The Trail of 98 (9 page)

Lawlessness was rampant, but it did not touch us. The thugs lay in wait for
the men with pokes from the "inside." To the great Cheechako army, they gave
little heed. They were captained by one Smith, known as "Soapy," whom I had the
fortune to meet. He was a pleasant-appearing, sociable
man, and no one would have taken him for
a desperado, a killer of men.

One picture of Skagway is still vivid in my memory. The scene is a saloon,
and along with the Prodigal, I am having a glass of beer. In a corner sits a
befuddled old man, half asleep. He is long and lank, with a leathery face and a
rusty goatee beardas ragged, disreputable an old sinner as ever bellied up to a
bar. Suddenly there is a sound of shooting. We rush out and there are two toughs
blazing away at each other from the sheltering corners of an opposite
building.

"Hey, Dad! There's some shootin' goin' on," says the barkeeper.

The old man rouses and cocks up a bleary, benevolent eye.

"Shooting', did ye say? Pshaw! Them fellers don't know how to shoot. Old
Dad'll show 'em how to shoot."

He comes to the door, and lugging out a big rusty revolver, blazes away at
one of the combatants. The man, with a howl of surprise and pain, limps away.
The old man turns to the other fellow. Bang! We see splinters fly, and a man
running for dear life.

"Told you I'd show 'em how to shoot," remarks old Dad to us. "Thanks, I'll
have a gin-fizz for mine."

The Prodigal developed a wonderful executive ability about this time; he was
a marvel of activity, seemed to think of everything and to glory in his
responsibility as a leader.
Always cheerful, always thoughtful, he was the brains of our party. He never
abated in his efforts a moment, and was an example and a stimulus to us all.
I say "all," for we had added the "Jam-wagon"
1
to our number. It was the Prodigal who discovered him. He was a tall, dissolute
Englishman, gaunt, ragged and verminous, but with the earmarks of a gentleman.
He seemed indifferent to everything but whiskey and only anxious to hide himself
from his friends. I discovered he had once been an officer in a Hussar regiment,
but he was obviously reluctant to speak of his past. A lost soul in every sense
of the word, the North was to him a refuge and an unrestricted stamping-ground.
So, partly in pity, partly in hope of winning back his manhood, we allowed him
to join the party.

Pack animals were in vast demand, for it was considered a pound of grub was
the equal of a pound of gold. Old horses, fit but for the knacker's yard, and
burdened till they could barely stand, were being goaded forward through the
mud. Any kind of a dog was a prize, quickly stolen if left unwatched. Sheep
being taken in for the butcher were driven forward with packs on their backs.
Even was there an effort to make pack animals out of pigs, but they grunted,
squealed and rolled their precious burdens in the mire. What crazy excitement,
what urging and shouting, what desperate device to make a start!

We were lucky in buying a yoke of oxen from a
packer for four hundred dollars. On the first day we
hauled half of our outfit to Canyon City, and on the second we transferred the
balance. This was our plan all through, though in bad places we had to make many
relays. It was simple enough, yet, oh, the travail of it! Here is an extract
from my diary of these days.

The above is a fairly representative day and of such days we were to have
many ere we reached the water. Slowly, with infinite effort, with stress and
strain to every step of the way, we moved our bulky outfit forward from camp to
camp. All days were hard, all exasperating, all crammed with discomfort; yet,
bit by bit, we forged ahead. The army before us and the army behind never
faltered. Like a stream of black ants they were, between mountains that reared
up swiftly to storm-smitten palisades of
ice. In the darkness of night the army rested uneasily, yet at
the first streak of dawn it was in motion. It was an endless procession, in
which every man was for himself. I can see them now, bent under their burdens,
straining at their hand-sleighs, flogging their horses and oxen, their faces
crimped and puckered with fatigue, the air acrid with their curses and heavy
with their moans. Now a horse stumbles and slips into one of the sump-holes by
the trail side. No one can pass, the army is arrested. Frenzied fingers unhitch
the poor frozen brute and drag it from the water. Men, frantic with rage, beat
savagely at their beasts of burden to make up the precious time lost. There is
no mercy, no humanity, no fellowship. All is blasphemy, fury and ruthless
determination. It is the spirit of the gold-trail.

At the canyon head was a large camp, and there, very much in evidence, the
gambling fraternity. Dozens of them with their little green tables were doing a
roaring business. On one side of the canyon they had established a camp. It was
evening and we three, the Prodigal, Salvation Jim and myself, strolled over to
where a three-shell man was holding forth.

"Hullo!" says the Prodigal. "It's our old friend Jake. Jake skinned me out of
a hundred on the boat. Wonder how he's making out?"

It was Mosher, with his bald head, his crafty little eyes, his flat nose, his
black beard. I saw Jim's face harden. He had always shown a bitter hatred of
this man, and often I wondered why.

We stood a little way
off. The crowd thinned and filtered away until but one remained, one of the tall
young men from Minnesota. We heard Mosher's rich voice.

"Say, pard, bet ten dollars you can't place the bean. See! I put the little
joker under here, right before your eyes. Now, where is it?"

"Here," said the man, touching one of the shells.

"Right you are, my hearty! Well, here's your ten."

The man from Minnesota took the money and was going away.

"Hold on," said Mosher; "how do I know you had the money to cover that
bet?"

The man laughed and took from his pocket a wad of bills an inch thick.

"Guess that's enough, ain't it?"

Quick as lightning Mosher had snatched the bills from him, and the man from
Minnesota found himself gazing into the barrel of a six-shooter.

"This here's my money," said Mosher; "now you
git
."

A moment onlya shot rang out. I saw the gun fall from Mosher's hand, and the
roll of bills drop to the ground. Quickly the man from Minnesota recovered them
and rushed off to tell his party. Then the men from Minnesota got their
Winchesters, and the shooting began.

From their camp the gamblers took refuge behind the boulders that strewed the
sides of the canyon, and blazed away at their opponents. A regular
battle followed, which lasted till the
fall of night. As far as I heard, only one casualty resulted. A Swede, about
half a mile down the trail, received a spent bullet in the cheek. He complained
to the Deputy Marshal. That worthy, sitting on his horse, looked at him a
moment. Then he spat comprehensively.

"Can't do anything, Ole. But I'll tell you what. Next time there's bullets
flying round this section of the country, don't go sticking your darned whiskers
in the way. See!"

That night I said to Jim:

"How did you do it?"

He laughed and showed me a hole in his coat pocket which a bullet had
burned.

"You see, having been in the game myself, I knew what was comin' and acted
accordin'."

"Good job you didn't hit him worse."

"Wait a while, sonny, wait a while. There's something mighty familiar about
Jake Mosher. He's mighty like a certain Sam Mosely I'm interested in. I've just
written a letter outside to see, an' if it's himwell, I'm saved; I'm a good
Christian, butGod help him!"

"And who was Sam Mosely, Jim?"

"Sam Mosely? Sam Mosely was the skunk that busted up my home an' stole my
wife, blast him!"

1
A Jam-wagon was the general name given to an Englishman on the
trail.

Day after day, each man of us poured out on the trail the last heel-tap of
his strength, and the coming of night found us utterly played out. Salvation Jim
was full of device and resource, the Prodigal, a dynamo of eager energy; but it
was the Jam-wagon who proved his mettle in a magnificent and relentless way.
Whether it was from a sense of gratitude, or to offset the cravings that
assailed him, I know not, but he crammed the days with merciless exertion.

A curious man was the Jam-wagon, Brian Wanless his name, a world tramp, a
derelict of the Seven Seas. His story, if ever written, would be a human
document of moving and poignant interest. He must once have been a magnificent
fellow, and even now, with strength and will-power impaired, he was a man among
men, full of quick courage and of a haughty temper. It was ever a word and a
blow with him, and a fight to the desperate finish. He was insular, imperious
and aggressive, and he was always looking for trouble.

Though taciturn and morose with men, the Jam-wagon showed a tireless
affection for animals. From the first he took charge of our ox; but it was for
horses his fondness was most expressed, so that on the trail, where there was so
much cruelty, he was constantly on the verge of combat.

"That's a great man,"
said the Prodigal to me, "a fighter from heel to head. There's one he can't
fight, though, and that's old man Booze."

But on the trail every man was a fighter. It was fight or fall, for the trail
would brook no weaklings. Good or bad, a man must be a man in the primal sense,
dominant, savage and enduring. The trail was implacable. From the start it cried
for strong men; it weeded out its weaklings. I had seen these fellows on the
ship feed their vanity with foolish fancies; kindled to ardours of hope, I had
seen debauch regnant among them; now I was to see them crushed, cowed,
overwhelmed, realising each, according to his kind, the menace and antagonism of
the way. I was to see the weak falter and fall by the trail side; I was to see
the fainthearted quail and turn back; but I was to see the strong, the brave,
grow grim, grow elemental in their desperate strength, and tightening up their
belts, go forward unflinchingly to the bitter end. Thus it was the trail chose
her own. Thus it was, from passion, despair and defeat, the spirit of the trail
was born.

The spirit of the Gold Trail, how shall I describe it? It was based on that
primal instinct of self-preservation that underlies our thin veneer of humanity.
It was rebellion, anarchy; it was ruthless, aggressive, primitive; it was the
man of the stone age in modern garb waging his fierce, incessant warfare with
the forces of nature. Spurred on by the fever of the gold-lust, goaded by the
fear of losing in the race; maddened by the difficulties and obstacles
of the way, men became demons
of cruelty and aggression, ruthlessly thrusting aside and trampling down the
weaker ones who thwarted their progress. Of pity, humanity, love, there was
none, only the gold-lust, triumphant and repellent. It was the survival of the
fittest, the most tenacious, the most brutal. Yet there was something grandly
terrible about it all. It was a barbaric invasion, an army, each man fighting
for his own hand under the banner of gold. It was conquest. Every day, as I
watched that human torrent, I realised how vast, how irresistible it was. It was
Epic, it was Historical.

Many pitiful things I sawmen with haggard, hopeless faces, throwing their
outfits into the snow and turning back broken-hearted; men staggering blindly
on, exhausted to despair, then dropping wearily by the trail side in the bitter
cold and sinister gloom; weaklings, every one. Many terrible things I sawmen
cursing each other, cursing the trail, cursing their God, and in the echo of
their curses, grinding their teeth and stumbling on. Then they would vent their
fury and spite on the poor dumb animals. Oh, what cruelty there was! The life of
the brute was as nothing; it was the tribute of the trail; it was a sacrifice on
the altar of human greed.

Long before dawn the trail awakened and the air was full of breakfast smells,
chiefly that of burnt porridge: for pots were seldom scraped, neither were
dishes washed. Soon the long-drawn-out army was on the march, jaded animals
straining at their loads, their drivers reviling and beating them. All the
men were bearded, and many of
them wore parkas. As many of the women had discarded petticoats, it was often
difficult at a short distance to tell the sex of a person. There were tents
built on sleighs, with faces of women and children peering out from behind. It
was a wonderful procession, all classes, all nationalities, greybeards and
striplings, parsons and prostitutes, rich and poor, filing past in their
thousands, drawn desperately on by the golden magnet.

One day we were making a trip with a load of our stuff when, just ahead,
there was a check in the march, so I and the Jam-wagon went forward to
investigate. It was our old friend Bullhammer in difficulties. He had rather a
fine horse, and in passing a sump-hole, his sled had skidded and slipped
downhill into the water. Now he was belabouring the animal unmercifully, acting
like a crazy man, shouting in a frenzy of rage.

The horse was making the most gallant efforts I ever saw, but, with every
fresh attempt, its strength weakened. Time and again it came down on its knees,
which were raw and bleeding. It was shining with sweat so that there was not a
dry hair on its body, and if ever a dumb brute's eyes spoke of agony and fear,
that horse's did. But Bullhammer grew every moment more infuriated, wrenching
its mouth and beating it over the head with a club. It was a sickening sight
and, used as I was to the inhumanity of the trail, I would have interfered had
not the Jam-wagon jumped in. He was deadly pale and his eyes burned.