If Red Ruin failed, what else could he do but pack up and go home, as thousands of others were doing? The patched-up steamers that were now plying up the river were packed with a queer 158 gathering of “failures” and “successes.” Men who had staked all on this promising gamble were going back to the harness of civilization, sadder and wiser beings. The relatively few successful ones were making programmes for the future—a future in which an unaccustomed luxury figured prominently. Disease and famine were taking their toll of the participants in the great adventure. From all along the Yukon watershed came news of pestilence and panic. Scurvy raged in Circle City, and a hungry mob at Forty Mile was only quelled by troopers with loaded rifles. A boat coming up-river laden with 200 belated gold-mad men and women was stopped by the Commissioner, and all but those who had foresight enough to bring a twelve-months’ food supply were refused a landing, for the famine was acute.
These pitiful facts came to Angela’s ears. Even money could no longer purchase food. The knowledge put a terrible weapon into her hands. If she destroyed their food supply freedom was assured. For one hour she even contemplated this means of escape. Was it not for his good too? Could he hope to win where thousands had 159 failed? She tried to convince herself that it would be no act of treachery but one of kindness. The lie rankled in her brain. A revulsion of feeling came as she reflected upon the immediate past, for despite all her antagonism she could not but admire the indomitable will of him. Failure was written all over the two honeycombed claims, but it never daunted him. She heard the spade and ax ringing on the hard earth from early morning till late evening, and saw him swinging up the hill, a little grim, but otherwise unchanged.
She was impatiently waiting for him to confess his failure, but he never did. There was still some hundred feet of river front to be “tried out,” and Jim calmly went on boring his monotonous holes. It was maddening to watch him.
One morning two men came poling down the creek in a flat-bottomed boat packed with gear and food. They pulled up at sight of Jim. He recognized them as the owners of two claims farther up the creek.
“Still diggin’, pard?” queried one.
“Yep.”
“Wal, it’s sure a waste of time. There ain’t 160 no pay dirt on this yere creek. We got five hundred feet up yonder plum full of holes, and we ain’t shoveled out naught but muck.”
Jim stretched himself.
“’Tain’t panning out up to schedule,” he grunted, “but I’m going through with this bit afore I hit the trail again.”
“Better cut it, Cap,” said the second man. “I gotta hunch they didn’t call this Red Ruin for nothin’. See here, I found six abandoned claims half a mile up. I reckon the guys who pitched that lot over were the same as did the christening of this bit of water.”