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

by Edward Roper

I think it was on the third day we had been at this job when Meade took really ill. I know we reckoned that we only had two or three hours more work to complete it when he gave in.

There was only one heavy log to get into position. I said to him that if he could give me a hand with that, I could do the rest alone. Then we would pack up and be off, for I hoped and believed that the change of scene and work, and the actually having started on the long journey out and home, would soon set him to rights.

We were talking thus, and the poor fellow was doing all he could to aid me. He was lifting one end of the log which was to complete the structure; then, whilst I was finishing, he was to go inside, turn in, and try if sleep would help him—when, putting out all his strength to lift, his foot slipped upon a barked stick under water, and he came down heavily, the log he had been lifting falling sharply across his legs!

I shall never forget the look on his face as he sank back slowly in the water, which rippled over him to his waist.

He turned deathly pale, then red; his eyes were dilated, his expression was terrible. "Bertie, Bertie," he groaned, "it is all up with me, my leg is broken!"

As for me, I was appalled; for a few moments I was dumb with fear. I thought my friend would drown!

I suppose I simply stared at him with open mouth; I don't really know what I did, or thought. There was my poor friend pinned to the bottom of the creek by a heavy piece of timber, his head and shoulders only out of water, his hands pressing against that awful log to keep it from rolling farther on to him.

Thank God, though dazed, I was not idle long. I leapt ashore, seized a handspike, got it under the end of the stick, and prised it up quite clear of him. Then I called to him that he was free, and begged him to move away.

But he could not. He repeated that his leg was broken, and that he was jammed there; that if I could not help him he must there lie—there die! He spoke in such a despondent manner, he looked so dreadful; his teeth were chattering with the cold. It was awful.

I was all this time exerting my power to keep the log up, and off him. I realised that I could not do that for long, and if I let go it would go down on him and hurt him worse perhaps. It was a horrible fix to be in. I suppose it lasted hardly twenty seconds, but it seemed to me an hour.