“You don’t need to worry for Mike,” he said, with a short laugh that was not intended as an expression of mirth. “He’ll get along when he’s through. Ther’ ain’t the darn Euralian born that could chew him up. He’s spent the worst part of a rotten bad life doin’ his best to lose it by every fool play Placer could offer him—an’ failed. I guess a wild-cat’s a poor sort of circumstance in the matter of lives alongside Mike. I don’t worry a thing.”
“No.”
The break in their silence closed up at once. Chilcoot took a fresh chew and wiped the mosquitoes from the back of his neck. Wilder filled his pipe. The smell of cooking was in the air. There were others lining the fortifications at every point, and one or two men were moving about the camp fire behind them. But for all the watch at the outer walls the place suggested noonday idleness. Even the trail dogs were drowsing in the shade of the walls.
The Arctic sun shone down out of a cloud-flecked sky on a scene of barren unloveliness. Long since it had burned up such meagre foliage as the floods of spring had made possible. The whole country-side was as bald as an African sand desert. The blaze of miniature spring flowers had been swept away, and the dried grass was as brown and wiry as the sparse bristles on the back of some hoary hog. Even the lichens which flourished on the low, rock formations of which the whole country of this northern river was composed, were in little better case. Utter sterility lay in every direction. The desolation, the heat, the flies, the mosquitoes, these things made for a condition that was well nigh intolerable.
The camp was set at the far headwaters of Loon Creek. It was nominally a gold camp; in reality it had little to do with anything but defence. It was a veritable fortress built out of the millions of storm-worn boulders that littered the region. A wide, encompassing stone corral, nearly ten feet high, formed the outer defence, which, in turn, contained a stout, similarly built citadel which sheltered quarters for men and dogs, and the stores and gear of the outfit.
Bill Wilder and his men had embarked on their expedition with no greater concern than had usually been the case when the magic of gold had been the sole lure. George Raymes had despatched him to these uncharted regions with a curiosity deeply stirred, but with the gold fever burning fiercely in his veins. And Wilder had prepared for every emergency, but always with a smile of deprecation for the extent of the war-like stores which the police officer insisted were absolutely necessary. Now he was more than thankful for the foresight of the man who had some twenty-five years of police experience behind him.
He was under no illusion now after a year of this deplorable territory. None of the men with him had any illusion either. The lure of gold may have been the original inspiration with them, but from the moment of embarking upon the waters of Loon Creek it had been swept from their minds in the fight for their very existence that was swiftly forced upon them. For all they only contemplated the pursuit of a legitimate calling in their own Canadian territory they found themselves cut off by many hundreds of miles from all help in a country peopled by a race of beings who were furiously hostile.
All through the previous summer the war had been waged. It had been a heart-breaking guerilla warfare that knew no cessation. The mysterious enemy seemed to be waiting for them at every possible point along the river, and in each and every case the resulting fight was of that comparatively long range character that was more irritating than disastrous.
The Euralians were past masters in the art of challenging Wilder’s progress. They never offered a pitched battle. They attacked at a distance with rifle and soft-nosed bullet, and the pin-pricking of it was like the maddening attacks of the swarming mosquitoes. The whole thing was amazingly well-calculated. There was no respite, there was not a moment in which the creek could be adequately explored for gold. The expedition was forced to defence almost every hour of the unending daylight.
In this fashion, during the first summer, the headwaters of the creek had been reached. But they had been reached with barely time to build winter quarters before the freeze up and the long night of winter descended upon the world.