The Way of the Strong.

by Ridgwell Cullum.

PART I

CHAPTER I

ON SIXTY-MILE CREEK

It was a grim, gray day; a day which plainly told of the pa.s.sing of late fall across the border line of the fierce northern winter. Six inches of snow had fallen during the night, and the leaden overcast of the sky threatened many more inches yet to fall.

Five great sled dogs crouched in their harness, with quarters tucked under them and forelegs outspread. They were waiting the long familiar command to "mush"; an order they had not heard since the previous winter.

Their brief summer leisure had pa.s.sed, lost beneath the white pall which told of weary toil awaiting them in the immediate future. Unlike the humans with whom they were a.s.sociated, however, the coming winter held no terrors for them. It was the normal condition under which the sled dog performed its life's work.

The load on the sled was nearing completion. The tough-looking, keen-eyed man bestowed his chattels with a care and skill which told of long experience, and a profound knowledge of the country through which he had to travel. Silently he pa.s.sed back and forth between the sled and the weather-battered shelter which had been his home for more than three years. His moccasined feet gave out no sound; his voice was silent under the purpose which occupied all his thought. He was leaving the desert heart of the Yukon to face the perils of the winter trail.

He was about to embark for the storm-riven sh.o.r.es of the Alaskan coast.

A young woman stood silently by, watching his labors with the voiceless interest of those who live the drear life of silent places. Her interest was consuming, as her handsome brown eyes told. Her strong, young heart was full of a profound envy; and a sort of despairing longing came near to filling her eyes with unaccustomed tears. The terrors of this man's journey would have been small enough for her if only she could get out of this wilderness of desolation to which she had willingly condemned herself.

Her heart ached, and her despair grew as she watched. But she knew only too well that her limitless prison was of her own seeking, as was her sharing of the sordid lot of the man she had elected to follow. More than that she knew that the sentence she had pa.s.sed upon herself carried with it the terror of coming motherhood in the midst of this desolate world, far from the reach of help, far from the companionship of her s.e.x.

At last the man paused, surveying his work. He tested the raw-hide bonds which held his load; he glanced at the s.p.a.ce still left clear in the sled, with measuring eye, and stood raking at his beard with powerful, unclean fingers. It was this pause that drove the woman's crowding feelings to sudden speech.

"Heavens, how I wish I were going with you, Tug!" she cried.

The man lifted his sharp eyes questioningly.

"Do you, Audie?" he said, in a metallic voice, in which there was no softening. Then he shook his head. "It'll be a h.e.l.l of a trip. Guess I'd change places with you readily enough."

"You would?" the girl laughed mirthlessly. "You're going down with a big 'wad' of gold to--to a land of--plenty. Oh, G.o.d, how I hate this wilderness!"

The man called Tug surveyed her for a moment with eyes long since hardened by the merciless struggle of the cruel Yukon world. Then he shook his head.

"It sounds good when you put it that way. But there's miles to go before I reach the 'land of plenty.'" He laughed shortly. "I've got to face the winter trail, and we all know what that means. And more than that. I'm packing a sick man with me, and I've got to keep him _warm_ the whole way. It's a guess, and a poor one, if he don't die by the way. That's why I'm going. Say, he's my partner, and I've got to get him through." He laughed again. "Oh, it's not sentiment. He's useful to me, and so I want to save him if I can."

Tug's manner was something like the coldly rugged view of the distant peaks which marked the horizon on every hand. The girl watching his st.u.r.dy figure, with its powerful head and hard, set face, understood something of this. She understood that he was something in the nature of a product of that harsh, snow-bound world. He was strong, and she knew it; and strength appealed to her. It was the only thing that was worth while in such a country.

"You can't save Charlie," she said decidedly. "They tell you you can't get consumption in this country--but, well, I'd say you can get everything that makes life h.e.l.l. He's got it; and a chill on the way will add pneumonia to his trouble, and then----" She made a significant gesture.

"Maybe you're right," Tug admitted. Then he shrugged, and, moving over to one of the dogs, busy chewing its rawhide harness, kicked it brutally. "Anyway he's got to take his chance, same as we all have."

The girl sighed.

"Yes." She was thinking of herself. "When do you start?"

The man looked at the sky. Then he glanced down at the land sloping away to the distant banks of a creek, which in a less monstrous country would have borne the prouder denomination of "river."

"When your Leo comes up to help me pack Charlie into the sled. Say, isn't that him coming along up now?" he added, shading his eyes. "This snow's got me dazzled for a bit."

The girl peered out over the white world. It was an impressive view.

Far as the eye could see a great ring of gray-crested hills spread out, their slopes ma.s.sed with patches of forest, and the gleaming beds of ancient glaciers. Just now the cold of coming winter held pride of place, and the dark woodlands were crowned with the feathery whiteness of newly fallen snow. But though impressive the outlook was unyielding in its severity, and the girl shuddered and, for relief, was glad to return to speech.

"Yes; he's coming along up."

Tug watched the distant figure for some thoughtful moments.

"He's a great feller," he said at last. But there was no real appreciation in his tone. Then he laughed. "I should say he'd need to be a great feller to get a good-looker girl to come right along up to this devil's playground with him."

Audie's troubled eyes softened.

"He's a great fellow," she said simply.

Tug laughed again.

"I s'pose that's why they call him 'Leo.' Guess most fellers' nicknames have a meaning suggested by their characters. Leo-Lion. Maybe they're right. I'd sooner call him 'Bull.'"

"Why?"

Audie was interested. Yet she understood there was no sympathy, and little enough friendliness in this hard, cynical man.

"Just his way of tackling life." Tug watched the great figure as it came slowly up the slope. His eyes were keen, shrewd, speculative.

"He does tackle it," agreed Audie warmly.

"Yes. He gets right out to meet things. He's a fighter. I'd say he's a born 'kicker.' He doesn't fancy the things that come easy. He's after a big piece of money, but"--he laughed--"he don't want it easy. That's where we're different. It seems to me there's enough weakness in the world for a man to live on, and there's surely enough money for the overflow to dribble into your pockets, if you only hold them open right. That's my way; but it's not his. Say," he quizzically surveyed the girl's flushed face, "guess you'd follow him to h.e.l.l--if he asked you?"

Audie shrugged her handsome shoulders, but her eyes were soft.

"I've followed him here, which is the cold edition of it. I don't guess I'd need persuading to get up against the warmer side."

"No. But it's taking life hard."

"Guess we have to take life hard sometimes. It's mostly the way of things. Life comes by degrees. And you can't help any of it. Three years ago I was acting in a New York theater, getting a hundred dollars a week salary. I wore beautiful clothes. I had heaps of friends, men and women. I lived on the best, and never knew what it was to cook a meal, or do a ch.o.r.e. Two years ago I was 'barnstorming' at Dawson in--well, they call it a theater. Now--now I am here."

"With a man we call 'Leo.'" Tug studied the girl's beautiful face, her superb figure, that would not be denied even under the coa.r.s.e clothing she was wearing. She did not appeal to him as a woman. She was too p.r.o.nounced a type. There was a decided boldness about her. Even her beauty was aggressive. But he was sufficiently observant to be interested in the woman's reason lying behind her actions.

"And why not?" demanded Audie, with a quick flash of her big eyes.

Tug smiled coldly.

"Just so. Why not?"