WINTER QUARTERS
“Slow her down, Clay, slow her down,” pleaded Case. “Slow her down,” shouted Alex from the bow. “I can’t do much with her going so fast.”
It was a different scene from that, in which we last saw the boys. Long gone were the golden days when they had journeyed leisurely up the river with Mrs. Mason nursing Case and the Esquimau lad back to speedy health. Gone also were that exhilaration of shooting the rapids, and gone were the pleasant nights when, with a bad stretch of water ahead of them, the steamer and the Rambler had tied up together at the bank and all had made merry by the light of big fires, singing, talking, and even dancing on the rough, uneven ground. Gone were the pleasant loitering days in gold-mad Dawson, mingling with the old timers, eager to lend a hand wherever needed and gaining in return many new quaint facts of the country and the trail. They had hardly noted the growing keenness in the air until the Kid, anxious still in his love affair, whispered to them that it was time for them to go, that much ice was already bubbling up in the smaller streams, and, knowing the Kid as they did, they had followed his advice. It was an exciting race with winter at their heels, but the Rambler driving ahead with the current at a speed of from twenty-five to twenty-eight miles an hour, kept ahead of the big cold.
At the Indian village they had stopped to get their dogs and buy furs from the Shaman who, fat and sleek, by artful trading, had acquired nearly all the furs from the hunters who were drifting in from the long hunt one by one. To the hunger-pinched poor folks, they gave the provisions Ike had suggested. They also gave them freely of their trinkets that they might not be tempted to trade off the precious food for the Shaman’s worthless baubles.
Short as their stay had been, they were surprised at the change in the river. Much ice was bubbling to the surface like yeast. It was not the same Yukon upon which they had ridden up so pleasantly in summer. It was tempestuous with white-capped waves that battered against the Rambler’s bow and sent icy showers of spray aft. By midday the fierce wind had died away and thin cakes of ice were floating on the surface.
Slow her down, Clay,” Alex begged. “I can’t help much at the rate she’s going.” He was leaning over the bow, boat hook in hand, trying vainly to thrust to one side the blocks of ice that impeded the Rambler’s progress. While Case, well once more, was standing at the wheel, his alert eyes picking out the channels of open water freed from ice throes.
Down in the cabin, Ike was already beginning the evening meal and talking gravely to Abe, whose wan face had filled out amazingly and who was clumsily trying to help fadder with the cooking.
“Slow her down, can’t you?” Alex yelled again.
Clay left the motor and made his way forward. “Do you see that mountain ahead where the river seems to make a bend? I noticed it when we were going up. Just beyond it is a snug little cove with a shelving beach. Just the place to winter in, it struck me. Now the shores here are not fit for a winter camp. They are too wind-swept. We have just got to make that cove. We simply can’t stop. The river will be frozen over by morning and when the ice breaks up in the spring, the Rambler would be crushed into splinters between the floes. At this rate we can not make the cove before night. I don’t want the responsibility all on myself. But I think now is the time to make a break for it. The ice is thin yet and the Rambler has got plenty of power and we know she has not got an unsound plank in her. I vote to try for the cove. What do you fellows say?”
“I’m for it,” said Case, knocking his ice-cold hands against his body to take away the numbness. “Anything is better than this.”