The old man rouses and cocks up a bleary, benevolent eye.

"Shooting', did ye say? Pshaw! Them fellers don't know how to shoot. Old Dad'll show 'em how to shoot."

He comes to the door, and lugging out a big rusty revolver, blazes away at one of the combatants. The man, with a howl of surprise and pain, limps away. The old man turns to the other fellow. Bang! We see splinters fly, and a man running for dear life.

"Told you I'd show 'em how to shoot," remarks old Dad to us. "Thanks, I'll have a gin-fizz for mine."

The Prodigal developed a wonderful executive ability about this time; he was a marvel of activity, seemed to think of everything and to glory in his responsibility as a leader. Always cheerful, always thoughtful, he was the brains of our party. He never abated in his efforts a moment, and was an example and a stimulus to us all. I say "all," for we had added the "Jam-wagon"[A] to our number. It was the Prodigal who discovered him. He was a tall, dissolute Englishman, gaunt, ragged and verminous, but with the earmarks of a gentleman. He seemed indifferent to everything but whiskey and only anxious to hide himself from his friends. I discovered he had once been an officer in a Hussar regiment, but he was obviously reluctant to speak of his past. A lost soul in every sense of the word, the North was to him a refuge and an unrestricted stamping-ground. So, partly in pity, partly in hope of winning back his manhood, we allowed him to join the party.

Pack animals were in vast demand, for it was considered a pound of grub was the equal of a pound of gold. Old horses, fit but for the knacker's yard, and burdened till they could barely stand, were being goaded forward through the mud. Any kind of a dog was a prize, quickly stolen if left unwatched. Sheep being taken in for the butcher were driven forward with packs on their backs. Even was there an effort to make pack animals out of pigs, but they grunted, squealed and rolled their precious burdens in the mire. What crazy excitement, what urging and shouting, what desperate device to make a start!

We were lucky in buying a yoke of oxen from a packer for four hundred dollars. On the first day we hauled half of our outfit to Canyon City, and on the second we transferred the balance. This was our plan all through, though in bad places we had to make many relays. It was simple enough, yet, oh, the travail of it! Here is an extract from my diary of these days.

"Turn out at 4 A.M. Breakfasted on flapjacks and coffee. Find one of our oxen dying. Dies at seven o'clock. Harness remaining ox and start to remove goods up Canyon. Find trail in awful condition, yet thousands are struggling to get through. Horses often fall in pools of water ten to fifteen feet deep, trying to haul loads over the boulders that render trail almost impassable. Drive with sleigh over places that at other times one would be afraid to walk over without any load. Two feet of snow fell during the night, but it is now raining. Rains and snows alternately. At night bitterly cold.

Hauled five loads up Canyon to-day. Finished last trip near midnight and turned in, cold, wet and played out."

The above is a fairly representative day and of such days we were to have many ere we reached the water. Slowly, with infinite effort, with stress and strain to every step of the way, we moved our bulky outfit forward from camp to camp. All days were hard, all exasperating, all crammed with discomfort; yet, bit by bit, we forged ahead. The army before us and the army behind never faltered. Like a stream of black ants they were, between mountains that reared up swiftly to storm-smitten palisades of ice. In the darkness of night the army rested uneasily, yet at the first streak of dawn it was in motion. It was an endless procession, in which every man was for himself. I can see them now, bent under their burdens, straining at their hand-sleighs, flogging their horses and oxen, their faces crimped and puckered with fatigue, the air acrid with their curses and heavy with their moans. Now a horse stumbles and slips into one of the sump-holes by the trail side.

No one can pass, the army is arrested. Frenzied fingers unhitch the poor frozen brute and drag it from the water. Men, frantic with rage, beat savagely at their beasts of burden to make up the precious time lost.

There is no mercy, no humanity, no fellowship. All is blasphemy, fury and ruthless determination. It is the spirit of the gold-trail.

At the canyon head was a large camp, and there, very much in evidence, the gambling fraternity. Dozens of them with their little green tables were doing a roaring business. On one side of the canyon they had established a camp. It was evening and we three, the Prodigal, Salvation Jim and myself, strolled over to where a three-shell man was holding forth.

"Hullo!" says the Prodigal. "It's our old friend Jake. Jake skinned me out of a hundred on the boat. Wonder how he's making out?"

It was Mosher, with his bald head, his crafty little eyes, his flat nose, his black beard. I saw Jim's face harden. He had always shown a bitter hatred of this man, and often I wondered why.

We stood a little way off. The crowd thinned and filtered away until but one remained, one of the tall young men from Minnesota. We heard Mosher's rich voice.

"Say, pard, bet ten dollars you can't place the bean. See! I put the little joker under here, right before your eyes. Now, where is it?"

"Here," said the man, touching one of the shells.

"Right you are, my hearty! Well, here's your ten."

The man from Minnesota took the money and was going away.

"Hold on," said Mosher; "how do I know you had the money to cover that bet?"

The man laughed and took from his pocket a wad of bills an inch thick.

"Guess that's enough, ain't it?"

Quick as lightning Mosher had snatched the bills from him, and the man from Minnesota found himself gazing into the barrel of a six-shooter.

"This here's my money," said Mosher; "now you _git_."

A moment only--a shot rang out. I saw the gun fall from Mosher's hand, and the roll of bills drop to the ground. Quickly the man from Minnesota recovered them and rushed off to tell his party. Then the men from Minnesota got their Winchesters, and the shooting began.

From their camp the gamblers took refuge behind the boulders that strewed the sides of the canyon, and blazed away at their opponents. A regular battle followed, which lasted till the fall of night. As far as I heard, only one casualty resulted. A Swede, about half a mile down the trail, received a spent bullet in the cheek. He complained to the Deputy Marshal. That worthy, sitting on his horse, looked at him a moment. Then he spat comprehensively.

"Can't do anything, Ole. But I'll tell you what. Next time there's bullets flying round this section of the country, don't go sticking your darned whiskers in the way. See!"

That night I said to Jim:

"How did you do it?"

He laughed and showed me a hole in his coat pocket which a bullet had burned.

"You see, having been in the game myself, I knew what was comin' and acted accordin'."

"Good job you didn't hit him worse."

"Wait a while, sonny, wait a while. There's something mighty familiar about Jake Mosher. He's mighty like a certain Sam Mosely I'm interested in. I've just written a letter outside to see, an' if it's him--well, I'm saved; I'm a good Christian, but--God help him!"

"And who was Sam Mosely, Jim?"

"Sam Mosely? Sam Mosely was the skunk that busted up my home an' stole my wife, blast him!"

[A: A Jam-wagon was the general name given to an Englishman on the trail.]

CHAPTER VI

Day after day, each man of us poured out on the trail the last heel-tap of his strength, and the coming of night found us utterly played out.

Salvation Jim was full of device and resource, the Prodigal, a dynamo of eager energy; but it was the Jam-wagon who proved his mettle in a magnificent and relentless way. Whether it was from a sense of gratitude, or to offset the cravings that assailed him, I know not, but he crammed the days with merciless exertion.

A curious man was the Jam-wagon, Brian Wanless his name, a world tramp, a derelict of the Seven Seas. His story, if ever written, would be a human document of moving and poignant interest. He must once have been a magnificent fellow, and even now, with strength and will-power impaired, he was a man among men, full of quick courage and of a haughty temper.

It was ever a word and a blow with him, and a fight to the desperate finish. He was insular, imperious and aggressive, and he was always looking for trouble.

Though taciturn and morose with men, the Jam-wagon showed a tireless affection for animals. From the first he took charge of our ox; but it was for horses his fondness was most expressed, so that on the trail, where there was so much cruelty, he was constantly on the verge of combat.

"That's a great man," said the Prodigal to me, "a fighter from heel to head. There's one he can't fight, though, and that's old man Booze."

But on the trail every man was a fighter. It was fight or fall, for the trail would brook no weaklings. Good or bad, a man must be a man in the primal sense, dominant, savage and enduring. The trail was implacable.

From the start it cried for strong men; it weeded out its weaklings. I had seen these fellows on the ship feed their vanity with foolish fancies; kindled to ardours of hope, I had seen debauch regnant among them; now I was to see them crushed, cowed, overwhelmed, realising each, according to his kind, the menace and antagonism of the way. I was to see the weak falter and fall by the trail side; I was to see the fainthearted quail and turn back; but I was to see the strong, the brave, grow grim, grow elemental in their desperate strength, and tightening up their belts, go forward unflinchingly to the bitter end.

Thus it was the trail chose her own. Thus it was, from passion, despair and defeat, the spirit of the trail was born.

The spirit of the Gold Trail, how shall I describe it? It was based on that primal instinct of self-preservation that underlies our thin veneer of humanity. It was rebellion, anarchy; it was ruthless, aggressive, primitive; it was the man of the stone age in modern garb waging his fierce, incessant warfare with the forces of nature. Spurred on by the fever of the gold-lust, goaded by the fear of losing in the race; maddened by the difficulties and obstacles of the way, men became demons of cruelty and aggression, ruthlessly thrusting aside and trampling down the weaker ones who thwarted their progress. Of pity, humanity, love, there was none, only the gold-lust, triumphant and repellent. It was the survival of the fittest, the most tenacious, the most brutal. Yet there was something grandly terrible about it all. It was a barbaric invasion, an army, each man fighting for his own hand under the banner of gold. It was conquest. Every day, as I watched that human torrent, I realised how vast, how irresistible it was. It was Epic, it was Historical.

Many pitiful things I saw--men with haggard, hopeless faces, throwing their outfits into the snow and turning back broken-hearted; men staggering blindly on, exhausted to despair, then dropping wearily by the trail side in the bitter cold and sinister gloom; weaklings, every one. Many terrible things I saw--men cursing each other, cursing the trail, cursing their God, and in the echo of their curses, grinding their teeth and stumbling on. Then they would vent their fury and spite on the poor dumb animals. Oh, what cruelty there was! The life of the brute was as nothing; it was the tribute of the trail; it was a sacrifice on the altar of human greed.

Long before dawn the trail awakened and the air was full of breakfast smells, chiefly that of burnt porridge: for pots were seldom scraped, neither were dishes washed. Soon the long-drawn-out army was on the march, jaded animals straining at their loads, their drivers reviling and beating them. All the men were bearded, and many of them wore parkas. As many of the women had discarded petticoats, it was often difficult at a short distance to tell the sex of a person. There were tents built on sleighs, with faces of women and children peering out from behind. It was a wonderful procession, all classes, all nationalities, greybeards and striplings, parsons and prostitutes, rich and poor, filing past in their thousands, drawn desperately on by the golden magnet.

One day we were making a trip with a load of our stuff when, just ahead, there was a check in the march, so I and the Jam-wagon went forward to investigate. It was our old friend Bullhammer in difficulties. He had rather a fine horse, and in passing a sump-hole, his sled had skidded and slipped downhill into the water. Now he was belabouring the animal unmercifully, acting like a crazy man, shouting in a frenzy of rage.

The horse was making the most gallant efforts I ever saw, but, with every fresh attempt, its strength weakened. Time and again it came down on its knees, which were raw and bleeding. It was shining with sweat so that there was not a dry hair on its body, and if ever a dumb brute's eyes spoke of agony and fear, that horse's did. But Bullhammer grew every moment more infuriated, wrenching its mouth and beating it over the head with a club. It was a sickening sight and, used as I was to the inhumanity of the trail, I would have interfered had not the Jam-wagon jumped in. He was deadly pale and his eyes burned.