A Claim on Klondyke: A Romance of the Arctic El Dorado

by Edward Roper

CHAPTER VI.

It is impossible to tell you what I felt when I realised that my friend had breathed his last.

I cannot myself remember what my thoughts and sensations were. I only know that I rushed out of the place—very lightly clothed, too—and in the open air stood gazing around me dazed.

The first few hours after that is nearly a blank to me. I can merely call to mind cold, hunger, snow, and poor Patch's evident distress. I made a fire outside and we sat by it, I repeating to myself, sometimes crying aloud, "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

Once I remember springing up and grasping a white shirt and a red one which lay by the door, and tying them to a long branch which arched across the creek conspicuously, saying to myself, "It may attract some one's notice,"—for, eager as we had been all along to keep our presence secret, now I would gladly have given half, ay, all the gold we had obtained, to secure the companionship of a human being.

The days were very short then. There was but a gleam of sunlight at noon, and as this faded to the south behind an ice-clad mountain, a strong breeze arose which roared through the tree-tops. There was a wildness and weirdness about its dirge-like roar which seemed to me quite in keeping with what had happened.

I had taken no food all day. I had not been inside the hut. I could not for long muster courage to enter it. To gaze upon my lost friend's features seemed impossible—the idea of stopping for any time in the same place with his poor body was beyond me, yet I knew I must do something. Food at least I must procure for myself and Patch; if we had this I believed that we could exist beside the huge fire I had built until I grew calmer, and could decide on some course of action. I put off doing anything though as long as possible, and not until it was quite dark did I creep into our dismal abode.

I trod gently, with awe, for I could not divest myself of the idea that poor Meade could hear me, that my dear friend was at least present in spirit. But truly I cannot tell what I thought or what I felt.

The fire was out. I lit the lamp. I gazed fearfully around—avoiding the face, white and drawn, which I knew was amongst the pile of bedding there. Why was this? Why does one naturally dread to look upon a dead face? Surely I had got to love my friend, and to know that he loved me. There was no reason for this unwillingness to look, but so it was then, and so it usually is.

I threw a blanket over his poor body, snatched a rug up, a loaf of bread, a piece of cooked venison, some tea and sugar, and hastened out again, closing the door securely.

It was blowing harder now; fine snow was being whirled through the forest and down the creek, which had long since ceased to flow. It was freezing very hard; everything was ice-bound; my fire gave but little warmth. What could I do?

Really I was so utterly cast down, so despairing, that I was reckless. It seemed to me just then that nothing mattered, and that I too should soon die, and lie as Meade did, until perhaps long afterwards some wandering prospector would find our bones, our gold, and our belongings; but our real story, or who we were, would never be known.

Patch ate the food I gave him, and I managed to swallow something: then we crouched, he and I, with the rug round us. He slept, but I was thinking—thinking.

The cold increased, the bitter wind was piercing. I roused myself to pile on fuel. A gust of exceeding sharpness seemed to shrivel me, and it flashed through me that another such blast would end me.

For a second I thought, "So much the better"; but at the same moment, like a vision, there passed across my half-benumbed consciousness a picture of what my dear dead friend had told me about his mother and his sisters, and the dearest one of all. I knew what he had said about the benefit the gold that we had found would be to them, and how I had promised him to fight hard to get it to them should he not recover.

My own future did not trouble me. I had no one dependent on me, but I suddenly felt strong in what I saw was my bounden duty. I straightened myself up and exclaimed, "No; I'll not give in! I'll fight this matter through, God helping me!"

I must have spoken loudly, and I suppose cheerily, for Patch jumped from his nook beside the fire, looked at me brightly, eagerly, waved his grand tail, and made me think that he had understood my exclamation, approved it, and would gladly aid me.

The bitter wind blew keenly past us, the powdery snow penetrated every crevice in my clothing, my beard was a mass of ice, and I knew that a few minutes more of this terrible cold would be fatal.

Still I could not bring my mind to going into that dismal den again, or to remain there with the body of my friend beside me.

How should I proceed then? I thought hard. If I could only get shelter from this awful blizzard, I believed I could manage to exist until I could plan something. But where was there shelter! I gazed around; there was no bank, no rock, nothing which offered the slightest protection from the furious blasts.

Something must be done, however—to stay where I was meant death. The very fire was being blown away and smothered in the snow-drifts.

Just then the tunnel we had excavated occurred to me. I grasped a glowing firebrand, gathered a bunch of sticks, and rushed to the entrance, Patch excitedly following me. Pushing my way over the obstructions I had placed there as protection from the flooded creek, I entered, passed in a dozen feet, and found this retreat was dry enough, and such a good protection from the wind and snow outside that it felt quite warm. I flung down my fire-stick and soon had a blaze, gladly perceiving that the smoke ascended to the roof and passed out, leaving a clear space below where we could sit or lie without annoyance.

I was so pleased with this arrangement that I made excursions for fuel, and actually went into the shanty for my blankets, more food, a kettle, and a lamp.

And in this retreat Patch and I remained some days, I only venturing out for firewood, of which, most happily, I had a good heap cut.

The storm raged furiously and ceaselessly, the snow fell continuously, it all but closed the entrance to the tunnel; but having a pick and shovel, I was able to keep an opening for air and to let out the smoke.

Patch and I lay there warm and snug enough. It was, however, a most dismal experience—worse even than that Nansen endured on his famous expedition towards the Pole, for he had companionship. I had none.

I tried hard to pull myself together, to make some sort of programme for future action, but I could do very little—the power of consecutive thought seemed to have left me. I passed the time eating, smoking, sleeping—it was to me like some dreadful dream, and I often, often caught myself wondering when I should awake, and the misery would be over.

I suppose it was then the end of November, and I knew there would be no real spring, no open water, till June; seven months of this desolation and loneliness to look forward to! for I had come to the resolve that, in any event, so long as provisions held out, even for months, or years, I would not abandon the gold.

I had calculated, and I knew perfectly well, that Patch and I together could not haul it out on a sled, with what we must take of gear and food. No; we must stay there till spring, and what I could, or would, do then I did not settle: I only had a vague idea that I would pack everything on the all but finished raft, and somehow float it down to Dawson.

I had plenty of time to plan all this, I knew. At intervals my memory dwelt on what now seemed to me to have been the real comfort, the real content, which Meade and I had experienced in that miserable dug-out before his accident. My mind reverted to the pleasant evenings he and I had passed with books and pipes, anticipating the joys that were in store for us when we had got out, and had once more set foot upon dear English soil. How we used to talk, and plan, and prophesy! Alas! all was ended, his career had been cut short, as we have seen, and mine—well, I did not think about mine very much, the present was what troubled me: the awful loneliness, the misery of it, was what occupied me.

I was forced to go into the den occasionally for necessaries. I had not removed the covering from my friend's face, but I had grown a little bit familiar with that melancholy heap of bedding, and the fact that he lay there, frozen, did not now so greatly agitate me.

The storm raged ceaselessly for quite a week, then suddenly there was perfect silence outside. I went forth to investigate; whether it was day or night I could not tell, for there was but little sunrise really then—the stars were gleaming in a cloudless sky. It was absolutely calm, so the cold was bearable, yet I knew it was more intense than I had ever before felt it.

The moon was rising, and a wonderful scene it was that her beams shone on; beautiful, I have no doubt, but to me then, and always, it was most awful desolation.

Everything—our workings, the raft, the creek—was covered deeply with snow; I could barely make out the door of the dug-out. I looked at it very sorrowfully, and I wished—I was almost ashamed of that wish, I thought it desecration—that I dare go in and live there, even with the companionship of all that remained of my dear friend.

I brought the shovel, removed the snow, and as I was doing so it came to my mind that if I were only able to bury Meade's body I could return to the den and pass the winter there.

But where could I bury it? How could I dig a grave? Everything, I knew, was frozen hard as steel; should I clear away the frozen nigger grass and moss, and light a fire on the earth in some quiet nook, thaw it thus, and dig a grave, as miners sink their holes in winter?

I returned to my fire in the tunnel to think this out. How terrible it all appeared in there; how I longed to make the change! I sat pondering on this for some little time, and then I had an idea.

I grasped a pick and drove it into the wall of the drive behind the fire, and found that I could excavate the earth easily. I went to work, for I had determined what to do.

Soon I had cut a niche quite large enough to hold the body. I smoothed it nicely, procured some fresh pine twigs which I strewed in it; then going to the shanty, I forced myself to draw the dear fellow's remains, upon the same bear-skin he had passed away on, to the sepulchre that I had hewed.

The body was frozen, of course, and was as easily handled as if it had been a log of wood. I took everything from his pockets, then I rolled it into its resting-place—a temporary one I regarded it. I strewed spruce branches over it, and covered it reverently with the earth I had removed, and soon no one but I could have told that a brave young Englishman, a loved friend, a dear companion, was sleeping his last sleep in there. I smoothed the opening over, but I knew right well the spot where Percy Meade, my lost friend, was lying entombed.

It was done at last, the mournful task was ended; having the Prayer-book with me, I read with tear-dimmed eyes some passages aloud from it—good Patch sitting by as quiet and sedate as if he understood it all.

There was no hurry, no need for haste, and yet as soon as this sad business was finished I left the tunnel gladly, and entered the shanty with the lamp.

It was awfully cold in there—it was an ice-house; but I soon had a fire blazing in the corner. I piled on logs, and on them heaped the withered pine brush and rubbish with which the floor had been strewed. Then I cut fresh stuff, brought in the bear and deer-skins, the rugs and blankets I had been using in the tunnel, heaped them before the fire to dry, and in a few hours I was, so far as bodily requirements went, in comfort.

As I gazed around me then, I was very sad. On the rough shelves we had constructed were lying the few books and papers we possessed, and there were some odds and ends which poor Meade had greatly valued. There was his pipe and tobacco-box, his plate and knife and fork, which he had been so fastidious about—two or three photographs of home scenes and a portrait or two were pinned to the logs about the dismal shanty.

All these had been the texts of many a long yarn, many an interesting conversation—it was very sad. But I did not remove them; there seemed to me a sacredness about them, a melancholy sort of interest which was my only comfort in that dismal cave. They brought back to me many and many an incident, and were to some extent a kind of companionship to me in my loneliness. However, I was very weary with all this unaccustomed grievous labour. I made tea, cooked some food, then putting a huge log on the fire, which I knew would last for hours, I fell asleep and dreamt. I thought that I was far away from all these horrors, back in my dear old home, with loving faces round me, my troubles over, my long agony past, and all forgotten. Oh, blessed, thrice blessed sleep!—thank God for sleep!

It was a long time since either of us had written a word in our diary. I was not at all certain of the day, much less of the hour, when Meade had died. I spent some time trying to puzzle this out, endeavouring to account for the time that had elapsed since Meade left me, and, so far as I could guess, for day and night were very much the same then, and had been for weeks, it was ten days—but I had nothing to guide me with certainty. However, I assumed that it was on the 8th November that he died, and I determined to start my watch again, and during every twenty-four hours that passed henceforth to make some entry in our book, and this I am glad now that I adhered to.

Our gold was buried in a corner of the den; I had lost interest in it. Occasionally the thought came to me that it was there all right; but as to looking at it, or adding to it, that never crossed my mind. All my thoughts then were how to get away from the dreadful place. I had come to the opinion that if I left that gold behind me it would be secure enough, for I imagined that I was alone in an entirely unknown country, and that if I left it, it would remain unknown for many a year.

So I thought and thought continually on this one subject—how to get out. I read a little, ate more, smoked much, slept half my time, and thus the hours went slowly by until I fancied it was Christmas Day, and still I had arranged no definite plan.

I had got into an exceedingly low, stupid, almost imbecile condition. I had no heart, no energy for anything; I seemed to have no "go" left in me. I suppose the continual darkness, the utter loneliness, was telling on me. I look back now and wonder at my state: I, who had always been hitherto full of vigour, resourceful, hardly ever despondent, and hating to be idle for a moment, was leading a purely animal life, just eating and sleeping, with very little power, seemingly, of even thinking of the future.

It was then, as I supposed, Christmas Day; anyway, it was a very calm and quiet day. The northern lights were brilliant, and Patch and I were outside: I was gathering fuel and cutting some logs for the fire, he was rolling in the dry dust-like snow, and sniffing at the meat and salmon which hung frozen in the trees around us. I looked about at the brilliant scene, I gazed aloft in adoration at the wonderful display. I felt awed and solemnised at what I saw, and the question came to me, seemed to hit me almost like a blow—"Was I doing wisely, manfully? was I doing my duty to myself, or carrying out faithfully the promises I had made to Meade?" Again in fancy I saw his mother and his other dear ones in some quiet, rural, English home, such as he had described to me, longing for news of him and his fortunes; perhaps suffering for the want of the money he had promised them so surely, that money which was now lying useless in the corner of the shanty.

Could I not do something even then? I asked myself. Must six more melancholy months drag their slow length along? Must I wait for the opening of the water in June? Could I not take even a few pounds' weight of gold, food, furs, and blankets on a sled, and somehow get down to Dawson, where I knew that there were people, and where I could but fancy there must be some means of communicating with the outer world?

Such thoughts as these crowded through my brain. I seemed suddenly to awaken to my responsibilities.

I knew it was but a hundred miles at most to Dawson City; so surely Patch and I could manage to do that—and as anything was better than going on as I had been of late, I determined to adventure.

I had not been twenty yards from the hut or tunnel for weeks; but then, I at once waded out to the middle of the creek. It was more than wading. The light snow was up to my waist, and I plainly saw that I could not make headway through it, and that it would be utterly impossible to draw a loaded sleigh over it. The dryness of the atmosphere and the intense cold had not allowed the snow to pack.

If I had snow-shoes, I wondered if I could manage to move about. But I had none. However I had a few flour-barrel hoops of ash. I bent a couple somewhat into the shape of snow-shoes, roughly netted some cord across them, and essayed to use them, and found they answered the purpose sufficiently to encourage me first of all to make as good a pair as possible.

I set eagerly to work. I bound hoops together closely and braced them; I cut bearskin into strips, well twisted them, laced them across and across as well as I could remember they were laced in proper ones; I used some wire we had to strengthen them; and in the course of some days' close labour I had constructed a pair of very rough but, as I soon proved, serviceable snow-shoes.

With these I practised walking. Most days Patch and I took tramps up and down the creek, and I very soon became dexterous in their use: besides, I knew it was necessary for me to take plenty of exercise to knit myself together, to train for my contemplated expedition.

Now I turned my attention to the construction of a sled—a sledge. The one I had begun I had not seen for weeks,—it was buried under many a foot of snow. I searched, and at last dug it out; it was, I could see, unsuitable. I realised that I must make a sort of toboggan—something to lie flat upon the snow, that would not cut into it as sled-runners would.

No wood suitable for this purpose grew about there. I passed many hours in the bright moonlight, searching the immediate neighbourhood; but they were all rough trees, and would not answer. I was perplexed, puzzled, till I thought of the sluice-boxes, and on one of them I set to work, and with the few tools I had I managed to make what I felt sure would do. But every day or night Patch and I took marches up and down the creek; sometimes these trips extended for miles.

I knew too that I must carry with me some sort of arrangement for sleeping in, and contrive a portable shelter, as I had torn up the little tent for bandages for Meade. The former—the sleeping-bag—I made of what remained of the bear-skins, to which I joined deer-skins, and I lined it with fox, silver-grey and black, of which I had quite a number. The tent I made up of what remained, with some blankets and such materials. I had already contrived additional warm clothing of fur and blankets, with a hood or capote.

With all this business the days passed quickly and, may I say, hopefully.

Just then a great need assailed me. I had run out of lamp oil, and the candles had long since been used up. I tried to work by firelight, but that was very difficult. Then I bethought me of the lumps of bear fat hanging in the trees, and I brought some in, and with an empty meat tin and a piece of rag I made a very successful lamp, and that difficulty was surmounted.

My sled, or toboggan, was ready. My snow-shoes answered well. I had made alterations and improvements in them as I had gained experience, and I was now able to get about on them with speed and comfort.

It was towards the end of January, according to my calculations, and I began to reckon eagerly of making a start.

The wretchedness, the inexpressible loneliness of this time, was really awful. At times I was half beside myself with horror, and I suppose I acted like a half-crazed being often. I used to talk to Patch, to address him as if he were a human being, and the dear old dog would put his head on one side, prick up his ears and listen to me, and I do believe he tried his best to understand what I said to him. What I should have done without that dear old fellow I cannot imagine.

One day—or night, was it?—Patch and I were up the creek some miles. I had my gun with me, for I had the day before noticed traces of what I thought were wolves, and I did not care to be confronted with them unprepared.

I was standing in an open space, clear of trees, on the surface of the frozen stream indeed, when I was more than usually struck with the sublime, the awful spectacle which the heavens exhibited.

These magnificent displays of the aurora borealis always affected me; but this night they were particularly grand, and I stood some time, as there was not a breath of wind stirring, admiring them, and wondering.

Streamers, tongues of rose-tinted lurid fire, slowly crept up from the mysterious north. Sometimes they stopped, hesitated, then darting on again, covered the entire heavens. Often they resembled huge flames of crimson fire; they flickered and seemed often to be enshrouded in dense, yet transparent, smoke. Frequently they whirled and twirled as if they had been spindles.

Now these appearances were here, now there. They never remained stationary; the whole firmament was in motion always.

The snow and all the earth and trees were blood-coloured, my breath and the dog's was red too, and awful. There was a certain feeling of suffocation in the atmosphere, or so I imagined. The cold was indescribable; inhaling felt like drawing into one's throat the fumes of cayenne pepper. My heart beat violently, I breathed in gasps, and I knew that if a wind arose I should be shrivelled up as feathers would be in a fire.

But I also knew that Providence had decreed that when cold has become so intense, as it was then, wind shall not blow; therefore, I dismissed this dread.

At times the heavens were suffused with deepest crimson, then bars of glowing scarlet would undulate across them; or it would be checkered with different tints of orange purple and deep green.

And suddenly all these colours vanished, and the sky was covered with what looked like luminous clouds, through which moved shapes of wavy light, forms which could be likened to angels or spirits. They arose from the northern horizon, climbed slowly to the zenith, then with a burst of brilliance they slipped out of sight. It seemed to me that hundreds, thousands of them were up there moving, twining, turning amongst themselves, like sentient beings, through all the vast space above me.

These forms, wrapped in robes of diaphanous, tremulous light, sometimes appeared as if they were about to leave the sky and wrap me about in fleecy raiment, and I caught myself imagining that they would carry me away beyond those snow-clad mountains to the north, to the spot which all men seek, but which none have yet reached. I was spellbound, dazzled by this sublime exhibition of Almighty power. I was not afraid—not really; I was awestruck, solemnised.

And as this wonderful white light poured over the pine-clad hills and flashed on the ice-clad mountains, and the nearer trees were fringed with silvery glow, and as I watched all this, entranced, I perceived that this splendour was by degrees dying from the sky. The brilliant lights were fading slowly, and in their place the full moon wheeled up, the stars became visible, and it was an ordinary moonlight scene; but so bright, so brilliant, that for a while I was unable to decide which was the more wonderful display, this calm and peaceful scene, or that which had but now faded from the heavens leaving no trace behind.

I had not stirred for quite half-an-hour, and Patch had stood by me, motionless, all the time. Strangely—or so it was to me—he did not appear to have noticed any of these lights and sights. He was perfectly impassive.

I had thought during the height of this spectacle that I heard cracklings and other noises like electric discharges; but now that all was motionless about me and no aurora visible, I still heard these sounds, and decided that they were caused by the intense frost splitting trees and splintering their bark and branches.

I was about to turn towards home—home! fancy speaking of that dreadful place I stayed in as home!—when I heard a sound far to the east, beyond some hills, which struck me as most strange. It was exactly like the discharge of a double-barrelled gun.

I noticed that Patch pricked up his ears at it, and looked suddenly alert.

I listened intently for some minutes, then I heard that sound again!

It was the frost at work, I reckoned, and yet there was something about the report that excited me. I waited, listening for some time, but as I did not hear the sound again, Patch and I wandered back to fire and food.

However, these peculiar sounds frequently recurred to me. There was a strange persistency in my thoughts about them. I wondered if it was possible that some people were stopping over the hills, or could it be merely the snapping of the frost. I concluded that this latter was the solution, and fell asleep believing so.