sheep."
After a quarter of a mile, she turned sharply to the west. Smoke
noticed that they were going through unpacked snow, but neither he
nor Shorty observed that the dim trail they had been on still led
south. Had they witnessed the subsequentprocedure of Louis
Gastell, the history of the Klondike would have been written
differently; for they would have seen that old-timer, no longer
limping, running with his nose to the trail like a hound, following
them. Also, they would have seen him trample and widen the turn
they had made to the west. And, finally, they would have seen him
keep on the old dim trail that still led south.
A trail did run up the creek, but so slight was it that they
continually lost it in the darkness. After a quarter of an hour,
Joy Gastell was willing to drop into the rear and let the two men
take turns in breaking a way through the snow. This slowness of the
leaders enabled the whole stampede to catch up, and when daylight
came, at nine o'clock, as far back as they could see was an unbroken
line of men. Joy's dark eyes sparkled at the sight.
was less interested in staking a fortune than in beating Shorty.
After all, he concluded, it wasn't the reward of the game but the
playing of it that counted. Mind, and muscle, and stamina, and
soul, were challenged in a contest with this Shorty, a man who had
never opened the books, and who did not know grand opera from rag-
time, nor an epic from a chilblain.
"Shorty, I've got you skinned to death. I've reconstructed every
cell in my body since I hit the beach at Dyea. My flesh is as
stringy as whipcords, and as bitter and mean as the bite of a
rattlesnake. A few months ago I'd have patted myself on the back to
write such words, but I couldn't have written them. I had to live
them first, and now that I'm living them there's no need to write
them. I'm the real, bitter, stinging goods, and no scrub of a
mountaineer can put anything over on me without getting it back
compound. Now, you go ahead and set pace for half an hour. Do your
worst, and when you're all in I'll go ahead and give you half an
hour of the real worst."
"Huh!" Shorty sneered genially. "An' him not dry behind the ears
yet. Get outa the way an' let your father show you some goin'."
Half-hour by half-hour they alternated in setting pace. Nor did
they talk much. Their exertions kept them warm, though their breath
froze on their faces from lips to chin. So intense was the cold
that they almost continually rubbed their noses and cheeks with
their mittens. A few minutes cessation from this allowed the flesh
to grow numb, and then most vigorous rubbing was required to produce
the burning prickle of returning circulation.
Often they thought they had reached the lead, but always they
overtook more stampeders who had started before them. Occasionally,
groups of men attempted to swing in behind to their pace, but
invariably they were discouraged after a mile or two, and
disappeared in the darkness to the rear.
"We've been out on trail all winter," was Shorty's comment. "An'
them geezers, soft from laying around their cabins, has the nerve to
think they can keep our stride. Now, if they was real sour-doughs
it'd be different. If there's one thing a sour-dough can do it's
sure walk."
Once, Smoke lighted a match and glanced at his watch. He never
repeated it, for so quick was the bite of the frost on his bared
hands, that half an hour passed before they were again comfortable.
"Four o'clock," he said, as he pulled on his mittens, "and we've
already passed three hundred."
"Three hundred and thirty-eight," Shorty corrected. "I ben keepin'
count. Get outa the way, stranger. Let somebody stampede that
knows how to stampede."
The latter was addressed to a man, evidently exhausted, who could no
more than stumble along, and who blocked the trail. This, and one
other, were the only played-out men they encountered, for they were
very near to the head of the stampede. Nor did they learn till
afterwards the horrors of that night. Exhausted men sat down to
rest by the way, and failed to get up. Seven were freeze 的过去分词">frozen to death,
while scores of amputations of toes, feet, and fingers were
performed in the Dawson hospitals on the survivors. For of all
nights for a stampede, the one to Squaw Creek occurred on the
coldest night of the year. Before morning, the spirit thermometers
at Dawson registered seventy degrees below zero. The men composing
the stampede, with few exceptions, were new-comers in the country
who did not know the way of the cold.
The other played-out man they found a few minutes later, revealed by
a streamer of aurora borealis that shot like a searchlight from
horizon to zenith. He was sitting on a piece of ice beside the
trail.
"Hop along, sister Mary," Shorty gaily greeted him. "Keep movin'.
If you sit there you'll freeze stiff."
The man made no response, and they stopped to investigate.
"Stiff as a poker," was Shorty's verdict. "If you tumbled him over
he'd break."
"See if he's breathing," Smoke said, as, with bared hands, he sought
through furs and woollens for the man's heart.
Shorty lifted one ear-flap and bent to the iced lips.
"Nary breathe," he reported.
"Nor heart-beat," said Smoke.
He mittened his hand and beat it violently for a minute before
exposing it to the frost to strike a match. It was an old man,
incontestably dead. In the moment of illumination, they saw a long
grey beard, massed with ice to the nose, cheeks that were white with
frost, and closed eyes with frost-rimmed lashes freeze 的过去分词">frozen together.
Then the match went out.
"Come on," Shorty said, rubbing his ear. "We can't do nothing for
the old geezer. An' I've sure frosted my ear. Now all the blamed
skin'll peel off and it'll be sore for a week."
A few minutes later, when a flamingribbon spilled pulsating fire
over the heavens, they saw on the ice a quarter of a mile ahead two
forms. Beyond, for a mile, nothing moved.
"They're leading the procession," Smoke said, as darkness fell
again. "Come on, let's get them."
At the end of half an hour, not yet having overtaken the two in
front, Shorty broke into a run.
"If we catch 'em we'll never pass 'em," he panted. "Lord, what a
pace they're hittin'. Dollars to doughnuts they're no chechaquos.
They're the real sour-dough variety, you can stack on that."
Smoke was leading when they finally caught up, and he was glad to
ease to a walk at their heels. Almost immediately he got the
impression that the one nearer him was a woman. How this impression
came, he could not tell. Hooded and furred, the dark form was as
any form; yet there was a haunting sense of familiarity about it.
He waited for the next flame of the aurora, and by its light saw the
smallness of the moccasined feet. But he saw more--the walk; and
knew it for the unmistakable walk he had once resolved never to
forget.
"She's a sure goer," Shorty confided hoarsely. "I'll bet it's an
Indian."
"How do you do, Miss Gastell," Smoke addressed.
"How do you do," she answered, with a turn of the head and a quick
glance. "It's too dark to see. Who are you?"
"Smoke,"
She laughed in the frost, and he was certain it was the prettiest
laughter he had ever heard.
"And have you married and raised all those children you were telling
me about?" Before he could retort, she went on. "How many
chechaquos are there behind?"
"Several thousand, I imagine. We passed over three hundred. And
they weren't wasting any time."
"It's the old story," she said bitterly. "The new-comers get in on
the rich creeks, and the old-timers who dared and suffered and made
this country, get nothing. Old-timers made this discovery on Squaw
Creek--how it leaked out is the mystery--and they sent word up to
all the old-timers on Sea Lion. But it's ten miles farther than
Dawson, and when they arrive they'll find the creek staked to the
skyline by the Dawson chechaquos. It isn't right, it isn't fair,
such perversity of luck."
"It is too bad," Smoke sympathized. "But I'm hanged if I know what
you're going to do about it. First come, first served, you know."
"I wish I could do something," she flashed back at him. "I'd like
to see them all freeze on the trail, or have everything terrible
happen to them, so long as the Sea Lion stampede arrived first."
"You've certainly got it in for us, hard," he laughed.
"It isn't that," she said quickly. "Man by man, I know the crowd
from Sea Lion, and they are men. They starved in this country in
the old days, and they worked like giants to develop it. I went
through the hard times on the Koyokuk with them when I was a little
girl. And I was with them in the Birch Creek famine, and in the
Forty Mile famine. They are heroes, and they deserve some reward,
and yet here are thousands of green softlings who haven't earned the
right to stake anything, miles and miles ahead of them. And now, if
you'll forgive my tirade, I'll save my breath, for I don't know when
you and all the rest may try to pass dad and me."
No further talk passed between Joy and Smoke for an hour or so,
though he noticed that for a time she and her father talked in low
tones.
"I know'm now," Shorty told Smoke. "He's old Louis Gastell, an' the
real goods. That must be his kid. He come into this country so
long ago they ain't nobody can recollect, an' he brought the girl
with him, she only a baby. Him an' Beetles was tradin' partners an'
they ran the first dinkey little steamboat up the Koyokuk."
"I don't think we'll try to pass them," Smoke said. "We're at the
head of the stampede, and there are only four of us."
Shorty agreed, and another hour of silence followed, during which
they swung steadily along. At seven o'clock, the blackness was
broken by a last display of the aurora borealis, which showed to the
west a broad opening between snow-clad mountains.
"Squaw Creek!" Joy exclaimed.
"Goin' some," Shorty exulted. "We oughtn't to ben there for another
half hour to the least, accordin' to my reckonin'. I must a' ben
spreadin' my legs."
It was at this point that the Dyea trail, baffled by ice-jams,
swerved abruptly across the Yukon to the east bank. And here they
must leave the hard-packed, main-travelled trail, mount the jams,
and follow a dim trail, but slightly packed, that hovered the west
bank.
Louis Gastell, leading, slipped in the darkness on the rough ice,
and sat up, holding his ankle in both his hands. He struggled to
his feet and went on, but at a slower pace and with a perceptible
limp. After a few minutes he abruptly halted.
"It's no use," he said to his daughter. "I've sprained a tendon.
You go ahead and stake for me as well as yourself."
"Can't we do something?" Smoke asked.
Louis Gastell shook his head.
"She can stake two claims as well as one. I'll crawl over to the
bank, start a fire, and bandage my ankle. I'll be all right. Go
on, Joy. Stake ours above the Discovery claim; it's richer higher
up."
"Here's some birch bark," Smoke said, dividing his supply equally.
"We'll take care of your daughter."
Louis Gastell laughed harshly.
"Thank you just the same," he said. "But she can take care of
herself. Follow her and watch her."
"Do you mind if I lead?" she asked Smoke, as she headed on. "I know
this country better than you."
"Lead on," Smoke answered gallantly, "though I agree with you it's a
darned shame all us chechaquos are going to beat that Sea Lion bunch
to it. Isn't there some way to shake them?"
She shook her head.
"We can't hide our trail, and they'll follow it like sheep."
After a quarter of a mile, she turned sharply to the west. Smoke
noticed that they were going through unpacked snow, but neither he
nor Shorty observed that the dim trail they had been on still led
south. Had they witnessed the subsequentprocedure of Louis
Gastell, the history of the Klondike would have been written
differently; for they would have seen that old-timer, no longer
limping, running with his nose to the trail like a hound, following
them. Also, they would have seen him trample and widen the turn
they had made to the west. And, finally, they would have seen him
keep on the old dim trail that still led south.
A trail did run up the creek, but so slight was it that they
continually lost it in the darkness. After a quarter of an hour,
Joy Gastell was willing to drop into the rear and let the two men
take turns in breaking a way through the snow. This slowness of the
leaders enabled the whole stampede to catch up, and when daylight
came, at nine o'clock, as far back as they could see was an unbroken
line of men. Joy's dark eyes sparkled at the sight.
- reward [ri´wɔ:d]
n.&v.报答；报酬；奖赏 (初中英语单词) - muscle [´mʌsəl] n.肌肉；体力；力量 (初中英语单词)
- contest [kən´test, ´kɔntest] v.争辩 n.争夺；竞赛 (初中英语单词)
- comment [´kɔment] n.&v.评论；评注；注意 (初中英语单词)
- evidently [´evidəntli] ad.明显地 (初中英语单词)
- stumble [´stʌmbəl] v.摔倒；失足；弄错 (初中英语单词)
- frozen [´frəuzn] freeze 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- freeze [fri:z] v.结冰；凝固；冷淡 (初中英语单词)
- ribbon [´ribən] n.缎带；带子；色带 (初中英语单词)
- variety [və´raiəti] n.变化；多样(性)；种类 (初中英语单词)
- bitterly [´bitəli] ad.悲痛地；憎恨地 (初中英语单词)
- deserve [di´zə:v] v.应受；值得 (初中英语单词)
- forgive [fə´giv] vt.原谅，谅解，宽恕 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- steadily [´stedili] ad.坚定地；不断地 (初中英语单词)
- opening [´əupəniŋ] n.开放；开端 a.开始的 (初中英语单词)
- abruptly [ə´brʌptli] ad.突然地；粗鲁地 (初中英语单词)
- slightly [´slaitli] ad.轻微地；细长的 (初中英语单词)
- sharply [´ʃɑ:pli] ad.锋利地；剧烈地 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- willing [´wiliŋ] a.情愿的，乐意的 (初中英语单词)
- intense [in´tens] a.强烈的；紧张的 (高中英语单词)
- continually [kən´tinjuəli] ad.不断地，频繁地 (高中英语单词)
- vigorous [´vigərəs] a.精力旺盛的；健壮的 (高中英语单词)
- stride [straid] n.进展 v.跨过；骑 (高中英语单词)
- response [ri´spɔns] n.回答；响应 (高中英语单词)
- violently [´vaiələntli] ad.强暴地；猛烈地 (高中英语单词)
- retort [ri´tɔ:t] n.&v.报复；反击；反驳 (高中英语单词)
- famine [´fæmin] n.饥荒 (高中英语单词)
- steamboat [´sti:mbəut] n.轮船，汽艇 (高中英语单词)
- bandage [´bændidʒ] n.绷带 vt.用绷带包扎 (高中英语单词)
- subsequent [´sʌbsikwənt] a.其次的；其后的 (高中英语单词)
- procedure [prə´si:dʒə] n.过程；手续；方法 (高中英语单词)
- trample [´træmpəl] v.&n.践踏；蹂躏；踩坏 (高中英语单词)
- setting [´setiŋ] n.安装；排字；布景 (英语四级单词)
- verdict [´və:dikt] n.裁决，判决；判定 (英语四级单词)
- flaming [´fleimiŋ] a.熊熊燃烧的；热情的 (英语四级单词)
- resolved [ri´zɔlvd] a.决心的；坚定的 (英语四级单词)
- wasting [´weistiŋ] a.&n.浪费(的) (英语四级单词)
- recollect [rekə´lekt] v.重新集合；恢复 (英语四级单词)
- blackness [´blæknis] n.黑色；阴险 (英语四级单词)
- beating [´bi:tiŋ] n.敲；搅打；失败 (英语六级单词)
- half-hour [´hɑ:f-auə] n.&a.(每)三十分钟的 (英语六级单词)
- streamer [´stri:mə] n.飘扬的旗帜；飘带 (英语六级单词)
- aurora [ɔ:´rɔ:rə] n.曙光，朝霞 (英语六级单词)
- zenith [´ziniθ] n.天顶，顶点；全盛 (英语六级单词)
- illumination [i,lju:mi´neiʃən] n.照明；阐明 (英语六级单词)
- familiarity [fə,mili´æriti] n.熟悉；新近；随便 (英语六级单词)
- unmistakable [,ʌnmi´steikəbəl] a.明显的；错不了的 (英语六级单词)
- hoarsely [´hɔ:sli] ad.嘶哑地 (英语六级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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