Like Argus of the Ancient Times
IT was the summer of 1897, and there was trouble in the Tarwaterfamily. Grandfather Tarwater, after remaining properly subdued andcrushed for a quiet decade, had broken out again. This time it wasthe Klondike fever. His first and one unvarying symptom of suchattacks was song. One chant only he raised, though he rememberedno more than the first stanza and but three lines of that. And thefamily knew his feet were itching and his brain was tingling withthe old madness, when he lifted his hoarse-cracked voice, nowfalsetto-cracked, in:Like Argus of the ancient times,We leave this modern Greece,Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum, tum, tum-tum,To shear the Golden Fleece.Ten years earlier he had lifted the chant, sung to the air of the"Doxology," when afflicted with the fever to go gold-mining inPatagonia. The multitudinous family had sat upon him, but had hada hard time doing it. When all else had failed to shake hisresolution, they had applied lawyers to him, with the threat ofgetting out guardianship papers and of confining him in the stateasylum for the insane - which was reasonable for a man who had, aquarter of a century before, speculated away all but ten meagreacres of a California principality, and who had displayed no betterbusiness acumen ever since.The application of lawyers to John Tarwater was like theapplication of a mustard plaster. For, in his judgment, they werethe gentry, more than any other, who had skinned him out of thebroad Tarwater acres. So, at the time of his Patagonian fever, thevery thought of so drastic a remedy was sufficient to cure him. Hequickly demonstrated he was not crazy by shaking the fever from himand agreeing not to go to Patagonia.Next, he demonstrated how crazy he really was, by deeding over tohis family, unsolicited, the ten acres on Tarwater Flat, the house,barn, outbuildings, and water-rights. Also did he turn over theeight hundred dollars in bank that was the long-saved salvage ofhis wrecked fortune. But for this the family found no cause forcommittal to the asylum, since such committal would necessarilyinvalidate what he had done."Grandfather is sure peeved," said Mary, his oldest daughter,herself a grandmother, when her father quit smoking.All he had retained for himself was a span of old horses, amountain buckboard, and his one room in the crowded house.Further, having affirmed that he would be beholden to none of them,he got the contract to carry the United States mail, twice a week,from Kelterville up over Tarwater Mountain to Old Almaden - whichwas a sporadically worked quick-silver mine in the upland cattlecountry. With his old horses it took all his time to make the twoweekly round trips. And for ten years, rain or shine, he had nevermissed a trip. Nor had he failed once to pay his week's board intoMary's hand. This board he had insisted on, in the convalescencefrom his Patagonian fever, and he had paid it strictly, though hehad given up tobacco in order to be able to do it."Huh!" he confided to the ruined water wheel of the old TarwaterMill, which he had built from the standing timber and which hadground wheat for the first settlers. "Huh! They'll never put mein the poor farm so long as I support myself. And without a pennyto my name it ain't likely any lawyer fellows'll come snoopin'around after me."And yet, precisely because of these highly rational acts, it washeld that John Tarwater was mildly crazy!The first time he had lifted the chant of "Like Argus of theAncient Times," had been in 1849, when, twenty-two years' of age,violently attacked by the Californian fever, he had sold twohundred and forty Michigan acres, forty of it cleared, for theprice of four yoke of oxen, and a wagon, and had started across thePlains."And we turned off at Fort Hall, where the Oregon emigration wentnorth'ard, and swung south for Californy," was his way ofconcluding the narrative of that arduous journey. And Bill Pingand me used to rope grizzlies out of the underbrush of Cache Sloughin the Sacramento Valley."Years of freighting and mining had followed, and, with a stakegleaned from the Merced placers, he satisfied the land-hunger ofhis race and time by settling in Sonoma County.During the ten years of carrying the mail across Tarwater Township,up Tarwater Valley, and over Tarwater Mountain, most all of whichland had once been his, he had spent his time dreaming of winningback that land before he died. And now, his huge gaunt form moreerect than it had been for years, with a glinting of blue fires inhis small and close-set eyes, he was lifting his ancient chantagain."There he goes now - listen to him," said William Tarwater."Nobody at home," laughed Harris Topping, day labourer, husband ofAnnie Tarwater, and father of her nine children.The kitchen door opened to admit the old man, returning fromfeeding his horses. The song had ceased from his lips; but Marywas irritable from a burnt hand and a grandchild whose stomachrefused to digest properly diluted cows' milk."Now there ain't no use you carryin' on that way, father," shetackled him. "The time's past for you to cut and run for a placelike the Klondike, and singing won't buy you nothing.""Just the same," he answered quietly. "I bet I could go to thatKlondike place and pick up enough gold to buy back the Tarwaterlands.""Old fool!" Annie contributed."You couldn't buy them back for less'n three hundred thousand andthen some," was William's effort at squelching him."Then I could pick up three hundred thousand, and then some, if Iwas only there," the old man retorted placidly."Thank God you can't walk there, or you'd be startin', I know,"Mary cried. "Ocean travel costs money.""I used to have money," her father said humbly."Well, you ain't got any now - so forget it," William advised."Them times is past, like roping bear with Bill Ping. There ain'tno more bear.""Just the same - "But Mary cut him off. Seizing the day's paper from the kitchentable, she flourished it savagely under her aged progenitor'snose."What do those Klondikers say? There it is in cold print. Onlythe young and robust can stand the Klondike. It's worse than thenorth pole. And they've left their dead a-plenty there themselves.Look at their pictures. You're forty years older 'n the oldest ofthem."John Tarwater did look, but his eyes strayed to other photographson the highly sensational front page."And look at the photys of them nuggets they brought down," hesaid. "I know gold. Didn't I gopher twenty thousand outa theMerced? And wouldn't it a-ben a hundred thousand if thatcloudburst hadn't busted my wing-dam? Now if I was only in theKlondike - ""Crazy as a loon," William sneered in open aside to the rest."A nice way to talk to your father," Old Man Tarwater censuredmildly. "My father'd have walloped the tar out of me with asingle-tree if I'd spoke to him that way.""But you ARE crazy, father - " William began."Reckon you're right, son. And that's where my father wasn'tcrazy. He'd a-done it.""The old man's been reading some of them magazine articles aboutmen who succeeded after forty," Annie jibed."And why not, daughter?" he asked. "And why can't a man succeedafter he's seventy? I was only seventy this year. And mebbe Icould succeed if only I could get to the Klondike - ""Which you ain't going to get to," Mary shut him off."Oh, well, then," he sighed, "seein's I ain't, I might just as wellgo to bed."He stood up, tall, gaunt, great-boned and gnarled, a splendid ruinof a man. His ragged hair and whiskers were not grey but snowywhite, as were the tufts of hair that stood out on the backs of hishuge bony fingers. He moved toward the door, opened it, sighed,and paused with a backward look."Just the same," he murmured plaintively, "the bottoms of my feetis itching something terrible."Long before the family stirred next morning, his horses fed andharnessed by lantern light, breakfast cooked and eaten by lampfight, Old Man Tarwater was off and away down Tarwater Valley onthe road to Kelterville. Two things were unusual about this usualtrip which he had made a thousand and forty times since taking themail contract. He did not drive to Kelterville, but turned off onthe main road south to Santa Rosa. Even more remarkable than thiswas the paper-wrapped parcel between his feet. It contained hisone decent black suit, which Mary had been long reluctant to seehim wear any more, not because it was shabby, but because, as heguessed what was at the back of her mind, it was decent enough tobury him in.And at Santa Rosa, in a second-hand clothes shop, he sold the suitoutright for two dollars and a half. From the same obligingshopman he received four dollars for the wedding ring of his long-dead wife. The span of horses and the wagon he disposed of forseventy-five dollars, although twenty-five was all he received downin cash. Chancing to meet Alton Granger on the street, to whomnever before had he mentioned the ten dollars loaned him in '74, hereminded Alton Granger of the little affair, and was promptly paid.Also, of all unbelievable men to be in funds, he so found the towndrunkard for whom he had bought many a drink in the old and palmydays. And from him John Tarwater borrowed a dollar. Finally, hetook the afternoon train to San Francisco.A dozen days later, carrying a half-empty canvas sack of blanketsand old clothes, he landed on the beach of Dyea in the thick of thegreat Klondike Rush. The beach was screaming bedlam. Ten thousandtons of outfit lay heaped and scattered, and twice ten thousand menstruggled with it and clamoured about it. Freight, by Indian-back,over Chilcoot to Lake Linderman, had jumped from sixteen to thirtycents a pound, which latter was a rate of six hundred dollars aton. And the sub-arctic winter gloomed near at hand. All knew it,and all knew that of the twenty thousand of them very few would getacross the passes, leaving the rest to winter and wait for the latespring thaw.Such the beach old John Tarwater stepped upon; and straight acrossthe beach and up the trail toward Chilcoot he headed, cackling hisancient chant, a very Grandfather Argus himself, with no outfitworry in the world, for he did not possess any outfit. That nighthe slept on the flats, five miles above Dyea, at the head of canoenavigation. Here the Dyea River became a rushing mountain torrent,plunging out of a dark canyon from the glaciers that fed it farabove.And here, early next morning, he beheld a little man weighing nomore than a hundred, staggering along a foot-log under all of ahundred pounds of flour strapped on his back. Also, he beheld thelittle man stumble off the log and fall face-downward in a quieteddy where the water was two feet deep and proceed quietly todrown. It was no desire of his to take death so easily, but theflour on his back weighed as much as he and would not let him up."Thank you, old man," he said to Tarwater, when the latter haddragged him up into the air and ashore.While he unlaced his shoes and ran the water out, they had furthertalk. Next, he fished out a ten-dollar gold-piece and offered itto his rescuer.Old Tarwater shook his head and shivered, for the ice-water had wethim to his knees."But I reckon I wouldn't object to settin' down to a friendly mealwith you.""Ain't had breakfast?" the little man, who was past forty and whohad said his name was Anson, queried with a glance frankly curious."Nary bite," John Tarwater answered."Where's your outfit? Ahead?""Nary outfit.""Expect to buy your grub on the Inside?""Nary a dollar to buy it with, friend. Which ain't so important asa warm bite of breakfast right now."In Anson's camp, a quarter of a mile on, Tarwater found a slender,red-whiskered young man of thirty cursing over a fire of wet willowwood. Introduced as Charles, he transferred his scowl and wrath toTarwater, who, genially oblivious, devoted himself to the fire,took advantage of the chill morning breeze to create a draughtwhich the other had left stupidly blocked by stones, and soondeveloped less smoke and more flame. The third member of theparty, Bill Wilson, or Big Bill as they called him, came in with ahundred-and-forty-pound pack; and what Tarwater esteemed to be avery rotten breakfast was dished out by Charles. The mush was halfcooked and mostly burnt, the bacon was charred carbon, and thecoffee was unspeakable.Immediately the meal was wolfed down the three partners took theirempty pack-straps and headed down trail to where the remainder oftheir outfit lay at the last camp a mile away. And old Tarwaterbecame busy. He washed the dishes, foraged dry wood, mended abroken pack-strap, put an edge on the butcher-knife and camp-axe,and repacked the picks and shovels into a more carryable parcel.What had impressed him during the brief breakfast was the sort ofawe in which Anson and Big Bill stood of Charles. Once, during themorning, while Anson took a breathing spell after bringing inanother hundred-pound pack, Tarwater delicately hinted hisimpression."You see, it's this way," Anson said. "We've divided ourleadership. We've got specialities. Now I'm a carpenter. When weget to Lake Linderman, and the trees are chopped and whipsawed intoplanks, I'll boss the building of the boat. Big Bill is a loggerand miner. So he'll boss getting out the logs and all miningoperations. Most of our outfit's ahead. We went broke paying theIndians to pack that much of it to the top of Chilcoot. Our lastpartner is up there with it, moving it along by himself down theother side. His name's Liverpool, and he's a sailor. So, when theboat's built, he's the boss of the outfit to navigate the lakes andrapids to Klondike."And Charles - this Mr. Crayton - what might his speciality be?"Tarwater asked."He's the business man. When it comes to business and organizationhe's boss.""Hum," Tarwater pondered. "Very lucky to get such a bunch ofspecialities into one outfit.""More than luck," Anson agreed. "It was all accident, too. Eachof us started alone. We met on the steamer coming up from SanFrancisco, and formed the party. - Well, I got to be goin'.Charles is liable to get kicking because I ain't packin' my share'just the same, you can't expect a hundred-pound man to pack as muchas a hundred-and-sixty-pounder.""Stick around and cook us something for dinner," Charles, on hisnext load in and noting the effects of the old man's handiness,told Tarwater.And Tarwater cooked a dinner that was a dinner, washed the dishes,had real pork and beans for supper, and bread baked in a frying-panthat was so delectable than the three partners nearly founderedthemselves on it. Supper dishes washed, he cut shavings andkindling for a quick and certain breakfast fire, showed Anson atrick with foot-gear that was invaluable to any hiker, sang his"Like Argus of the Ancient Times," and told them of the greatemigration across the Plains in Forty-nine."My goodness, the first cheerful and hearty-like camp since we hitthe beach," Big Bill remarked as he knocked out his pipe and beganpulling off his shoes for bed."Kind of made things easy, boys, eh?" Tarwater queried genially.All nodded. "Well, then, I got a proposition, boys. You can takeit or leave it, but just listen kindly to it. You're in a hurry toget in before the freeze-up. Half the time is wasted over thecooking by one of you that he might be puttin' in packin' outfit.If I do the cookin' for you, you all'll get on that much faster.Also, the cookin' 'll be better, and that'll make you pack better.And I can pack quite a bit myself in between times, quite a bit,yes, sir, quite a bit."Big Bill and Anson were just beginning to nod their heads inagreement, when Charles stopped them."What do you expect of us in return?" he demanded of the old man."Oh, I leave it up to the boys.""That ain't business," Charles reprimanded sharply. "You made theproposition. Now finish it.""Well, it's this way - ""You expect us to feed you all winter, eh?" Charles interrupted."No, siree, I don't. All I reckon is a passage to Klondike in yourboat would be mighty square of you.""You haven't an ounce of grub, old man. You'll starve to deathwhen you get there.""I've been feedin' some long time pretty successful," Old Tarwaterreplied, a whimsical light in his eyes. "I'm seventy, and ain'tstarved to death never yet.""Will you sign a paper to the effect that you shift for yourself assoon as you get to Dawson?" the business one demanded."Oh, sure," was the response.Again Charles checked his two partners' expressions of satisfactionwith the arrangement."One other thing, old man. We're a party of four, and we all havea vote on questions like this. Young Liverpool is ahead with themain outfit. He's got a say so, and he isn't here to say it.""What kind of a party might he be?" Tarwater inquired."He's a rough-neck sailor, and he's got a quick, bad temper.""Some turbulent," Anson contributed."And the way he can cuss is simply God-awful," Big Bill testified."But he's square," Big Bill added.Anson nodded heartily to this appraisal."Well, boys," Tarwater summed up, "I set out for Californy and Igot there. And I'm going to get to Klondike. Ain't a thing canstop me, ain't a thing. I'm going to get three hundred thousandouta the ground, too. Ain't a thing can stop me, ain't a thing,because I just naturally need the money. I don't mind a bad temperso long's the boy is square. I'll take my chance, an' I'll workalong with you till we catch up with him. Then, if he says no tothe proposition, I reckon I'll lose. But somehow I just can't see'm sayin' no, because that'd mean too close up to freeze-up and toolate for me to find another chance like this. And, as I'm suregoing to get to Klondike, it's just plumb impossible for him to sayno."Old John Tarwater became a striking figure on a trail unusuallyreplete with striking figures. With thousands of men, each back-tripping half a ton of outfit, retracing every mile of the trailtwenty times, all came to know him and to hail him as "FatherChristmas." And, as he worked, ever he raised his chant with hisage-falsetto voice. None of the three men he had joined couldcomplain about his work. True, his joints were stiff - he admittedto a trifle of rheumatism. He moved slowly, and seemed to creakand crackle when he moved; but he kept on moving. Last into theblankets at night, he was first out in the morning, so that theother three had hot coffee before their one before-breakfast pack.And, between breakfast and dinner and between dinner and supper, healways managed to back-trip for several packs himself. Sixtypounds was the limit of his burden, however. He could manageseventy-five, but he could not keep it up. Once, he tried ninety,but collapsed on the trail and was seriously shaky for a couple ofdays afterward.Work! On a trail where hard-working men learned for the first timewhat work was, no man worked harder in proportion to his strengththan Old Tarwater. Driven desperately on by the near-thrust ofwinter, and lured madly on by the dream of gold, they worked totheir last ounce of strength and fell by the way. Others, whenfailure made certain, blew out their brains. Some went mad, andstill others, under the irk of the man-destroying strain, brokepartnerships and dissolved life-time friendships with fellows justas good as themselves and just as strained and mad.Work! Old Tarwater could shame them all, despite his creaking andcrackling and the nasty hacking cough he had developed. Early andlate, on trail or in camp beside the trail he was ever in evidence,ever busy at something, ever responsive to the hail of "FatherChristmas." Weary back-trippers would rest their packs on a log orrock alongside of where he rested his, and would say: "Sing usthat song of yourn, dad, about Forty-Nine." And, when he hadwheezingly complied, they would arise under their loads, remarkthat it was real heartening, and hit the forward trail again."If ever a man worked his passage and earned it," Big Bill confidedto his two partners, "that man's our old Skeezicks.""You bet," Anson confirmed. "He's a valuable addition to theparty, and I, for one, ain't at all disagreeable to the notion ofmaking him a regular partner - ""None of that!" Charles Crayton cut in. "When we get to Dawsonwe're quit of him - that's the agreement. We'd only have to buryhim if we let him stay on with us. Besides, there's going to be afamine, and every ounce of grub'll count. Remember, we're feedinghim out of our own supply all the way in. And if we run short inthe pinch next year, you'll know the reason. Steamboats can't getup grub to Dawson till the middle of June, and that's nine monthsaway.""Well, you put as much money and outfit in as the rest of us," BigBill conceded, "and you've a say according.""And I'm going to have my say," Charles asserted with increasingirritability. "And it's lucky for you with your fool sentimentsthat you've got somebody to think ahead for you, else you'd allstarve to death. I tell you that famine's coming. I've beenstudying the situation. Flour will be two dollars a pound, or ten,and no sellers. You mark my words."Across the rubble-covered flats, up the dark canyon to Sheep Camp,past the over-hanging and ever-threatening glaciers to the Scales,and from the Scales up the steep pitches of ice-scoured rock wherepackers climbed with hands and feet, Old Tarwater camp-cooked andpacked and sang. He blew across Chilcoot Pass, above timberline,in the first swirl of autumn snow. Those below, without firewood,on the bitter rim of Crater Lake, heard from the driving obscurityabove them a weird voice chanting:"Like Argus of the ancient times,We leave this modern Greece,Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum, tum, tum-tum,To shear the Golden Fleece."And out of the snow flurries they saw appear a tall, gaunt form,with whiskers of flying white that blended with the storm, bendingunder a sixty-pound pack of camp dunnage."Father Christmas!" was the hail. And then: "Three rousing cheersfor Father Christmas!"Two miles beyond Crater Lake lay Happy Camp - so named because herewas found the uppermost fringe of the timber line, where men mightwarm themselves by fire again. Scarcely could it be called timber,for it was a dwarf rock-spruce that never raised its loftiestbranches higher than a foot above the moss, and that twisted andgrovelled like a pig-vegetable under the moss. Here, on the trailleading into Happy Camp, in the first sunshine of half a dozendays, Old Tarwater rested his pack against a huge boulder andcaught his breath. Around this boulder the trail passed, laden mentoiling slowly forward and men with empty pack-straps limpingrapidly back for fresh loads. Twice Old Tarwater essayed to riseand go on, and each time, warned by his shakiness, sank back torecover more strength. From around the boulder he heard voices ingreeting, recognized Charles Crayton's voice, and realized that atlast they had met up with Young Liverpool. Quickly, Charlesplunged into business, and Tarwater heard with great distinctnessevery word of Charles' unflattering description of him and theproposition to give him passage to Dawson."A dam fool proposition," was Liverpool's judgment, when Charleshad concluded. "An old granddad of seventy! If he's on his lastlegs, why in hell did you hook up with him? If there's going to bea famine, and it looks like it, we need every ounce of grub forourselves. We only out-fitted for four, not five.""It's all right," Tarwater heard Charles assuring the other."Don't get excited. The old codger agreed to leave the finaldecision to you when we caught up with you. All you've got to dois put your foot down and say no.""You mean it's up to me to turn the old one down, after yourencouraging him and taking advantage of his work clear from Dyeahere?""It's a hard trail, Liverpool, and only the men that are hard willget through," Charles strove to palliate."And I'm to do the dirty work?" Liverpool complained, whileTarwater's heart sank."That's just about the size of it," Charles said. "You've got thedeciding."Then old Tarwater's heart uprose again as the air was rent by acyclone of profanity, from the midst of which crackled sentenceslike: - "Dirty skunks! . . . See you in hell first! . . . Mymind's made up! . . . Hell's fire and corruption! . . . The oldcodger goes down the Yukon with us, stack on that, my hearty! . . .Hard? You don't know what hard is unless I show you! . . . I'llbust the whole outfit to hell and gone if any of you try to side-track him! . . . Just try to side-track him, that is all, andyou'll think the Day of Judgment and all God's blastingness has hitthe camp in one chunk!"Such was the invigoratingness of Liverpool's flow of speech that,quite without consciousness of effort, the old man arose easilyunder his load and strode on toward Happy Camp.From Happy Camp to Long Lake, from Long Lake to Deep Lake, and fromDeep Lake up over the enormous hog-back and down to Linderman, theman-killing race against winter kept on. Men broke their heartsand backs and wept beside the trail in sheer exhaustion. Butwinter never faltered. The fall gales blew, and amid bittersoaking rains and ever-increasing snow flurries, Tarwater and theparty to which he was attached piled the last of their outfit onthe beach.There was no rest. Across the lake, a mile above a roaringtorrent, they located a patch of spruce and built their saw-pit.Here, by hand, with an inadequate whipsaw, they sawed the spruce-trunks into lumber. They worked night and day. Thrice, on thenight-shift, underneath in the saw-pit, Old Tarwater fainted. Byday he cooked as well, and, in the betweenwhiles, helped Anson inthe building of the boat beside the torrent as the green plankscame down.The days grew shorter. The wind shifted into the north and blewunending gales. In the mornings the weary men crawled from theirblankets and in their socks thawed out their frozen shoes by thefire Tarwater always had burning for them. Ever arose theincreasing tale of famine on the Inside. The last grub steamboatsup from Bering Sea were stalled by low water at the beginning ofthe Yukon Flats hundreds of miles north of Dawson. In fact, theylay at the old Hudson Bay Company's post at Fort Yukon inside theArctic Circle. Flour in Dawson was up to two dollars a pound, butno one would sell. Bonanza and Eldorado Kings, with money to burn,were leaving for the Outside because they could buy no grub.Miners' Committees were confiscating all grub and putting thepopulation on strict rations. A man who held out an ounce of grubwas shot like a dog. A score had been so executed already.And, under a strain which had broken so many younger men, OldTarwater began to break. His cough had become terrible, and hadnot his exhausted comrades slept like the dead, he would have keptthem awake nights. Also, he began to take chills, so that hedressed up to go to bed. When he had finished so dressing, not arag of garment remained in his clothes bag. All he possessed wason his back and swathed around his gaunt old form."Gee!" said Big Bill. "If he puts all he's got on now, when itain't lower than twenty above, what'll he do later on when it goesdown to fifty and sixty below?"They lined the rough-made boat down the mountain torrent, nearlylosing it a dozen times, and rowed across the south end of LakeLinderman in the thick of a fall blizzard. Next morning theyplanned to load and start, squarely into the teeth of the north, ontheir perilous traverse of half a thousand miles of lakes andrapids and box canyons. But before he went to bed that night,Young Liverpool was out over the camp. He returned to find hiswhole party asleep. Rousing Tarwater, he talked with him in lowtones."Listen, dad," he said. - "You've got a passage in our boat, and ifever a man earned a passage you have. But you know yourself you'repretty well along in years, and your health right now ain'texciting. If you go on with us you'll croak surer'n hell. - Nowwait till I finish, dad. The price for a passage has jumped tofive hundred dollars. I've been throwing my feet and I've hustleda passenger. He's an official of the Alaska Commercial and justhas to get in. He's bid up to six hundred to go with me in ourboat. Now the passage is yours. You sell it to him, poke the sixhundred into your jeans, and pull South for California while thegoin's good. You can be in Dyea in two days, and in California ina week more. What d'ye say?"Tarwater coughed and shivered for a space, ere he could get freedomof breath for speech."Son," he said, "I just want to tell you one thing. I drove myfour yoke of oxen across the Plains in Forty-nine and lost nary aone. I drove them plumb to Californy, and I freighted with themafterward out of Sutter's Fort to American Bar. Now I'm going toKlondike. Ain't nothing can stop me, ain't nothing at all. I'mgoing to ride that boat, with you at the steering sweep, clean toKlondike, and I'm going to shake three hundred thousand out of themoss-roots. That being so, it's contrary to reason and commonsense for me to sell out my passage. But I thank you kindly, son,I thank you kindly."The young sailor shot out his hand impulsively and gripped the oldman's."By God, dad!" he cried. "You're sure going to go then. You'rethe real stuff." He looked with undisguised contempt across thesleepers to where Charles Crayton snored in his red beard. "Theydon't seem to make your kind any more, dad."Into the north they fought their way, although old-timers, comingout, shook their heads and prophesied they would be frozen in onthe lakes. That the freeze-up might come any day was patent, anddelays of safety were no longer considered. For this reason,Liverpool decided to shoot the rapid stream connecting Linderman toLake Bennett with the fully loaded boat. It was the custom to linethe empty boats down and to portage the cargoes across. Even thenmany empty boats had been wrecked. But the time was past for suchprecaution."Climb out, dad," Liverpool commanded as he prepared to swing fromthe bank and enter the rapids.Old Tarwater shook his white head."I'm sticking to the outfit," he declared. "It's the only way toget through. You see, son, I'm going to Klondike. If I stick bythe boat, then the boat just naturally goes to Klondike, too. If Iget out, then most likely you'll lose the boat.""Well, there's no use in overloading," Charles announced, springingabruptly out on the bank as the boat cast off."Next time you wait for my orders!" Liverpool shouted ashore as thecurrent gripped the boat. "And there won't be any more walkingaround rapids and losing time waiting to pick you up!"What took them ten minutes by river, took Charles half an hour byland, and while they waited for him at the head of Lake Bennettthey passed the time of day with several dilapidated old-timers ontheir way out. The famine news was graver than ever. The North-west Mounted Police, stationed at the foot of Lake Marsh where thegold-rushers entered Canadian territory, were refusing to let a manpast who did not carry with him seven hundred pounds of grub. InDawson City a thousand men, with dog-teams, were waiting thefreeze-up to come out over the ice. The trading companies couldnot fill their grub-contracts, and partners were cutting the cardsto see which should go and which should stay and work the claims."That settles it," Charles announced, when he learned of the actionof the mounted police on the boundary. "Old Man, you might as wellstart back now.""Climb aboard!" Liverpool commanded. "We're going to Klondike,and old dad is going along."A shift of gale to the south gave them a fair wind down LakeBennett, before which they ran under a huge sail made by Liverpool.The heavy weight of outfit gave such ballast that he cracked on asa daring sailor should when moments counted. A shift of fourpoints into the south-west, coming just at the right time as theyentered upon Caribou Crossing, drove them down that connecting linkto lakes Tagish and Marsh. In stormy sunset and twilight - theymade the dangerous crossing of Great Windy Arm, wherein they beheldtwo other boat-loads of gold-rushers capsize and drown.Charles was for beaching for the night, but Liverpool held on,steering down Tagish by the sound of the surf on the shoals and bythe occasional shore-fires that advertised wrecked or timidargonauts. At four in the morning, he aroused Charles. OldTarwater, shiveringly awake, heard Liverpool order Crayton aftbeside him at the steering-sweep, and also heard the one-sidedconversation."Just listen, friend Charles, and keep your own mouth shut,"Liverpool began. "I want you to get one thing into your head andkeep it there: OLD DAD'S GOING BY THE POLICE. UNDERSTAND? HE'SGOING BY. When they examine our outfit, old dad's got a fifthshare in it, savvee? That'll put us all 'way under what we oughtto have, but we can bluff it through. Now get this, and get ithard: THERE AIN'T GOING TO BE ANY FALL-DOWN ON THIS BLUFF - ""If you think I'd give away on the old codger - " Charles beganindignantly."You thought that," Liverpool checked him, "because I nevermentioned any such thing. Now - get me and get me hard: I don'tcare what you've been thinking. It's what you're going to think.We'll make the police post some time this afternoon, and we've gotto get ready to pull the bluff without a hitch, and a word to thewise is plenty.""If you think I've got it in my mind - " Charles began again."Look here," Liverpool shut him off. "I don't know what's in yourmind. I don't want to know. I want you to know what's in my mind.If there's any slip-up, if old dad gets turned back by the police,I'm going to pick out the first quiet bit of landscape and take youashore on it. And then I'm going to beat you up to the Queen'staste. Get me, and get me hard. It ain't going to be any half-waybeating, but a real, two-legged, two-fisted, he-man beating. Idon't expect I'll kill you, but I'll come damn near to half-killingyou.""But what can I do?" Charles almost whimpered."Just one thing," was Liverpool's final word. "You just pray. Youpray so hard that old dad gets by the police that he does get by.That's all. Go back to your blankets."Before they gained Lake Le Barge, the land was sheeted with snowthat would not melt for half a year. Nor could they lay their boatat will against the bank, for the rim-ice was already forming.Inside the mouth of the river, just ere it entered Lake Le Barge,they found a hundred storm-bound boats of the argonauts. Out ofthe north, across the full sweep of the great lake, blew anunending snow gale. Three mornings they put out and fought it andthe cresting seas it drove that turned to ice as they fell in-board. While the others broke their hearts at the oars, OldTarwater managed to keep up just sufficient circulation to surviveby chopping ice and throwing it overboard.Each day for three days, beaten to helplessness, they turned tailon the battle and ran back into the sheltering river. By thefourth day, the hundred boats had increased to three hundred, andthe two thousand argonauts on board knew that the great galeheralded the freeze-up of Le Barge. Beyond, the rapid rivers wouldcontinue to run for days, but unless they got beyond, andimmediately, they were doomed to be frozen in for six months tocome."This day we go through," Liverpool announced. "We turn back fornothing. And those of us that dies at the oars will live again andgo on pulling."And they went through, winning half the length of the lake bynightfall and pulling on through all the night hours as the windwent down, falling asleep at the oars and being rapped awake byLiverpool, toiling on through an age-long nightmare while the starscame out and the surface of the lake turned to the unruffledness ofa sheet of paper and froze skin-ice that tinkled like broken glassas their oar-blades shattered it.As day broke clear and cold, they entered the river, with behindthem a sea of ice. Liverpool examined his aged passenger and foundhim helpless and almost gone. When he rounded the boat to againstthe rim-ice to build a fire and warm up Tarwater inside and out,Charles protested against such loss of time."This ain't business, so don't you come horning in," Liverpoolinformed him. "I'm running the boat trip. So you just climb outand chop firewood, and plenty of it. I'll take care of dad. You,Anson, make a fire on the bank. And you, Bill, set up the Yukonstove in the boat. Old dad ain't as young as the rest of us, andfor the rest of this voyage he's going to have a fire on board tosit by."All of which came to pass; and the boat, in the grip of thecurrent, like a river steamer with smoke rising from the two jointsof stove-pipe, grounded on shoals, hung up on split currents, andcharged rapids and canyons, as it drove deeper into the Northlandwinter. The Big and Little Salmon rivers were throwing mush-iceinto the main river as they passed, and, below the riffles, anchor-ice arose from the river bottom and coated the surface with crystalscum. Night and day the rim-ice grew, till, in quiet places, itextended out a hundred yards from shore. And Old Tarwater, withall his clothes on, sat by the stove and kept the fire going.Night and day, not daring to stop for fear of the imminent freeze-up, they dared to run, an increasing mushiness of ice running withthem."What ho, old hearty?" Liverpool would call out at times."Cheer O," Old Tarwater had learned to respond."What can I ever do for you, son, in payment?" Tarwater, stokingthe fire, would sometimes ask Liverpool, beating now one releasedhand and now the other as he fought for circulation where hesteered in the freezing stern-sheets."Just break out that regular song of yours, old Forty-Niner," wasthe invariable reply.And Tarwater would lift his voice in the cackling chant, as helifted it at the end, when the boat swung in through driving cake-ice and moored to the Dawson City bank, and all waterfront Dawsonpricked its ears to hear the triumphant paean:Like Argus of the ancient times,We leave this modern Greece,Tum-tum, tum-tum, tum, tum, tum-tum,To shear the Golden Fleece,Charles did it, but he did it so discreetly that none of his party,least of all the sailor, ever learned of it. He saw two great openbarges being filled up with men, and, on inquiry, learned thatthese were grubless ones being rounded up and sent down the Yukonby the Committee of Safety. The barges were to be towed by thelast little steamboat in Dawson, and the hope was that Fort Yukon,where lay the stranded steamboats, would be gained before the riverfroze. At any rate, no matter what happened to them, Dawson wouldbe relieved of their grub-consuming presence. So to the Committeeof Safety Charles went, privily to drop a flea in its earconcerning Tarwater's grubless, moneyless, and aged condition.Tarwater was one of the last gathered in, and when Young Liverpoolreturned to the boat, from the bank he saw the barges in a run ofcake-ice, disappearing around the bend below Moose-hide Mountain.Running in cake-ice all the way, and several times escaping jams inthe Yukon Flats, the barges made their hundreds of miles ofprogress farther into the north and froze up cheek by jowl with thegrub-fleet. Here, inside the Arctic Circle, Old Tarwater settleddown to pass the long winter. Several hours' work a day, choppingfirewood for the steamboat companies, sufficed to keep him in food.For the rest of the time there was nothing to do but hibernate inhis log cabin.Warmth, rest, and plenty to eat, cured his hacking cough and puthim in as good physical condition as was possible for his advancedyears. But, even before Christmas, the lack of fresh vegetablescaused scurvy to break out, and disappointed adventurer afterdisappointed adventurer took to his bunk in abject surrender tothis culminating misfortune. Not so Tarwater. Even before thefirst symptoms appeared on him, he was putting into practice hisone prescription, namely, exercise. From the junk of the oldtrading post he resurrected a number of rusty traps, and from oneof the steamboat captains he borrowed a rifle.Thus equipped, he ceased from wood-chopping, and began to make morethan a mere living. Nor was he downhearted when the scurvy brokeout on his own body. Ever he ran his trap-lines and sang hisancient chant. Nor could the pessimist shake his surety of thethree hundred thousand of Alaskan gold he as going to shake out ofthe moss-roots."But this ain't gold-country," they told him."Gold is where you find it, son, as I should know who was miningbefore you was born, 'way back in Forty-Nine," was his reply."What was Bonanza Creek but a moose-pasture? No miner'd look atit; yet they washed five-hundred-dollar pans and took out fiftymillion dollars. Eldorado was just as bad. For all you know,right under this here cabin, or right over the next hill, ismillions just waiting for a lucky one like me to come and shake itout."At the end of January came his disaster. Some powerful animal thathe decided was a bob-cat, managing to get caught in one of hissmaller traps, dragged it away. A heavy snow-fall put a stopmidway to his pursuit, losing the trail for him and losing himself.There were but several hours of daylight each day between thetwenty hours of intervening darkness, and his efforts in the greylight and continually falling snow succeeded only in losing himmore thoroughly. Fortunately, when winter snow falls in theNorthland the thermometer invariably rises; so, instead of thecustomary forty and fifty and even sixty degrees below zero, thetemperature remained fifteen below. Also, he was warmly clad andhad a full matchbox. Further to mitigate his predicament, on thefifth day he killed a wounded moose that weighed over half a ton.Making his camp beside it on a spruce-bottom, he was prepared tolast out the winter, unless a searching party found him or hisscurvy grew worse.But at the end of two weeks there had been no sign of search, whilehis scurvy had undeniably grown worse. Against his fire, bankedfrom outer cold by a shelter-wall of spruce-boughs, he crouchedlong hours in sleep and long hours in waking. But the waking hoursgrew less, becoming semi-waking or half-dreaming hours as theprocess of hibernation worked their way with him. Slowly thesparkle point of consciousness and identity that was John Tarwatersank, deeper and deeper, into the profounds of his being that hadbeen compounded ere man was man, and while he was becoming man,when he, first of all animals, regarded himself with anintrospective eye and laid the beginnings of morality infoundations of nightmare peopled by the monsters of his own ethic-thwarted desires.Like a man in fever, waking to intervals of consciousness, so OldTarwater awoke, cooked his moose-meat, and fed the fire; but moreand more time he spent in his torpor, unaware of what was day-dreamand what was sleep-dream in the content of his unconsciousness.And here, in the unforgetable crypts of man's unwritten history,unthinkable and unrealizable, like passages of nightmare orimpossible adventures of lunacy, he encountered the monsterscreated of man's first morality that ever since have vexed him intothe spinning of fantasies to elude them or do battle with them.In short, weighted by his seventy years, in the vast and silentloneliness of the North, Old Tarwater, as in the delirium of drugor anaesthetic, recovered within himself, the infantile mind of thechild-man of the early world. It was in the dusk of Death'sfluttery wings that Tarwater thus crouched, and, like his remoteforebear, the child-man, went to myth-making, and sun-heroizing,himself hero-maker and the hero in quest of the immemorabletreasure difficult of attainment.Either must he attain the treasure - for so ran the inexorablelogic of the shadow-land of the unconscious - or else sink into theall-devouring sea, the blackness eater of the light that swallowedto extinction the sun each night . . . the sun that arose ever inrebirth next morning in the east, and that had become to man man'sfirst symbol of immortality through rebirth. All this, in thedeeps of his unconsciousness (the shadowy western land ofdescending light), was the near dusk of Death down into which heslowly ebbed.But how to escape this monster of the dark that from within himslowly swallowed him? Too deep-sunk was he to dream of escape orfeel the prod of desire to escape. For him reality had ceased.Nor from within the darkened chamber of himself could realityrecrudesce. His years were too heavy upon him, the debility ofdisease and the lethargy and torpor of the silence and the coldwere too profound. Only from without could reality impact upon himand reawake within him an awareness of reality. Otherwise he wouldooze down through the shadow-realm of the unconscious into the all-darkness of extinction.But it came, the smash of reality from without, crashing upon hisear drums in a loud, explosive snort. For twenty days, in atemperature that had never risen above fifty below, no breath ofwind had blown movement, no slightest sound had broken the silence.Like the smoker on the opium couch refocusing his eyes from thespacious walls of dream to the narrow confines of the mean littleroom, so Old Tarwater stared vague-eyed before him across his dyingfire, at a huge moose that stared at him in startlement, dragging awounded leg, manifesting all signs of extreme exhaustion; it, too,had been straying blindly in the shadow-land, and had wakened toreality only just ere it stepped into Tarwater's fire.He feebly slipped the large fur mitten lined with thickness of woolfrom his right hand. Upon trial he found the trigger finger toonumb for movement. Carefully, slowly, through long minutes, heworked the bare hand inside his blankets, up under his fur PARKA,through the chest openings of his shirts, and into the slightlywarm hollow of his left arm-pit. Long minutes passed ere thefinger could move, when, with equal slowness of caution, hegathered his rifle to his shoulder and drew bead upon the greatanimal across the fire.At the shot, of the two shadow-wanderers, the one reeled downwardto the dark and the other reeled upward to the light, swayingdrunkenly on his scurvy-ravaged legs, shivering with nervousnessand cold, rubbing swimming eyes with shaking fingers, and staringat the real world all about him that had returned to him with suchsickening suddenness. He shook himself together, and realized thatfor long, how long he did not know, he had bedded in the arms ofDeath. He spat, with definite intention, heard the spittle cracklein the frost, and judged it must be below and far below sixtybelow. In truth, that day at Fort Yukon, the spirit thermometerregistered seventy-five degrees below zero, which, since freezing-point is thirty-two above, was equivalent to one hundred and sevendegrees of frost.Slowly Tarwater's brain reasoned to action. Here, in the vastalone, dwelt Death. Here had come two wounded moose. With theclearing of the sky after the great cold came on, he had locatedhis bearings, and he knew that both wounded moose had trailed tohim from the east. Therefore, in the east, were men - whites orIndians he could not tell, but at any rate men who might stand byhim in his need and help moor him to reality above the sea of dark.He moved slowly, but he moved in reality, girding himself withrifle, ammunition, matches, and a pack of twenty pounds of moose-meat. Then, an Argus rejuvenated, albeit lame of both legs andtottery, he turned his back on the perilous west and limped intothe sun-arising, re-birthing east. . . .Days later - how many days later he was never to know - dreamingdreams and seeing visions, cackling his old gold-chant of Forty-Nine, like one drowning and swimming feebly to keep hisconsciousness above the engulfing dark, he came out upon the snow-slope to a canyon and saw below smoke rising and men who ceasedfrom work to gaze at him. He tottered down the hill to them, stillsinging; and when he ceased from lack of breath they called himvariously: Santa Claus, Old Christmas, Whiskers, the Last of theMohicans, and Father Christmas. And when he stood among them hestood very still, without speech, while great tears welled out ofhis eyes. He cried silently, a long time, till, as if suddenlybethinking himself, he sat down in the snow with much creaking andcrackling of his joints, and from this low vantage point toppledsidewise and fainted calmly and easily away.In less than a week Old Tarwater was up and limping about thehousework of the cabin, cooking and dish-washing for the five menof the creek. Genuine sourdoughs (pioneers) they were, tough andhard-bitten, who had been buried so deeply inside the Circle thatthey did not know there was a Klondike Strike. The news he broughtthem was their first word of it. They lived on an almost straight-meat diet of moose, caribou, and smoked salmon, eked out with wildberries and somewhat succulent wild roots they had stocked up within the summer. They had forgotten the taste of coffee, made firewith a burning glass, carried live fire-sticks with them whereverthey travelled, and in their pipes smoked dry leaves that bit thetongue and were pungent to the nostrils.Three years before, they had prospected from the head-reaches ofthe Koyokuk northward and clear across to the mouth of theMackenzie on the Arctic Ocean. Here, on the whaleships, they hadbeheld their last white men and equipped themselves with the lastwhite man's grub, consisting principally of salt and smokingtobacco. Striking south and west on the long traverse to thejunction of the Yukon and Porcupine at Fort Yukon, they had foundgold on this creek and remained over to work the ground.They hailed the advent of Tarwater with joy, never tired oflistening to his tales of Forty-Nine, and rechristened him OldHero. Also, with tea made from spruce needles, with concoctionsbrewed from the inner willow bark, and with sour and bitter rootsand bulbs from the ground, they dosed his scurvy out of him, sothat he ceased limping and began to lay on flesh over his bonyframework. Further, they saw no reason at all why he should notgather a rich treasure of gold from the ground."Don't know about all of three hundred thousand," they told him onemorning, at breakfast, ere they departed to their work, "but how'da hundred thousand do, Old Hero? That's what we figure a claim isworth, the ground being badly spotted, and we've already stakedyour location notices.""Well, boys," Old Tarwater answered, "and thanking you kindly, allI can say is that a hundred thousand will do nicely, and verynicely, for a starter. Of course, I ain't goin' to stop till I getthe full three hundred thousand. That's what I come into thecountry for."They laughed and applauded his ambition and reckoned they'd have tohunt a richer creek for him. And Old Hero reckoned that as thespring came on and he grew spryer, he'd have to get out and do alittle snooping around himself."For all anybody knows," he said, pointing to a hillside across thecreek bottom, "the moss under the snow there may be plumb rooted innugget gold."He said no more, but as the sun rose higher and the days grewlonger and warmer, he gazed often across the creek at the definitebench-formation half way up the hill. And, one day, when the thawwas in full swing, he crossed the stream and climbed to the bench.Exposed patches of ground had already thawed an inch deep. On onesuch patch he stopped, gathered a bunch of moss in his big gnarledhands, and ripped it out by the roots. The sun smouldered on dullyglistening yellow. He shook the handful of moss, and coarsenuggets, like gravel, fell to the ground. It was the Golden Fleeceready for the shearing.Not entirely unremembered in Alaskan annals is the summer stampedeof 1898 from Fort Yukon to the bench diggings of Tarwater Hill.And when Tarwater sold his holdings to the Bowdie interests for asheer half-million and faced for California, he rode a mule over anew-cut trail, with convenient road houses along the way, clear tothe steamboat landing at Fort Yukon.At the first meal on the ocean-going steamship out of St. Michaels,a waiter, greyish-haired, pain-ravaged of face, scurvy-twisted ofbody, served him. Old Tarwater was compelled to look him overtwice in order to make certain he was Charles Crayton."Got it bad, eh, son?" Tarwater queried."Just my luck," the other complained, after recognition andgreeting. "Only one of the party that the scurvy attacked. I'vebeen through hell. The other three are all at work and healthy,getting grub-stake to prospect up White River this winter. Anson'searning twenty-five a day at carpentering, Liverpool getting twentylogging for the saw-mill, and Big Bill's getting forty a day aschief sawyer. I tried my best, and if it hadn't been for scurvy .. .""Sure, son, you done your best, which ain't much, you beingnaturally irritable and hard from too much business. Now I'll tellyou what. You ain't fit to work crippled up this way. I'll payyour passage with the captain in kind remembrance of the voyage yougave me, and you can lay up and take it easy the rest of the trip.And what are your circumstances when you land at San Francisco?"Charles Crayton shrugged his shoulders."Tell you what," Tarwater continued. "There's work on the ranchfor you till you can start business again.""I could manage your business for you - " Charles began eagerly."No, siree," Tarwater declared emphatically. "But there's alwayspost-holes to dig, and cordwood to chop, and the climate's fine . .. "Tarwater arrived home a true prodigal grandfather for whom thefatted calf was killed and ready. But first, ere he sat down attable, he must stroll out and around. And sons and daughters ofhis flesh and of the law needs must go with him fulsomely eatingout of the gnarled old hand that had half a million to disburse.He led the way, and no opinion he slyly uttered was preposterous orimpossible enough to draw dissent from his following. Pausing bythe ruined water wheel which he had built from the standing timber,his face beamed as he gazed across the stretches of TarwaterValley, and on and up the far heights to the summit of TarwaterMountain - now all his again.A thought came to him that made him avert his face and blow hisnose in order to hide the twinkle in his eyes. Still attended bythe entire family, he strolled on to the dilapidated barn. Hepicked up an age-weathered single-tree from the ground."William," he said. "Remember that little conversation we had justbefore I started to Klondike? Sure, William, you remember. Youtold me I was crazy. And I said my father'd have walloped the tarout of me with a single-tree if I'd spoke to him that way.""Aw, but that was only foolin'," William temporized.William was a grizzled man of forty-five, and his wife and grownsons stood in the group, curiously watching Grandfather Tarwatertake off his coat and hand it to Mary to hold."William - come here," he commanded imperatively.No matter how reluctantly, William came."Just a taste, William, son, of what my father give me oftenenough," Old Tarwater crooned, as he laid on his son's back andshoulders with the single-tree. "Observe, I ain't hitting you onthe head. My father had a gosh-wollickin' temper and never drewthe line at heads when he went after tar. - Don't jerk your elbowsback that way! You're likely to get a crack on one by accident.And just tell me one thing, William, son: is there nary notion inyour head that I'm crazy?""No!" William yelped out in pain, as he danced about. "You ain'tcrazy, father of course you ain't crazy!""You said it," Old Tarwater remarked sententiously, tossing thesingle-tree aside and starting to struggle into his coat."Now let's all go in and eat."Glen Ellen, California,SEPTEMBER 14, 1916.
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