CHAPTER I
ON SIXTY-MILE CREEK
It was a grim, gray day; a day which plainly told of the passing of late fall across the border line of the fierce northern winter. Six inches of snow had fallen during the night, and the leaden overcast of the sky threatened many more inches yet to fall.
Five great sled dogs crouched in their harness, with quarters tucked under them and forelegs outspread. They were waiting the long familiar command to "mush"; an order they had not heard since the previous winter.
Their brief summer leisure had passed, lost beneath the white pall which told of weary toil awaiting them in the immediate future. Unlike the humans with whom they were associated, however, the coming winter held no terrors for them. It was the normal condition under which the sled dog performed its life's work.
The load on the sled was nearing completion. The tough-looking, keen-eyed man bestowed his chattels with a care and skill which told of long experience, and a profound knowledge of the country through which he had to travel. Silently he passed back and forth between the sled and the weather-battered shelter which had been his home for more than three years. His moccasined feet gave out no sound; his voice was silent under the purpose which occupied all his thought. He was leaving the desert heart of the Yukon to face the perils of the winter trail. He was about to embark for the storm-riven shores of the Alaskan coast.
A young woman stood silently by, watching his labors with the voiceless interest of those who live the drear life of silent places. Her interest was consuming, as her handsome brown eyes told. Her strong, young heart was full of a profound envy; and a sort of despairing longing came near to filling her eyes with unaccustomed tears. The terrors of this man's journey would have been small enough for her if only she could get out of this wilderness of desolation to which she had willingly condemned herself.
Her heart ached, and her despair grew as she watched. But she knew only too well that her limitless prison was of her own seeking, as was her sharing of the sordid lot of the man she had elected to follow. More than that she knew that the sentence she had passed upon herself carried with it the terror of coming motherhood in the midst of this desolate world, far from the reach of help, far from the companionship of her sex.
At last the man paused, surveying his work. He tested the raw-hide bonds which held his load; he glanced at the space still left clear in the sled, with measuring eye, and stood raking at his beard with powerful, unclean fingers. It was this pause that drove the woman's crowding feelings to sudden speech.
"Heavens, how I wish I were going with you, Tug!" she cried.
The man lifted his sharp eyes questioningly.
"Do you, Audie?" he said, in a metallic voice, in which there was no softening. Then he shook his head. "It'll be a hell of a trip. Guess I'd change places with you readily enough."
"You would?" the girl laughed mirthlessly. "You're going down with a big 'wad' of gold to – to a land of – plenty. Oh, God, how I hate this wilderness!"
The man called Tug surveyed her for a moment with eyes long since hardened by the merciless struggle of the cruel Yukon world. Then he shook his head.
"It sounds good when you put it that way. But there's miles to go before I reach the 'land of plenty.'" He laughed shortly. "I've got to face the winter trail, and we all know what that means. And more than that. I'm packing a sick man with me, and I've got to keep him warm the whole way. It's a guess, and a poor one, if he don't die by the way. That's why I'm going. Say, he's my partner, and I've got to get him through." He laughed again. "Oh, it's not sentiment. He's useful to me, and so I want to save him if I can."
Tug's manner was something like the coldly rugged view of the distant peaks which marked the horizon on every hand. The girl watching his sturdy figure, with its powerful head and hard, set face, understood something of this. She understood that he was something in the nature of a product of that harsh, snow-bound world. He was strong, and she knew it; and strength appealed to her. It was the only thing that was worth while in such a country.
"You can't save Charlie," she said decidedly. "They tell you you can't get consumption in this country – but, well, I'd say you can get everything that makes life hell. He's got it; and a chill on the way will add pneumonia to his trouble, and then – " She made a significant gesture.
"Maybe you're right," Tug admitted. Then he shrugged, and, moving over to one of the dogs, busy chewing its rawhide harness, kicked it brutally. "Anyway he's got to take his chance, same as we all have."
The girl sighed.
"Yes." She was thinking of herself. "When do you start?"
The man looked at the sky. Then he glanced down at the land sloping away to the distant banks of a creek, which in a less monstrous country would have borne the prouder denomination of "river."
"When your Leo comes up to help me pack Charlie into the sled. Say, isn't that him coming along up now?" he added, shading his eyes. "This snow's got me dazzled for a bit."
