Connie Morgan with the Mounted/Chapter 1
CONNIE MORGAN
WITH THE MOUNTED
Connie Morgan with the Mounted
CHAPTER I
WHEN THE ICE WENT OUT
Into a damp, soggy camp on the left bank of the Yukon near the mouth of Sixty Mile, where fifty rough men awaited the breaking up of the ice, swung a dog team. Now, in the land of the long, lone trails a dog team arouses small comment—but when the team is a ten-team, each dog of which is a superbly muscled, finely poised malamute—and when the musher is a small boy with a square-set jaw, who stops the team in its tracks with a single, short, sharp word—the outfit becomes, at once, a thing of much interest. And especially is this true at a time when travel in the Northland, even for the toughest and most hardened of trail mushers, is fraught with peril and heart-breaking discomfort.
So it was that the big men crowded about and shouted hearty greetings to the diminutive Jehu. And Connie Morgan, the boy of the dog team, returned the greeting in kind, even as his eyes swept the faces of the encircling crowd.
“Bet a stack o’ blues I c’n name him!” cried a voice from the rear of the throng: “He’s Sam Morgan’s boy, an’ take it from me, pards, he’s shore some tillicum!” The speaker elbowed his way to the forefront and extended a huge, red hand: “Do I win?” he smiled.
“You win,” laughed the boy as the man turned toward the others:
“Heer’d ’bout him in Eagle—how he gi’n ’em all the slip an’ tuck out arter his pardner—out yonder, beyond the Ogilvies, wher’ they say—” The man paused and shuddered: “Well—they’s some here that know’d Carlson, an’ Carlson wasn’t no chechako—not what ye c’d notice. That there country got him—but this kid, here, he come back—an’ not ondly he come back hisself, but he fetched out his pardner, an’ another”
“He beat oat th’ Ten Bow stampede—I was there, an’ I know.”
“Black Jack Demaree tol’ me about him,” interrupted a huge man who carried his arm in a sling.
“I know’d Sam Morgan!” exclaimed another, whose beard was shot with grey. “They don’t make ’em no better’n Sam. His grave’s down by Ragged Falls trail.” Other men crowded about, offering their hands, and just when Connie was beginning to fear that his arm would be jerked out by the roots, a loud cry sounded from the direction of the river, and all turned to see a man excitedly gesticulating and pointing upstream where, far out upon the river, a black speck was discernible upon the surface of a drifting ice floe. As a unit the men rushed to the bank which rose sharply from the water’s edge. And as they gazed out over the field of grinding ice-cakes, a cry of horror arose from fifty throats:
“It’s a man!” “Ther’s a man out there!” Men rushed up and down the bank in their excitement, shouting useless advice, while others, seizing poles and ropes, dashed out upon an anchored floe whose outer edge extended to the middle of the river.
The spring “break-up” had come that very morning, and the whole surface of the river was heaving with huge ice-cakes that ground and crushed against each other as they were swept seaward upon the crest of the resistless flood.
“Ye can’t do no good that-a-way!” called a man to those who ran out upon the shore floe.
“Nor no other way, neither!” supplemented another. “His cake ain’t a-goin’ to rub the shore ice, nohow—an’ he’ll be past ’fore they c’n git there.”
“Isn’t there something we can do?” cried a young man—evidently a chechako.
“Not a blame thing!” answered another. “It’s tough, pardner, to hev to stand an’ see a man carried down ag’in’ that—but it's got to be.” He pointed toward a spot a half-mile below, where, at the head of a white-water rapid, the ice-cakes had formed a huge jam. Cake after cake swept against the barrier, reared high—crunching, grinding, climbing—only to fall back upon other cakes with the roar of a thousand thunders. And it was toward this that the man on the floe was drifting in the middle of the mile-wide river! Men on the bank stared in white-faced fascination, while others ran frantically about, shouting and waving their caps.
Connie Morgan had rushed to the bank with the crowd. No sound had escaped his lips, and he took in all the details of the situation at a glance. He, too, saw the futility of the efforts of the men who ran out over the surface of the anchored floe.
“They can’t make it!” he muttered, and then, suddenly, while some stared and others shouted, the boy reached swiftly for his sheath knife and, turning, dashed straight toward the spot where the ten great malamutes stood harnessed. Stooping, he slashed the lashings of his sled-pack and, snatching up a coiled babiche line, knotted one end to the trace-line of a near-by toboggan and the other end to the rear of his own sled.
“Get out of the way! Fall back, there! Gangway! Gangway!” The voice of the boy cut thin and clear, and as the men sprang aside, Connie cracked his whip, threw himself upon the sled, and the ten great malamutes leaped straight for the river. Down the steep bank they plunged and out onto the anchored floe, with the empty toboggan whipping along behind at the end of the sixty-foot line. Straight as an arrow toward the outer edge of the floe swept the fastest dog team in all the North. Within a minute they had flashed past the men who ran, while those on the bank gasped as the outfit dashed toward the channel that separated the two floes.
“He’ll pile them dogs up in the river!” cried a voice.
“Never I seen such a run!” yelled another. “He’ll never turn ’em!” Seconds counted, now. The doomed man caught sight of the dog team and was running along the edge of his floe which was sweeping past at a terrific speed. Fully thirty feet of madly rushing water separated the two great ice-cakes, and the ten flying malamutes were approaching this channel with the speed of an express train—another moment and they would be in the water!
Suddenly, almost at the edge, it seemed to the breathless watchers, sounded the sharp, clear word of command. Instantly each dog whirled as on a pivot, slid several yards clawing frantically at the ice, and then swerved sharply to the left. Another short command and they halted as if glued to their tracks, while the empty toboggan shot past, missing the sled by a narrow margin. The toboggan with its upturned front seemed hardly to touch the surface of the water as it skimmed, light as a feather, across the channel and leaped onto the ice of the passing floe.
The man on the ice wasted no time. Even before the toboggan came to rest, he had thrown himself face downward upon its flat surface, and the next instant the voice of the boy rang in his ears: “Mush! Hi! Hi! Go!” The sled shot back toward the bank, the babiche line snapped taut, and with a leap the toboggan with its human freight took the water, sending white spray to the left and to the right. The man felt the shock as the toboggan was jerked onto the shore floe. He raised his head and looked about him. Sixty feet in front a small boy sat upon his sled and cracked a prodigiously long-lashed whip above the heads of the ten big dogs whose feet seemed scarcely to touch the ice as they dashed shoreward with almost incredible speed. Behind him the man saw his floe pass on toward the mighty jam. Upon his ears burst the sound of a great shout and down the steep bank to meet them swarmed fifty big, rough men who yelled and danced and flung caps and even mackinaws high into the air. And then, suddenly, from the direction of the jam, came another sound as the big floe struck the barrier. Higher and higher it climbed, tearing, grinding, smashing—until suddenly it broke in two and the upper half crashed backward with the roar of an exploding mountain. The whole jam trembled a moment and then let go, and the next instant the wide Yukon was a mass of tossing, heaving, crunching ice-cakes.
Big Sergeant Dan McKeever, of the Royal North-west Mounted Police, grasped the hand of his small deliverer in a mighty grip:
“It looked like my last patrol, kid—an’ if it hadn’t be’n for you—” The words ceased and the man’s eyes sought the reaches of the river where a broad field of ice-cakes flashed silver in the rays of the noonday sun. The boy laughed.
“Oh, it was the dogs!” he said. “It was lucky I hadn't unharnessed.”
“Dawgs nawthin’!” exclaimed a man. “Here stud us gillies an’ never even thought of no dawgs—let alone whip-lashin’ that there t’boggan acrost th’ open water!”
And Sergeant McKeever smiled down into the face of the small boy.
“Lucky—eh?” he said. “Well, son, luck’s a great thing—when it’s handled right.” And Connie Morgan wondered why the men of the North laughed.
“Where you headin’, kid? An’ where’s your folks?” asked the Sergeant.
“I haven’t got any. I”
“He’s Sam Morgan’s boy,” volunteered the man with the grizzled beard, “an’ Sam—he lays back yonder. He never had no luck—Sam didn’t.”
“No luck! With a kid like that!” The man who knew Black Jack Demaree snorted with disgust, and was interrupted by the officer of the Mounted:
“Sam Morgan!” he exclaimed. “You don’t mean big Sam Morgan, that used to prospect through here! The one that followed British Kronk clean through to Candle an’”
“That’s him! I was in Candle when he done it!”
Again the Sergeant turned to the small boy and the gruff voice lowered to softness:
“I know’d your daddy, kid. Folks called him unlucky—but, he never quit. When his diggin’s didn’t pan out he’d jest spit on his hands an’ sink a new shaft. An’ he was never too busy to lend a hand when folks was in trouble. He never made no strike. But here in the North, kid, men will remember Sam Morgan when most of them that’s cleaned up their millions will be fergot.”
“Ye said a mouthful then, Dan!” spoke Rip Wade, a man with a shirt of multi-coloured checks. “An’ now, kid, s’posin’ ye tell us where ye’re headin’. The jam’s busted an’ if ye’re goin’ down river they’s room in my scow fer yer outfit. An’ you, too, Dan—’less ’en ye’d ruther ride a ice-cake.”
“I’m hitting for Dawson,” answered Connie. “There is a man—a little weasel-faced man, named Squigg”
“Squigg!” exclaimed Sergeant McKeever. “So he’s showed up again, has he?”
“Do you know him?” asked the boy.
“Know him! You bet your boots, I know him—ordered him out of the territory back in ’98. Drifted over into Alaska, somewhere, an’ if he had any sense he’d stayed there.”
“Crossed the river two days ago,” volunteered a man in the crowd, “him an’ another one. We tol’ ’em they was fools. They was a foot o’ water on top o’ the ice, an’ no one but a fool or a crazy man w’d of tackled it. Said they’d take a chanct, bein’ in some consid’ble of a hurry fer to fetch a doc fer a sick pard. We ’lowed they was lyin’, but ’tworn’t our funeral. They made it, though. We watched ’em acrost.”
“What do you want of this here Squigg?” asked the officer.
“Got to beat him to Dawson. He’s trying to file a claim that belongs to my pardner and me. I cut across from Ten Bow in hope of crossing the river before the break-up.”
“Never mind, kid, we’ll beat him to it! He can’t make no time without a boat. of course, he might of got holt of a canoe, but the chances is, he’s still this side of Indian River.” The officer turned to him of the festive shirt:
“Come on. Rip, throw your stuff in the scow an’ the three of us’ll nail this here Squigg. I want him for a little job of swindlin’ I run foul of up river—didn’t place it, then—but I know now it’s Squigg—’bout his size.”
Rip Wade glanced toward the moving river ice.
“Jest as you say, Dan,” he replied, “but the ice is runnin’ pretty strong yet. Tomorrow, mebbe, she’d be cleaned up a bit.”
The Sergeant frowned:
“Look here. Rip. Tomorrow might be too late. D’you think I’m goin’ to set around an’ let that measly cur put anything over on this kid? Come alive, now, an’ throw in your stuff, or I’ll requisition your boat, an’ me an’ the kid’ll go it alone.”
“Aw, can that, Dan. Sure I’ll go. How long since you’ve et?” The man glanced toward the group of tents where smoke ascended from many fires. “Skookum Pete’s grub’s ready. Go an’ divide it between you an’ the kid, an’ ag’in ye’re done the scow’ll be loaded.”
Twenty minutes later the stout scow was shoved into the current and Rip Wade, expert riverman, took his place in the stern to do the steering, while Connie and Sergeant McKeever, each armed with a light spruce pole, sat well forward and made ready to fend the boat clear of floating ice. Amidships the wolf-dogs curled comfortably among the robes and packs, glad of a respite from the sodden snow-trail.
Rip held the flat-bottomed scow close in, and as the boat felt the grip of the current its speed increased until the rugged shore slipped past in a swift-moving panorama of grandeur. Connie was surprised at the changed aspect of the surface of
"It was a new experience for Connie—this scow travel among floating ice-cakes."
the river. From the time he had first sighted it until the present moment, the boy had been awed by the mighty sweep of the floating ice-field. Now, however, with the scow rushing down stream the surrounding ice-cakes seemed stationary—floating placidly upon still water, while the shores slipped swiftly past.
It was a new experience for Connie—this scow travel among the floating ice-cakes. And big Sergeant McKeever noted with a smile of approval that the small boy at his side asked no questions, but with absorbing interest watched each movement of the skilled steersman as he deftly guided the heavy scow into the channels and water-lanes that opened between the cakes. An hour passed and Connie wondered at the intense vigilance of the riverman, whose sharp eyes never for a moment left the floating ice-cakes. Gradually, a floe several acres in extent worked its way shoreward in the immediate forefront of the scow, leaving in its wake a wide strip of open water comparatively free of floating ice. To the boy’s mind this was a situation to be desired, and he watched in surprise as Rip Wade worked like a Trojan to force the scow out among the smaller cakes well to one side of the floating ice-island. For a long half-hour the boy was so busy with his fending pole that he had scant time for observation. And then, suddenly, the thing happened that impressed him as nothing else had, with the value of eternal vigilance. With a dull, grinding, crunching sound the huge floe shuddered and stopped; and the scow, which a moment before had seemed motionless, appeared to shoot forward like a thing of life. Along the front of the floe appeared a ridge of ice fragments, while from the rear sounded the gurgle of rushing water. Connie glanced backward—the strip of open water was nowhere visible, there was the sound of crashing and rending of ice as cake after cake was hurled by the current against the rear of the grounded floe and dashed into a million flashing fragments. An involuntary shudder shook the small shoulders as the boy realized what would have happened had the man in the stern been unskilled in the ways of the river-trail.
“That’s the reason, kid,” laughed McKeever, who had watched the boy’s evident perplexity. “The scow would have smashed like an egg-shell—we wouldn’t have had a chance in a thousan’.” As the shadows lengthened, the scow was worked to the opposite bank, and in the long twilight they camped on a high bit of ground well back from the water, a few miles above the mouth of Indian River.