The Third Western Megapack

by Barker, S. Omar

  But after all, isn’t ones kind those who care for him when helpless? What manner of son would turn from his father when needed? And these people needed me. Life is measured in miles. The first we travel with aid; then we are stalwart and walk many miles alone, helping others; then we are aided by those who follow us.”

  It was rare, this deep sense of gratitude, and McCurdy sensed it quickly, but he interrupted with an impulsive: “But, hang it all, old-timer, you’re entitled to travel the last mile in Warmth and plenty. With a smattering of schooling you’ve devoured books the traders have brought until you are well educated when measured even by our standards. Don’t you want to see these places of which you read? It’s magnificent the way you’ve paid your debt, but you owe yourself something.”

  Over the wise old face came an expression sweet in its wistfulness. Only his innermost soul knew how he had longed for such a visit, but had locked the longing there for all time. Latent, it had never manifested itself so strongly as during the weeks of close association with this young white man—a man of his own color and blood, who regarded him as a father and affectionately called him old-timer. Yet his people still looked to his wisdom and experience for guidance. Only that day two young men had quarreled; ivory spears were poised for death thrusts, but at the wave of his hand, spears were lowered, his counsel prevailed, and shamed, they had left as friends. Yes, his people needed him.

  And at the end of the last mile, what? It was a question McCurdy pondered over by the hour, because the answer distressed him. A white man, he found it difficult to reconcile his ideas with the native viewpoint of life and death. White men will fight even each other to survive; the native code rules the old shall die that the race may go on. An old man will slip silently from a cake of ice when it can no longer bear the weight of two; when provisions are low the elders starve that the young may live their span. It is noble, tragic, yet a code born of rigorous environments. McCurdy understood it well enough, but he could not picture old-timer’s last mile without distress. Old, helpless, no longer able to keep the pace of his tribe, he would meet the tragic end that comes to those in Arctic wastes at times. A bit of food to sustain life a few hours, a portion of fuel to drive back the frost, then the end. Perhaps fate would be kind, and the end would come in the peace and warmth of summer.

  There followed a long period of darkness, semidarkness, then for a brief moment the sun appeared above the southern rim. McCurdy grew restless. At Nome there would be letters from the girl, Edna, and his mother—But above all he wanted to inform them that he was alive and well. The White Chief read his thoughts and smiled. He had never married, for those of mixed blood do not resist the elements as do those of pure blood, whether native or white. The parting he knew would be hard—difficult for both. But McCurdy was young, and the young forget soon. Yet there was a wistful, deep-rooted wish that McCurdy would prove different, and remember. He liked to think so, particularly when McCurdy spoke as he did occasionally.

  “Some day, when I make my pile, old-timer,” he would say, “the girl and I are coming up here to see you. Then I’m going to take you away with me, if I have to lick your whole tribe and you in the bargain!”

  He hoped the day would be soon, too. It seemed to him that the old-timer had aged considerably during the past few weeks; his step lacked spring, his appetite was poor. He might never have known the reason, but for a chance remark spoken in dialect which he had picked up. It sent him to the old-timer, his eyes dimmed with impotent tears, his soul filled with shame and self-loathing.

  “You haven’t shot square, old-timer,” he cried, despite the strange lump of anger that threatened to choke him. “I feel like a dirty, low-down cur. Even your young men are speaking of it. You’ve been starving this winter that I might eat, feeding me and my dog, denying yourself. It’s not a fair shake.”

  The patriarch smiled kindly. “My son, it’s the native way. Would you deny me the only opportunity to serve one of my own blood? My life is all but run, yours but fairly under way. There is the maid, Edna, waiting, of whom you speak with softened eyes. It is the primal law that the fittest survive that the race may go on.”

  “But not the civilized law!” he protested hotly.

  “When the ice comes and the white man’s ships go, with them go the civilized law and the primal returns.”

  “And you shared food with my dog!”

  “And wouldn’t you have shared your last crust with the dog?”

  McCurdy flushed. “I suppose so,” he admitted.

  Again came the fatherly smile, kindly, understanding. “Well,” he said slowly, “my son?” The rebuke was gentle.

  “Old-timer,” McCurdy blurted out, “for the first time I fully realize the sense of gratitude that moves you to give your all to these people. I’ve tried to shoot square before, but in the future I’m going to give the other chap a little the best of it.”

  McCurdy wanted to slap the old-timer on the back, hug him or do something to show the depth of his feeling, but a certain dignity about the patriarch arrested undue demonstration.

  Rajah had grown to love two masters during the close association, each of whom treated him affectionately, and each of whom he loved impartially. He was to learn on the day of parting, as many a man has learned, that neither man nor dog can serve two masters. Where a few weeks before ice had held all in its relentless grip, now a blue lead smiled back at a southern sun. A number of young men were preparing an omiak for the trip to Nome. Rajah looked on as McCurdy and the old-timer parted, with a hand grip that silently communicated the depth of their friendship—a white man’s parting. The dog stood doubtfully between the two, even after McCurdy boarded the omiak.

  “Poor cuss!” exclaimed McCurdy. “It’s tough on him, too.”

  The old-timer stooped and placed his arms about the white man’s dog, spoke in a low soft tone, then ordered him to the omiak with a commanding sweep of the arm. Neither McCurdy nor Rajah guessed that the old arms had lingered hungrily about the dog’s neck, as the last link between him and the first real association with his own kind he had ever known, parted.

  The omiak slipped slowly away, but McCurdy stood in the stern until the village faded below the horizon. His last picture was of the White Chief standing amid his people, his beard blowing in the stiff breeze, his hand raised in farewell.

  * * * *

  At Nome there was a letter for every mail boat that had arrived during his absence—big, fat letters teeming with news and encouragement, any page of which was sufficient to make him want to do things. He cabled, then seated himself and wrote a reply that filled a small tablet, posted it, and was off to locate some generous soul who would grubstake him. A stampede was on, and like all stampedes, it was promising. In exchange for a hopeful nature and strong body he was given an outfit—final results to be shared fifty-fifty.

  While the south tugged incessantly at his heartstrings, McCurdy’s dogs took him deeper and deeper into remote regions. The new El Dorado proved a myth, with two men for every claim. He continued onward, ready to take whatever Dame Fortune handed him, and make the most of it. On the sled were a number of moose-hide pokes, empty. When the first snow came that fall they were still empty. McCurdy stood in the doorway of his brush hut and watched the short day fade. Rajah looked inquiringly.

  “Well, old fellow, what’ll it be, winter here, or cut and run for Nome?” he queried. Rajah indicated that either would be satisfactory. “You don’t know the girl, Rajah, or you’d, understand. Why, I’m crazy to make good and get back to her. She has eyes deep with love, a smile that welcomes you, and if she were here now she’d slip her arms about my neck and whisper a few words that’d make me want to grab the world and twist its tail. But seeing she isn’t here, we’ll have to cheer ourselves. Guess we’d better head for Nome; there isn’t wages in this man’s country.”

  He was though
tful for a protracted period, then brought himself up with a sudden jerk. “Don’t be a fool, Mack,” he said to himself. “You are thinking of those letters of Nome. We stick Rajah—and go deeper into the country in the spring. Dame Fortune won’t always stack the cards against us—she’ll smile.”

  A stream, choked with salmon, had furnished ample dog food. It had dried in the summer sun and was now cached away beyond reach of prowling wolves and his own dogs. He laid in fuel, shot a moose, and otherwise prepared for winter. Five days after the first snow, a dark line came over the distant ridge and moved slowly into the valley. McCurdy studied it through his binoculars.

  “When you think you are a million miles from nowhere,” he commented, “somebody kicks in your door. Thought I was the only fool in this country, but here comes another. It’s good to see a human face, anyway!”

  An hour later a native with sullen eyes, burning with suspicion, nodded coldly in strange contrast to the warmth of McCurdy’s greeting. Plainly he resented the other’s presence in the country.

  “Better put up for the night,” McCurdy invited. “Got plenty grub—white man’s grub.”

  The other hesitated, smelled the frying bacon, and consented.

  McCurdy would have cheerfully given a year of his life to examine the contents of the native’s sled—contents he made no effort to touch except the sleeping bag. The man spoke English as “she” is taught in native schools, but was grudging with his words. Though he accepted McCurdy’s hospitality, through insistence of his stomach, he watched McCurdy narrowly with ill-concealed suspicion. The next day, when the native’s stomach was well filled with white man’s grub, McCurdy ventured a question: “How’s the upper country?”

  The native shrugged his shoulders. “Bum—no gold; bad country; get sick quick, die; dogs die, pardner die; no good.”

  “No good,” was McCurdy’s mental observation.

  “You go Nome with me?” the native queried hopefully.

  “Nope, not this year—sinking shaft to bed rock, may be gold!”

  “No gold!” grunted the native. Then he wandered out to harness his dogs. This was an operation the brutes evidently resented. They snarled and snapped until in sheer desperation the native was moved to violent expletives in dialect. McCurdy leaped to his feet, a strange thrill, but pleasant surging through him, and to his mind came the last picture of the old timer, clustered igloos, dogs, fat babies and a blue lead dotted with bidarkas and omiaks. He thrust his head from the hut, and in a single breath launched a full sixty per cent of his native vocabulary. The effect was astounding. Amazement, incredulity and at last delight swept the features of the native. Immobile, sullen before, his face was now wreathed in smiles at the sound of the tongue he had not heard in three years. He dropped the harness and rushed at McCurdy with outstretched hands, a torrent of words on his tongue; then he saw he was beyond McCurdy’s limitations, he switched to badly garbled English.

  They talked for hours while McCurdy told him of his people. In turn he learned the native’s partner was a white man who had died a few months before. The native was still smiling as he tore at the lashings of his sled in sudden confidence.

  “Plenty gold!” he cried. He poured out the contents of a poke for inspection. “You go spring, bad country, winter; fine spring, summer, lots gold, plenty fish for dog, meat for man. Lot gold. I show you!” He traced a map in McCurdy’s notebook.

  Long after the native departed, McCurdy stood in the door of his hut pondering on fate’s tricks. The white man to whom the gold meant fortune, life, had died in its quest; the native who, at best, would derive small benefit, returned with a fortune. And besides the gold, the native carried a letter for the girl outside. If it missed the last boat, it would go by dog team to an open port, thence by boat.

  * * * *

  Another year passed, a year during which McCurdy worked as only a man can work when each shovelful of gravel means gold. Now he stood with anxious eyes awaiting the first fall of snow. If fate was as kind as Dame Fortune had been generous, he would reach Nome in time to board the Victoria on her last trip outside. It seemed incredible that his quest was over; that he had won out; that his dreams could now be realized. There was enough gold, even when divided with his grub-staker, Chadwick, to make two comfortable fortunes. Little wonder that he could scarce contain himself as he waited, each day a year, his eyes seeking signs of snow. Then as he despaired it came, a few flakes at first; then a blizzard. At the first break he was off.

  Rajah, no longer a pup, but one of the most powerful malemutes that McCurdy ever laid eyes on, was leading. Rajah was more than a lead dog, he was a part of McCurdy’s life, since the eventful day they had lain down together—to die. Perhaps the dog sensed it all, for McCurdy never touched him with the lash, yet Rajah set a pace that was merciless, while the outcome hung in the balance.

  Two days from Nome he encountered a musher. “Victoria in yet?” McCurdy shouted.

  “Yeah, but she’ll be gone when you get there!” was the discouraging reply. McCurdy did not argue the point, but was off for the final lap, frantic lest he miss connections. Then came a moment when he burst into sight of Nome, and, tossing on the roadstead, was the liner. McCurdy became a madman, crying and shouting with joy and hugging the only living thing that could hope to understand—Rajah. It looked like another prospector gone crazy to spectators.

  At the steamship office he demanded a ticket. “And I’ll take anything and everything,” he insisted, “because I’m going if I have to buy the ship, and I can come blame near doing it, too!”

  The steamship official was accustomed to insane prospectors bursting in the last moment. “Give you steerage,” was the unruffled reply. “Last boat leaves in two hours.”

  Two hours! He called at the post office and was given a stack of mail which he hurriedly scanned. There were words of love and encouragement aplenty, none of complaint, yet he read between the lines a pathetic longing to see him. “God love her!” he whispered. “She’ll not be kept in suspense longer.” He dashed to the cable office, and filed a cablegram: “Struck it rich! Arriving on Victoria.”

  Chadwick appeared in response to his urgent message. “Weigh out your half,” he cried. “I wouldn’t miss that ship for a million dollars.”

  Chadwick gasped. “Where’d you find it?”

  “Tip from a native,” replied McCurdy shortly. A crowd gathered and asked questions which McCurdy answered without looking up. A seafaring man pushed his way through, caught sight of McCurdy, and roared:

  “McCurdy, you young divil!”

  With a bellow of joy, McCurdy gripped the hand of the trading-schooner skipper that he had believed lost with his schooner. “You got out alive!” he cried.

  “Sure, we had a tough time of it, but we lived. I didn’t know you’d pulled through until this summer, when I chanced on the White Chief’s village. Great scout, the Chief; all he could talk of was you. Thinks the world of you, I guess. Poor old devil’s in a bad way though, stove up with rheumatism. Prob’ly won’t be there next summer. You know how it is; when the time comes, the old boys are willing to die alone. It’s their code, and that’s the. only code White Chief knows. His eyes are bright, same keen mind, same warm handshake, but his legs—twisted so he can’t stand, from the cold and damp.” The skipper was silent, then added sadly: “And his tribe will move before winter sets in.”

  McCurdy turned away to think. “Old-timer,” he whispered softly, “oil the last mile, and you can’t walk; your feet are twisted and the frost is gnawing at your faithful old heart.” Opposite forces tugged at his heartstrings—the girl waiting—life before them; old-timer, who’s code was the native code—a code that puts youth ahead of age, that the race may go on.

  “But my code’s a white man’s code!” he told himself savagely. A hand dropped on his shoulder, and a voice said: “You�
�d better hurry!”

  McCurdy ignored it; he was thinking of the old patriarch, the old-timer who had denied himself food that a young white man and his dog might live and go forth strong. He wondered if a stout, ice-bucking schooner, plus a dog team and determined driver, might not reach the old-timer’s village. He turned to the skipper. “How about it?” he demanded.

  “A chance in a million that you’d make it. I can get you to a certain headland without getting caught in the ice. Then you’d have to cross the peninsula by dog team. The chances are all against you, McCurdy. I know it’s tough for the old fellow to be left to the wolves, but you’d, better forget it. The tribe’s moved, and it’s all over with by this time, prob’ly. Here, I’ll help you get your things down to the beach. June, and the next steamer’s a long time off when you’re young and a girl’s waiting.”

  * * * *

  “It is well, my son; take good care of your people.” The new chief nodded solemnly, glanced once more at White Chief, and departed. So this was the end—the last mile of his long life. He glanced at the small quantity of food, and fuel left by his departing people. There were no regrets in his heart, just a pathetic longing for warmth and sunshine, just a muttered prayer for relief from the agony of his stiff limbs. Better had they not left the food and fuel, for the end would have come sooner. His bright mind retraced the paths of his memory. Nearly seventy years with these people and much of good he had done; yet the sweetest memory of all was that he had aided a white man; had in turn felt a white man’s sympathy respond to his own. Did it not mean that in the final analysis he was a white man? He liked to think so. Presently he dozed on his robes. McCurdy and Rajah, now a great dog, entered. With a cry of joy he found himself in the young man’s arms.