Samuel Alexander White

“ The bitter resentment they nursed against Bassett who had ejected them from Happy Camp and against all the rest who had consented to that ejection blazed into a sort of savagery, a hatred of their own breed which mocked and tantalized and ostracized them.
Every man of that breed bound inward had a vision before his eyes and a hope in his heart. Each worked in a frenzy and performed prodigies of toil for the attainment of his vision and the realizing of his high ambition, but the jaded souls of Cantine and Blera did not respond to any such spur. ”

“ At their advent five wolf-dogs leaped up snarling from their rest beside the stove.
"Lie down!" gurgled Cantine's and Blera's rescuer.
He kicked the dogs soundly in the ribs till they retreated into the huge empty wood-box that stood behind the stove.
"I don't like the brutes inside," he mumbled, still wrestling convulsively to get rid of the gagging pilot-bread, "but it's a case of have to keep them inside or get them eaten whole. Tutchi's Village is full of savage semi-wolves, and they run the river in a hunt-pack every night." ”

“ Blera knew that had it not been for the fact that she was a woman the blows would surely have been sent home and perhaps the wolf-dogs swerved from their course to rend them as they ran. More bitter still her anger flared, and Jose himself quivered with passion as he clambered out of the side snow back into the trail and reviled the disappearing seven. He could not fully identify the befurred and parka-clad drivers, but he had a suspicion that they were Tom Bassett and the six men who had sat around the stove the night before in the Saxon Saloon. ”

“ Blera's blue eyes flashed in the frost, and she shook her fur-gantleted hand in Bassett's wake. "He's aiming to starve us out on the river-stretch and make us quit it again, but it'll take a sore sight more than him to do it!"
"How you meaning? We can't make Selkirk on hot water and dog-feed."
"I know that, but there's the Dalton Trail."
"By thunder! Say, I hadn't figured on that track! But it'll do. Blera, you're sure a—a—a winner. I know there's a Stick village at the mouth of the Klokhok—old Tutchi's Village. I've been in it often. The beggars is rich. ”

“ It was a permanent village. But maybe they've shifted up-stream or back in the range. Let's see if there's a trail."
With a swift pang of fear and loneliness caused by she knew not what, Blera mechanically followed Cantine as he skimmed up the snow-sheeted ice alongside the Klokhok's left limit. In that moment of non-discovery of the village the inimical wild crept close to her. She saw it as a concrete force, strong, sure, ruthless as the persecuting Bassett or the avenging hand of Eric Sark. ”

“ But if I was Cantine, and you ain't goin' to perforate Cantine on sight, what in Hades do you mean?"
"Mean?" echoed Bassett. "Your gall is sure chilled steel and case-hardened on top. Do you think as me or any other white man's goin' to eat, drink or sleep with or breathe the same air as you? You as broke the bond of bread and blanket, the Northland law as no man ever breaks, and lives to boast of it! Days on end I seen you sit at table with my pardner Sark under his own roof in White Pass City. ”

“ There isn't any tent there for us tonight."
"I ain't seein' any here either, then," snarled Jose. "You know how light we come over the Pass to make it in a day. Grub enough for one stop, and no blankets!"
"Well," shivered Blera petulantly, "there's lots of fire, isn't there? What's the use of lamenting in the frost?"
Happy Camp marked the edge of timberline after the nakedness of the glacier-scoured rocks and volcanic slag about Crater Lake and the steeps above, and into the first scrubby pines Cantine and the woman turned. ”

“ With the ultimatum Sark's fingers slid back and seized the rifle lying in his bunk on the wall, for he looked to see a weapon flash in Cantine's hand and guessed that one of them had traveled his last trail.
But Blera was upon him on the instant, pressing down the gun.
"You can't harm us, Eric! You can't harm us!" she declared hysterically. "You can't touch us here, people you've broken bread with under your own roof. You know that's the Northland law!"
Again Sark stared at her as across a gulf and dropped the rifle on the bunk. ”

“ The girls of Happy Camp is slightly frivolous and not what you'd term pernickety, but they draw the line at her. And I tell you, Cantine, I draw the line at you. I wouldn't deserve to be called Sark's pardner if I didn't. I wouldn't deserve to be called a white man if I didn't. I'm strong for sanitation here. The likes of you two is stench and putrefaction in a healthy place. Savvy what I mean? You git to blazes outa Happy Camp!"
Bassett released the other's wrist as he spoke, and the man, his lips drawn up in a wolf-dog's snarl, stepped back a yard. ”

“ But the woman who had been Blera Sark fled past Bassett after Jose.
"Mebbe you think you've run ag'in a pretty hard snag in me!" Bassett called down the slope to them. "You haven't. I'm a gentle, ministerin', velvet-fingered angel of mercy to what you'll strike before you make Dawson City!"
He closed the Saxon door against the boring frost.
"The air sure smells better," he observed, sniffing with relief.
"Sure does," nodded the old-timers by the stove. "But what trail's your pardner plantin' relay camps on?"
"The Nordenskold Trail," answered Bassett. ”

“ Blera, peering through a chink in the back-room door, watched him thus hour by hour. It was a strange and weary vigil, but on after midnight his head slipped down from his hand.
"Jose," she breathed, "he's asleep. Now's our chance. But we have to have the rifle to make our get-away good. Then you can stand him off. I'll take the gun. I'm lighter than you, and the slab floor's awful creaky."
Cautiously she slipped out of the back room and as cautiously, inch by inch, edged across the main room toward Sark's bunk. ”

“ He turned apologetically to his guests.
"But hold on!" he exclaimed, noting the drawn parka hoods which allowed only their eyes to be seen. "You're not for hitting the trail again tonight, eh?"
"We got to," twanged Jose, the bullet in his mouth altering his voice and causing him to enunciate through his nose. "We got to get along on the jump. My brother's sick up in the Miner's Range, up on the headwaters of the Klokhok. We got to keep going tonight, for I sent him word I'd reach him tomorrow."
"Thunder!" exclaimed Sark. "That's different. And I'm sorry. But you eat before you travel. ”

“ Cantine and Blera were traveling almost due westward. On their left to the south lay Haeckel Hill. On their right to the north loomed the Miner's Range, and on the far horizon beyond the valley of the tributary Klokhok jutted higher, nameless peaks. In interminable vastness the land spread before them, virgin ground of| from the main-traveled trail to Dawson City, and the stupendous extent of it was enough to strike fear into the human heart. ”

“ She moved apparently without stepping, with the peculiar gliding grace that is the inheritance of North-born people.
The irregularities of the slab floor seemed to lose stability, to become fluid and flow under her feet like waves in a rapid. ”

“ Old-timers, hailing from opposite ends of the earth, called one another friend and swapped harsh experiences, vile tobacco and colossal lies; while chechakos, to whom these seared adventurers were little less than gods, worshiped meekly at their feet, imbibing among other things instruction in the ways and wiles of the land. ”

“ Jose's sentiments were in a degree reflected in his companion. She ran at his heels with the swing of the Northwoman trained to the trails, and she seemed to have no difficulty in keeping his pace.
{ [em] }THE Klokhok River they sought flowed south along the base of the Miner' s Range into the Takhini. All afternoon they held on for it and at night swung suddenly to the right into its spruce- fringed mouth. Yonder by the fringe of spruce on the low bench-land was the site of Tutchi's Village, but to Cantine's astonished eyes there glowed no teepee fires between the black trunks. ”