Snowdrift Part 26

A cry from Joe Pete cause him to concentrate his gaze upon a spot toward which the Indian pointed, where, dimly discernible, a dark object appeared against the unbroken surface of the snow. The steel blue haze--the "cold fog" of the North, obfuscated its outlines, as it destroyed perspective so that the object may have been five miles away, or twenty. It may have been the size of a dog, or the size of a skysc.r.a.per. In vain the two strained their eyes in an endeavor to make it out. In the first gloom of the early darkness it disappeared altogether, and the two made their way to the frozen surface of the river where, in the shelter of a perpendicular wall of rock, they made their camp and kindled a tiny fire of twigs they had collected the day before from the last timber on the Coppermine, at a creek that runs in from the eastward.

For two days, holding to the surface of the river, the two had threaded the transverse ridges that form the Copper Mountains. It was Brent's idea to mush straight to the northernmost ridge and work back slowly, stopping wherever practicable to prospect among the outcropping ledges.

He had planned, also, to burn into the gravel at intervals, but he had not foreseen the fact that the mountains lay north of the timber line, so the burning had to be abandoned.

At daylight they again climbed the ridge. The cold fog had disappeared and as Joe Pete, who was in the lead, reached the summit, he gave voice to a loud cry of surprise. For in place of the indiscernible object of the day before, apparently only ten or twelve miles distant, and right in the centre of the vast plain of snow was a s.h.i.+p--each mast and spar standing out clean-cut as a cameo against its dazzling background. Brent even fancied he could see men walking about her deck, and other men walking to and fro among a group of snow mounds that cl.u.s.tered close about the hulk.

"A whaler!" he exclaimed, "One of those that Johnnie Claw said wintered up here."

For a long time Brent watched the s.h.i.+p, and covertly Joe Pete watched Brent. At length the white man spoke. "Reckon we'll just mush over there and call on 'em. Neighbors aren't so d.a.m.ned common up here that we can afford to pa.s.s them by when we're in sight of 'em."

"Dat better, mebbe-so, we don' go w'ere we ain' got no business.

Mebbe-so dat G.o.dam Johnnie Claw, she giv' you som' mor' hooch, eh? Dat breed gal she dam' fine 'oman--she ain' lak dat."

Brent laughed, a trifle nervously: "I don't reckon there's any danger of that," he answered, shortly. "Come on, we'll harness the dogs and pull out there. I'd like to see what kind of an outfit they've got, and as long as we're this near it would be too bad not to go to the very top of the continent."

Joe Pete shrugged and followed Brent down to the river where they broke camp, harnessed the dogs, and struck out over the plain. The wind-packed snow afforded good footing and the outfit pushed rapidly northward.

Brent was surprised at the absence of a pressure ridge at the sh.o.r.e line, but so flat was the snow-buried beach that it was with difficulty that he determined where the land left off and the sea-ice began. The whaler he judged to be frozen in at a distance of three or four miles from sh.o.r.e.

The figures of men could be plainly seen, now, and soon it became evident that their own presence had been noted, for three or four figures were seen to range themselves along the rail, evidently studying them through a gla.s.s.

While still a mile or two distant, the figures at the rail disappeared below deck, but others moved about among the snow mounds in the shelter of the vessel's hull.

Upon arriving at the mounds, which proved to be snow igloos such as are used by the Eskimos, Brent halted the dogs, and advanced to where two men, apparently oblivious to his presence, were cutting up blubber.

"h.e.l.lo," he greeted, "Where's the captain?"

One of the men did not even look up. The other, presenting a villainous hairy face, nodded surlily toward an ice-coated ladder.

"Wait here," said Brent, turning to Joe Pete, "Till I find out whether this whole crew is as cordial to strangers as these two specimens."

At the words, the man who had directed Brent to the ladder, raised his head and opened his lips as if to speak, but evidently thinking better of it, he uttered a sneering laugh, and went on with his cutting of blubber.

Brent climbed the ladder, and made his way across the snow-buried deck, guided by a well packed path that led to a door upon which he knocked loudly. While waiting for a response he noticed the name _Belva Lou_ painted upon the stern of a small boat that lay bottomside up upon the deck. Knocking again, he called loudly, and receiving no reply, opened the door and found himself upon a steep flight of stairs. Stepping from the dazzling whiteness of the outside, the interior of the whaler was black as a pocket, and he paused upon the stairs to accustom his eyes to the change. As the foul air from below filled his lungs it seemed to Brent that he could not go on. The stench nauseated him--the vile atmosphere reeked of rancid blubber, drying furs, and the fumes of dead cookery. A tiny lamp that flared in a wall pocket at the foot of the stairs gave forth a stink of its own. Gradually, as his eyes accorded to the gloom, Brent took cognizance of the dim interior. The steep short flight of steps terminated in a narrow pa.s.sage that led toward the stern whence came the m.u.f.fled sound of voices. Descending, he glanced along the pa.s.sage toward a point where, a few feet distant, another lamp flared dimly. Just beyond this lamp was a door, and from beyond the door came the sound of voices.

He groped his way to the door and knocked. There was a sudden hush, a few gruffly mumbled words, and then a deep voice snarled: "Who's there?"

"Just a visitor," announced Brent, stifling a desire to turn and rush from that fetid hole out into the clean air--but it was too late.

The voice beyond the door commanded thickly: "Come in, an' we'll look ye over!"

For just an instant Brent hesitated, then his hand fumbled for the k.n.o.b, turned it, and the narrow door swung inward. He stepped into the box-like apartment, and for a moment stood speechless as his eyes strove to take in the details of the horrid scene.

The stinking air of the dank pa.s.sage was purest ozone in comparison with the poisonous fog of the overheated, unventilated room. He felt suddenly sick and dizzy as he sucked the evil effluvia into his lungs--the thick, heavy smoke of cheap tobacco, the stench of unbathed humans, the overpowering reek of spilled liquor, the spent breath from rum-soaked bodies, the gaseous fumes of a soft coal stove, and the odor from an oil lamp that had smoked one side of its chimney black.

"Shut the door! Coal costs money. What the h.e.l.l ye tryin' to do, heat the hull Ar'tic? Who be ye, anyhow? An' wot d'ye want?"

Mechanically Brent closed the door behind him, as he glanced into the leering eyes of the speaker, who sat, with two other men, and a partially clad Eskimo woman, at a table upon which were set out a bottle and several gla.s.ses.

Before Brent could reply, the man across the table from the speaker leaped to his feet and thrust out his hand. Through the grey haze of smoke, Brent recognized Johnnie Claw.

"Well, if it ain't my ol' friend Ace-In-The-Hole!" cried the hooch runner. "'S all right Cap! Best sport on the Yukon!" Ignoring the fact that Brent had refused the proffered hand, Claw leered into his face: "Ace-In-The-Hole let me make you 'quainted with Cap Jinkins, Cap'n of the _Belva Lou_--d.a.m.n good sport, too--an' Asa Scroggs, mate. Both d.a.m.n good sports, _Belva Lou_ fetches out more oil an' bone 'n any of 'em--an' Cap ain't 'fraid to spend his money. Glad you come long.

Welcome to stay long as you like--ain't he Cap?"

The Captain lowered a gla.s.s from his lips, and cleansed his overhanging mustache upon the back of a hairy hand: "Sure," he growled, surlily, "Didn't know he was friend o' yourn. S'down." The room contained only four chairs, and as he spoke, the man, with a sweep of his hand, struck the klooch from her chair, and kicked it toward Brent, who sank into it heavily, and stared dully at the klooch who crawled to a corner and returned the stare with a drunken, loose-lipped grin upon her fat face.

Brent s.h.i.+fted his glance, and upon a bunk beyond the table he saw another klooch, lying in a drunken stupor, her only garment, a grimy wrapper of faded calico, was crumpled about her, exposing one brown leg to the hip.

Schooled as he had been to sights of debauchery by his service with Cuter Malone, Brent was appalled--sickened by the sottish degeneracy of his surroundings.

With unsteady hand the mate slopped some liquor into a gla.s.s and shoved it toward him: "Swaller that," he advised, with a grin, "Yer gittin'

white 'round the gills. Comin' right in out of the air, it might seem a leetle close in here, at first."

The fumes arising from the freshly spilled liquor smelled _clean_--the only hint of cleanliness in the whole poisoned atmosphere of the cabin.

He breathed them deeply into his lungs, and for an instant the dizziness and sickness at his stomach seemed less acute. Maybe one drink--one little sip would revive him--counteract the poison of the noisome air, and stimulate him against the dull apathy that was creeping upon him.

Slowly, his hand stole toward the gla.s.s, his fingers closed about it, and he raised it to his lips. Another deep inhalation of its fragrance and he drained it at a gulp.

"Didn't know we had no neighbors," ventured the Captain, filling his own gla.s.s. "What ye doin' up here?"

"Prospecting," answered Brent, "The Copper Mountains. I saw your vessel from the ridge, and thought I would come over and see what a whaler looks like." The strong liquor was taking hold. A warm glow gripped his belly and diffused itself slowly through his veins. The nausea left him, and the olid atmosphere seemed suddenly purged of its reek.

"Well," grinned the captain, "The _Belva Lou_ hain't what ye'd call no floatin' palace, but she's ahead o' most whalers. An' after Johnnie gits through hornin' round 'mongst the Husky villages an' fixes us up with a wife apiece, we manage to winter through right comfortable. Me an' Asa stays on board, an' the rest of the crew, builds 'em igloos. But, here's me runnin' off at the head--an' you might spill it all to the Mounted."

"Not him," laughed Claw. "Him an' I ain't always pulled, what you might say, together--but he's square--kill you in a minute, if he took a notion--but he'd go to h.e.l.l before he'd snitch. Have another drink, Ace-In-The-Hole, 'twon't hurt you none--only rum--an' water-weak."

Before he knew it the gla.s.s was in his hand, and again Brent drank.

After that he took them as they came. The bottle was emptied and tossed into the corner where the drunken klooch recovered it and holding it to her lips, greedily sucked the few drops that remained in the bottom.

Another bottle was produced, and Brent, his brain fired by the raw liquor, measured gla.s.ses, drink for drink, never noticing that the same liquor served, in the gla.s.ses of the other three, for round after round of libations.

"Wher's yer camp?" asked Claw, as he refilled the gla.s.ses.

"b.l.o.o.d.y Falls," answered Brent, waxing loquacious. "b.l.o.o.d.y Falls of the Coppermine, where old Samuel Hearne's Indians butchered the Eskimos."

"Butchered the Eskimos!" exclaimed Claw, "What d'you mean--butchered? I ain't heard 'bout no Huskies bein' killed, an' who in h.e.l.l's Sam Hearne?

I be'n round here, off an' on, fer long while, an' I ain't never run acrost no Sam Hearne. What be you handin' us? You ort to start a noospaper."

Brent laughed uproariously: "No, Claw, I reckon you never ran across him. This happened over a hundred years ago--1771--July 13th, to be exact."

Asa Scroggs grinned knowingly: "Man kin lap up a h.e.l.l of a lot of idees out of a bottle of hooch," he opined, "Mostly it runs to ph'los'fy, er fightin', er po'try, er singin', er religion, er women, er sad mem'ries--but this here stale news idee is a new one. But, g'wan, Ace-In-The-Hole, did the Mounted git Sam fer his murdersome ma.s.sacres?"

"That was a hundred years before the Mounted was thought of," answered Brent, eying Scroggs truculently, as his inflamed brain sought hidden insult in the words.

"I always know'd I was born too late," laughed Claw, who, noting the signs of approaching trouble, sought peace. "This here'd be a h.e.l.l of a fine country, if it wasn't fer the Mounted. But, say, Ace-In-The-Hole, you doin' any good? Struck any color?"

Brent forgot Scroggs and turned to Claw: "No, not to speak of. Just about made wages."

"Well," continued the hooch runner, "You had a pretty fair sack of dust when you come in. What d'you say we start a little game of stud--jest the four of us?"