deck, and they didn’t pile it any too securely either. The mate
expected to come back to it again, and then forgot about it. I thought at the
time that there was something familiar about the big husky dog that
climbed over the baggage and freight and lay down next to the box. And
then we passed the Glendale, bound up for Dawson. As she saluted us, I
thought of Dave on board of her and hurrying to Dawson for Flush of
Gold. I turned and looked at her where she stood by the rail. Her eyes
were bright, but she looked a bit frightened by the sight of the other
steamer, and she was leaning closely to the Count fellow as for protection.
She needn’t have leaned so safely against him, and I needn’t have been so
sure of a disappointed Dave Walsh arriving at Dawson. For Dave Walsh
wasn’t on the Glendale. There were a lot of things I didn’t know, but was
soon to know–for instance, that the pair was not yet married. Inside half
an hour preparations for the marriage took place. What of the sick men in
the main cabin, and of the crowded condition of the Golden Rocket, the
likeliest place for the ceremony was found forward, on the lower deck, in
an open space next to the rail and gang-plank and shaded by the mountain
of freight with the big box on top and the sleeping dog beside it. There
was a missionary on board, getting off at Eagle City, which was the next
stop, so they had to use him quick. That’s what they’d planned to do, get
married on the boat.
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“But I’ve run ahead of the facts. The reason Dave Walsh wasn’t on the
Glendale was because he was on the Golden Rocket. It was this way. After
loiterin’ in Dawson on account of Flush of Gold, he went down to
Mammon Creek on the ice. And there he found Dusky Burns doing so
well with the claim, there was no need for him to be around. So he put
some grub on the sled, harnessed the dogs, took an Indian along, and
pulled out for Surprise Lake. He always had a liking for that section.
Maybe you don’t know how the creek turned out to be a four-flusher; but
the prospects were good at the time, and Dave proceeded to build his cabin
and hers. That’s the cabin we slept in. After he finished it, he went off on a
moose hunt to the forks of the Teelee, takin’ the Indian along.
“And this is what happened. Came on a cold snap. The juice went down
forty, fifty, sixty below zero. I remember that snap–I was at Forty Mile;
and I remember the very day. At eleven o’clock in the morning the spirit
thermometer at the N.A.T.&T. Company’s store went down to seventy-
five below zero. And that morning, near the forks of the Teelee, Dave
Walsh was out after moose with that blessed Indian of his. I got it all from
the Indian afterwards–we made a trip over the ice together to Dyea. That
morning Mr. Indian broke through the ice and wet himself to the waist. Of
course he began to freeze right away. The proper thing was to build a fire.
But Dave Walsh was a bull. It was only half a mile to camp, where a fire
was already burning. What was the good of building another? He threw
Mr. Indian over his shoulder–and ran with him–half a mile–with the
thermometer at seventy-five below. You know what that means. Suicide.
There’s no other name for it. Why, that buck Indian weighed over two
hundred himself, and Dave ran half a mile with him. Of course he froze
his lungs. Must have frozen them near solid. It was a tomfool trick for any
man to do. And anyway, after lingering horribly for several weeks, Dave
Walsh died.
“The Indian didn’t know what to do with the corpse. Ordinarily he’d have
buried him and let it go at that. But he knew that Dave Walsh was a big
man, worth lots of money, a hi-yu skookum chief. Likewise he’d seen the
bodies of other hi-yu skookums carted around the country like they were
worth something. So he decided to take Dave’s body to Forty Mile, which
was Dave’s headquarters. You know how the ice is on the grass roots in
this country–well, the Indian planted Dave under a foot of soil–in short,
he put Dave on ice. Dave could have stayed there a thousand years and
still been the same old Dave. You understandÄ just the same as a
refrigerator. Then the Indian brings over a whip-saw from the cabin at
Surprise Lake and makes lumber enough for the box. Also, waiting for the
thaw, he goes out and shoots about ten thousand pounds of moose. This he
keeps on ice, too. Came the thaw. The Teelee broke. He built a raft and
loaded it with the meat, the big box with Dave inside, and Dave’s team of
dogs, and away they went down the Teelee.
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“The raft got caught on a timber jam and hung up two days. It was
scorching hot weather, and Mr. Indian nearly lost his moose meat. So
when he got to Teelee Portage he figured a steamboat would get to Forty
Mile quicker than his raft. He transferred his cargo, and there you are,
fore-lower deck of the Golden Rocket, Flush of Gold being married, and
Dave Walsh in his big box casting the shade for her. And there’s one thing
I clean forgot. No wonder I thought the husky dog that came aboard at
Teelee Portage was familiar. It was Pee-lat, Dave Walsh’s lead-dog and
favorite–a terrible fighter, too. He was Iying down beside the box.
“Flush of Gold caught sight of me, called me over, shook hands with me,
and introduced me to the Count. She was beautiful. I was as mad for her
then as ever. She smiled into my eyes and said I must sign as one of the
witnesses. And there was no refusing her. She was ever a child, cruel as
children are cruel. Also, she told me she was in possession of the only two
bottles of champagne in Dawson–or that had been in Dawson the night
before; and before I knew it I was scheduled to drink her and the Count’s
health. Everybody crowded ’round, the captain of the steamboat, very
prominent, trying to ring in on the wine, I guess. It was a funny wedding.
On the upper deck the hospital wrecks, with various feet in the grave,
gathered and looked down to see. There were Indians all jammed in the
circle, too, big bucks, and their squaws and kids, to say nothing of about
twenty-five snarling wolf-dogs. The missionary lined the two of them up
and started in with the service. And just then a dog-fight started, high up
on the pile of freight–Pee-lat Iying beside the big box, and a white-haired
brute belonging to one of the Indians. The fight wasn’t explosive at all.
The brutes just snarled at each other from a distance–tapping at each other
long-distance, you know, saying cast and dassent, cast and dassent. The
noise was rather disturbing, but you could hear the missionary’s voice
above it.
“There was no particularly easy way of getting at the two dogs, except
from the other side of the pile. But nobody was on that side–everybody
watching the ceremony, you see. Even then everything might have been
all right if the captain hadn’t thrown a club at the dogs. That was what
precipitated everything. As I say, if the captain hadn’t thrown that club,
nothing might have happened.
“The missionary had just reached the point where he was saying ‘In
sickness and in health,’ and ‘Until death do us part.’ And just then the
captain threw the club. I saw the whole thing. It landed on Pee-lat, and at
that instant the white brute jumped him. The club caused it. Their two
bodies struck the box, and it began to slide, its lower end tilting down. It
was a long oblong box, and it slid down slowly until it reached the
perpendicular, when it came down on the run. The onlookers on that side
the circle had time to get out from under. Flush of Gold and the Count, on
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56
the opposite side of the circle, were facing the box; the missionary had his
back to it. The box must have fallen ten feet straight: up and down, and it
hit end on.
“Now mind you, not one of us knew that Dave Walsh was dead. We
thought he was on the Glendale, bound for Dawson. The missionary had
edged off to one side, and so Flush of Gold faced the box when it struck. It
was like in a play. It couldn’t have been better planned. It struck on end,