“We named this river the Thron-diuck,” Kate repeated. “The white men couldn’t pronounce it so they called it the Klondike. And yes, it is the finest salmon stream in the Yukon River area. That is why we called it Thron-diuck which means ‘Hammer water’.”
“Because the salmon thrash about in the water so much here?” Pearl asked, thinking that maybe she would be a good interpreter.
“No,” Kate said with a grin. “It’s because we hammer stakes across the shallow mouth in order to spread our nets.”
Pearl laughed. So much for interpretation.
“Will you and George be staying here with your clan?”
Kate shrugged. “George no longer wants to be an Indian. Since he discovered so much gold he’s become a white man again. All he talks about is returning to his home town and buying a big house.”
“Will you go with him?”
“He is my husband.”
Eventually, the men began to drift off, some to make the long trek back to their cabins along the creeks, some to stay overnight with friends. A few had even brought blankets to sleep on the floor of the warehouse. The Berry’s and Drury’s were returning to their claims by the dog teams.
Pearl was talking with Emma when Joseph came up to them and put his arm around her waist. Pearl stood perfectly still. Her whole body tingled at his touch and she didn’t want to break the spell. She was barely aware of Emma drifting away.
“I owe you a big thanks for this evening,” Joseph said.
“No,” Pearl whispered, leaning slightly into him. “The whole area owes you.”
“Hey, Joseph,” someone called. “I need one more drink before I go.”
Joseph removed his arm. He turned and kissed Pearl on the cheek before heading to the counter. Pearl stared at his retreating back, her hand on her cheek. He’d kissed her, another sign of a man’s affection for a woman. But he still hadn’t spoken any words of love. She wished he would say something instead of making gestures.
Pearl roused from her thoughts when Emma went by carrying a bowl. She didn’t have time to ponder Joseph’s feeling for her right now. They had to clean up after the party. She picked up a platter and carried it into the storage room. She was at the doorway on her way out when she saw Sam and Joseph arguing, Sam pounding his finger into Joseph’s chest. She ducked back, not sure what to do because, from where she stood, she could hear the argument.
“I want you to leave her alone, Joe! She doesn’t deserve what you are going to put her through.”
Pearl couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Was Sam actually telling Joseph to stay away from her? He had no right to do that!
“I’m not going to put her through anything.”
“You are leading her on. It’s plain to see that she loves you.”
Pearl gasped. Her hands flew to her red cheeks. Had she been that obvious?
“I know,” Joseph said. “And I have feelings for her, also.”
Pearls heart beat faster. He did care about her. She almost ran out and into his arms.
“You are in no position to feel anything for her.” Pearl heard the anger in Sam’s voice. “I’m warning you, that unless you are going to do the right thing by her, you leave her alone.”
Pearl heard Sam walk away. She was seething. What did Sam mean that Joseph was in no position to love her? Did he think, like Donald, that a man had to be rich before he could tell a woman he loved her? By what right did Sam think he could tell a man who admitted that he cared for her not to see her anymore? Especially since Sam knew she loved him in return. She would have to have a talk with Sam and set him straight.
Pearl waited a few moments then left the storeroom. Joseph and Sam had gone in separate directions. She seethed angrily as she helped Emma put the food away.
When they finished the women waved goodbye to Joseph, and Donald walked them to their cabin. He and Emma remained outside for a while before Emma slipped inside. Pearl had already climbed into bed, and while Emma got into her nightclothes Pearl told her what she had overheard.
“I’m so glad that Joseph finally said something even though not to you,” Emma said.
“Me, too. I just hope Sam hasn’t scared him off.”
“Yes. I don’t know why Sam would say that to him. Maybe, if things go right, we could have a double wedding.”
“Oh,” Pearl gushed, clapping her hands. “Wouldn’t that be fantastic?”
Once they were in bed they talked about the wedding. But, because there was little in the way of planning that could be done, they soon fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning Pearl and Emma hurried over to the warehouse to help Joseph serve a breakfast of bacon and eggs and bread to all who wanted to attend. There was a large crowd and, when it was over, the last of the guests made ready to go their separate ways.
Pearl went up to Sam. “I overheard what you told Joseph last night,” she said, through clenched teeth. “You have no right to decide who courts me.”
“You know nothing about him.”
“I know that he is kind and good-natured and funny.”
“There’s a lot more you don’t know.”
“Then tell me what’s so terrible about him.”
“It is not up to me to tell you,” Sam said. “If he was a gentleman he would tell you himself.”
Pearl seethed with exasperation as watched Sam walk away. If there was something that bad about Joseph why wouldn’t he tell her?
Chapter Sixteen
Sam was glad to see the sun each day, though the bright carpet of snow ensured that the nights were never pitch black. Even the twilight had lovely streaks of brightness in the morning and evening.
As he and Donald tramped to their cabin after lighting a fire in the shaft, Sam’s thoughts went back to Christmas Day. Henry Drury had introduced Sam to his wife and he’d embarrassed himself by barely being able to say her name and by staring at her longer than he should have. He remembered Donald’s reaction to meeting Emma and he now understood his stuttering and shyness.
He’d never seen such a beautiful woman and he was sure he’d fallen in love with her in that instant. All evening, he’d watched her as she danced with her husband, her son, some of the other men. Sam longed to ask her for a dance but he wasn’t sure if he could control himself. He was afraid he would do something stupid, like trip on his feet or hold her too close. If anyone noticed his staring they hadn’t said anything, and he was glad. He had no hope of ever being more than just a casual acquaintance to her, if even that. It was obvious she loved her husband.
“Should we go looking for Gordon again?” Donald interrupted his thoughts.
“Where else can we look?” Sam stopped and turned to Donald. “We’ve checked all around here and with each snowfall, it gets harder to walk through the bush.”
“Do you think he’s dead?”
“I hate the idea that he may be dead, but I don’t know what else to think. He’s been gone for almost two months and no one has seen any sign of him.”
“But he’s tough. He could have found a place for the winter and will show up again in the spring.” Donald looked expectantly at Sam, wanting him to agree.
“Yes.” Sam nodded his head. “Yes, he could have.” He didn’t want to crush Donald’s hope because to do so would crush his own.
Sam continued walking to the cabin with Donald following slowly behind. Once inside they stoked the fire in the stove and removed the gold nuggets they had found from their pockets.
The gold had become more abundant the deeper they went, and when they reached thirty-five feet they found a paystreak of black sand and gold. They estimated that every shovel full was worth about forty dollars. They had been overwhelmed and ecstatic with their find. The change this would make in their lives seemed hard to comprehend.
But not everyone felt the same.
The mood along the creeks had been changing in the past few weeks. Tempers were flaring and there had been a few yelling matches and even
a couple fistfights as the men sought to protect the wealth they thought belonged to them. Most of the prospectors were Americans. Not many even knew they were in Canadian territory and those who did were confused with the Canadian mining laws.
To Sam the rules were clear: all four corners of a claim had to be posted with the date, name, and claim number, and the length of the claim was to be five hundred feet along the creek and from bench to bench on either side of the creek bed.
However, in the chaos of staking claims last August and September, some of the prospectors had made mistakes. And they were just mistakes. Sam knew that most of the miners were honest and had tried to be scrupulous at determining the length of their claims even though some only had lengths of rope to use for measuring.
So the miners had looked for an impartial person to rule on who owned what. William Ogilvie was in the area surveying Ladue’s town site and the miners appealed to him to sort out the claims and settle the disputes that ranged up and down the creeks.
Sam knew that Ogilvie was a very honest man, but he also knew that his decisions could change a man’s fortunes, taking him from wealth to destitution or vice versa with just the movement of a stake. Sam and Donald had waited in trepidation as Ogilvie used his precision survey instruments to check their claims and Gordon’s and they’d been relieved when he’d said they were fine. Further up Bonanza, though, Ogilvie had found that one owner had taken too much land. With the new measurements, there was a pie-shaped piece left over.
Ogilvie himself refused to stake it because as he put it, he was a government official and not allowed to hold property. One of the men helping Ogilvie decided to claim it. That was the only remarkable change made on Bonanza and now Ogilvie was on Eldorado. So far Sam hadn’t heard of anything amiss there.
It was dark when there was a frantic knock at the door. Sam looked at Donald. His first thought was that someone had found Gordon; his second was that Gregory had taken off again. He opened the door to Clarence Berry standing in the snow.
“Can you come to my claim with me?” Clarence asked.
“Sure,” Sam said, uncertainly. He wondered what was happening since Berry’s claim was on the Eldorado. He grabbed his coat and headed out of the cabin. Clarence was already striding away.
“What’s the matter?” Sam asked, as he hurried to catch up.
“Ogilvie found that Stander and I have too much land by forty-two feet.”
“Wow. That’s a lot.”
“Yes, and our dump with thousands of dollars of pay dirt is on that extra piece of land.”
“Oh, no.” Sam now understood Clarence’s agitation.
“And because we already have a claim on the Eldorado, we can’t stake it.”
“Right.” Sam wondered why Clarence had summoned him. There was nothing he could do.
“Ogilvie told me to find a man I could trust. You’re the one I thought of.”
“To do what?” Sam was puzzled.
“To stake that fraction tonight.”
“Ogilvie suggested that?” Sam couldn’t keep the astonishment out of his voice.
“Yes and given his honesty, I was shocked also.”
“So, I’m supposed to stake it tonight and then go and register it.”
“Yes, and then sign it back over to my partner and me.”
“I can do that.” Sam nodded.
There was little more said after that as each man strode along the narrow path in the snow covering the creek. Clarence led Sam into the cabin. Sam smiled at Ethel and nodded to William Ogilvie, who was just finishing his supper. After visiting for a few minutes, Ogilvie left.
Sam and Clarence went outside and got some stakes and an axe. In the light given off by the half-moon on the snow, they headed to the end of the property.
“Here it is,” Clarence said, indicating the marker Ogilvie had left.
Sam looked at the large pile of muck partially covered by snow and sitting on the wrong side of the line. He wrote his name and information on the stakes then tried to pound them into the frozen ground with little result. He piled snow around them for support. The two men returned to the cabin.
“Do you want to come in for a drink and to warm up before you go?” Clarence asked.
“No, I’d better get back,” Sam said. “When do you want to go into Fortymile and do up the paperwork?”
“Day after tomorrow will be fine.” Clarence reached out his hand and Sam shook it.
“Thank you.” Clarence’s voice trembled. “You just saved us from losing our winter’s work and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“You’d do the same for me,” Sam said.
When Sam reached the creek, he looked in the direction of the Drurys’ claim. It was only a few minutes’ walk. He longed to see Isabel Drury again, to hear her voice and see her smile. But he knew that as soon as he stepped into their cabin, he would give himself away, either by staring at her or by being tongue-tied in her presence.
He turned and walked in the other direction.
On the way back to his cabin, Sam’s thoughts turned to Joseph as they had been doing since Christmas. He’d told Donald about his conversation with the man.
“Yes, I noticed that Pearl seemed to enjoy his company,” Donald had said. “And he seemed happy to be with her.”
“But he’s engaged to Miss Anna Mason. He’s been telling us about her for years.”
“Maybe he’s changed his mind. Maybe he plans on staying here. After all, he has his town and his business.”
“I wish I knew what he was thinking because I hate the idea of Pearl getting hurt.”
* * *
Joseph stood at the outside corner of his warehouse with a bottle of whiskey in his hand. The sawmill had shut down for the occasion and Pearl and Emma watched with the crowd of men. The morning fog was slowly lifting over the area.
Joseph held up the bottle. “I name this new town Dawson after George Mercer Dawson, a Canadian geologist and surveyor who became a good friend when he explored and mapped the area in 1887.” He swung the bottle against the corner of the building, shattering the glass. The liquid froze before it could reach the ground. Everyone cheered, happy to now be living in a town with a name. A town that had a warehouse, Ladue’s cabin/saloon, four cabins and many white tents scattered along the frozen swampland on the bench above the Yukon River. It was not the perfect place for a town site but it was close to the source of gold.
There was a noise behind them. They all turned and watched a pair of dog teams pulling sleds come off the ice. Pearl wondered where they had come from. She knew why they had come. Only the dream of sudden wealth could make people venture out in air so cold that it turned a person’s breath into ice crystals on the fur of their hats, and on their eyelashes, eyebrows, and moustache if they had one.
“Come in and warm up,” Joseph called to the two men. He opened the door to the warehouse while the small crowd dispersed.
The two men awkwardly stepped off the runners of their sleds and staggered into the room. They hurried to the stove to warm their cold limbs.
Pearl and Emma quickly made some tea and sandwiches for the newcomers.
“Where did you come from?” Joseph asked.
“Circle City,” one man answered.
“Circle City?” Pearl piped up. “In this cold?”
“Yes.”
“And more are on their way,” the other man said. The two of them, with their wiry builds and handlebar moustaches, appeared to be related.
“I’m Joseph Ladue and these are Misses Pearl and Emma Owens.”
“I’m Frank Doyle and this is my brother James.” The first man did the introductions.
“What brings you boys here?” Joseph asked.
“Your gold strike, of course.” James took a sandwich offered by Emma. “Word of the strike reached us ten days before Christmas. No one was sure what to do until two men arrived and showed us samples of the gold from the Eldorado. They also had letters from so
me miners who had become wealthy overnight.” He paused to take a sip of the hot tea Pearl had given him.
Frank took up the story. “According to the letters it is supposed to be one of the richest gold strikes in the world. No one believed the news until the owner of the saloon received a letter from his partner in Fortymile. That’s when our interest was aroused.”
“Even the saloon owner vaulted over the bar and left, telling everyone to help themselves.” James grinned. “I’ll tell you that was quite a party.”
“Well, I’m the owner of the town, so if you want to purchase a lot, I’m the man to see.”
James and Frank looked at each other. “Right now we’ll just set up our tent,” Frank said. “Then we want to go see the creeks where this so called biggest gold strike in the world is happening. Where can we stay?”
“Pick a spot. But if I happen to sell it then you’ll have to move.”
“Fair enough,” James said.
Pearl knew this was why she loved Joseph. He could have told the men to find a spot away from the town or charged them rent on a lot, but instead he was letting them stay for free. He wasn’t greedy for money at the expense of someone else. He was patient, believing that eventually his town would be the largest in the area.
It pleased Pearl that Sam’s anger had not scared Joseph away. She still delivered his bread and they talked, not as often as before, but she felt certain that he wasn’t avoiding her. More people were arriving and wanting to buy town lots and lumber. Even with his hired men, he had to spend time running the sawmill himself.
There were days when he was working that she felt lonely. To compensate for not having him close, she shook her snowdome and thought back to the Christmas party and how they had danced so close together. And she remembered the argument she had overheard in which Joseph had told Sam that he cared for her. She always felt warm inside at the memory.
* * *
For Sam the winter passed slowly. Sometimes it felt like he was in a long dream. Even though they had found gold, there was no immediate change in their lives. They still lived in a cabin in a mostly dark country. Day after day, in monotonous regularity, they burrowed like moles in their burn-and-dig routine. Nothing had changed, in spite of the fact that they were very rich men.
Romancing the Klondike Page 18
