Smoke Bellew

by London, Jack

  "Look at her!" he cried. "She's the real goods an' the red meat. Look at them moccasins swing along. No high-heels there. She uses the legs God gave her. She's the right squaw for any bear-hunter."

  She flashed back a smile of acknowledgment that included Smoke. He caught a feeling of chumminess, though at the same time he was bitingly aware that it was very much of a woman who embraced him in that comradely smile.

  Looking back, as they came to the bank of Squaw Creek, they could see the stampede, strung out irregularly, struggling along the descent of the divide.

  They slipped down the bank to the creek bed. The stream, frozen solidly to bottom, was from twenty to thirty feet wide and ran between six- and eight-foot earth banks of alluvial wash. No recent feet had disturbed the snow that lay upon its ice, and they knew they were above the Discovery claim and the last stakes of the Sea Lion stampeders.

  "Look out for springs," Joy warned, as Smoke led the way down the creek. "At seventy below you'll lose your feet if you break through."

  These springs, common to most Klondike streams, never ceased at the lowest temperatures. The water flowed out from the banks and lay in pools which were cuddled from the cold by later surface-freezings and snow falls. Thus, a man, stepping on dry snow, might break through half an inch of ice-skin and find himself up to the knees in water. In five minutes, unless able to remove the wet gear, the loss of one's foot was the penalty.

  Though only three in the afternoon, the long grey twilight of the Arctic had settled down. They watched for a blazed tree on either bank, which would show the centre-stake of the last claim located. Joy, impulsively eager, was the first to find it. She darted ahead of Smoke, crying: "Somebody's been here! See the snow! Look for the blaze! There it is! See that spruce!"

  She sank suddenly to her waist in the snow.

  "Now I've done it," she said woefully. Then she cried: "Don't come near me! I'll wade out."

  Step by step, each time breaking through the thin skin of ice concealed under the dry snow, she forced her way to solid footing. Smoke did not wait, but sprang to the bank, where dry and seasoned twigs and sticks, lodged amongst the brush by spring freshets, waited the match. By the time she reached his side, the first flames and flickers of an assured fire were rising.

  "Sit down!" he commanded.

  She obediently sat down in the snow. He slipped his pack from his back, and spread a blanket for her feet.

  From above came the voices of the stampeders who followed them.

  "Let Shorty stake," she urged

  "Go on, Shorty," Smoke said, as he attacked her moccasins, already stiff with ice. "Pace off a thousand feet and place the two centre- stakes. We can fix the corner-stakes afterwards."

  With his knife Smoke cut away the lacings and leather of the moccasins. So stiff were they with ice that they snapped and crackled under the hacking and sawing. The Siwash socks and heavy woollen stockings were sheaths of ice. It was as if her feet and calves were encased in corrugated iron.

  "How are your feet?" he asked, as he worked.

  "Pretty numb. I can't move nor feel my toes. But it will be all right. The fire is burning beautifully. Watch out you don't freeze your own hands. They must be numb now from the way you're fumbling."

  He slipped his mittens on, and for nearly a minute smashed the open hands savagely against his sides. When he felt the blood-prickles, he pulled off the mittens and ripped and tore and sawed and hacked at the frozen garments. The white skin of one foot appeared, then that of the other, to be exposed to the bite of seventy below zero, which is the equivalent of one hundred and two below freezing.

  Then came the rubbing with snow, carried on with an intensity of cruel fierceness, till she squirmed and shrank and moved her toes, and joyously complained of the hurt.

  He half-dragged her, and she half-lifted herself, nearer to the fire. He placed her feet on the blanket close to the flesh-saving flames.

  "You'll have to take care of them for a while," he said.

  She could now safely remove her mittens and manipulate her own feet, with the wisdom of the initiated, being watchful that the heat of the fire was absorbed slowly. While she did this, he attacked his hands. The snow did not melt nor moisten. Its light crystals were like so much sand. Slowly the stings and pangs of circulation came back into the chilled flesh. Then he tended the fire, unstrapped the light pack from her back, and got out a complete change of foot- gear.

  Shorty returned along the creek-bed and climbed the bank to them.

  "I sure staked a full thousan' feet," he proclaimed. "Number twenty-seven and number twenty-eight, though I'd only got the upper stake of twenty-seven, when I met the first geezer of the bunch behind. He just straight declared I wasn't goin' to stake twenty- eight. An' I told him . . . ."

  "Yes, yes," Joy cried. "What did you tell him?"

  "Well, I told him straight that if he didn't back up plum five hundred feet I'd sure punch his frozen nose into ice-cream an' chocolate eclaires. He backed up, an' I've got in the centre-stakes of two full an' honest five-hundred-foot claims. He staked next, and I guess by now the bunch has Squaw Creek located to head-waters an' down the other side. Ourn is safe. It's too dark to see now, but we can put out the corner-stakes in the mornin'."

  III.

  When they awoke, they found a change had taken place during the night. So warm was it, that Shorty and Smoke, still in their mutual blankets, estimated the temperature at no more than twenty below. The cold snap had broken. On top their blankets lay six inches of frost crystals.

  "Good morning! how's your feet?" was Smoke's greeting across the ashes of the fire to where Joy Gastell, carefully shaking aside the snow, was sitting up in her sleeping furs.

  Shorty built the fire and quarried ice from the creek, while Smoke cooked breakfast. Daylight came on as they finished the meal.

  "You go an' fix them corner-stakes, Smoke," Shorty said. "There's a gravel under where I chopped ice for the coffee, an' I'm goin' to melt water and wash a pan of that same gravel for luck."

  Smoke departed, axe in hand, to blaze the stakes. Starting from the down-stream centre-stake of 'twenty-seven,' he headed at right angles across the narrow valley towards its rim. He proceeded methodically, almost automatically, for his mind was alive with recollections of the night before. He felt, somehow, that he had won to empery over the delicate lines and firm muscles of those feet and ankles he had rubbed with snow, and this empery seemed to extend to all women. In dim and fiery ways a feeling of possession mastered him. It seemed that all that was necessary was for him to walk up to this Joy Gastell, take her hand in his, and say "Come."

  It was in this mood that he discovered something that made him forget empery over the white feet of woman. At the valley rim he blazed no corner-stake. He did not reach the valley rim, but, instead, he found himself confronted by another stream. He lined up with his eye a blasted willow tree and a big and recognizable spruce. He returned to the stream where were the centre stakes. He followed the bed of the creek around a wide horseshoe bend through the flat, and found that the two creeks were the same creek. Next, he floundered twice through the snow from valley rim to valley rim, running the first line from the lower stake of 'twenty-seven,' the second from the upper stake of 'twenty-eight,' and he found that THE UPPER STAKE OF THE LATTER WAS LOWER THAN THE LOWER STAKE OF THE FORMER. In the gray twilight and half-darkness Shorty had located their two claims on the horseshoe.

  Smoke plodded back to the little camp. Shorty, at the end of washing a pan of gravel, exploded at sight of him.

  "We got it!" Shorty cried, holding out the pan. "Look at it! A nasty mess of gold. Two hundred right there if it's a cent. She runs rich from the top of the wash-gravel. I've churned around placers some, but I never got butter like what's in this pan."

  Smoke cast an incurious glance at the coarse gold, poured himself a cup of coffee at the fire, and sat down. Joy sensed something wrong and looked at him with eagerly solicitous eyes. Shorty, however, was
disgruntled by his partner's lack of delight in the discovery.

  "Why don't you kick in an' get excited?" he demanded. "We got our pile right here, unless you're stickin' up your nose at two-hundred- dollar pans."

  Smoke took a swallow of coffee before replying.

  "Shorty, why are our two claims here like the Panama Canal?"

  "What's the answer?"

  "Well, the eastern entrance of the Panama Canal is west of the western entrance, that's all."

  "Go on," Shorty said. "I ain't seen the joke yet."

  "In short, Shorty, you staked our two claims on a big horseshoe bend."

  Shorty set the gold pan down in the snow and stood up.

  "Go on," he repeated.

  "The upper stake of twenty-eight is ten feet below the lower stake of twenty-seven."

  "You mean we ain't got nothin', Smoke?"

  "Worse than that; we've got ten feet less than nothing."

  Shorty departed down the bank on the run. Five minutes later he returned. In response to Joy's look, he nodded. Without speech, he went over to a log and sat down to gaze steadily at the snow in front of his moccasins.

  "We might as well break camp and start back for Dawson," Smoke said, beginning to fold the blankets.

  "I am sorry, Smoke," Joy said. "It's all my fault."

  "It's all right," he answered. "All in the day's work, you know."

  "But it's my fault, wholly mine," she persisted. "Dad's staked for me down near Discovery, I know. I'll give you my claim."

  He shook his head.

  "Shorty," she pleaded.

  Shorty shook his head and began to laugh. It was a colossal laugh.

  Chuckles and muffled explosions yielded to hearty roars.

  "It ain't hysterics," he explained, "I sure get powerful amused at times, an' this is one of them."

  His gaze chanced to fall on the gold pan. He walked over and gravely kicked it, scattering the gold over the landscape.

  "It ain't ourn," he said. "It belongs to the geezer I backed up five hundred feet last night. An' what gets me is four hundred an' ninety of them feet was to the good . . . his good. Come on, Smoke. Let's start the hike to Dawson. Though if you're hankerin' to kill me I won't lift a finger to prevent."

  SHORTY DREAMS.

  I.

  "Funny you don't gamble none," Shorty said to Smoke one night in the

  Elkhorn. "Ain't it in your blood?"

  "It is," Smoke answered. "But the statistics are in my head. I like an even break for my money."

  All about them, in the huge bar-room, arose the click and rattle and rumble of a dozen games, at which fur-clad, moccasined men tried their luck. Smoke waved his hand to include them all.

  "Look at them," he said. "It's cold mathematics that they will lose more than they win to-night, that the big proportion is losing right now."

  "You're sure strong on figgers," Shorty murmured admiringly. "An' in the main you're right. But they's such a thing as facts. An' one fact is streaks of luck. They's times when every geezer playin' wins, as I know, for I've sat in in such games an' saw more'n one bank busted. The only way to win at gamblin' is wait for a hunch that you've got a lucky streak comin' and then to play it to the roof."

  "It sounds simple," Smoke criticized. "So simple I can't see how men can lose."

  "The trouble is," Shorty admitted, "that most men gets fooled on their hunches. On occasion I sure get fooled on mine. The thing is to try, an' find out."

  Smoke shook his head.

  "That's a statistic, too, Shorty. Most men prove wrong on their hunches."

  "But don't you ever get one of them streaky feelin's that all you got to do is put your money down an' pick a winner?"

  Smoke laughed.

  "I'm too scared of the percentage against me. But I'll tell you what, Shorty. I'll throw a dollar on the 'high card' right now and see if it will buy us a drink."

  Smoke was edging his way in to the faro table, when Shorty caught his arm.

  "Hold on. I'm gettin' one of them hunches now. You put that dollar on roulette."

  They went over to a roulette table near the bar.

  "Wait till I give the word," Shorty counselled.

  "What number?" Smoke asked.

  "Pick it yourself. But wait till I say let her go."

  "You don't mean to say I've got an even chance on that table?" Smoke argued.

  "As good as the next geezers."

  "But not as good as the bank's."

  "Wait and see," Shorty urged. "Now! Let her go!"

  The game-keeper had just sent the little ivory ball whirling around the smooth rim above the revolving, many-slotted wheel. Smoke, at the lower end of the table, reached over a player, and blindly tossed the dollar. It slid along the smooth, green cloth and stopped fairly in the centre of '34.'

  The ball came to rest, and the game-keeper announced, "Thirty-four wins!" He swept the table, and alongside of Smoke's dollar, stacked thirty-five dollars. Smoke drew the money in, and Shorty slapped him on the shoulder.

  "Now, that was the real goods of a hunch, Smoke! How'd I know it? There's no tellin'. I just knew you'd win. Why, if that dollar of yourn'd fell on any other number it'd won just the same. When the hunch is right, you just can't help winnin'."

  "Suppose it had come 'double nought'?" Smoke queried, as they made their way to the bar.

  "Then your dollar'd ben on 'double nought,'" was Shorty's answer.

  "They's no gettin' away from it. A hunch is a hunch. Here's how.

  Come on back to the table. I got a hunch, after pickin' you for a

  winner, that I can pick some few numbers myself."

  "Are you playing a system?" Smoke asked, at the end of ten minutes, when his partner had dropped a hundred dollars.

  Shorty shook his head indignantly, as he spread his chips out in the vicinities of '3,' '11,' and '17,' and tossed a spare chip on the 'green.'

  "Hell is sure cluttered with geezers that played systems," he exposited, as the keeper raked the table.

  From idly watching, Smoke became fascinated, following closely every detail of the game from the whirling of the ball to the making and the paying of the bets. He made no plays, however, merely contenting himself with looking on. Yet so interested was he, that Shorty, announcing that he had had enough, with difficulty drew Smoke away from the table. The game-keeper returned Shorty the gold sack he had deposited as a credential for playing, and with it went a slip of paper on which was scribbled, "Out . . . 350 dollars." Shorty carried the sack and the paper across the room and handed them to the weigher, who sat behind a large pair of gold-scales. Out of Shorty's sack he weighed 350 dollars, which he poured into the coffer of the house.

  "That hunch of yours was another one of those statistics," Smoke jeered.

  "I had to play it, didn't I, in order to find out?" Shorty retorted. "I reckon I was crowdin' some just on account of tryin' to convince you they's such a thing as hunches."

  "Never mind, Shorty," Smoke laughed. "I've got a hunch right now—"

  Shorty's eyes sparkled as he cried eagerly: "What is it? Kick in an' play it pronto."

  "It's not that kind, Shorty. Now, what I've got is a hunch that some day I'll work out a system that will beat the spots off that table."

  "System!" Shorty groaned, then surveyed his partner with a vast pity. "Smoke, listen to your side-kicker an' leave system alone. Systems is sure losers. They ain't no hunches in systems."

  "That's why I like them," Smoke answered. "A system is statistical. When you get the right system you can't lose, and that's the difference between it and a hunch. You never know when the right hunch is going wrong."

  "But I know a lot of systems that went wrong, an' I never seen a system win." Shorty paused and sighed. "Look here, Smoke, if you're gettin' cracked on systems this ain't no place for you, an' it's about time we hit the trail again."

  II.

  During the several following weeks, the two partners played at cross purposes. Smoke was
bent on spending his time watching the roulette game in the Elkhorn, while Shorty was equally bent on travelling trail. At last Smoke put his foot down when a stampede was proposed for two hundred miles down the Yukon.

  "Look here, Shorty," he said, "I'm not going. That trip will take ten days, and before that time I hope to have my system in proper working order. I could almost win with it now. What are you dragging me around the country this way for anyway?"

  "Smoke, I got to take care of you," was Shorty's reply. "You're getting nutty. I'd drag you stampedin' to Jericho or the North Pole if I could keep you away from that table."

  "It's all right, Shorty. But just remember I've reached full man- grown, meat-eating size. The only dragging you'll do, will be dragging home the dust I'm going to win with that system of mine, and you'll most likely have to do it with a dog-team."

  Shorty's response was a groan.

  "And I don't want you to be bucking any games on your own," Smoke went on. "We're going to divide the winnings, and I'll need all our money to get started. That system's young yet, and it's liable to trip me for a few falls before I get it lined up."

  III.

  At last, after long hours and days spent at watching the table, the night came when Smoke proclaimed he was ready, and Shorty, glum and pessimistic, with all the seeming of one attending a funeral, accompanied his partner to the Elkhorn. Smoke bought a stack of chips and stationed himself at the game-keeper's end of the table. Again and again the ball was whirled and the other players won or lost, but Smoke did not venture a chip. Shorty waxed impatient.

  "Buck in, buck in," he urged. "Let's get this funeral over. What's the matter? Got cold feet?"