The ice goes out

By FRANK RICHARDSON PIERCE
A story of Alaska, in which honest men and crooks propose, but inscrutable Nature disposes
The hand of winter was on the Northcountry. The sap had not started to run. Valley, stream and mountain, in the grip of the ice, lay like something dead.
And then it changed. Slowly the sun began to swing north, and long before the sap began to run, or the first flight of birds, men began discussing the ice pool.
The ice pool!
Not January 1, but the break-up, marked the beginning of the Northern year. Welch and several others would handle it this year. They had handled it for several years and given satisfaction. The ice pool was the great sporting event that survived. The Nome Sweepstakes and other dog racing events had lost their importance; had dwindled as Nome itself had dwindled. But the break-up each spring was the nearest thing to a lottery that remained under the American flag.
Sometime late in April or early in May the ice went out. Men sent in their money and with it the day, hour, minute and even second they believed the ice would go. Luck governed the contest, for no man could tell the exact hour. The man coming nearest to the moment of the break-up won the pot, less the expense of holding the event.
Leach spilled the contents of his poke on the rough cabin table.
“Enough,” he muttered, “to buy twenty ice pool chances. This year I’m going to win! Each year I’ve come nearer; each year the pool has been larger, but this year I win!”
“Don’t be too sure,” Atridge, his partner, observed.
Leach stretched himself and stepped outside. The air was almost balmy; the sky a deep blue; the mountains stood out sharp and clear. The sap was running in the willows, but then a willow is a foolish sort of tree and frequently buds too soon. The creek on which their cabin was located was frozen down to its gravel bottom. Leach looked into the sky and a peculiar hardness grew in the muscles around his jaw. A flock of geese was flying northward to some open body of salt water. A willow may be foolish, but geese know.