Burning Daylight Page 9

  CHAPTER IX

  Ten days later, Harper and Joe Ladue arrived at Sixty Mile, andDaylight, still a trifle weak, but strong enough to obey the hunch thathad come to him, traded a third interest in his Stewart town site for athird interest in theirs on the Klondike.

  They had faith in the Upper Country, and Harper left down-stream, witha raft-load of supplies, to start a small post at the mouth of theKlondike.

  "Why don't you tackle Indian River, Daylight?" Harper advised, atparting. "There's whole slathers of creeks and draws draining in upthere, and somewhere gold just crying to be found. That's my hunch.There's a big strike coming, and Indian River ain't going to be amillion miles away."

  "And the place is swarming with moose," Joe Ladue added. "BobHenderson's up there somewhere, been there three years now, swearingsomething big is going to happen, living off'n straight moose andprospecting around like a crazy man."

  Daylight decided to go Indian River a flutter, as he expressed it; butElijah could not be persuaded into accompanying him. Elijah's soul hadbeen seared by famine, and he was obsessed by fear of repeating theexperience.

  "I jest can't bear to separate from grub," he explained. "I know it'sdownright foolishness, but I jest can't help it. It's all I can do totear myself away from the table when I know I'm full to bustin' andain't got storage for another bite. I'm going back to Circle to campby a cache until I get cured."

  Daylight lingered a few days longer, gathering strength and arranginghis meagre outfit. He planned to go in light, carrying a pack ofseventy-five pounds and making his five dogs pack as well, Indianfashion, loading them with thirty pounds each. Depending on the reportof Ladue, he intended to follow Bob Henderson's example and livepractically on straight meat. When Jack Kearns' scow, laden with thesawmill from Lake Linderman, tied up at Sixty Mile, Daylight bundledhis outfit and dogs on board, turned his town-site application over toElijah to be filed, and the same day was landed at the mouth of IndianRiver.

  Forty miles up the river, at what had been described to him as QuartzCreek, he came upon signs of Bob Henderson's work, and also atAustralia Creek, thirty miles farther on. The weeks came and went, butDaylight never encountered the other man. However, he found mooseplentiful, and he and his dogs prospered on the meat diet. He found"pay" that was no more than "wages" on a dozen surface bars, and fromthe generous spread of flour gold in the muck and gravel of a score ofcreeks, he was more confident than ever that coarse gold in quantitywas waiting to be unearthed. Often he turned his eyes to the northwardridge of hills, and pondered if the gold came from them. In the end,he ascended Dominion Creek to its head, crossed the divide, and camedown on the tributary to the Klondike that was later to be calledHunker Creek. While on the divide, had he kept the big dome on hisright, he would have come down on the Gold Bottom, so named by BobHenderson, whom he would have found at work on it, taking out the firstpay-gold ever panned on the Klondike. Instead, Daylight continued downHunker to the Klondike, and on to the summer fishing camp of theIndians on the Yukon.

  Here for a day he camped with Carmack, a squaw-man, and his Indianbrother-in-law, Skookum Jim, bought a boat, and, with his dogs onboard, drifted down the Yukon to Forty Mile. August was drawing to aclose, the days were growing shorter, and winter was coming on. Stillwith unbounded faith in his hunch that a strike was coming in the UpperCountry, his plan was to get together a party of four or five, and, ifthat was impossible, at least a partner, and to pole back up the riverbefore the freeze-up to do winter prospecting. But the men of FortyMile were without faith. The diggings to the westward were good enoughfor them.

  Then it was that Carmack, his brother-in-law, Skookum Jim, and CultusCharlie, another Indian, arrived in a canoe at Forty Mile, wentstraight to the gold commissioner, and recorded three claims and adiscovery claim on Bonanza Creek. After that, in the Sourdough Saloon,that night, they exhibited coarse gold to the sceptical crowd. Mengrinned and shook their heads. They had seen the motions of a goldstrike gone through before. This was too patently a scheme of Harper'sand Joe Ladue's, trying to entice prospecting in the vicinity of theirtown site and trading post. And who was Carmack? A squaw-man. Andwho ever heard of a squaw-man striking anything? And what was BonanzaCreek? Merely a moose pasture, entering the Klondike just above itsmouth, and known to old-timers as Rabbit Creek. Now if Daylight or BobHenderson had recorded claims and shown coarse gold, they'd known therewas something in it. But Carmack, the squaw-man! And Skookum Jim! AndCultus Charlie! No, no; that was asking too much.

  Daylight, too, was sceptical, and this despite his faith in the UpperCountry. Had he not, only a few days before, seen Carmack loafing withhis Indians and with never a thought of prospecting?

  But at eleven that night, sitting on the edge of his bunk and unlacinghis moccasins, a thought came to him. He put on his coat and hat andwent back to the Sourdough. Carmack was still there, flashing hiscoarse gold in the eyes of an unbelieving generation. Daylight rangedalongside of him and emptied Carmack's sack into a blower. This hestudied for a long time. Then, from his own sack, into another blower,he emptied several ounces of Circle City and Forty Mile gold. Again,for a long time, he studied and compared. Finally, he pocketed his owngold, returned Carmack's, and held up his hand for silence.

  "Boys, I want to tell you-all something," he said. "She's surecome--the up-river strike. And I tell you-all, clear and forcible,this is it. There ain't never been gold like that in a blower in thiscountry before. It's new gold. It's got more silver in it. You-allcan see it by the color. Carmack's sure made a strike. Who-all's gotfaith to come along with me?"

  There were no volunteers. Instead, laughter and jeers went up.

  "Mebbe you got a town site up there," some one suggested.

  "I sure have," was the retort, "and a third interest in Harper andLadue's. And I can see my corner lots selling out for more than yourhen-scratching ever turned up on Birch Creek."

  "That's all right, Daylight," one Curly Parson interposed soothingly."You've got a reputation, and we know you're dead sure on the square.But you're as likely as any to be mistook on a flimflam game, such asthese loafers is putting up. I ask you straight: When did Carmack dothis here prospecting? You said yourself he was lying in camp, fishingsalmon along with his Siwash relations, and that was only the otherday."

  "And Daylight told the truth," Carmack interrupted excitedly. "And I'mtelling the truth, the gospel truth. I wasn't prospecting. Hadn't noidea of it. But when Daylight pulls out, the very same day, who driftsin, down river, on a raft-load of supplies, but Bob Henderson. He'dcome out to Sixty Mile, planning to go back up Indian River and portagethe grub across the divide between Quartz Creek and Gold Bottom--"

  "Where in hell's Gold Bottom?" Curly Parsons demanded.

  "Over beyond Bonanza that was Rabbit Creek," the squaw-man went on."It's a draw of a big creek that runs into the Klondike. That's the wayI went up, but I come back by crossing the divide, keeping along thecrest several miles, and dropping down into Bonanza. 'Come along withme, Carmack, and get staked,' says Bob Henderson to me. 'I've hit itthis time, on Gold Bottom. I've took out forty-five ounces already.'And I went along, Skookum Jim and Cultus Charlie, too. And we allstaked on Gold Bottom. I come back by Bonanza on the chance of findinga moose. Along down Bonanza we stopped and cooked grub. I went tosleep, and what does Skookum Jim do but try his hand at prospecting.He'd been watching Henderson, you see. He goes right slap up to thefoot of a birch tree, first pan, fills it with dirt, and washes outmore'n a dollar coarse gold. Then he wakes me up, and I goes at it. Igot two and a half the first lick. Then I named the creek 'Bonanza,'staked Discovery, and we come here and recorded."

  He looked about him anxiously for signs of belief, but found himself ina circle of incredulous faces--all save Daylight, who had studied hiscountenance while he told his story.

  "How much is Harper and Ladue givin' you for manufacturing a stampede?"some one asked.

  "They don't
know nothing about it," Carmack answered. "I tell you it'sthe God Almighty's truth. I washed out three ounces in an hour."

  "And there's the gold," Daylight said. "I tell you-all boys they ain'tnever been gold like that in the blower before. Look at the color ofit."

  "A trifle darker," Curly Parson said. "Most likely Carmack's beencarrying a couple of silver dollars along in the same sack. And what'smore, if there's anything in it, why ain't Bob Henderson smoking alongto record?"

  "He's up on Gold Bottom," Carmack explained. "We made the strikecoming back."

  A burst of laughter was his reward.

  "Who-all'll go pardners with me and pull out in a poling-boat to-morrowfor this here Bonanza?" Daylight asked.

  No one volunteered.

  "Then who-all'll take a job from me, cash wages in advance, to pole upa thousand pounds of grub?"

  Curly Parsons and another, Pat Monahan, accepted, and, with hiscustomary speed, Daylight paid them their wages in advance and arrangedthe purchase of the supplies, though he emptied his sack in doing so.He was leaving the Sourdough, when he suddenly turned back to the barfrom the door.

  "Got another hunch?" was the query.

  "I sure have," he answered. "Flour's sure going to be worth what a manwill pay for it this winter up on the Klondike. Who'll lend me somemoney?"

  On the instant a score of the men who had declined to accompany him onthe wild-goose chase were crowding about him with proffered gold-sacks.

  "How much flour do you want?" asked the Alaska Commercial Company'sstorekeeper.

  "About two ton."

  The proffered gold-sacks were not withdrawn, though their owners wereguilty of an outrageous burst of merriment.

  "What are you going to do with two tons?" the store-keeper demanded.

  "Son," Daylight made reply, "you-all ain't been in this country longenough to know all its curves. I'm going to start a sauerkraut factoryand combined dandruff remedy."

  He borrowed money right and left, engaging and paying six other men tobring up the flour in half as many more poling-boats. Again his sackwas empty, and he was heavily in debt.

  Curly Parsons bowed his head on the bar with a gesture of despair.

  "What gets me," he moaned, "is what you're going to do with it all."

  "I'll tell you-all in simple A, B, C and one, two, three." Daylightheld up one finger and began checking off. "Hunch number one: a bigstrike coming in Upper Country. Hunch number two: Carmack's made it.Hunch number three: ain't no hunch at all. It's a cinch. If one andtwo is right, then flour just has to go sky-high. If I'm ridinghunches one and two, I just got to ride this cinch, which is numberthree. If I'm right, flour'll balance gold on the scales this winter.I tell you-all boys, when you-all got a hunch, play it for all it'sworth. What's luck good for, if you-all ain't to ride it? And whenyou-all ride it, ride like hell. I've been years in this country, justwaiting for the right hunch to come along. And here she is. Well, I'mgoing to play her, that's all. Good night, you-all; good night."