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The Trail of 98
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Title: The Trail of '98
A Northland Romance
Author: Robert W. Service
Release Date: July 13, 2007 [eBook #22063]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAIL OF '98***
E-text prepared by Roger Frank
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)
* * *
We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was in our ears (page 143)
* * *
THE TRAIL OF 98
A Northland Romance
BY
ROBERT W. SERVICE
Author of
"The Spell of the Yukon" and "Ballads of a Cheechako"
With illustrations by
MAYNARD DIXON
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1911
* * *
Copyright, 1910, by
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
* * *
Entered at Stationers' Hall
THE QUINN & BODEN CO. PRESS
RAHWAY, N. J.
* * *
[Pg v]PRELUDE
The north wind is keening overhead. It minds me of the howl of a wolf-dog under the Arctic stars. Sitting alone by the glow of the great peat fire I can hear it high up in the braeside firs. It is the voice, inexorably scornful, of the Great White Land.
Oh, I hate it, I hate it! Why cannot a man be allowed to forget? It is near ten years since I joined the Eager Army. I have travelled: I have been a pilgrim to the shrines of beauty; I have pursued the phantom of happiness even to the ends of the earth. Still it is always the sameI cannot forget.
Why should a man be ever shadowed by the vampire wing of his past? Have I not a right to be happy? Money, estate, name, are mine, all that means an open sesame to the magic door. Others go in, but I beat against its flinty portals with hands that bleed. No! I have no right to be happy. The ways of the world are open; the banquet of life is spread; the wonder-workers plan their pageants of beauty and joy, and yet there is no praise in my heart. I have seen, I have tasted, I have tried. Ashes and dust and bitterness are all my gain. I will try no more. It is the shadow of the vampire wing.
So I sit in the glow of the great peat fire, tired and sad beyond belief. Thank God! at least I am home. Everything is so little changed. The fire lights the [Pg vi]oak-panelled hall; the crossed claymores gleam; the eyes in the mounted deer-heads shine glassily; rugs of fur cover the polished floor; all is comfort, home and the haunting atmosphere of my boyhood. Sometimes I fancy it has been a dream, the Great White Silence, the lure of the gold-spell, the delirium of the struggle; a dream, and I will awake to hear Garry calling me to shoot over the moor, to see dear little Mother with her meek, sensitive mouth, and her cheeks as delicately tinted as the leaves of a briar rose. But no! The hall is silent. Mother has gone to her long rest. Garry sleeps under the snow. Silence everywhere; I am alone, alone.
So I sit in the big, oak-carved chair of my forefathers, before the great peat fire, a peak-faced drooping figure of a man with hair untimely grey. My crutch lies on the floor by my side. My old nurse comes up quietly to look at the fire. Her rosy, wrinkled face smiles cheerfully, but I can see the anxiety in her blue eyes. She is afraid for me. Maybe the doctor has told hersomething.
No doubt my days are numbered, so I am minded to tell of it all: of the Big Stampede, of the Treasure Trail, of the Gold-born City; of those who followed the gold-lure into the Great White Land, of the evil that befell them, of Garry and of Berna. Perhaps it will comfort me to tell of these things. To-morrow I will begin; to-night, leave me to my memories.
Berna! I spoke of her last. She rises before me now with her spirit-pale face and her great troubleful [Pg vii]grey eyes, a little tragic figure, ineffably pitiful. Where are you now, little one? I have searched the world for you. I have scanned a million faces. Day and night have I sought, always hoping, always baffled, for, God help me, dear, I love you. Among that mad, lusting horde you were so weak, so helpless, yet so hungry for love.
With the aid of my crutch I unlatch one of the long windows, and step out onto the terrace. From the cavernous dark the snowflakes sting my face. Yet as I stand there, once more I have a sense of another land, of imperious vastitudes, of a silent empire, unfathomably lonely.
Ghosts! They are all around me. The darkness teems with them, Garry, my brother, among them. Then they all fade and give way to one face....
Berna, I love you always. Out of the night I cry to you, Berna, the cry of a broken heart. Is it your little, pitiful ghost that comes down to me? Oh, I am waiting, waiting! Here will I wait, Berna, till we meet once more. For meet we will, beyond the mists, beyond the dreaming, at last, dear love, at last.
* * *
CONTENTS
BOOK I
PAGE
The Road to Anywhere 1
BOOK II
The Trail 49
BOOK III
The Camp 167
BOOK IV
The Vortex 321
* * *
ILLUSTRATIONS
We were in a caldron of fire. The roar of doom was in our ears (page 143) Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
"No," she said firmly, "you can't see the girl" 116
Then, as I hung half in, half out of the window, he clutched me by the throat 316
"Garry," I said, "this isthis is Berna" 476
* * *
This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane.
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane, for I harry them sore;
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;
But the othersthe misfits, the failuresI trample under my feet."
"Songs of a Sourdough."
* * *
BOOK I
THE ROAD TO ANYWHERE
Can you recall, dear comrade, when we tramped God's land together,
And we sang the old, old Earth-Song, for our youth was very sweet;
When we drank and fought and lusted, as we mocked at tie and tether,
Along the road to Anywhere, the wide world at our feet.
Along the road to Anywhere, when each day had its story;
When time was yet our vassal, and life's jest was still unstale;
When peace unfathomed filled our hearts as, bathed in amber glory,
Along the road to Anywhere we watched the sunsets pale.
Alas! the road to Anywhere is pitfalled with disaster;
There's hunger, want, and weariness, yet O we loved it so!
As on we tramped exultantly, and no man was our master,
And no man guessed what dreams were ours, as swinging heel and toe,
We tramped the road to Anywhere, the magic road to Anywhere,
The tragic road to Anywhere such dear, dim years ago.
"S
ongs of a Sourdough."
CHAPTER I
As far back as I can remember I have faithfully followed the banner of Romance. It has given colour to my life, made me a dreamer of dreams, a player of parts. As a boy, roaming alone the wild heather hills, I have heard the glad shouts of the football players on the green, yet never ettled to join them. Mine was the richer, rarer joy. Still can I see myself in those days, a little shy-mannered lad in kilts, bareheaded to the hill breezes, with health-bright cheeks, and a soul happed up in dreams.
And, indeed, I lived in an enchanted land, a land of griffins and kelpies, of princesses and gleaming knights. From each black tarn I looked to see a scaly reptile rise, from every fearsome cave a corby emerge. There were green spaces among the heather where the fairies danced, and every scaur and linn had its own familiar spirit. I peopled the good green wood with the wild creatures of my thought, nymph and faun, naiad and dryad, and would have been in nowise surprised to meet in the leafy coolness the great god Pan himself.
It was at night, however, that my dreams were most compelling. I strove against the tyranny of sleep. Lying in my small bed, I revelled in delectable imaginings. Night after night I fought battles, devised pageants, partitioned empires. I gloried in details. My rugged war-lords were very real to me, and my adventures sounded many periods of history. I was a solitary caveman with an axe of stone; I was a Roman soldier of fortune; I was a Highland outlaw of the Rebellion. Always I fought for a lost cause, and always my sympathies were with the rebel. I feasted with Robin Hood on the King's venison; I fared forth with Dick Turpin on the gibbet-haunted heath; I followed Morgan, the Buccaneer, into strange and exotic lands of trial and treasure. It was a wonderful gift of visioning that was mine in those days. It was the bird-like flight of the pure child-mind to whom the unreal is yet the real.
Then, suddenly, I arrived at a second phase of my mental growth in which fancy usurped the place of imagination. The modern equivalents of Romance attracted me, and, with my increasing grasp of reality, my gift of vision faded. As I had hitherto dreamed of knight-errants, of corsairs and of outlaws, I now dreamed of cowboys, of gold-seekers, of beach-combers. Fancy painted scenes in which I, too, should play a rousing part. I read avidly all I could find dealing with the Far West, and ever my wistful gaze roved over the grey sea. The spirit of Romance beaconed to me. I, too, would adventure in the stranger lands, and face their perils and brave their dangers. The joy of the thought exulted in my veins, and scarce could I bide the day when the roads of chance and change would be open to my feet.
It is strange that in all these years I confided in no one. Garry, who was my brother and my dearest friend, would have laughed at me in that affectionate way of his. You would never have taken us for brothers. We were so different in temperament and appearance that we were almost the reverse of each other. He was the handsomest boy I have ever seen, frank, fair-skinned and winning, while I was dark, dour and none too well favoured. He was the best runner and swimmer in the parish, and the idol of the village lads. I cared nothing for games, and would be found somewhere among the heather hills, always by my lone self, and nearly always with a story book in my pocket. He was clever, practical and ambitious, excelling in all his studies; whereas, except in those which appealed to my imagination, I was a dullard and a dreamer.
Yet we loved each others as few brothers do. Oh, how I admired him! He was my ideal, and too often the hero of my romances. Garry would have laughed at my hero-worship; he was so matter-of-fact, effective and practical. Yet he understood me, my Celtic ideality, and that shy reserve which is the armour of a sensitive soul. Garry in his fine clever way knew me and shielded me and cheered me. He was so buoyant and charming he heartened you like Spring sunshine, and braced you like a morning wind on the mountain top. Yes, not excepting Mother, Garry knew me better than any one has ever done, and I loved him for it. It seems overfond to say this, but he did not have a fault: tenderness, humour, enthusiasm, sympathy and the beauty of a young godall that was manfully endearing was expressed in this brother of mine.
So we grew to manhood there in that West Highland country, and surely our lives were pure and simple and sweet. I had never been further from home than the little market town where we sold our sheep. Mother managed the estate till Garry was old enough, when he took hold with a vigour and grasp that delighted every one. I think our little Mother stood rather in awe of my keen, capable, energetic brother. There was in her a certain dreamy, wistful idealism that made her beautiful in my eyes, and to look on she was as fair as any picture. Specially do I remember the delicate colouring of her face and her eyes, blue like deep corn-flowers. She was not overstrong, and took much comfort from religion. Her lips, which were fine and sensitive, had a particularly sweet expression, and I wish to record of her that never once did I see her cross, always sweet, gentle, smiling.
Thus our home was an ideal one; Garry, tall, fair and winsome; myself, dark, dreamy, reticent; and between us, linking all three in a perfect bond of love and sympathy, our gentle, delicate Mother.
* * *
CHAPTER II
So in serenity and sunshine the days of my youth went past. I still maintained my character as a drone and a dreamer. I used my time tramping the moorland with a gun, whipping the foamy pools of the burn for trout, or reading voraciously in the library. Mostly I read books of travel, and especially did I relish the literature of Vagabondia. I had come under the spell of Stevenson. His name spelled Romance to me, and my fancy etched him in his lonely exile. Forthright I determined I too would seek these ultimate islands, and from that moment I was a changed being. I nursed the thought with joyous enthusiasm. I would be a frontiersman, a trail-breaker, a treasure-seeker. The virgin prairies called to me; the susurrus of the giant pines echoed in my heart; but most of all, I felt the spell of those gentle islands where care is a stranger, and all is sunshine, song and the glowing bloom of eternal summer.
About this time Mother must have worried a good deal over my future. Garry was now the young Laird, and I was but an idler, a burden on the estate. At last I told her I wanted to go abroad, and then it seemed as if a great difficulty was solved. We remembered of a cousin who was sheep-ranching in the Saskatchewan valley and had done well. It was arranged that I should join him as a pupil, then, when I had learned enough, buy a place of my own. It may be imagined that while I apparently acquiesced in this arrangement, I had already determined that as soon as I reached the new land I would take my destiny into my own hands.
I will never forget the damp journey to Glasgow and the misty landscape viewed through the streaming window pane of a railway carriage. I was in a wondrous state of elation. When we reached the great smoky city I was lost in amazement not unmixed with fear. Never had I imagined such crowds, such houses, such hurry. The three of us, Mother, Garry and I, wandered and wondered for three days. Folks gazed at us curiously, sometimes admiringly, for our cheeks were bright with Highland health, and our eyes candid as the June skies. Garry in particular, tall, fair and handsome, seemed to call forth glances of interest wherever he went. Then as the hour of my departure drew near a shadow fell on us.
I will not dwell on our leave-taking. If I broke down in unmanly grief, it must be remembered I had never before been from home. I was but a lad, and these two were all in all to me. Mother gave up trying to be brave, and mingled her tears with mine. Garry alone contrived to make some show of cheerfulness. Alas! all my elation had gone. In its place was a sense of guilt, of desertion, of unconquerable gloom. I had an inkling then of the tragedy of motherhood, the tender love that would hold yet cannot, the world-call and the ruthless, estranging years, all the memories of clinging love given only to be taken away.
"Don't cry, sweetheart Mother," I said; "I'll be back again in three years."
"Mind you do, my boy, mind you do."
She looked at me woefully sad, and I had a queer, heartrending prevision I would never see her more. Garry was supporting her, and she seemed to have
suddenly grown very frail. He was pale and quiet, but I could see he was vastly moved.
"Athol," said he, "if ever you need me just send for me. I'll come, no matter how long or how hard the way."
I can see them to this day standing there in the drenching rain, Garry fine and manly, Mother small and drooping. I can see her with her delicate rose colour, her eyes like wood violets drowned in tears, her tender, sensitive lips quivering with emotion.
"Good-bye, laddie, good-bye."
I forced myself away, and stumbled on board. When I looked back again they were gone, but through the grey shadows there seemed to come back to me a cry of heartache and irremediable loss.
"Good-bye, good-bye."
* * *
CHAPTER III
It was on a day of early Autumn when I stood knee-deep in the heather of Glengyle, and looked wistfully over the grey sea. 'Twas but a month later when, homeless and friendless, I stood on the beach by the Cliff House of San Francisco, and gazed over the fretful waters of another ocean. Such is the romance of destiny.
Consigned, so to speak, to my cousin the sheep-raiser of the Saskatchewan, I found myself setting foot on the strange land with but little heart for my new vocation. My mind, cramful of book notions, craved for the larger life. I was valiantly mad for adventure; to fare forth haphazardly; to come upon naked danger; to feel the bludgeonings of mischance; to tramp, to starve, to sleep under the stars. It was the callow boy-idea perpetuated in the man, and it was to lead me a sorry dance. But I could not overbear it. Strong in me was the spirit of the gypsy. The joy of youth and health was brawling in my veins. A few thistledown years, said I, would not matter. And there was Stevenson and his glamorous islands winning me on.