The Gold Hunters by James Oliver Curwood
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James Oliver Curwood >> The Gold Hunters
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13 [Illustration: The canoe sped out into the gloom.]
THE GOLD HUNTERS
A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds
BY
JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD
1909
To the sweet-voiced, dark-eyed little half-Cree maiden
at Lac-Bain, who is the Minnetaki of this story; and to "Teddy" Brown,
guide and trapper, and loyal comrade of the author in many of his
adventures, this book is affectionately dedicated.
CHAPTER I
THE PURSUIT OF THE HUDSON BAY MAIL
The deep hush of noon hovered over the vast solitude of Canadian
forest. The moose and caribou had fed since early dawn, and were
resting quietly in the warmth of the February sun; the lynx was curled
away in his niche between the great rocks, waiting for the sun to
sink farther into the north and west before resuming his marauding
adventures; the fox was taking his midday slumber and the restless
moose-birds were fluffing themselves lazily in the warm glow that was
beginning to melt the snows of late winter.
It was that hour when the old hunter on the trail takes off his pack,
silently gathers wood for a fire, eats his dinner and smokes his pipe,
eyes and ears alert;--that hour when if you speak above a whisper, he
will say to you,
"Sh-h-h-h! Be quiet! You can't tell how near we are to game.
Everything has had its morning feed and is lying low. The game won't
be moving again for an hour or two, and there may be moose or caribou
a gunshot ahead. We couldn't hear them--now!"
And yet, after a time one thing detached itself from this lifeless
solitude. At first it was nothing more than a spot on the sunny side
of a snow-covered ridge. Then it moved, stretched itself like a dog,
with its forefeet extended far to the front and its shoulders hunched
low--and was a wolf.
A wolf is a heavy sleeper after a feast. A hunter would have said that
this wolf had gorged itself the night before. Still, something had
alarmed it. Faintly there came to this wilderness outlaw that most
thrilling of all things to the denizens of the forest--the scent of
man. He came down the ridge with the slow indifference of a full-fed
animal, and with only a half of his old cunning; trotted across the
softening snow of an opening and stopped where the man-scent was so
strong that he lifted his head straight up to the sky and sent out to
his comrades in forest and plain the warning signal that he had struck
a human trail. A wolf will do this, and no more, in broad day. At
night he might follow, and others would join him in the chase; but
with daylight about him he gives the warning and after a little slinks
away from the trail.
But something held this wolf. There was a mystery in the air which
puzzled him. Straight ahead there ran the broad, smooth trail of a
sled and the footprints of many dogs. Sometime within the last hour
the "dog mail" from Wabinosh House had passed that way on its long
trip to civilization. But it was not the swift passage of man and
dog that held the wolf rigidly alert, ready for flight--and yet
hesitating. It was something from the opposite direction, from the
North, out of which the wind was coming. First it was sound; then it
was scent--then both, and the wolf sped in swift flight up the sunlit
ridge.
In the direction from which the alarm came there stretched a small
lake, and on its farther edge, a quarter of a mile away, there
suddenly darted out from the dense rim of balsam forest a jumble of
dogs and sledge and man. For a few moments the mass of animals seemed
entangled in some kind of wreck or engaged in one of those fierce
battles in which the half-wild sledge-dogs of the North frequently
engage, even on the trail. Then there came the sharp, commanding cries
of a human voice, the cracking of a whip, the yelping of the
huskies, and the disordered team straightened itself and came like a
yellowish-gray streak across the smooth surface of the lake. Close
beside the sledge ran the man. He was tall, and thin, and even at that
distance one would have recognized him as an Indian. Hardly had the
team and its wild-looking driver progressed a quarter of the distance
across the lake when there came a shout farther back, and a second
sledge burst into view from out of the thick forest. Beside this
sledge, too, a driver was running with desperate speed.
The leader now leaped upon his sledge, his voice rising in sharp cries
of exhortation, his whip whirling and cracking over the backs of his
dogs. The second driver still ran, and thus gained upon the team
ahead, so that when they came to the opposite side of the lake, where
the wolf had sent out the warning cry to his people, the twelve dogs
of the two teams were almost abreast.
Quickly there came a slackening in the pace set by the leading dog of
each team, and half a minute later the sledges stopped. The dogs flung
themselves down in their harness, panting, with gaping jaws, the snow
reddening under their bleeding feet. The men, too, showed signs of
terrible strain. The elder of these, as we have said, was an Indian,
pure breed of the great Northern wilderness. His companion was a youth
who had not yet reached his twenties, slender, but with the strength
and agility of an animal in his limbs, his handsome face bronzed by
the free life of the forest, and in his veins a plentiful strain of
that blood which made his comrade kin.
In those two we have again met our old friends Mukoki and Wabigoon:
Mukoki, the faithful old warrior and pathfinder, and Wabigoon, the
adventurous half-Indian son of the factor of Wabinosh House. Both
were at the height of some great excitement. For a few moments, while
gaining breath, they gazed silently into each other's face.
"I'm afraid--we can't--catch them, Muky," panted the younger. "What do
you think--"
He stopped, for Mukoki had thrown himself on his knees in the snow a
dozen feet in front of the teams. From that point there ran straight
ahead of them the trail of the dog mail. For perhaps a full minute he
examined the imprints of the dogs' feet and the smooth path made
by the sledge. Then he looked up, and with one of those inimitable
chuckles which meant so much when coming from him, he said:
"We catch heem--sure! See--sledge heem go _deep_. Both ride. Big load
for dogs. We catch heem--sure!"
"But our dogs!" persisted Wabigoon, his face still filled with doubt.
"They're completely bushed, and my leader has gone lame. See how
they're bleeding!"
The huskies, as the big wolfish sledge-dogs of the far North are
called, were indeed in a pitiable condition. The warm sun had weakened
the hard crust of the snow until at every leap the feet of the animals
had broken through, tearing and wounding themselves on its ragged,
knife-like edges. Mukoki's face became more serious as he carefully
examined the teams.
"Bad--ver' bad," he grunted. "We fool--fool!"
"For not bringing dog shoes?" said Wabigoon. "I've got a dozen shoes
on my sledge--enough for three dogs. By George--" He leaped quickly to
his toboggan, caught up the dog moccasins, and turned again to the old
Indian, alive with new excitement. "We've got just one chance, Muky!"
he half shouted.
"Pick out the strongest dogs. One of us must go on alone!"
The sharp commands of the two adventurers and the cracking of Mukoki's
whip brought the tired and bleeding animals to their feet. Over the
pads of three of the largest and strongest were drawn the buckskin
moccasins, and to these three, hitched to Wabigoon's sledge, were
added six others that appeared to have a little endurance still left
in them. A few moments later the long line of dogs was speeding
swiftly over the trail of the Hudson Bay mail, and beside the sled ran
Wabigoon.
Thus this thrilling pursuit of the dog mail had continued since early
dawn. For never more than a minute or two at a time had there been a
rest. Over mountain and lake, through dense forest and across barren
plain man and dog had sped without food or drink, snatching up
mouthfuls of snow here and there--always their eyes upon the fresh
trail of the flying mail. Even the fierce huskies seemed to understand
that the chase had become a matter of life and death, and that they
were to follow the trail ahead of them, ceaselessly and without
deviation, until the end of their masters was accomplished. The human
scent was becoming stronger and stronger in their wolf-like nostrils.
Somewhere on that trail there were men, and other dogs, and they were
to overtake them!
Even now, bleeding and stumbling as they ran, the blood of battle, the
excitement of the chase, was hot within them. Half-wolf, half-dog,
their white fangs snarling as stronger whiffs of the man-smell came to
them, they were filled with the savage desperation of the youth who
urged them on. The keen instinct of the wild pointed out their road to
them, and they needed no guiding hand. Faithful until the last they
dragged on their burden, their tongues lolling farther from their
jaws, their hearts growing weaker, their eyes bloodshot until they
glowed like red balls. Now and then, when he had run until his
endurance was gone, Wabigoon would fling himself upon the sledge to
regain breath and rest his limbs, and the dogs would tug harder,
scarce slackening their speed under the increased weight. Once a huge
moose crashed through the forest a hundred paces away, but the huskies
paid no attention to it; a little farther on a lynx, aroused from
his sun bath on a rock, rolled like a great gray ball across the
trail,--the dogs cringed but for an instant at the sight of this
mortal enemy of theirs, and then went on.
Slower and slower grew the pace. The rearmost dog was now no more than
a drag, and reaching a keen-edged knife far out over the end of the
sledge Wabi severed his breast strap and the exhausted animal rolled
out free beside the trail. Two others of the team were pulling scarce
a pound, another was running lame, and the trail behind was spotted
with pads of blood. Each minute added to the despair that was growing
in the youth's face. His eyes, like those of his faithful dogs, were
red from the terrible strain of the race, his lips were parted, his
legs, as tireless as those of a red deer, were weakening under him.
More and more frequently he flung himself upon the sledge, panting
for breath, and shorter and shorter became his intervals of running
between these periods of rest. The end of the chase was almost at
hand. They could not overtake the Hudson Bay mail!
With a final cry of encouragement Wabi sprang from the sledge and
plunged along at the head of the dogs, urging them on in one last
supreme effort. Ahead of them was a break in the forest trail and
beyond that, mile upon mile, stretched the vast white surface of Lake
Nipigon. And far out in the glare of sun and snow there moved an
object, something that was no more than a thin black streak to
Wabi's blinded eyes but which he knew was the dog mail on its way to
civilization. He tried to shout, but the sound that fell from his lips
could not have been heard a hundred paces away; his limbs tottered
beneath him; his feet seemed suddenly to turn into lead, and he sank
helpless into the snow. The faithful pack crowded about him licking
his face and hands, their hot breath escaping between their gaping
jaws like hissing steam For a few moments it seemed to the Indian
youth that day had suddenly turned into night. His eyes closed, the
panting of the dogs came to him more and more faintly, as if they were
moving away; he felt himself sinking, sinking slowly down into utter
blackness.
Desperately he fought to bring himself back into life. There was one
more chance--just one! He heard the dogs again, he felt their tongues
upon his hands and face, and he dragged himself to his knees, groping
out with his hands like one who had gone blind. A few feet away was
the sledge, and out there, far beyond his vision now, was the Hudson
Bay mail!
Foot by foot he drew himself out from among the tangle of dogs. He
reached the sledge, and his fingers gripped convulsively at the cold
steel of his rifle. One more chance! One more chance! The words--the
thought--filled his brain, and he raised the rifle to his shoulder,
pointing its muzzle up to the sky so that he would not harm the dogs.
And then, once, twice, five times he fired into the air, and at the
end of the fifth shot he drew fresh cartridges from his belt,
and fired again and again, until the black streak far out in the
wilderness of ice and snow stopped in its progress--and turned back.
And still the sharp signals rang out again and again, until the barrel
of Wabi's rifle grew hot, and his cartridge belt was empty.
Slowly the gloom cleared away before his eyes. He heard a shout, and
staggered to his feet, stretching out his arms and calling a name as
the dog mail stopped half a hundred yards from his own team.
With something between a yell of joy and a cry of astonishment a youth
of about Wabi's age sprang from the second sleigh and ran to the
Indian boy, catching him in his arms as for a second time, he sank
fainting upon the snow.
"Wabi--what's the matter?" he cried. "Are you hurt? Are you--"
For a moment Wabigoon struggled to overcome his weakness.
"Rod--" he whispered, "Rod--Minnetaki--"
His lips ceased to move and he sank heavily in his companion's arms.
"What is it, Wabi? Quick! Speak!" urged the other. His face had grown
strangely white, his voice trembled. "What about--Minnetaki?"
Again the Indian youth fought to bring himself back to life. His words
came faintly,
"Minnetaki--has been captured--by--the--Woongas!"
Then even his breath seemed to stop, and he lay like one dead.
CHAPTER II
MINNETAKI IN THE HANDS OF THE OUTLAWS
For a brief time Roderick believed that life had indeed passed from
the body of his young friend. So still did Wabi lie and so terrifying
was the strange pallor in his face that the white boy found himself
calling on his comrade in a voice filled with choking sobs. The driver
of the dog mail dropped on his knees beside the two young hunters.
Running his hand under Wabi's thick shirt he held it there for an
instant, and said, "He's alive!"
Quickly drawing a small metal flask from one of his pockets he
unscrewed the top, and placing the mouthpiece to the Indian youth's
lips forced a bit of its contents down his throat. The liquor had
almost immediate effect, and Wabigoon opened his eyes, gazed into the
rough visage of the courier, then closed them again. There was relief
in the courier's face as he pointed to the dogs from Wabinosh House.
The exhausted animals were lying stretched upon the snow, their heads
drooping between their forefeet. Even the presence of a rival team
failed to arouse them from their lethargy. One might have thought that
death had overtaken them upon the trail were it not for their panting
sides and lolling tongues.
"He's not hurt!" exclaimed the driver, "see the dogs! He's been
running--running until he dropped in his tracks!"
The assurance brought but little comfort to Rod. He could feel the
tremble of returning life in Wabi's body now, but the sight of the
exhausted and bleeding dogs and the memory of his comrade's last words
had filled him with a new and terrible fear. What had happened to
Minnetaki? Why had the factor's son come all this distance for him?
Why had he pursued the mail until his dogs were nearly dead, and he
himself had fallen unconscious in his tracks? Was Minnetaki dead? Had
the Woongas killed Wabi's beautiful little sister?
Again and again he implored his friend to speak to him, until the
courier pushed him back and carried Wabi to the mail sled.
"Hustle up there to that bunch of spruce and build a fire," he
commanded. "We've got to get something hot into him, and rub him down,
and roll him in furs. This is bad enough, bad enough!"
Rod waited to hear no more, but ran to the clump of spruce to which
the courier had directed him. Among them he found a number of birch
trees, and stripping off an armful of bark he had a fire blazing upon
the snow by the time the dog mail drew up with its unconscious burden.
While the driver was loosening Wabi's clothes and bundling him in
heavy bearskins Rod added dry limbs to the fire until it threw a warm
glow for a dozen paces around. Within a few minutes a pot of ice and
snow was melting over the flames and the courier was opening a can of
condensed soup.
The deathly pallor had gone from Wabi's face, and Rod, kneeling close
beside him, was rejoiced to see the breath coming more and more
regularly from between his lips. But even as he rejoiced the other
fear grew heavier at his heart. What had happened to Minnetaki? He
found himself repeating the question again and again as he watched
Wabi slowly returning to life, and, so quickly that it had passed in a
minute or two, there flashed through his mind a vision of all that had
happened the last few months. For a few moments, as his mind traveled
back, he was again in Detroit with his widowed mother; he thought of
the day he had first met Wabigoon, the son of an English factor and a
beautiful Indian princess, who had come far down into civilization to
be educated; of the friendship that had followed, of their weeks and
months together in school, and then of those joyous days and nights in
which they had planned a winter of thrilling adventure at Wabi's home
in the far North.
And what adventures there had been, when, as the Wolf Hunters, he and
Wabi and Mukoki had braved the perils of the frozen solitudes! As
Wabigoon's breath came more and more regularly he thought of that
wonderful canoe trip from the last bit of civilization up into the
wilds; of his first sight of moose, the first bear he had killed, and
of his meeting with Minnetaki.
His eyes became blurred and his heart grew cold as he thought of what
might have happened to her. A vision of the girl swept between him and
Wabi's face, in which the glow of life was growing warmer and warmer,
a vision of the little half-Indian maiden as he had first seen her,
when she came out to meet them in her canoe from Wabinosh House, the
sun shining on her dark hair, her cheeks flushed with excitement, her
eyes and teeth sparkling in glad welcome to her beloved brother
and the white youth of whom she had heard so much--the boy from
civilization--Roderick Drew. He remembered how his cap had blown off
into the water, how she had rescued it for him. In a flash all that
passed after that came before him like a picture; the days that he and
Minnetaki had rambled together in the forest, the furious battle
in which, single-handed, he had saved her from those fierce outlaw
Indians of the North, the Woongas; and after that he thought of
the weeks of thrilling adventure they three--Mukoki, Wabigoon and
himself--had spent in the wilderness far from the Hudson Bay Post, of
their months of trapping, their desperate war with the Woongas, the
discovery of the century-old cabin and its ancient skeletons, and
their finding of the birch-bark map between the bones of one of the
skeleton's fingers, on which, dimmed by age, was drawn the trail to a
land of gold.
Instinctively, as for an instant this map came into his mental
picture, he thrust a hand into one of his inside pockets to feel that
his own copy of that map was there, the map which was to have brought
him back into this wilderness a few weeks hence, when they three would
set out on the romantic quest for the gold to which the skeletons in
the old cabin had given them the key.
The vision left him as he saw a convulsive shudder pass through
Wabigoon. In another moment the Indian youth had opened his eyes, and
as he looked up into Rod's eager face he smiled feebly. He tried to
speak, but words failed him, and his eyes closed again. There was a
look of terror in Roderick's face as he turned to the courier, who
came to his side. Less than twenty-four hours before he had left
Wabigoon in the full strength of his splendid youth at Wabinosh House,
a lithe young giant, hardened by their months of adventure, quivering
with buoyant life, anxious for the spring that they might meet again
to take up another trail into the unexplored North.
And now what a change! The glimpse he had caught of Wabi's bloodshot
eyes, the terrible thinness of the Indian youth's face, the chilling
lifelessness of his hands, made him shiver with dread. Was it
possible that a few short hours could bring about that remarkable
transformation? And where was Mukoki, the faithful old warrior from
whose guardianship Wabigoon and Minnetaki were seldom allowed to
escape?
It seemed an hour before Wabi opened his eyes again, and yet it was
only a few minutes. This time Rod lifted him gently in his arms and
the courier placed a cup of the hot soup to his lips. The warmth of
the liquid put new life into the famished Indian youth. He drank
slowly of it at first, then eagerly, and when he had finished the cup
he made an effort to sit up.
"I'll take another," he said faintly. "It's mighty good!"
He drank the second cup with even greater relish. Then he sat bolt
upright, stretched out his arms, and with his companion's assistance
staggered to his feet. His bloodshot eyes burned with a strange
excitement as he looked at Rod.
"I was afraid--I wouldn't--catch you!"
"What is it, Wabi? What has happened? You say--Minnetaki--"
"Has been captured by the Woongas. Chief Woonga himself is her captor,
and they are taking her into the North. Rod, only you can save her!"
"Only--I--can--save--her?" gasped Rod slowly. "What do you mean?"
"Listen!" cried the Indian boy, clutching him by the arm. "You
remember that after our fight with the Woongas and our escape from the
chasm we fled to the south, and that the next day, while you were away
from camp hunting for some animal that would give us fat for Mukoki's
wound, you discovered a trail. You told us that you followed the
sledge tracks, and that after a time the party had been met by others
on snow-shoes, and that among the imprints in the snow was one that
made you think of Minnetaki. When we reached the Post we learned that
Minnetaki and two sledges had gone to Kenegami House and at once
concluded that those snow-shoe trails were made by Kenegami people
sent out to meet her. But they were not! They were made by Woongas!
"One of the guides, who escaped with a severe wound, brought the news
to us last night, and the doctor at the Post says that his hurt is
fatal and that he will not live another day. Everything depends on
you. You and the dying guide are the only two who know where to find
the place where the attack was made. It has been thawing for two days
and the trail may be obliterated. But you saw Minnetaki's footprints.
You saw the snow-shoe trails. You--and you alone--know which way they
went!"
Wabi spoke rapidly, excitedly, and then sank down on the sledge,
weakened by his exertion.
"We have been chasing you with two teams since dawn," he added, "and
pretty nearly killed the dogs. As a last chance we doubled up the
teams and I came on alone. I left Mukoki a dozen miles back on the
trail."
Rod's blood had turned cold with horror at the knowledge that
Minnetaki was in the clutches of Woonga himself. The terrible change
in Wabi was no longer a mystery. Both Minnetaki and her brother had
told him more than once of the relentless feud waged against Wabinosh
House by this bloodthirsty savage and during the last winter he had
come into personal contact with it. He had fought, had seen people
die, and had almost fallen a victim to Woonga's vengeance.
But it was not of these things that he thought just now. It was of the
reason for the feud, and something rose in his throat and choked him
until he made no effort to speak. Many years before, George Newsome, a
young Englishman, had come to Wabinosh House, and there he had met
and fallen in love with a beautiful Indian princess, who loved him in
turn, and became his wife. Woonga, chief of a warlike tribe, had been
his rival, and when the white man won in the battle for love his
fierce heart blazed with the fire of hatred and revenge. From that day
the relentless strife against the people of Wabinosh House began. The
followers of Woonga turned from trappers and hunters to murderers and
outlaws, and became known all over that wilderness country as the
Woongas. For years the feud had continued. Like a hawk Woonga watched
his opportunities, killing here, robbing there, and always waiting a
chance to rob the factor of his wife or children. Only a few weeks
before Rod had saved Minnetaki in that terrible struggle in the
forest. And now, more hopelessly than before, she had fallen into the
clutches of her enemies, and alone with Woonga was being carried into
the far North country, into those vast unexplored regions from which
she would probably never return!
Rod turned to Wabi, his hands clenched, his eyes blazing.
"I can find the trail, Wabi! I can find the trail--and we'll follow
it to the North Pole if we have to! We beat the Woongas in the
chasm--we'll beat them now! We'll find Minnetaki if it takes us until
doomsday!"
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