The Trail of '98 by Robert W. Services

Author:Robert W. Services [Services, Robert W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western, Fiction
Publisher: General Books LLC
Published: 2010-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

I was awakened by the Prodigal.

“Rouse up,” he was saying; “you've slept right round the clock. We've got to get back to town and record those claims. Jim's gone three hours ago.”

It was five o'clock of a crystal Yukon morning, with the world clear-cut and fresh as at the dawn of Things. I was sleep-stupid, sore, stiff in every joint. Racking pains made me groan at every movement, and the chill night air had brought on twinges of rheumatism. I looked at my location stake, beside which I had fallen.

“I can't do it,” I said; “my feet are out of business.”

“You must,” he insisted. “Come, buck up, old man. Bathe your feet in the creek, and then you'll feel as fit as a fighting-cock. We've got to get into town hot-foot. They've got a bunch of crooks at the gold office, and we're liable to lose our claims if we are late.”

“Have you staked, too?”

“You bet. I've got thirteen below. Hurry up. There's a wild bunch coming from town.”

I groaned grievously, yet felt mighty refreshed by a dip in the creek. Then we started off once more. Every few moments we would meet parties coming post-haste from town. They looked worn and jaded, but spread eagerly up and down. There must have been several hundred of them, all sustained by the mad excitement of the stampede.

We did not take the circuitous route of the day before, but one that shortened the distance by some ten miles. We travelled a wild country, crossing unknown creeks that have since proved gold-bearing, and climbing again the high ridge of the divide. Then once more we dropped down into the Bonanza basin, and by nightfall we had reached our own cabin.

We lay down for a few hours. It seemed my weary head had just touched the pillow when once more the inexorable Prodigal awakened me.

“Come on, kid, we've got to get to Dawson when the recording office opens.” So once more we pelted down Bonanza. Fast as we had come, we found many of those who had followed us were ahead. The North is the land of the musher. In that pure, buoyant air a man can walk away from himself. Any one of us thought nothing of a fifty-mile tramp, and one of eighty was scarcely considered notable.

It was about nine in the morning when we got to the gold office. Already a crowd of stampeders were waiting. Foremost in the crowd I saw Jim. The Prodigal looked thoughtful.

“Look here,” he said, “I guess it's all right to push in with that bunch, but there's a slicker way of doing it for those that are 'next.' Of course, it's not according to Hoyle. There's a little side-door where you can get in ahead of the gang. See that fellow, Ten-Dollar Jim they call him; well, they say he can work the oracle for us.”

“No,” I said, “you can pay him ten dollars if you like. I'll take my chance in the regulation way.

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