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He was vastly proud of his achievement. He took the severed hand upon a shovel and, going to the door, he threw it far out into the darkness. "WHY don't you go outside?" I asked of the Jam-wagon. I had rescued him from one of his periodical plunges into the cesspool of debauch, and he was peaked, pallid, penitent. Listlessly
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he stared at me a long moment, the dull, hollow-eyed stare of the recently regenerate. "Well," he said at last, "I think I stay for the same reason many another man stays--pride. I feel that the Yukon owes me one of two things, a stake or a grave--and she's going to pay." "Seems to me, the way you're shaping you're
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more liable to get the latter." "Yes--well, that'll be all right." "Look here," I remonstrated, "don't be a rotter. You're a man, a splendid one. You might do anything, be anything. For Heaven's sake stop slipping cogs, and get into the game." His thin, handsome face hardened bitterly. "I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm not fit to play the
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game; sometimes I wonder if it's all worth while; sometimes I'm half inclined to end it." "Oh, don't talk nonsense." "I'm not; I mean it, every word. I don't often speak of myself. It doesn't matter who I am, or what I've been. I've gone through a lot--more than most men. For years I've been a sort of a human
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derelict, drifting from port to port of the seven seas. I've sprawled in their mire; I've eaten of their filth; I've wallowed in their moist, barbaric slime. Time and time again I've gone to the mat, but somehow I would never take the count. Something's always saved me at the last." "Your guardian angel." "Maybe. Somehow I wouldn't be utterly
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downed. I'm a bit of a fighter, and every day's been a battle with me. Oh, you don't know, you can't believe how I suffer! Often I pray, and my prayer always is: 'O dear God, don't allow me to _think_. Lash me with Thy wrath; heap burdens on me, but don't let me _think_.' They say there's a hell
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hereafter. They lie: it's here, now." I was astonished at his vehemence. His face was wrenched with pain, and his eyes full of remorseful misery. "What about your friends?" "Oh, them--I died long ago, died in the early ''s. In a little French graveyard there's a tombstone that bears my name, my real name, the name of the 'me' that
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was. Heart, soul and body, I died. My sisters mourned me, my friends muttered, 'Poor devil.' A few women cried, and a girl--well, I mustn't speak of that. It's all over long ago; but I must eternally do something, fight, drink, work like the devil--anything but think. I mustn't _think_." "What about your guardian angel?" "Yes, sometimes I think he's
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going to give me another chance. This is no life for a man like me, slaving in the drift, burning myself up in the dissipation of the town. A great, glad fight with a good sweet woman to fight for--that would save me. Oh, to get away from it all, get a clean start!" "Well, I believe in you. I'm
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sure you'll be all right. Let me lend you the money." "Thank you, a thousand thanks; but I cannot take it. There it is again--my pride. Maybe I'm all wrong. Maybe I'm a lost soul, and my goal's the potter's field. No; thanks! In a day or two I'll be fighting-fit again. I wouldn't have bored you with this talk,
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but I'm weak, and my nerve's gone." "How much money have you got?" I asked. He pulled a poor piece of silver from his pocket. "Enough to do me till I join the pick-and-shovel gang." "What are those tickets in your hand?" He laughed carelessly. "Chances in the ice pools. Funny thing, I don't remember buying them. Must have been
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drunk." "Yes, and you seem to have had a 'hunch.' You've got the same time on all three: seven seconds, seven minutes past one, on the ninth--that's to-day. It's noon now. That old ice will have to hurry up if you're going to win. Fancy, if you did! You'd clean up over three thousand dollars. There would be your new
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start." "Yes, fancy," he echoed mockingly. "Over five thousand betting, and the guesses as close as peas in a pod." "Well, the ice may go out any moment. It's awful rotten." With a curious fascination, we gazed down at the mighty river. Around us was a glow of spring sunshine, above us the renaissance of blue skies. Rags of snow
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still glimmered on the hills, and the brown earth, as if ashamed of its nakedness, was bursting greenly forth. On the slope overlooking the Klondike, girls in white dresses were gathering the wild crocus. All was warmth, colour, awakening life. Surely the river ice could not hold much longer. It was patchy, netted with cracks, heaved up in ridges, mottled
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with slushy pools, corroded to the bottom. Decidedly it was rotten, rotten. Still it held stubbornly. The Klondike hammered it with mighty bergs, black and heavy as a house. Down the swift current they sped, crashing, grinding, roaring, to batter into the unbroken armour of the Yukon. And along its banks, watching even as we watched, were thousands of others.
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On every lip was the question--"The ice--when will it go out?" For to these exiles of the North, after eight months of isolation, the sight of open water would be like Heaven. It would mean boats, freedom, friendly faces, and a step nearer to that "outside" of their dreams. Towards the centre of the vast mass of ice that belted
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in the city was a post, and on this lonely post thousands of eyes were constantly turning. For an electric wire connected it with the town, so that when it moved down a certain distance a clock would register the exact moment. Thus, thousands gazing at that solitary post thought of the bets they had made, and wondered if this
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year they would be the lucky ones. It is a unique incident in Dawson life, this gambling on the ice. There are dozens of pools, large and small, and both men and women take part in the betting, with an eagerness and excitement that is almost childish. I sat on a bench on the N. C. trail overlooking the town,
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and watched the Jam-wagon crawl down the hill to his cabin. Poor fellow! How drawn and white was his face, and his long, clean frame--how gaunt and weary! I felt sorry for him. What would become of him? He was a splendid "misfit." If he only had another chance! Somehow I believed in him, and fervently I hoped he would
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have that good clean start again. Up in the cold remoteness of the North are many of his kind--the black sheep, the undesirables, the discards of the pack. Their lips are sealed; their eyes are cold as glaciers, and often they drink deep. Oh, they are a mighty company, the men you don't enquire about; but it is the code
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of the North to take them as you find them, so they go their way unregarded. How clear the air was! It was like looking through a crystal lens--every leaf seemed to stand out vividly. Sounds came up to me with marvellous distinctness. Summer was coming, and with it the assurance of a new peace. Down there I could see
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our home, and on its veranda, hammock-swung, the white figure of Berna. How precious she was to me! How anxiously I watched over her! A look, a word meant more to me than volumes. If she was happy I was full of joy; if she was sad the sunshine paled, the flowers drooped, there was no gladness in the day.
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Often as she slept I watched her, marvelling at the fine perfection of her face. Always was she an object of wonder to me--something to be adored, to demand all that was fine and high in me. Yet sometimes it was the very intensity of my love that made me fear; so that in the ecstasy of a moment I
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would catch my breath and wonder if it all could last. And always the memory of Locasto was a sinister shadow. He had gone "outside," terribly broken in health, gone cursing me hoarsely and vowing he would return. Would he? Who that knows the North can ever deny its lure? Wherever you be, it will call and call to you.
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In the sluggish South you will hear it, will long for the keen tingle of its silver days, the vaster glory of its star-strewn nights. In the city's heart it will come to you till you hunger for its big, clean spaces, its racing rivers, its purple tundras. In the homes of the rich its voice will seek you out,
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and you will ache for your lonely camp-fire, a sunset splendouring to golden death, the night where the silence clutches and the heavens vomit forth white fire. Yes, you will hear it, and hear it, till a madness comes over you, till you leave the crawling men of the sticky pavements to seek it out once more, the sapphire of
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its lustrous lakes, the white yearning of its peaks to the myriad stars. Then, as a child comes home, will you come home. And I knew that some day to the land wherein he had reigned a conqueror, Locasto, too, would return. As I looked down on the grey town, the wonder of its growth came over me. How changed
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from the muddle of tents and cabins, the boat-lined river, the swarming hordes of the Argonauts! Where was the niggerhead swamp, the mud, the unrest, the mad fever of '? I looked for these things and saw in their stead fine residences, trim gardens, well-kept streets. I almost rubbed my eyes as I realised the magic of the transformation. And
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great as was the city's outward change, its change of spirit was still greater. The day of dance-hall domination was over. Vice walked very circumspectly. No longer was it possible on the street to speak to a lady of easy virtue without causing comment. The demireps of the deadline had been banished over the Klondike, where, in a colony reached
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by a crazy rope bridge, their red lights gleamed like semaphores of sin. The dance-halls were still running, but the picturesque impunity of the old muckluck days was gone forever. You looked in vain for the crude scenes where the wilder passions were unleashed, and human nature revealed itself in primal nakedness. Heroism, brutality, splendid achievement, unbridled license, the North
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seems to bring out all that is best and worst in a man. It breeds an exuberant vitality, a madness for action, whether it be for good or evil. In the town, too, life was becoming a thing of more sober hues. Sick of slipshod morality, men were sending for their wives and children. The old ideals of home and
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love and social purity were triumphing. With the advent of the good woman, the dance-hall girl was doomed. The city was finding itself. Society divided into sets. The more pretentious were called Ping-pongs, while a majority rejoiced in the name of Rough-necks. The post-office abuses were remedied, the grafters ousted from the government offices. Rapidly the gold-camp was becoming modernised.
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Yes, its spectacular days were over. No more would the "live one" disport himself in his wild and woolly glory. The delirium of ' was fast becoming a memory. The leading actors in that fateful drama--where were they? Dead: some by their own hands; down and out many, drivelling sottishly of by-gone days; poor prospectors a few, dreaming of a
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new gold strike. And, as I think of it, it comes over me that the thing is vastly tragic. Where are they now, these Klondike Kings, these givers of champagne baths, these plungers of the gold-camp? How many of those that stood out in the limelight of ' can tell the tale to-day? Ladue is dead, leaving little behind. Big
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Alec MacDonald, after lavishing a dozen fortunes on his friends, dies at last, almost friendless and alone. Nigger Jim and Stillwater Willie--in what back slough of vicissitude do they languish to-day? Dick Low lies in a drunkard's grave. Skookum Jim would fain qualify for one. Dawson Charlie, reeling home from a debauch, drowns in the river. In impecunious despair, Harry
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Waugh hangs himself. Charlie Anderson, after squandering a fortune on a thankless wife, works for a labourer's hire. So I might go on and on. Their stories would fill volumes. And as I sat on the quiet hillside, listening to the drowsy hum of the bees, the inner meaning of it all came home to me. Once again the great
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lone land was sifting out and choosing its own. Far-reaching was its vengeance, and it worked in divers ways. It fell on them, even as it had fallen on their brethren of the trail. In the guise of fortune it dealt their ruin. From the austere silence of its snows it was mocking them, beguiling them to their doom. Again
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it was the Land of the Strong. Before all it demanded strength, moral and physical strength. I was minded of the words of old Jim, "Where one wins ninety and nine will fail"; and time had proved him true. The great, grim land was weeding out the unfit, was rewarding those who could understand it, the faithful brotherhood of the
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high North. Full of such thoughts as these, I raised my eyes and looked down the river towards the Moosehide Bluffs. Hullo! There, just below the town, was a great sheet of water, and even as I watched I saw it spread and spread. People were shouting, running from their houses, speeding to the beach. I was conscious of a
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thrill of excitement. Ever widening was the water, and now it stretched from bank to bank. It crept forward to the solitary post. Now it was almost there. Suddenly the post started to move. The vast ice-field was sliding forward. Slowly, serenely it went, on, on. Then, all at once, the steam-whistles shrilled out, the bells pealed, and from the
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black mob of people that lined the banks there went up an exultant cheer. "The ice is going out--the ice is going out!" I looked at my watch. Could I believe my eyes? Seven seconds, seven minutes past one--his "hunch" was right; his guardian angel had intervened; the Jam-wagon had been given his chance to make a new start. The
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waters were wild with joy. From the mountain snows the sun had set them free. Down hill and dale they sparkled, trickling from boulders, dripping from mossy crannies, rioting in narrow runlets. Then, leaping and laughing in a mad ecstasy of freedom, they dashed into the dam. Here was something they did not understand, some contrivance of the tyrant Man
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to curb them, to harness them, to make them his slaves. The waters were angry. They gloomed fearsomely. As they swelled higher in the broad basin their wrath grew apace. They chafed against their prison walls, they licked and lapped at the stolid bank. Higher and higher they mounted, growing stronger with every leap. More and more bitterly they fretted
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at their durance. Behind them other waters were pressing, just as eager to escape as they. They lashed and writhed in savage spite. Not much longer could these patient walls withstand their anger. Something must happen. The "something" was a man. He raised the floodgate, and there at last was a way of escape. How joyously the eager waters rushed
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at it! They tumbled and tossed in their mad hurry to get out. They surged and swept and roared about the narrow opening. But what was this? They had come on a wooden box that streaked down the slope as straight as an arrow from the bow. It was some other scheme of the tyrant Man. Nevertheless, they jostled and
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jammed to get into it. On its brink they poised a moment, then down, down they dashed. Like a cataract they rushed, ever and ever growing faster. Ho! this was motion now, this was action, strength, power. As they shot down that steep hill they shrieked for very joy. Freedom, freedom at last! No more trickling feebly from snowbanks; no
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more boring devious channels in oozy clay, no more stagnating in sullen dams. They were alive, alive, swift, intense, terrific. They gloried in their might. They roared the raucous song of freedom, and faster and faster they charged. Like a stampede of maddened horses they thundered on. What power on earth could stop them? "We must be free! We must
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be free!" they cried. Suddenly they saw ahead the black hole of a great pipe, a hollow shard of steel. Prison-like it looked, again some contrivance of the tyrant Man. They would fain have overleapt it, but it was too late. Countless other waters were behind them, forcing them forward with irresistible power. And, faster and faster still, they crashed
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into the shard of steel. They were trapped, atrociously trapped, cabined, confined, rammed forward by a vast and remorseless pressure. Yet there was escape just ahead. It was a tiny point of light, an outlet. They must squeeze through it. They were crushed and pinioned in that prison of steel, and mightily they tried to burst it. No! there was
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only that orifice; they must pass through it. Then with that great force behind them, tortured, maddened, desperate, the waters crashed through the shard of steel, to serve the will of Man. The man stood by his water-gun and from its nozzle, the gleaming terror leapt. At first it was only a slim volley of light, compact and solid as
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a shaft of steel. To pierce it would have splintered to pieces the sharpest sword. It was a core of water, round, glistening and smooth, yet in its mighty power it was a monster of destruction. The man was directing it here and there on the face of the hill. It flew like an arrow from the bow, and wherever
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he aimed it the hillside seemed to reel and shudder at the shock. Great cataracts of gravel shot out, avalanches of clay toppled over; vast boulders were hurled into the air like heaps of fleecy wool. Yes, the waters were mad. They were like an angry bull that gored the hillside. It seemed to melt and dissolve before them. Nothing
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could withstand that assault. In a few minutes they would reduce the stoutest stronghold to a heap of pitiful ruins. There, where the waters shot forth in their fury, stood their conqueror. He was one man, yet he was doing the work of a hundred. As he battered at that bank of clay he exulted in his power. A little
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turn of the wrist and a huge mass of gravel crumbled into nothingness. He bored deep holes in the frozen muck, he hammered his way down to bed rock, he swept it clean as a floor. There, with the solid force of a battering-ram, he pounded at the heart of the hill. The roar deafened him. He heard the crash
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of falling rock, but he was so intent on his work he did not hear another man approach. Suddenly he looked up and saw. He gave a mighty start, then at once he was calm again. This was the meeting he had dreaded, longed for, fought against, desired. Primordial emotions surged within him, but outwardly he gave no sign. Almost
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savagely, and with a curious blaze in his eyes he redirected the little giant. He waved his hand to the other man. "Go away!" he shouted. Mosher refused to budge. The generous living of Dawson had made him pursy, almost porcine. His pig eyes glittered, and he took off his hat to wipe some beads of sweat from the monumental
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baldness of his forehead. He caressed his coal-black beard with a podgy hand on which a large diamond sparkled. His manner was arrogance personified. He seemed to say, "I'll make this man dance to my music." His rich, penetrating voice pierced through the roar of the "giant." "Here, turn off your water. I want to speak to you. Got a
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business proposition to make." Still Jim was dumb. Mosher came close to him and shouted into his ear. The two men were very calm. "Say, your wife's in town. Been there for the last year. Didn't you know it?" Jim shook his head. He was particularly interested in his work just then. There was a great saddle of clay, and
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he scooped it up magically. "Yes, she's in town--living respectable." Jim redirected his giant with a savage swish. "Say, I'm a sort of a philant'ropic guy," went on Mosher, "an' there's nothing I like better than doing the erring wife restitootion act. I think I could induce that little woman of yours to come back to you." Jim gave him
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a swift glance, but the man went on. "To tell the truth, she's a bit stuck on me. Not my fault, of course. Can't help it if a girl gets daffy on me. But say, I think I could get her switched on to you if you made it worth my while. It's a business proposition." He was sneering now,
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frankly villainous. Jim gave no sign. "What d'ye say? This is a likely bit of ground--give me a half-share in this ground, an' I'll guarantee to deliver that little piece of goods to you. There's an offer." Again that smug look of generosity beamed on the man's face. Once more Jim motioned him to go, but Mosher did not heed.
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He thought the gesture was a refusal. His face grew threatening. "All right, if you won't," he snarled, "look out! I know you love her still. Let me tell you, I own that woman, body and soul, and I'll make life hell for her. I'll torture you through her. Yes, I've got a cinch. You'd better change your mind." He
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had stepped back as if to go. Then, whether it was an accident or not no one will ever know--but the little giant swung round till it bore on him. It lifted him up in the air. It shot him forward like a stone from a catapult. It landed him on the bank fifty feet away with a sickening crash.
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Then, as he lay, it pounded and battered him out of all semblance of a man. The waters were having their revenge. "There's something the matter with Jim," the Prodigal 'phoned to me from the Forks; "he's gone off and left the cabin on Ophir, taken to the hills. Some prospectors have just come in and say they met him
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heading for the White Snake Valley. Seemed kind of queer, they say. Wouldn't talk much. They thought he was in a fair way to go crazy." "He's never been right since the accident," I answered; "we'll have to go after him." "All right. Come up at once. I'll get McCrimmon. He's a good man in the woods. We'll be ready
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to start as soon as you arrive." So the following day found the three of us on the trail to Ophir. We travelled lightly, carrying very little food, for we thought to find game in the woods. On the evening of the following day we reached the cabin. Jim must have gone very suddenly. There were the remains of a
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meal on the table, and his Bible was gone from its place. There was nothing for it but to follow and find him. "By going to the headwaters of Ophir Creek," said the Halfbreed, "we can cross a divide into the valley of the White Snake, and there we'll corral him, I guess." So we left the trail and plunged
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into the virgin Wild. Oh, but it was hard travelling! Often we would keep straight up the creek-bed, plunging through pools that were knee-deep, and walking over shingly bars. Then, to avoid a big bend of the stream, we would strike off through the bush. Every yard seemed to have its obstacle. There were windfalls and tangled growths of bush
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that defied our uttermost efforts to penetrate them. There were viscid sloughs, from whose black depths bubbles arose wearily, with grey tree-roots like the legs of spiders clutching the slimy mud of their banks. There were oozy bottoms, rankly speared with rush-grass. There were leprous marshes spotted with unsightly niggerheads. Dripping with sweat, we fought our way under the hot
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sun. Thorny boughs tore at us detainingly. Fallen trees delighted to bar our way. Without let or cease we toiled, yet at the day's end our progress was but a meagre one. Our greatest bane was the mosquitoes. Night and day they never ceased to nag us. We wore veils and had gloves on our hands, so that under our
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armour we were able to grin defiance at them. But on the other side of that netting they buzzed in an angry grey cloud. To raise our veils and take a drink was to be assaulted ferociously. As we walked we could feel them resisting our progress, and it seemed as if we were forcing our way through solid banks
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of them. If we rested, they alighted in such myriads that soon we appeared literally sheathed in tiny atoms of insect life, vainly trying to pierce the mesh of our clothing. To bare a hand was to have it covered with blood in a moment, and the thought of being at their mercy was an exquisitely horrible one. Night and
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day their voices blended in a vast drone, so that we ate, drank and slept under our veils. In that rankly growing wilderness we saw no sign of life, not even a rabbit. It was all desolate and God-forsaken. By nightfall our packs seemed very heavy, our limbs very tired. Three days, four days, five days passed. The creek was
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attenuated and hesitating, so we left it and struck off over the mountains. Soon we climbed to where the timber growth was less obstructive. The hillside was steep, almost vertical in places, and was covered with a strange, deep growth of moss. Down in it we sank, in places to our knees, and beneath it we could feel the points
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of sharp boulders. As we climbed we plunged our hands deep into the cool cushion of the moss, and half dragged ourselves upward. It was like an Oriental rug covering the stony ribs of the hill, a rug of bizarre colouring, strangely patterned in crimson and amber, in emerald and ivory. Birch-trees of slim, silvery beauty arose in it, and
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aided us as we climbed. So we came at last, after a weary journey, to a bleak, boulder-studded plateau. It was above timber-line, and carpeted with moss of great depth and gaudy hue. Suddenly we saw two vast pillars of stone upstanding on the aching barren. I think they must have been two hundred feet high, and, like monstrous sentinels
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in their lonely isolation, they overlooked that vast tundra. They startled us. We wondered by what strange freak of nature they were stationed there. Then we dropped down into a vast, hush-filled valley, a valley that looked as if it had been undisturbed since the beginning of time. Like a spirit-haunted place it was, so strange and still. It was
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loneliness made visible. It was stillness written in wood and stone. I would have been afraid to enter it alone, and even as we sank in its death-haunted dusk I shuddered with a horror of the place. The Indians feared and shunned this valley. They said, of old, strange things had happened there; it had been full of noise and
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fire and steam; the earth had opened up, belching forth great dragons that destroyed the people. And indeed it was all like the vast crater of an extinct volcano, for hot springs bubbled forth and a grey ash cropped up through the shallow soil. There was no game in the valley. In its centre was a solitary lake, black and
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bottomless, and haunted by a giant white water-snake, sluggish, blind and very old. Stray prospectors swore they had seen it, just at dusk, and its sightless, staring eyes were too terrible ever to forget. And into this still, cobweb-hued hollow we dropped--dropped almost straight down over the flanks of those lean, lank mountains that fringed it so forlornly. Here, ringed
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all around by desolate heights, we were as remote from the world as if we were in some sallow solitude of the moon. Sometimes the valley was like a gaping mouth, and the lips of it were livid grey. Sometimes it was like a cup into which the sunset poured a golden wine and filled it quivering to the brim.
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Sometimes it was like a grey grave full of silence. And here in this place of shadows, where the lichen strangled the trees, and under-foot the moss hushed the tread, where we spoke in whispers, and mirth seemed a mockery, where every stick and stone seemed eloquent of disenchantment and despair, here in this valley of Dead Things we found
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Jim. He was sitting by a dying camp-fire, all huddled up, his arms embracing his knees, his eyes on the fading embers. As we drew near he did not move, did not show any surprise, did not even raise his head. His face was very pale and drawn into a pucker of pain. It was the queerest look I ever
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saw on a man's face. It made me creep. His eyes followed us furtively. Silently we squatted in a ring round his camp-fire. For a while we said no word, then at last the Prodigal spoke: "Jim, you're coming back with us, aren't you?" Jim looked at him. "Hush!" says he, "don't speak so loud. You'll waken all them dead
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fellows." "What d'ye mean?" "Them dead fellows. The woods is full of them, them that can't rest. They're all around, ghosts. At night, when I'm a-sittin' over the fire, they crawl out of the darkness, an' they get close to me, closer, closer, an' they whisper things. Then I get scared an' I shoo them away." "What do they whisper,
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Jim?" "Oh say! they tell me all kinds of things, them fellows in the woods. They tell me of the times they used to have here in the valley; an' how they was a great people, an' had women an' slaves; how they fought an' sang an' got drunk, an' how their kingdom was here, right here where it's all
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death an' desolation. An' how they conquered all the other folks around an' killed the men an' captured the women. Oh, it was long, long ago, long before the flood!" "Well, Jim, never mind them. Get your pack ready. We're going home right now." "Goin' home?--I've no home any more. I'm a fugitive an' a vagabond in the earth. The
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blood of my brother crieth unto me from the ground. From the face of the Lord shall I be hid an' every one that findeth me shall slay me. I have no home but the wilderness. Unto it I go with prayer an' fastin'. I have killed, I have killed!" "Nonsense, Jim; it was an accident." "Was it? Was it?
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God only knows; I don't. Only I know the thought of murder was black in my heart. It was there for ever an' ever so long. How I fought against it! Then, just at that moment, everything seemed to come to a head. I don't know that I meant what I did, but I thought it." "Come home, Jim, and
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forget it." "When the rivers start to run up them mountain peaks I'll forget it. No, they won't let me forget it, them ghosts. They whisper to me all the time. Hist! don't you hear them? They're whispering to me now. 'You're a murderer, Jim, a murderer,' they say. 'The brand of Cain is on you, Jim, the brand of
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Cain.' Then the little leaves of the trees take up the whisper, an' the waters murmur it, an' the very stones cry out ag'in me, an' I can't shut out the sound. I can't, I can't." "Hush, Jim!" "No, no, the devil's a-hoein' out a place in the embers for me. I can't turn no more to the Lord. He's
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cast me out, an' the light of His countenance is darkened to me. Never again; oh, never again!" "Oh come, Jim, for the sake of your old partners, come home." "Well, boys, I'll come. But it's no good. I'm down an' out." Wearily we gathered together his few belongings. He had been living on bread, and but little remained. Had
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we not reached him, he would have starved. He came like a child, but seemed a prey to acute melancholy. It was indeed a sad party that trailed down that sad, dead valley. The trees were hung with a dreary drapery of grey, and the ashen moss muffled our footfalls. I think it was the _deadest_ place I ever saw.
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The very air seemed dead and stale, as if it were eternally still, unstirred by any wind. Spiders and strange creeping things possessed the trees, and at every step, like white gauze, a mist of mosquitoes was thrown up. And the way seemed endless. A great weariness weighed upon our spirits. Our feet flagged and our shoulders were bowed. As
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we looked into each other's faces we saw there a strange lassitude, a chill, grey despair. Our voices sounded hollow and queer, and we seldom spoke. It was as if the place was a vampire that was sucking the life and health from our veins. "I'm afraid the old man's going to play out on us," whispered the Prodigal. Jim
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lagged forlornly behind, and it was very anxiously we watched him. He seemed to know that he was keeping us back. His efforts to keep up were pitiful. We feigned an equal weariness, not to distress him, and our progress was slow, slow. "Looks as if we'll have to go on half-rations," said the Halfbreed. "It's taking longer to get
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out of this valley than I figured on." And indeed it was like a vast prison, and those peaks that brindled in the sunset glow were like bars to hold us in. Every day the old man's step was growing slower, so that at last we were barely crawling along. We were ascending the western slope of the valley, climbing
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a few miles a day, and every step we rose from that sump-hole of the gods was like the lifting of a weight. We were tired, tired, and in the wan light that filtered through the leaden clouds our faces were white and strained. "I guess we'll have to go on quarter-rations from now," said the Halfbreed, a few days
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later. He ranged far and wide, looking for game, but never a sign did he see. Once, indeed, we heard a shot. Eagerly we waited his return, but all he had got was a great, grey owl, which we cooked and ate ravenously. At last, at last we had climbed over the divide, and left behind us forever the vampire
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valley. Oh, we were glad! But other troubles were coming. Soon the day came when the last of our grub ran out. I remember how solemnly we ate it. We were already more than three-parts starved, and that meal was but a mouthful. "Well," said the Halfbreed, "we can't be far from the Yukon now. It must be the valley
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