Burning Daylight Read online

  CHAPTER X

  Still men were without faith in the strike. When Daylight, with hisheavy outfit of flour, arrived at the mouth of the Klondike, he foundthe big flat as desolate and tenantless as ever. Down close by theriver, Chief Isaac and his Indians were camped beside the frames onwhich they were drying salmon. Several old-timers were also in campthere. Having finished their summer work on Ten Mile Creek, they hadcome down the Yukon, bound for Circle City. But at Sixty Mile they hadlearned of the strike, and stopped off to look over the ground. Theyhad just returned to their boat when Daylight landed his flour, andtheir report was pessimistic.

  "Damned moose-pasture," quoth one, Long Jim Harney, pausing to blowinto his tin mug of tea. "Don't you have nothin' to do with it,Daylight. It's a blamed rotten sell. They're just going through themotions of a strike. Harper and Ladue's behind it, and Carmack's thestool-pigeon. Whoever heard of mining a moose-pasture half a milebetween rim-rock and God alone knows how far to bed-rock!"

  Daylight nodded sympathetically, and considered for a space.

  "Did you-all pan any?" he asked finally.

  "Pan hell!" was the indignant answer. "Think I was born yesterday!Only a chechaquo'd fool around that pasture long enough to fill a panof dirt. You don't catch me at any such foolishness. One look wasenough for me. We're pulling on in the morning for Circle City. Iain't never had faith in this Upper Country. Head-reaches of theTanana is good enough for me from now on, and mark my words, when thebig strike comes, she'll come down river. Johnny, here, staked acouple of miles below Discovery, but he don't know no better." Johnnylooked shamefaced.

  "I just did it for fun," he explained. "I'd give my chance in thecreek for a pound of Star plug."

  "I'll go you," Daylight said promptly. "But don't you-all comesquealing if I take twenty or thirty thousand out of it."

  Johnny grinned cheerfully.

  "Gimme the tobacco," he said.

  "Wish I'd staked alongside," Long Jim murmured plaintively.

  "It ain't too late," Daylight replied.

  "But it's a twenty-mile walk there and back."

  "I'll stake it for you to-morrow when I go up," Daylight offered.

  "Then you do the same as Johnny. Get the fees from Tim Logan. He'stending bar in the Sourdough, and he'll lend it to me. Then fill inyour own name, transfer to me, and turn the papers over to Tim."

  "Me, too," chimed in the third old-timer.

  And for three pounds of Star plug chewing tobacco, Daylight boughtoutright three five-hundred-foot claims on Bonanza. He could stillstake another claim in his own name, the others being merely transfers.

  "Must say you're almighty brash with your chewin' tobacco," Long Jimgrinned. "Got a factory somewheres?"

  "Nope, but I got a hunch," was the retort, "and I tell you-all it'scheaper than dirt to ride her at the rate of three plugs for threeclaims."

  But an hour later, at his own camp, Joe Ladue strode in, fresh fromBonanza Creek. At first, non-committal over Carmack's strike, then,later, dubious, he finally offered Daylight a hundred dollars for hisshare in the town site.

  "Cash?" Daylight queried.

  "Sure. There she is."

  So saying, Ladue pulled out his gold-sack. Daylight hefted itabsent-mindedly, and, still absent-mindedly, untied the strings and ransome of the gold-dust out on his palm. It showed darker than any dusthe had ever seen, with the exception of Carmack's. He ran the gold backtied the mouth of the sack, and returned it to Ladue.

  "I guess you-all need it more'n I do," was Daylight's comment.

  "Nope; got plenty more," the other assured him.

  "Where that come from?"

  Daylight was all innocence as he asked the question, and Ladue receivedthe question as stolidly as an Indian. Yet for a swift instant theylooked into each other's eyes, and in that instant an intangiblesomething seemed to flash out from all the body and spirit of JoeLadue. And it seemed to Daylight that he had caught this flash, senseda secret something in the knowledge and plans behind the other's eyes.

  "You-all know the creek better'n me," Daylight went on. "And if myshare in the town site's worth a hundred to you-all with what you-allknow, it's worth a hundred to me whether I know it or not."

  "I'll give you three hundred," Ladue offered desperately.

  "Still the same reasoning. No matter what I don't know, it's worth tome whatever you-all are willing to pay for it."

  Then it was that Joe Ladue shamelessly gave over. He led Daylight awayfrom the camp and men and told him things in confidence.

  "She's sure there," he said in conclusion. "I didn't sluice it, orcradle it. I panned it, all in that sack, yesterday, on the rim-rock.I tell you, you can shake it out of the grassroots. And what's onbed-rock down in the bottom of the creek they ain't no way of tellin'.But she's big, I tell you, big. Keep it quiet, and locate all you can.It's in spots, but I wouldn't be none surprised if some of them claimsyielded as high as fifty thousand. The only trouble is that it'sspotted."

  * * *

  A month passed by, and Bonanza Creek remained quiet. A sprinkling ofmen had staked; but most of them, after staking, had gone on down toForty Mile and Circle City. The few that possessed sufficient faith toremain were busy building log cabins against the coming of winter.Carmack and his Indian relatives were occupied in building a sluice boxand getting a head of water. The work was slow, for they had to sawtheir lumber by hand from the standing forest. But farther downBonanza were four men who had drifted in from up river, Dan McGilvary,Dave McKay, Dave Edwards, and Harry Waugh. They were a quiet party,neither asking nor giving confidences, and they herded by themselves.But Daylight, who had panned the spotted rim of Carmack's claim andshaken coarse gold from the grass-roots, and who had panned the rim ata hundred other places up and down the length of the creek and foundnothing, was curious to know what lay on bed-rock. He had noted thefour quiet men sinking a shaft close by the stream, and he had heardtheir whip-saw going as they made lumber for the sluice boxes. He didnot wait for an invitation, but he was present the first day theysluiced. And at the end of five hours' shovelling for one man, he sawthem take out thirteen ounces and a half of gold.

  It was coarse gold, running from pinheads to a twelve-dollar nugget,and it had come from off bed-rock. The first fall snow was flying thatday, and the Arctic winter was closing down; but Daylight had no eyesfor the bleak-gray sadness of the dying, short-lived summer. He sawhis vision coming true, and on the big flat was upreared anew hisgolden city of the snows. Gold had been found on bed-rock. That wasthe big thing. Carmack's strike was assured. Daylight staked a claimin his own name adjoining the three he had purchased with his plugtobacco. This gave him a block of property two thousand feet long andextending in width from rim-rock to rim-rock.

  Returning that night to his camp at the mouth of Klondike, he found init Kama, the Indian he had left at Dyea. Kama was travelling by canoe,bringing in the last mail of the year. In his possession was some twohundred dollars in gold-dust, which Daylight immediately borrowed. Inreturn, he arranged to stake a claim for him, which he was to recordwhen he passed through Forty Mile. When Kama departed next morning, hecarried a number of letters for Daylight, addressed to all theold-timers down river, in which they were urged to come up immediatelyand stake.

  Also Kama carried letters of similar import, given him by the other menon Bonanza.

  "It will sure be the gosh-dangdest stampede that ever was," Daylightchuckled, as he tried to vision the excited populations of Forty Mileand Circle City tumbling into poling-boats and racing the hundreds ofmiles up the Yukon; for he knew that his word would be unquestioninglyaccepted.

  With the arrival of the first stampeders, Bonanza Creek woke up, andthereupon began a long-distance race between unveracity and truth,wherein, lie no matter how fast, men were continually overtaken andpassed by truth. When men who doubted Carmack's report of two and ahalf to the pan, themselves panned two and a half, th
ey lied and saidthat they were getting an ounce. And long ere the lie was fairly onits way, they were getting not one ounce but five ounces. This theyclaimed was ten ounces; but when they filled a pan of dirt to prove thelie, they washed out twelve ounces. And so it went. They continuedvaliantly to lie, but the truth continued to outrun them.

  One day in December Daylight filled a pan from bed rock on his ownclaim and carried it into his cabin. Here a fire burned and enabledhim to keep water unfrozen in a canvas tank. He squatted over the tankand began to wash. Earth and gravel seemed to fill the pan. As heimparted to it a circular movement, the lighter, coarser particleswashed out over the edge. At times he combed the surface with hisfingers, raking out handfuls of gravel. The contents of the pandiminished. As it drew near to the bottom, for the purpose of fleetingand tentative examination, he gave the pan a sudden sloshing movement,emptying it of water. And the whole bottom showed as if covered withbutter. Thus the yellow gold flashed up as the muddy water was flirtedaway. It was gold--gold-dust, coarse gold, nuggets, large nuggets. Hewas all alone. He set the pan down for a moment and thought longthoughts. Then he finished the washing, and weighed the result in hisscales. At the rate of sixteen dollars to the ounce, the pan hadcontained seven hundred and odd dollars. It was beyond anything thateven he had dreamed. His fondest anticipation's had gone no fartherthan twenty or thirty thousand dollars to a claim; but here were claimsworth half a million each at the least, even if they were spotted.

  He did not go back to work in the shaft that day, nor the next, nor thenext. Instead, capped and mittened, a light stampeding outfit,including his rabbit skin robe, strapped on his back, he was out andaway on a many-days' tramp over creeks and divides, inspecting thewhole neighboring territory. On each creek he was entitled to locateone claim, but he was chary in thus surrendering up his chances. OnHunker Creek only did he stake a claim. Bonanza Creek he found stakedfrom mouth to source, while every little draw and pup and gulch thatdrained into it was like-wise staked. Little faith was had in theseside-streams. They had been staked by the hundreds of men who hadfailed to get in on Bonanza. The most popular of these creeks wasAdams. The one least fancied was Eldorado, which flowed into Bonanza,just above Karmack's Discovery claim. Even Daylight disliked the looksof Eldorado; but, still riding his hunch, he bought a half share in oneclaim on it for half a sack of flour. A month later he paid eighthundred dollars for the adjoining claim. Three months later, enlargingthis block of property, he paid forty thousand for a third claim; and,though it was concealed in the future, he was destined, not long after,to pay one hundred and fifty thousand for a fourth claim on the creekthat had been the least liked of all the creeks.

  In the meantime, and from the day he washed seven hundred dollars froma single pan and squatted over it and thought a long thought, he neveragain touched hand to pick and shovel. As he said to Joe Ladue thenight of that wonderful washing:--

  "Joe, I ain't never going to work hard again. Here's where I begin touse my brains. I'm going to farm gold. Gold will grow gold if you-allhave the savvee and can get hold of some for seed. When I seen themseven hundred dollars in the bottom of the pan, I knew I had the seedat last."

  "Where are you going to plant it?" Joe Ladue had asked.

  And Daylight, with a wave of his hand, definitely indicated the wholelandscape and the creeks that lay beyond the divides.

  "There she is," he said, "and you-all just watch my smoke. There'smillions here for the man who can see them. And I seen all themmillions this afternoon when them seven hundred dollars peeped up at mefrom the bottom of the pan and chirruped, 'Well, if here ain't BurningDaylight come at last.'"