“An’ why?” he repeated. “I’ll tell you for why. I’ve been snow-blind twice, so my eyes ain’t what they used to be. Nowadays, when I ain’t wearin’ snow glasses—an’ blast the dang things, I hate ’em!— I’ve got to keep my eyes clamped on the spruce.
“Spruce is dang restful to the eyes. It’s restful because it’s green, but to keep on lookin’ at it, a man’s got to twist his head from one side the river to the other, an’ there’s times when I think I’m li’ble to twist my head plum off—like a screech owl. Now, instead of takin’ all that trouble, I could start out an’ foller after this young Benton. Instead of lookin’ at the spruce then, I could keep my eyes fastened straight ahead on him. He’s greener than any spruce that ever growed.”
If young Harris Benton could have heard this sarcastic speech, he would have been rudely made aware of the withering contempt in which he was held by the general run of Alaskans with whom he had come in contact. Had he been aware of the feeling which existed, he would not have been offended in the least; he would have been amused. He was green but, unlike many greenhorns, he realized the fact and was anxious to learn. Moreover, he was willing to accept the hard knocks—a part of the curriculum of Alaska’s trail school—and come up smiling. For Harris Benton, although he was probably the greenest chechahco in the North, had not been raised a pet.
At noon, young Benton hauled his sled to the river bank and, with considerable difficulty, dropped a dead spruce tree and built a small tea fire. After his noon meal he unloaded his Yukon sled, inverted it so that the steel-shod runners shone like twin mirrors in the rays of the sun; then—and this is almost past believing—he proceeded to smear the steel shoes of the sled runners with lubricating oil.
The dealer who had sold him the oil—either unscrupulous or a practical joker—had seriously informed him that “greased sled runners makes mighty easy slippin’ on the trail.” Harris Benton had innocently bought five gallons of the lubricant.
Where a musher pulls without dogs, as young Benton was doing, every pound of excess weight is an additional check to his progress. And besides the five gallons of lubricating oil, Harris Benton was hauling other nonessentials. He had more clothing than he really needed; about twenty pounds of books and old magazines, and the merchant from whom he had bought his outfit had sold him far too many cooking utensils. Benton’s entire outfit weighed almost twelve hundred pounds, and, since at best he could haul but four hundred pounds on his Yukon sled, he was relaying. He would haul from three to four hundred pounds as far up the river trail as he could possibly travel in a day, cache his load, and return to his camp with his empty sled.
Early in the month of May he reached the Kentna country. He had been on the trail four months, and he had arrived with pick, pan, and shovel, together with ample food to last him through the mining season. Also—as every old-timer in the Kentna country will testify—he had arrived with the ambition and energy of a half dozen men in spite of the grueling work on the trail.
Young Benton spent his first week after arriving at “the cricks” in building a cache for his supplies. It was a simple box affair, built of logs, supported high in air by four posts. He was busily stowing his food and other supplies in the cache, when a voice at his elbow brought him about with a start. Looking up from his work, he saw the old-timer who had offered him many helpful suggestions back at the trading post. The old man was surveying him, his small stock of provisions, and his crude cache, with frank curiosity.
“Well, I see you landed here all right,” he remarked by way of greeting. “I’m camped just above here on Penny Ante Crick, an’ I ain’t got a thing to do till the snow goes off, so I thought I’d mush over an’ see how you’re gettin’ along. Staked yourself a claim yet?”
Benton admitted that he had not. “I didn’t know it was lawful to stake a claim unless you discover gold,” he added.