St. Nicholas/Volume 32/Number 5/Swedie
Outside the wind was blowing wailingly about the little cabin, not harshly or loudly, but sobbingly, plaintively, like a child in trouble, and in the lulls the Malemutes took up the mournful cry, sending it out and over the frozen river to the ghostly banks on the other side, that returned it across the ice in a dying whisper. Outside the full moon shone over a world of whiteness. All unbroken lay the snow upon the Yukon, and the pines on the hills, like mute white hands, pointed above to a vault of gleaming stars. By and by the weeping wind, afraid of its own voice, perhaps, died away altogether, and the Malemutes, missing it, and growing tired, ended their wailing also. It was very still, with the stillness of intense cold, and every one in Fortymile was sleeping, for it was past midnight; every one with the exception of “Swedie.”
Inside the little cabin a fire burned fiercely in the heater, and on the coonskin-covered couch beside it little Swedie sat with Viking, his Great Dane dog, and he talked to him in the tongue the boy loved, but alas! could use so seldom now, since his mother’s death, and since he had started to go to school. It was at school that they had given him his name, half in fun, half in contempt. His real name was Eric Gustavus Kalmar, but no one except his father and the schoolmaster paid any attention to that. The school-children had dubbed Eric a bit of a coward, wherein they made a great mistake, though they are no wiser than many older people who cannot tell the difference between proud sensitiveness and silly, shrinking timidity. Swedie had as brave a heart as any of the other little Yukon boys, but because they misjudged him he scorned to show them otherwise, and because he could only speak their language in a halting, nervous way he kept much to himself. If he had been at home in Norway with his own little people, he would have led them all in sport and in his classes as well. But here he felt himself an alien, almost an outcast; and it hurt him all the more because he hid the hurt beneath his proud little exterior, and carried his curly head high,even when the red mantled his cheek in a cruelly hot flush at bearing the laughter at his many mistakes.
And now the rink had been opened, and of all the boys in Fortymile Swedie was the only one who had not been inside. Not because he could not skate,—for two years ago, in Norway, he had won a medal in the boys’ contest,— but because his father had been very unfortunate in his mining ventures, and his mother’s illness had swallowed up all the little capital, so that now every two-bit piece had to be saved. There was scarcely enough money to procure necessities, and Swedie was forced to go without his skates. Since his mother’s death, a year ago, his father had earned a slender living by hunting. He was away just now, and that was why Swedie was awake and talking to Viking. He always worried when his father was absent, for the cold had affected his father’s eyes, and he could net see as well as a hunter should see to be successful, But their wants were few, and Swedie baked the bread and did the washing, so that they lived almost, if not quite, comfortably.
“No danger about the old river being unsafe in this weather, Viking,” Swedie was saying sleepily, “and it is beautifully bright and clear, so father can see perfectly. He will come home with a sledful of venison and moose-meat and rabbits. We shall have a feast, you and father and I.” He paused a moment, regarding the dog thoughtfully, who returned his gaze with affection, snuggling his great head closer to his little master. “I wonder if I could make a rabbit-pie?” Swedie laid lower down on the coonskin. “Mother used to make them finely, and always a little one for me.” He started up suddenly; the fire was getting quiet. He jumped to the floor, and opening the stove, pushed in three great pieces of birch wood, then walked to the window, pushing back the blind.
“It is as light as day,” he said to Viking, who had followed him. “My father will have no trouble whatever.” He closed the draft in the stove, turned the damper, and climbing to the couch, hugged the dog’s head against his side. “We shall sleep now,” he said.
And while he slept soundly beside the glowing heater, a party of men from fifty miles below the town was coming in to Fortymile with news of one of the richest strikes in the Klondike. It was on White Elephant Creek, just where Swedie’s father’s claims were situated.
The little town went mad with the news the next day. The street was thronged with people hastily preparing to “stampede to the new diggings.” On his way to school Swedie heard and understood.
“A whole mountain of gold!” the people said; “puts Eldorado and Gold Run in the shade completely.”
In one of the store windows was a pile of rich red nuggets, in size from a pea to a hen’s egg.
The little boys at school could talk of nothing else. They even forgot to make fun of Swedie, and the master himself was excited, hearing the lessons heedlessly and dismissing the boys a half-hour too soon, Even the rink was deserted, the lads running down-town to listen for stray bits of gossip, which they would repeat to one another, candidly exaggerating every detail, until the nuggets increased in size to great boulders, and the moon shining on Elephant Mountain made the gold in it sparkle so that one’s eyes were blinded to look at it.
As for Swedie, he and Viking lingered about the streets all day eager for news. The little hoy was wildly happy. If it were true,—and it must he true,— it meant untold things for father, the dogs, and himself. They would get a warmer house, his father would have new gloves and a better coat, they would light the lamps all day, and they would go to Dawson to the theater at Christmas-time. And in the summer they would leave Fortymile and go home to Norway, with boxes of presents for the hundred little cousins and a bag of nuggets for grandmama, whose smile Swedie remembered as almost as sweet and very much like the tender, wistful smile on the face of the little mother asleep back there on the hill. Last of all—at least Swedie put it last, though he could not quite help thinking of it first.—he would get a shining new pair of skates and race in the carnival at Dawson. He expected his father home late that night, and his heart thumped as he thought of telling him the glorious news.
That afternoon it grew suddenly milder, the sky became overcast and the snow fell. Swedie went home and made a pan of biscuits, which had enough happiness stirred into them to make them light as foam. He boiled potatoes and set the table to have everything in readiness when his father should return. He swept the little cabin, working with feverish eagerness, trying to make the time pass swiftly. At five o’clock he went out again. It was very dark and the snow was falling thickly. The air, to Swedie, felt almost warm. Down-town he read a thermometer: six degrees above zero. He was troubled. The river had only just frozen over; this might mean a change. Then, mingling with the groups of men and hearing more news of the strike, he forgot everything else for a while. Later, returning home past the police barracks, he heard two members of the Canadian mounted police talking.
“The ice is breaking up fifteen miles above,” one of them said disgustedly. “Lamont could not get through and will have to wait now till the weather changes again.”
“It ’s rough on the trappers,” the other responded. “Some of them have claims on Elephant Creek, too, and to-morrow is the last day for registering these claims. If they are delayed—”
“The captain has ordered us to go up to Mellin’s Peninsula at eight to-night. The break is around the curve and in a confoundedly bad place. In this pitchy blackness a man and his dogs might be in the water before they knew it. Hello, who was that?” for Swedie had given a half-cry and was hurrying from them with all his might.
“It ’s Kalmar’s son,” the other policeman replied. “It’s likely his father is out and the boy is anxious. The poor little beggar is afraid of his shadow, anyway, the lads tell me.”
Swedie's feet had wings. Eight o’clock. Why did the police wait until then? It was six now. In two hours his father, half blinded by the storm, might have gone down in the black, icy river, with no one to answer his cries for help, no one to hold out a hand to save him.
“For a long time the boy stumble about in the deep snow.”
Without a thought for his own safety, Swedie made up his mind, and in half an hour Viking was harnessed to the little sled and the two were speeding in the face of the storm away from the cabin and down the steep hill to the river.
Swedie had his lantern, but did not light it. His ride would last for several hours and the lantern held but little oil. In a way he was glad it was not colder, for bis coat was none too thick and his left-hand mitten was worn through the end. The three bells on Viking's harness shook merrily, aud Swedie shouted to him encouragingly from time to time, sitting secure on his sled with an old shawl of his mother’s wrapped about his legs. He was quite sure he would reach the peninsula in time; then he would take the trail around the bank until he could descend to the river again. He would meet his father, explain the danger, they would journey home in safety together, and on the way he would tell him the wonderful news, making him guess a little at first to excite his curiosity. Swedie laughed aloud and slapped the reins over Viking’s back. But all of a sudden the dog slowed his gait and then stood stock-still, whining a little.
“What is it, Viking?” Swedie called sharply. “Mush, mush on there.”
But the dog refused to move, and Swedie, who for some time had noticed that the sled had traveled over a very uneven road, threw off the shawl and sprang into the snow, going quickly to the left where, on the river trail, the police had placed fir-trees to mark the way. He could not find one of them, and he hurried back to the sled, lighting the lantern with numb fingers. It was as he feared. They were off the road. In the light this would not have been a great matter, for he might have seen the line of trees from either bank of the river. But in the dark it was more serious, and for a long time the boy stumbled about in the deep snow, the storm blinding his eyes and the cold numbing his fingers and feet. Indeed, there was scarcely any feeling in his feet at all, though Swedie did not notice it, being so busy with other thoughts. At last, with a cry of joy, he fell into a snow-laden tree. Recovering himself, he led Viking from the open, and they were soon on their way again. It was getting colder now, and Swedie was growing anxious. He had been nearly two hours on the way, and a quarter of that time had been wasted looking for the road. He slapped his hands together to keep them from freezing, and got out every five minutes to run beside the sled to cheer and to help Viking. Far back on the hills, to the right, he could hear an ominous wailing sound, and he knew that his dog was shaking with fear. Only love for his master kept him from turning and running back to town, for, though Viking held the Malemutes in contempt, he was afraid of the gaunt, long-teethed wolves with their fiery eyes—afraid for himself and for Swedie.
On and on they went. It grew colder all the time, and the snow ceased falling, All about was dark and still. “Even in the river,” thought Swedie, “it cannot be darker or more quiet.”
His hands were getting very numb. He ran with all his might and beat his arms across his chest. Surely he would reach the peninsula soon.
Hark! He shouted to Viking to stop, and stood listening intently, A dull roaring came to his ears, and then, sharply, distinctly, a loud report as though some one were shooting a hundred yards away. Sweetly, serenely, as though lazily gracious, the moon suddenly sailed from under a great bank of clouds, and Swedie caught his breath in horror.
A stone’s throw from him the river was open wide, and a great mouth yawned, all the blacker for the intense whiteness around, the water humping itself up like a monstrous tongue in the opening, while behind Swedie the ice had broken again, and there was another great blot of black amid the snow.
Shouting to the dog, the lad turned him swiftly to the shore where the peninsula jutted out, almost dividing the river. With a loud bark, the brute sprang in great leaps, dragging the sled with his master upon it. Too late! They could not get to the shore. Again the rumbling and the sharp report, and the ice on which they traveled with the fir-trees marking the road had broken away from the shore ice, and a black ribbon, ever growing wider, was between them and the land.
Another sound above the noise of the water—a far-away, cheery singing. Again Swedie listened, and his heart beat madly in his little bosom. It was his father on his way home singing one of the old Norse folk-songs that his mother had loved. Slowly, serenely, as she had sailed from beneath them, the moon vanished under the clouds and the world was black again.
With trembling hands Swedie took out his knife and cut the harness from his dog. He hugged the great brute once, swiftly, passionately, then stood up and spoke cheerily, firmly: “Go to father, Viking, go to father,’ and pushed him toward the shore, trusting that the lovingly wise animal would find some way to lead his father to safety.
In a second the dog was off. He too had heard the singing and knew what was required of him. He leaped the ten feet across the black ribbon of water and hastened around the peninsula on the land trail.
Swedie stood alone on his island of moving ice, looking in the direction whence came the singing, that grew louder every moment and more distinct. Now his father must be nearing the turn. Ah, now he was at the end of the peninsula. A few hundred yards more and then the great mouth and the black water.
“Father!” cried Swedie with all the strength of love and despair. “Father, father, father!”
The song was hushed. For a second all was still, and then, thank God! a cheery voice in reply:
“Eric, ohé, Eric, where are you?”
“The river is open, father,” louder still the boy called, for the ice was carrying him farther away. Take the trail on the shore till you get to Mellin’s cabin. It is safe bbeyond.”
“All right. Where are you, Eric?”
Summoning all the courage his brave heart possessed, the lad shouted almost gaily:
“Waiting over here for you, father,” and then, in the thick blackness, he sat down upon the little sled and, holding his mother’s old shawl tightly in his arms, quietly waited. Presently, with a great shock, the end came. He shut his eyes, bent his head, and knew no more.
“It’s Kalmar’s son,” said one. “Swedie, the lads call him. He heard us talking this afternoon and must have started off at once. Is he dead?”
The other was fumbling about under the worn overcoat. The police had heard the calling and understood what it meant. The man addressed looked at the other; both pairs of stern, steely eyes were wet. “Nearly frozen, but not dead, thank God,” he answered.
So Swedie and his father went to Dawson at Christmas after all, and one of the boy's presents was a beautiful pair of silver-mounted skates with his name “Eric Gustavus Kalmar,” and underneath “ From his friends the N. W. M. P.,” engraved upon them. These skates he wore in the great carnival at Dawson and with them he won the prize of a silver medal. If the Northwest Mounted Police and the Yukon people could have spoiled as manly a boy as Eric with praises and presents and kindness, he would have been spoiled indeed. But it was not so; perhaps because he did net quite understand, or perhaps because he was a little like a long-ago ancestor after whom Viking was named, “great in temptation and impervious to vanity.” At all events, the night he saved his father’s life was the beginning of a new life to Eric himself. When, next summer, he and his father and the dogs went home to Norway, all the lads of the town agreed that they had never missed a comrade as much as they missed Swedie.