by Jack London
IX. THE MISTAKE OF CREATION
"Whoa!" Smoke yelled at the dogs, throwing his weight back on thegee-pole to bring the sled to a halt.
"What's eatin' you now?" Shorty complained. "They ain't no water underthat footing."
"No; but look at that trail cutting out to the right," Smoke answered."I thought nobody was wintering in this section."
The dogs, on the moment they stopped, dropped in the snow and beganbiting out the particles of ice from between their toes. This ice hadbeen water five minutes before. The animals had broken through a skeinof ice, snow-powdered, which had hidden the spring water that oozedout of the bank and pooled on top of the three-foot winter crust ofNordbeska River.
"First I heard of anybody up the Nordbeska," Shorty said, staring at theall but obliterated track covered by two feet of snow, that left thebed of the river at right angles and entered the mouth of a small streamflowing from the left. "Mebbe they're hunters and pulled their freightlong ago."
Smoke, scooping the light snow away with mittened hands, paused toconsider, scooped again, and again paused. "No," he decided. "There'sbeen travel both ways, but the last travel was up that creek. Whoeverthey are, they're there now--certain. There's been no travel for weeks.Now what's been keeping them there all the time? That's what I want toknow."
"And what I want to know is where we're going to camp to-night," Shortysaid, staring disconsolately at the sky-line in the southwest, where themid-afternoon twilight was darkening into night.
"Let's follow the track up the creek," was Smoke's suggestion. "There'splenty of dead timber. We can camp any time."
"Sure we can camp any time, but we got to travel most of the time if weain't goin' to starve, an' we got to travel in the right direction."
"We're going to find something up that creek," Smoke went on.
"But look at the grub! Look at them dogs!" Shorty cried. "Look at--oh,hell, all right. You will have your will."
"It won't make the trip a day longer," Smoke urged. "Possibly no morethan a mile longer."
"Men has died for as little as a mile," Shorty retorted, shaking hishead with lugubrious resignation. "Come on for trouble. Get up, you poorsore-foots, you--get up! Haw! You Bright! Haw!"
The lead-dog obeyed, and the whole team strained weakly into the softsnow.
"Whoa!" Shorty yelled. "It's pack trail."
Smoke pulled his snow-shoes from under the sled-lashings, bound them tohis moccasined feet, and went to the fore to press and pack the lightsurface for the dogs.
It was heavy work. Dogs and men had been for days on short rations, andfew and limited were the reserves of energy they could call upon. Thoughthey followed the creek bed, so pronounced was its fall that they toiledon a stiff and unrelenting up-grade. The high rocky walls quickly drewnear together, so that their way led up the bottom of a narrow gorge.The long lingering twilight, blocked by the high mountains, was no morethan semi-darkness.
"It's a trap," Shorty said. "The whole look of it is rotten. It's a holein the ground. It's the stampin'-ground of trouble."
Smoke made no reply, and for half an hour they toiled on in silence--asilence that was again broken by Shorty.
"She's a-workin'," he grumbled. "She's sure a-workin', an' I'll tell youif you're minded to hear an' listen."
"Go on," Smoke answered.
"Well, she tells me, plain an' simple, that we ain't never goin' to getout of this hole in the ground in days an' days. We're goin' to findtrouble an' be stuck in here a long time an' then some."
"Does she say anything about grub?" Smoke queried unsympathetically."For we haven't grub for days and days and days and then some."
"Nope. Nary whisper about grub. I guess we'll manage to make out. ButI tell you one thing, Smoke, straight an' flat. I'll eat any dog in theteam exceptin' Bright. I got to draw the line on Bright. I just couldn'tscoff him."
"Cheer up," Smoke girded. "My hunch is working overtime. She tells methere'll be no dogs eaten, and, whether it's moose or caribou or quailon toast, we'll all fatten up."
Shorty snorted his unutterable disgust, and silence obtained for anotherquarter of an hour.
"There's the beginning of your trouble," Smoke said, halting on hissnow-shoes and staring at an object that lay on one side of the oldtrail.
Shorty left the gee-pole and joined him, and together they gazed down onthe body of a man beside the trail.
"Well fed," said Smoke.
"Look at them lips," said Shorty.
"Stiff as a poker," said Smoke, lifting an arm, that, without moving,moved the whole body.
"Pick 'm up an' drop 'm and he'd break to pieces," was Shorty's comment.
The man lay on his side, solidly frozen. From the fact that no snowpowdered him, it was patent that he had lain there but a short time.
"There was a general fall of snow three days back," said Shorty.
Smoke nodded, bending over the corpse, twisting it half up to face them,and pointing to a bullet wound in the temple. He glanced to the side andtilted his head at a revolver that lay on top of the snow.
A hundred yards farther on they came upon a second body that lay facedownward in the trail. "Two things are pretty clear," Smoke said."They're fat. That means no famine. They've not struck it rich, elsethey wouldn't have committed suicide."
"If they did," Shorty objected.
"They certainly did. There are no tracks besides their own, and each ispowder-burned." Smoke dragged the corpse to one side and with the toeof his moccasin nosed a revolver out of the snow into which it had beenpressed by the body. "That's what did the work. I told you we'd findsomething."
"From the looks of it we ain't started yet. Now what'd two fat geezerswant to kill theirselves for?"
"When we find that out we'll have found the rest of your trouble," Smokeanswered. "Come on. It's blowing dark."
Quite dark it was when Smoke's snow-shoe tripped him over a body. Hefell across a sled, on which lay another body. And when he had dug thesnow out of his neck and struck a match, he and Shorty glimpsed a thirdbody, wrapped in blankets, lying beside a partially dug grave. Also, erethe match flickered out, they caught sight of half a dozen additionalgraves.
"B-r-r-r," Shorty shivered. "Suicide Camp. All fed up. I reckon they'reall dead."
"No--peep at that." Smoke was looking farther along at a dim glimmer oflight. "And there's another light--and a third one there. Come on. Let'shike."
No more corpses delayed them, and in several minutes, over a hard-packedtrail, they were in the camp.
"It's a city," Shorty whispered. "There must be twenty cabins. An' not adog. Ain't that funny!"
"And that explains it," Smoke whispered back excitedly. "It's the LauraSibley outfit. Don't you remember? Came up the Yukon last fall on thePort Townsend Number Six. Went right by Dawson without stopping. Thesteamer must have landed them at the mouth of the creek."
"Sure. I remember. They was Mormons."
"No--vegetarians." Smoke grinned in the darkness. "They won't eat meatand they won't work dogs."
"It's all the same. I knowed they was something funny about 'em. Hadthe allwise steer to the yellow. That Laura Sibley was goin' to take 'emright to the spot where they'd all be millionaires."
"Yes; she was their seeress--had visions and that sort of stuff. Ithought they went up the Nordensjold."
"Huh! Listen to that!"
Shorty's hand in the darkness went out warningly to Smoke's chest, andtogether they listened to a groan, deep and long drawn, that came fromone of the cabins. Ere it could die away it was taken up by anothercabin, and another--a vast suspiration of human misery. The effect wasmonstrous and nightmarish.
"B-r-r-r," Shorty shivered. "It's gettin' me goin'. Let's break in an'find what's eatin' 'em."
Smoke knocked at a lighted cabin, and was followed in by Shorty inanswer to the "Come in" of the voice they heard groaning. It was asimple log cabin, the walls moss-chinked, the earth floor covered withsawdust and shavings. The light was a ker
osene-lamp, and they couldmake out four bunks, three of which were occupied by men who ceased fromgroaning in order to stare.
"What's the matter?" Smoke demanded of one whose blankets could nothide his broad shoulders and massively muscled body, whose eyes werepain-racked and whose cheeks were hollow. "Smallpox? What is it?"
In reply, the man pointed at his mouth, spreading black and swollen lipsin the effort; and Smoke recoiled at the sight.
"Scurvy," he muttered to Shorty; and the man confirmed the diagnosiswith a nod of the head.
"Plenty of grub?" Shorty asked.
"Yep," was the answer from a man in another bunk. "Help yourself.There's slathers of it. The cabin next on the other side is empty. Cacheis right alongside. Wade into it."
In every cabin they visited that night they found a similar situation.Scurvy had smitten the whole camp. A dozen women were in the party,though the two men did not see all of them. Originally there had beenninety-three men and women. But ten had died, and two had recentlydisappeared. Smoke told of finding the two, and expressed surprisethat none had gone that short distance down the trail to find out forthemselves. What particularly struck him and Shorty was the helplessnessof these people. Their cabins were littered and dirty. The dishes stoodunwashed on the rough plank tables. There was no mutual aid. A cabin'stroubles were its own troubles, and already they had ceased from theexertion of burying their dead.
"It's almost weird," Smoke confided to Shorty. "I've met shirkers andloafers, but I never met so many all at one time. You heard what theysaid. They've never done a tap. I'll bet they haven't washed their ownfaces. No wonder they got scurvy."
"But vegetarians hadn't ought to get scurvy," Shorty contended. "It'sthe salt-meat-eaters that's supposed to fall for it. And they don't eatmeat, salt or fresh, raw or cooked, or any other way."
Smoke shook his head. "I know. And it's vegetable diet that curesscurvy. No drugs will do it. Vegetables, especially potatoes, are theonly dope. But don't forget one thing, Shorty: we are not up againsta theory but a condition. The fact is these grass-eaters have all gotscurvy."
"Must be contagious."
"No; that the doctors do know. Scurvy is not a germ disease. It can'tbe caught. It's generated. As near as I can get it, it's due to animpoverished condition of the blood. Its cause is not something they'vegot, but something they haven't got. A man gets scurvy for lack ofcertain chemicals in his blood, and those chemicals don't come out ofpowders and bottles, but do come out of vegetables."
"An' these people eats nothin' but grass," Shorty groaned. "And they'vegot it up to their ears. That proves you're all wrong, Smoke. You'respielin' a theory, but this condition sure knocks the spots outa yourtheory. Scurvy's catchin', an' that's why they've all got it, an' rottenbad at that. You an' me'll get it too, if we hang around this diggin'.B-r-r-r!--I can feel the bugs crawlin' into my system right now."
Smoke laughed skeptically, and knocked on a cabin door. "I suppose we'llfind the same old thing," he said. "Come on. We've got to get a line onthe situation."
"What do you want?" came a woman's sharp voice.
"We want to see you," Smoke answered.
"Who are you?"
"Two doctors from Dawson," Shorty blurted in, with a levity that broughta punch in the short ribs from Smoke's elbow.
"Don't want to see any doctors," the woman said, in tones crisp andstaccato with pain and irritation. "Go away. Good night. We don'tbelieve in doctors."
Smoke pulled the latch, shoved the door open, and entered, turning upthe low-flamed kerosene-lamp so that he could see. In four bunks fourwomen ceased from groaning and sighing to stare at the intruders. Twowere young, thin-faced creatures, the third was an elderly and verystout woman, and the fourth, the one whom Smoke identified by her voice,was the thinnest, frailest specimen of the human race he had everseen. As he quickly learned, she was Laura Sibley, the seeress andprofessional clairvoyant who had organized the expedition in Los Angelesand led it to this death-camp on the Nordbeska. The conversation thatensued was acrimonious. Laura Sibley did not believe in doctors. Also,to add to her purgatory, she had wellnigh ceased to believe in herself.
"Why didn't you send out for help?" Smoke asked, when she paused,breathless and exhausted, from her initial tirade. "There's a camp atStewart River, and eighteen days' travel would fetch Dawson from here."
"Why didn't Amos Wentworth go?" she demanded, with a wrath that borderedon hysteria.
"Don't know the gentleman," Smoke countered. "What's he been doing?"
"Nothing. Except that he's the only one that hasn't caught the scurvy.And why hasn't he caught the scurvy? I'll tell you. No, I won't." Thethin lips compressed so tightly that through the emaciated transparencyof them Smoke was almost convinced he could see the teeth and the rootsof the teeth. "And what would have been the use? Don't I know? I'm not afool. Our caches are filled with every kind of fruit juice and preservedvegetables. We are better situated than any other camp in Alaska tofight scurvy. There is no prepared vegetable, fruit, and nut food wehaven't, and in plenty."
"She's got you there, Smoke," Shorty exulted. "And it's a condition, nota theory. You say vegetables cures. Here's the vegetables, and where'sthe cure?"
"There's no explanation I can see," Smoke acknowledged. "Yet there is nocamp in Alaska like this. I've seen scurvy--a sprinkling of cases hereand there; but I never saw a whole camp with it, nor did I ever see suchterrible cases. Which is neither here nor there, Shorty. We've got to dowhat we can for these people, but first we've got to make camp and takecare of the dogs. We'll see you in the morning, er--Mrs. Sibley."
"MISS Sibley," she bridled. "And now, young man, if you come foolingaround this cabin with any doctor stuff I'll fill you full of birdshot."
"This divine seeress is a sweet one," Smoke chuckled, as he and Shortyfelt their way back through the darkness to the empty cabin next to theone they had first entered.
It was evident that two men had lived until recently in the cabin, andthe partners wondered if they weren't the two suicides down thetrail. Together they overhauled the cache and found it filled with anundreamed-of variety of canned, powdered, dried, evaporated, condensed,and desiccated foods.
"What in the name of reason do they want to go and get scurvy for?"Shorty demanded, brandishing to the light packages of egg-powder andItalian mushrooms. "And look at that! And that!" He tossed out cansof tomatoes and corn and bottles of stuffed olives. "And the divinesteeress got the scurvy, too. What d'ye make of it?"
"Seeress," Smoke corrected.
"Steeress," Shorty reiterated. "Didn't she steer 'em here to this holein the ground?"
Next morning, after daylight, Smoke encountered a man carrying a heavysled-load of firewood. He was a little man, clean-looking and spry, whowalked briskly despite the load. Smoke experienced an immediate dislike.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked.
"Nothing," the little man answered.
"I know that," Smoke said. "That's why I asked you. You're AmosWentworth. Now why under the sun haven't you the scurvy like all therest?"
"Because I've exercised," came the quick reply. "There wasn't any needfor any of them to get it if they'd only got out and done something.What did they do? Growled and kicked and grouched at the cold, the longnights, the hardships, the aches and pains and everything else. Theyloafed in their beds until they swelled up and couldn't leave them,that's all. Look at me. I've worked. Come into my cabin."
Smoke followed him in.
"Squint around. Clean as a whistle, eh? You bet. Everything shipshape.I wouldn't keep those chips and shavings on the floor except for thewarmth, but they're clean chips and shavings. You ought to see the floorin some of the shacks. Pig-pens. As for me, I haven't eaten a meal offan unwashed dish. No, sir. It meant work, and I've worked, and I haven'tthe scurvy. You can put that in your pipe and smoke it."
"You've hit the nail on the head," Smoke admitted. "But I see you'veonly one bunk. Why so unsociable?"
"Because
I like to be. It's easier to clean up for one than two, that'swhy. The lazy blanket-loafers! Do you think that I could have stood onearound? No wonder they got scurvy."
It was very convincing, but Smoke could not rid himself of his dislikeof the man.
"What's Laura Sibley got it in for you for?" he asked abruptly.
Amos Wentworth shot a quick look at him. "She's a crank," was the reply."So are we all cranks, for that matter. But Heaven save me from thecrank that won't wash the dishes that he eats off of, and that's whatthis crowd of cranks are like."
A few minutes later, Smoke was talking with Laura Sibley. Supported by astick in either hand, she had paused in hobbling by his cabin.
"What have you got it in for Wentworth for?" he asked, apropos ofnothing in the conversation and with a suddenness that caught her offher guard.
Her green eyes flashed bitterly, her emaciated face for the secondwas convulsed with rage, and her sore lips writhed on the verge ofunconsidered speech. But only a splutter of gasping, unintelligiblesounds issued forth, and then, by a terrible effort, she controlledherself.
"Because he's healthy," she panted. "Because he hasn't the scurvy.Because he is supremely selfish. Because he won't lift a hand to helpanybody else. Because he'd let us rot and die, as he is letting us rotand die, without lifting a finger to fetch us a pail of water or aload of firewood. That's the kind of a brute he is. But let him beware!That's all. Let him beware!"
Still panting and gasping, she hobbled on her way, and five minutesafterward, coming out of the cabin to feed the dogs, Smoke saw herentering Amos Wentworth's cabin.
"Something rotten here, Shorty, something rotten," he said, shakinghis head ominously, as his partner came to the door to empty a pan ofdish-water.
"Sure," was the cheerful rejoinder. "An' you an' me'll be catchin' ityet. You'll see."
"I don't mean the scurvy."
"Oh, sure, if you mean the divine steeress. She'd rob a corpse. She'sthe hungriest-lookin' female I ever seen."
"Exercise has kept you and me in condition, Shorty. It's kept Wentworthin condition. You see what lack of exercise has done for the rest. Nowit's up to us to prescribe exercise for these hospital wrecks. It willbe your job to see that they get it. I appoint you chief nurse."
"What? Me?" Shorty shouted. "I resign."
"No, you don't. I'll be able assistant, because it isn't going to be anysoft snap. We've got to make them hustle. First thing, they'll haveto bury their dead. The strongest for the burial squad; then the nextstrongest on the firewood squad (they've been lying in their blanketsto save wood); and so on down the line. And spruce-tea. Mustn't forgetthat. All the sour-doughs swear by it. These people have never evenheard of it."
"We sure got ourn cut out for us," Shorty grinned. "First thing we knowwe'll be full of lead."
"And that's our first job," Smoke said. "Come on."
In the next hour, each of the twenty-odd cabins was raided. Allammunition and every rifle, shotgun, and revolver was confiscated.
"Come on, you invalids," was Shorty's method. "Shootin'-irons--fork 'emover. We need 'em."
"Who says so?" was the query at the first cabin.
"Two doctors from Dawson," was Shorty's answer. "An' what they say goes.Come on. Shell out the ammunition, too."
"What do you want them for?"
"To stand off a war-party of canned beef comin' down the canyon. And I'mgivin' you fair warnin' of a spruce-tea invasion. Come across."
And this was only the beginning of the day. Men were persuaded, coaxed,bullied or dragged by main strength from their bunks and forced todress. Smoke selected the mildest cases for the burial squad. Anothersquad was told off to supply the wood by which the graves were burneddown into the frozen muck and gravel. Still another squad had to chopfirewood and impartially supply every cabin. Those who were too weak foroutdoor work were put to cleaning and scrubbing the cabins and washingclothes. One squad brought in many loads of spruce-boughs, and everystove was used for the brewing of spruce-tea.
But no matter what face Smoke and Shorty put on it, the situation wasgrim and serious. At least thirty fearful and impossible cases could notbe taken from the beds, as the two men, with nausea and horror, learned;while one, a woman, died in Laura Sibley's cabin. Yet strong measureswere necessary.
"I don't like to wallop a sick man," Shorty explained, his fist doubledmenacingly. "But I'd wallop his block off if it'd make him well. Andwhat all you lazy bums needs is a wallopin'. Come on! Out of that an'into them duds of yourn, double quick, or I'll sure muss up the front ofyour face."
All the gangs groaned, and sighed, and wept, the tears streaming andfreezing down their cheeks as they toiled; and it was patent that theiragony was real. The situation was desperate, and Smoke's prescriptionwas heroic.
When the work-gangs came in at noon, they found decently cooked dinnersawaiting them, prepared by the weaker members of their cabins under thetutelage and drive of Smoke and Shorty.
"That'll do," Smoke said at three in the afternoon. "Knock off. Go toyour bunks. You may be feeling rotten now, but you'll be the better forit to-morrow. Of course it hurts to get well, but I'm going to get youwell."
"Too late," Amos Wentworth sneered pallidly at Smoke's efforts. "Theyought to have started in that way last fall."
"Come along with me," Smoke answered. "Pick up those two pails. You'renot ailing."
From cabin to cabin the three men went, dosing every man and woman witha full pint of spruce-tea. Nor was it easy.
"You might as well learn at the start that we mean business," Smokestated to the first obdurate, who lay on his back, groaning throughset teeth. "Stand by, Shorty." Smoke caught the patient by the nose andtapped the solar-plexus section so as to make the mouth gasp open. "Now,Shorty! Down she goes!"
And down it went, accompanied with unavoidable splutterings andstranglings.
"Next time you'll take it easier," Smoke assured the victim, reachingfor the nose of the man in the adjoining bunk.
"I'd sooner take castor oil," was Shorty's private confidence, ere hedowned his own portion. "Great jumpin' Methuselem!" was his entirelypublic proclamation the moment after he had swallowed the bitter dose."It's a pint long, but hogshead strong."
"We're covering this spruce-tea route four times a day, and there areeighty of you to be dosed each time," Smoke informed Laura Sibley. "Sowe've no time to fool. Will you take it or must I hold your nose?" Histhumb and forefinger hovered eloquently above her. "It's vegetable, soyou needn't have any qualms."
"Qualms!" Shorty snorted. "No, sure, certainly not. It's thedeliciousest dope!"
Laura Sibley hesitated. She gulped her apprehension.
"Well?" Smoke demanded peremptorily.
"I'll--I'll take it," she quavered. "Hurry up!"
That night, exhausted as by no hard day of trail, Smoke and Shortycrawled into their blankets.
"I'm fairly sick with it," Smoke confessed. "The way they suffer isawful. But exercise is the only remedy I can think of, and it must begiven a thorough trial. I wish we had a sack of raw potatoes."
"Sparkins he can't wash no more dishes," Shorty said. "It hurts him sohe sweats his pain. I seen him sweat it. I had to put him back in thebunk, he was that helpless."
"If only we had raw potatoes," Smoke went on. "The vital, essentialsomething is missing from that prepared stuff. The life has beenevaporated out of it."
"An' if that young fellow Jones in the Brownlow cabin don't croak beforemorning I miss my guess."
"For Heaven's sake be cheerful," Smoke chided.
"We got to bury him, ain't we?" came the indignant snort. "I tell youthat boy's something awful--"
"Shut up," Smoke said.
And after several more indignant snorts, the heavy breathing of sleeparose from Shorty's bunk.
In the morning, not only was Jones dead, but one of the stronger menwho had worked on the firewood squad was found to have hanged himself. Anightmare procession of days set in. For a week, steeling himsel
f to thetask, Smoke enforced the exercise and the spruce-tea. And one by one,and in twos and threes, he was compelled to knock off the workers. Ashe was learning, exercise was the last thing in the world for scurvypatients. The diminishing burial squad was kept steadily at work, and asurplus half-dozen graves were always burned down and waiting.
"You couldn't have selected a worse place for a camp," Smoke told LauraSibley. "Look at it--at the bottom of a narrow gorge, running east andwest. The noon sun doesn't rise above the top of the wall. You can'thave had sunlight for several months."
"But how was I to know?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't see why not, if you could lead ahundred fools to a gold-mine."
She glared malevolently at him and hobbled on. Several minutesafterward, coming back from a trip to where a squad of groaning patientswas gathering spruce-boughs, Smoke saw the seeress entering AmosWentworth's cabin and followed after her. At the door he could hear hervoice, whimpering and pleading.
"Just for me," she was begging, as Smoke entered. "I won't tell a soul."
Both glanced guiltily at the intruder, and Smoke was certain that he wason the edge of something, he knew not what, and he cursed himself fornot having eavesdropped.
"Out with it," he commanded harshly. "What is it?"
"What is what?" Amos Wentworth asked sullenly. And Smoke could not namewhat was what.
Grimmer and grimmer grew the situation. In that dark hole of a canyon,where sunlight never penetrated, the horrible death list mounted up.Each day, in apprehension, Smoke and Shorty examined each other's mouthsfor the whitening of the gums and mucous membranes--the invariable firstsymptom of the disease.
"I've quit," Shorty announced one evening. "I've been thinkin' it over,an' I quit. I can make a go at slave-drivin', but cripple-drivin's toomuch for my stomach. They go from bad to worse. They ain't twenty menI can drive to work. I told Jackson this afternoon he could take to hisbunk. He was gettin' ready to suicide. I could see it stickin' out allover him. Exercise ain't no good."
"I've made up my mind to the same thing," Smoke answered. "We'll knockoff all but about a dozen. They'll have to lend a hand. We can relaythem. And we'll keep up the spruce-tea."
"It ain't no good."
"I'm about ready to agree with that, too, but at any rate it doesn'thurt them."
"Another suicide," was Shorty's news the following morning. "ThatPhillips is the one. I seen it comin' for days."
"We're up against the real thing," Smoke groaned. "What would yousuggest, Shorty?"
"Who? Me? I ain't got no suggestions. The thing's got to run itscourse."
"But that means they'll all die," Smoke protested.
"Except Wentworth," Shorty snarled; for he had quickly come to share hispartner's dislike for that individual.
The everlasting miracle of Wentworth's immunity perplexed Smoke. Whyshould he alone not have developed scurvy? Why did Laura Sibley hatehim, and at the same time whine and snivel and beg from him? What was itshe begged from him and that he would not give?
On several occasions Smoke made it a point to drop into Wentworth'scabin at meal-time. But one thing did he note that was suspicious, andthat was Wentworth's suspicion of him. Next he tried sounding out LauraSibley.
"Raw potatoes would cure everybody here," he remarked to the seeress. "Iknow it. I've seen it work before."
The flare of conviction in her eyes, followed by bitterness and hatred,told him the scent was warm.
"Why didn't you bring in a supply of fresh potatoes on the steamer?" heasked.
"We did. But coming up the river we sold them all out at a bargain atFort Yukon. We had plenty of the evaporated kinds, and we knew they'dkeep better. They wouldn't even freeze."
Smoke groaned. "And you sold them all?" he asked.
"Yes. How were we to know?"
"Now mightn't there have been a couple of odd sacks left?--accidentally,you know, mislaid on the steamer?"
She shook her head, as he thought, a trifle belatedly, then added, "Wenever found any."
"But mightn't there?" he persisted.
"How do I know?" she rasped angrily. "I didn't have charge of thecommissary."
"And Amos Wentworth did," he jumped to the conclusion. "Very good.Now what is your private opinion--just between us two. Do you thinkWentworth has any raw potatoes stored away somewhere?"
"No; certainly not. Why should he?"
"Why shouldn't he?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
Struggle as he would with her, Smoke could not bring her to admit thepossibility.
"Wentworth's a swine," was Shorty's verdict, when Smoke told hissuspicions.
"And so is Laura Sibley," Smoke added. "She believes he has thepotatoes, and is keeping it quiet, and trying to get him to share withher."
"An' he won't come across, eh?" Shorty cursed frail human nature withone of his best flights, and caught his breath. "They both got theirfeet in the trough. May God rot them dead with scurvy for their reward,that's all I got to say, except I'm goin' right up now an' knockWentworth's block off."
But Smoke stood out for diplomacy. That night, when the camp groaned andslept, or groaned and did not sleep, he went to Wentworth's unlightedcabin.
"Listen to me, Wentworth," he said. "I've got a thousand dollars indust right here in this sack. I'm a rich man in this country, and I canafford it. I think I'm getting touched. Put a raw potato in my hand andthe dust is yours. Here, heft it."
And Smoke thrilled when Amos Wentworth put out his hand in the darknessand hefted the gold. Smoke heard him fumble in the blankets, andthen felt pressed into his hand, not the heavy gold-sack, but theunmistakable potato, the size of a hen's egg, warm from contact with theother's body.
Smoke did not wait till morning. He and Shorty were expecting at anytime the deaths of their worst two cases, and to this cabin the partnerswent. Grated and mashed up in a cup, skin, and clinging specks of theearth, and all, was the thousand-dollar potato--a thick fluid, that theyfed, several drops at a time, into the frightful orifices that had oncebeen mouths. Shift by shift, through the long night, Smoke and Shortyrelieved each other at administering the potato juice, rubbing it intothe poor swollen gums where loose teeth rattled together and compellingthe swallowing of every drop of the precious elixir.
By evening of the next day the change for the better in the two patientswas miraculous and almost unbelievable. They were no longer the worstcases. In forty-eight hours, with the exhaustion of the potato, theywere temporarily out of danger, though far from being cured.
"I'll tell you what I'll do," Smoke said to Wentworth. "I've gotholdings in this country, and my paper is good anywhere. I'll giveyou five hundred dollars a potato up to fifty thousand dollars' worth.That's one hundred potatoes."
"Was that all the dust you had?" Wentworth queried.
"Shorty and I scraped up all we had. But, straight, he and I are worthseveral millions between us."
"I haven't any potatoes," Wentworth said finally. "Wish I had. Thatpotato I gave you was the only one. I'd been saving it all the winterfor fear I'd get the scurvy. I only sold it so as to be able to buy apassage out of the country when the river opens."
Despite the cessation of potato-juice, the two treated cases continuedto improve through the third day. The untreated cases went from bad toworse. On the fourth morning, three horrible corpses were buried. Shortywent through the ordeal, then turned to Smoke.
"You've tried your way. Now it's me for mine."
He headed straight for Wentworth's cabin. What occurred there, Shortynever told. He emerged with knuckles skinned and bruised, and not onlydid Wentworth's face bear all the marks of a bad beating, but for a longtime he carried his head, twisted and sidling, on a stiff neck. Thisphenomenon was accounted for by a row of four finger-marks, black andblue, on one side of the windpipe and by a single black-and-blue mark onthe other side.
Next, Smoke and Shorty together invaded Wentworth's cabin, throwing himout in the snow while they tu
rned the interior upside down. Laura Sibleyhobbled in and frantically joined them in the search.
"You don't get none, old girl, not if we find a ton," Shorty assuredher.
But she was no more disappointed than they. Though the very floor wasdug up, they discovered nothing.
"I'm for roastin' him over a slow fire an' make 'm cough up," Shortyproposed earnestly.
Smoke shook his head reluctantly.
"It's murder," Shorty held on. "He's murderin' all them poor geezersjust as much as if he knocked their brains out with an ax, only worse."
Another day passed, during which they kept a steady watch on Wentworth'smovements. Several times, when he started out, water-bucket in hand, forthe creek, they casually approached the cabin, and each time he hurriedback without the water.
"They're cached right there in his cabin," Shorty said. "As sure as Godmade little apples, they are. But where? We sure overhauled it plenty."He stood up and pulled on his mittens. "I'm goin' to find 'em, if I haveto pull the blame shack down a log at a time."
He glanced at Smoke, who, with an intent, absent face, had not heardhim.
"What's eatin' you?" Shorty demanded wrathfully. "Don't tell me you'vegone an' got the scurvy!"
"Just trying to remember something, Shorty."
"What?"
"I don't know. That's the trouble. But it has a bearing, if only I couldremember it."
"Now you look here, Smoke; don't you go an' get bug-house," Shortypleaded. "Think of me! Let your think-slats rip. Come on an' help mepull that shack down. I'd set her afire, if it wa'n't for roastin' themspuds."
"That's it!" Smoke exploded, as he sprang to his feet. "Just what I wastrying to remember. Where's that kerosene-can? I'm with you, Shorty. Thepotatoes are ours."
"What's the game?"
"Watch me, that's all," Smoke baffled. "I always told you, Shorty, thata deficient acquaintance with literature was a handicap, even in theKlondike. Now what we're going to do came out of a book. I read it whenI was a kid, and it will work. Come on."
Several minutes later, under a pale-gleaming, greenish auroraborealis, the two men crept up to Amos Wentworth's cabin. Carefullyand noiselessly they poured kerosene over the logs, extra-drenching thedoor-frame and window-sash. Then the match was applied, and they watchedthe flaming oil gather headway. They drew back beyond the growing lightand waited.
They saw Wentworth rush out, stare wildly at the conflagration, andplunge back into the cabin. Scarcely a minute elapsed when he emerged,this time slowly, half doubled over, his shoulders burdened by a sackheavy and unmistakable. Smoke and Shorty sprang at him like a pair offamished wolves. They hit him right and left, at the same instant. Hecrumpled down under the weight of the sack, which Smoke pressedover with his hands to make sure. Then he felt his knees clasped byWentworth's arms as the man turned a ghastly face upward.
"Give me a dozen, only a dozen--half a dozen--and you can have therest," he squalled. He bared his teeth and, with mad rage, half inclinedhis head to bite Smoke's leg, then he changed his mind and fell topleading. "Just half a dozen," he wailed. "Just half a dozen. I wasgoing to turn them over to you--to-morrow. Yes, to-morrow. That was myidea. They're life! They're life! Just half a dozen!"
"Where's the other sack?" Smoke bluffed.
"I ate it up," was the reply, unimpeachably honest. "That sack's allthat's left. Give me a few. You can have the rest."
"Ate 'em up!" Shorty screamed. "A whole sack! An' them geezers dyin' forwant of 'em! This for you! An' this! An' this! An' this! You swine! Youhog!"
The first kick tore Wentworth away from his embrace of Smoke's knees.The second kick turned him over in the snow. But Shorty went on kicking.
"Watch out for your toes," was Smoke's only interference.
"Sure; I'm usin' the heel," Shorty answered. "Watch me. I'll cave hisribs in. I'll kick his jaw off. Take that! An' that! Wisht I could giveyou the boot instead of the moccasin. You swine!"
There was no sleep in camp that night. Hour after hour Smoke and Shortywent the rounds, doling the life-renewing potato-juice, a quarter of aspoonful at a dose, into the poor ruined mouths of the population. Andthrough the following day, while one slept the other kept up the work.
There were no more deaths. The most awful cases began to mend with animmediacy that was startling. By the third day, men who had not been offtheir backs for weeks crawled out of their bunks and tottered around oncrutches. And on that day, the sun, two months then on its journey intonorthern declination, peeped cheerfully over the crest of the canyon forthe first time.
"Nary a potato," Shorty told the whining, begging Wentworth. "You ain'teven touched with scurvy. You got outside a whole sack, an' you'reloaded against scurvy for twenty years. Knowin' you, I've come tounderstand God. I always wondered why he let Satan live. Now I know. Helet him live just as I let you live. But it's a cryin' shame, just thesame."
"A word of advice," Smoke told Wentworth. "These men are getting wellfast; Shorty and I are leaving in a week, and there will be nobody toprotect you when these men go after you. There's the trail. Dawson'seighteen days' travel."
"Pull your freight, Amos," Shorty supplemented, "or what I done to youwon't be a circumstance to what them convalescents'll do to you."
"Gentlemen, I beg of you, listen to me," Wentworth whined. "I'm astranger in this country. I don't know its ways. I don't know the trail.Let me travel with you. I'll give you a thousand dollars if you'll letme travel with you."
"Sure," Smoke grinned maliciously. "If Shorty agrees."
"WHO? ME?" Shorty stiffened for a supreme effort. "I ain't nobody.Woodticks ain't got nothin' on me when it comes to humility. I'm a worm,a maggot, brother to the pollywog an' child of the blow-fly. I ain'tafraid or ashamed of nothin' that creeps or crawls or stinks. But travelwith that mistake of creation! Go 'way, man. I ain't proud, but you turnmy stomach."
And Amos Wentworth went away, alone, dragging a sled loaded withprovisions sufficient to last him to Dawson. A mile down the trailShorty overhauled him.
"Come here to me," was Shorty's greeting. "Come across. Fork over. Coughup."
"I don't understand," Wentworth quavered, shivering from recollection ofthe two beatings, hand and foot, he had already received from Shorty.
"That thousand dollars, d' ye understand that? That thousand dollarsgold Smoke bought that measly potato with. Come through."
And Amos Wentworth passed the gold-sack over.
"Hope a skunk bites you an' you get howlin' hydrophoby," were the termsof Shorty's farewell.