“Ay, you are right,” he said. “I am past help. I feel death stealing over me. Months of privation have worn out my rugged frame—this frightful wilderness has drained my life blood. Comrades, I have journeyed on foot from the far province of Alaska.”
Carteret shrugged his shoulders, and the captain and I exchanged incredulous glances. Doubtless the stranger’s mind was wandering.
“You think me mad,” he said hoarsely. “But no; I will prove otherwise. Listen to my story. It is the last service you can do me, and you will find it well worth hearing.”
His manner was so earnest that we began to believe a little in spite of ourselves. We crouched on the blanket alongside of him, and in a voice that was barely audible—he was failing fast—the old man proceeded. The earlier part of his narrative, which was the least interesting, I will set down briefly in my own words.
His name was Hiram Buckhorn, and he was now sixty odd years of age. Half of his life had been passed in New York State and the Lower Canadas, and then he had gone across the continent to San Francisco. From that port he sailed with a dozen adventurous companions two years previously to explore the almost unknown territory of Alaska and prospect for gold. They sailed hundreds of miles up the mighty Yukon, and when their vessel was wrecked they journeyed some days inland on foot.
“And we found what we sought,” he continued, with sparkling eyes—“riches such as were never dreamed of! Gold? Why, men, it was as plentiful as the sand and gravel! The streams were paved with nuggets; it was everywhere under the soil! Our camp was near a tributary of the Yukon, and within a square mile was gold enough to purchase a dozen empires; but many a year will pass before men lay hands on the treasure. It is a terrible country—almost impossible to reach, and there is scarcely any summer season. And then the savage Indians! They fell upon us suddenly and treacherously, and butchered every one of my comrades. For some reason they spared my life and held me a prisoner.”
The old man paused a moment, breathing heavily. “After a month of captivity, during which my sufferings were terrible, I managed to escape,” he went on, in a weaker voice. “I could not return through Alaska, so I headed to the southeast through the Hudson Bay Company’s territory. I had musket and powder and ball—which I recovered from the Indians—and I built myself a rude sledge. This was thirteen months ago and since then I have been on the way. Ay, I have plodded more than fifteen hundred miles, through all seasons, over rivers, mountains, and plains. And to what end? To fill a grave in the wilderness! I had hoped to reach civilization, but the task was too great.”
Such was Hiram Buckhorn’s narrative, and when it was finished we looked silently at him with awe and amazement, with the deepest pity. His exploit had far surpassed anything in the annals of the pioneers of the Northwest. Fifteen hundred miles, on foot and alone, through an untrodden wilderness that even the Hudson Bay Company had never dreamed of tapping! It bore the stamp of truth, and yet it was so incredible a thing that we wavered between doubt and belief.
He noted this, and a grim smile flitted across his face.
“You shall see!” he whispered. “Reach under my head! Be quick!”