第12章

Half the time the wind blew a gale, and Smoke Bellew staggered against it along the beach.In the gray of dawn a dozen boats were being loaded with the precious outfits packed across Chilcoot.They were clumsy, home-made boats, put together by men who were not boat- builders, out of planks they had sawed by hand from green spruce trees.One boat, already loaded, was just starting, and Kit paused to watch.

The wind, which was fair down the lake, here blew in squarely on the beach, kicking up a nasty sea in the shallows.The men of the departing boat waded in high rubber boots as they shoved it out toward deeper water.Twice they did this.Clambering aboard and failing to row clear, the boat was swept back and grounded.Kit noticed that the spray on the sides of the boat quickly turned to ice.The third attempt was a partial success.The last two men to climb in were wet to their waists, but the boat was afloat.They struggled awkwardly at the heavy oars, and slowly worked off shore.Then they hoisted a sail made of blankets, had it carried away in a gust, and were swept a third time back on the freezing beach.

Kit grinned to himself and went on.This was what he must expect to encounter, for he, too, in his new role of gentleman's man, was to start from the beach in a similar boat that very day.

Everywhere men were at work, and at work desperately, for the closing down of winter was so imminent that it was a gamble whether or not they would get across the great chain of lakes before the freeze-up.Yet, when Kit arrived at the tent of Messrs Sprague and Stine, he did not find them stirring.

By a fire, under the shelter of a tarpaulin, squatted a short, thick man smoking a brown-paper cigarette.

"Hello," he said."Are you Mister Sprague's new man?"As Kit nodded, he thought he had noted a shade of emphasis on themister and the man, and he was sure of a hint of a twinkle in the corner of the eye.

"Well, I'm Doc Stine's man," the other went on."I'm five feet two inches long, and my name's Shorty, Jack Short for short, and sometimes known as Johnny-on-the-Spot."Kit put out his hand and shook.

"Were you raised on bear-meat?" he queried.

"Sure," was the answer; "though my first feedin' was buffalo-milk as near as I can remember.Sit down an' have some grub.The bosses ain't turned out yet."And despite the one breakfast, Kit sat down under the tarpaulin and ate a second breakfast thrice as hearty.The heavy, purging toil of weeks had given him the stomach and appetite of a wolf.He could eat anything, in any quantity, and be unaware that he possessed a digestion.Shorty he found voluble and pessimistic, and from him he received surprising tips concerning their bosses, and ominous forecasts of the expedition.Thomas Stanley Sprague was a budding mining engineer and the son of a millionaire.Doctor Adolph Stine was also the son of a wealthy father.And, through their fathers, both had been backed by an investing syndicate in the Klondike adventure.

"Oh, they're sure made of money," Shorty expounded."When they hit the beach at Dyea, freight was seventy cents, but no Indians.There was a party from Eastern Oregon, real miners, that'd managed to get a team of Indians together at seventy cents.Indians had the straps on the outfit, three thousand pounds of it, when along comes Sprague and Stine.They offered eighty cents and ninety, and at a dollar a pound the Indians jumped the contract and took off their straps.Sprague and Stine came through, though it cost them three thousand, and the Oregon bunch is still on the beach.They won't get through till next year.

"Oh, they are real hummers, your boss and mine, when it comes to sheddin' the mazuma an' never mindin' other folks' feelin's.What did they do when they hit Linderman? The carpenters was just putting in the last licks on a boat they'd contracted to a 'Frisco bunch for six hundred.Sprague and Stine slipped 'em an even thousand, and they jumped theircontract.It's a good-lookin' boat, but it's jiggered the other bunch.They've got their outfit right here, but no boat.And they're stuck for next year.

"Have another cup of coffee, and take it from me that I wouldn't travel with no such outfit if I didn't want to get to Klondike so blamed bad.They ain't hearted right.They'd take the crape off the door of a house in mourning if they needed it in their business.Did you sign a contract?"Kit shook his head.

"Then I'm sorry for you, pardner.They ain't no grub in the country, and they'll drop you cold as soon as they hit Dawson.Men are going to starve there this winter.""They agreed--" Kit began.

"Verbal," Shorty snapped him short."It's your say so against theirs, that's all.Well, anyway--what's your name, pardner?""Call me Smoke," said Kit.