THIS MOOSE PASTURE IS RESERVED FOR THE
SWEDES AND CHECHAQUOS.
- BILL RADER.
Kink read it over with approval, saying:-
"As them's my sentiments, I reckon I might as well subscribe."
So the name of Charles Mitchell was added to the notice; and many
an old sour dough's face relaxed that day at sight of the handiwork
of a kindred spirit.
"How's the pup?" Carmack inquired when they strolled back into
camp.
"To hell with pups!" was Hootchinoo Bill's reply. "Me and Kink's
goin' a-lookin' for Too Much Gold when we get rested up."
Too Much Gold was the fabled creek of which all sour doughs
dreamed, whereof it was said the gold was so thick that, in order
to wash it, gravel must first be shovelled into the sluice-boxes.
But the several days' rest, preliminary to the quest for Too Much
Gold, brought a slight change in their plan, inasmuch as it brought
one Ans Handerson, a Swede.
Ans Handerson had been working for wages all summer at Miller Creek
over on the Sixty Mile, and, the summer done, had strayed up
Bonanza like many another waif helplessly adrift on the gold tides
that swept willy-nilly across the land. He was tall and lanky.
His arms were long, like prehistoric man's, and his hands were like
soup-plates, twisted and gnarled, and big-knuckled from toil. He
was slow of utterance and movement, and his eyes, pale blue as his
hair was pale yellow, seemed filled with an immortal dreaming, the
stuff of which no man knew, and himself least of all. Perhaps this
appearance of immortal dreaming was due to a supreme and vacuous
innocence. At any rate, this was the valuation men of ordinary
clay put upon him, and there was nothing extraordinary about the
composition of Hootchinoo Bill and Kink Mitchell.
The partners had spent a day of visiting and gossip, and in the
evening met in the temporary quarters of the Monte Carlo--a large
tent were stampeders rested their weary bones and bad whisky sold
at a dollar a drink. Since the only money in circulation was dust,
and since the house took the "down-weight" on the scales, a drink
cost something more than a dollar. Bill and Kink were not
drinking, principally for the reason that their one and common sack
was not strong enough to stand many excursions to the scales.
"Say, Bill, I've got a chechaquo on the string for a sack of
flour," Mitchell announced jubilantly.
Bill looked interested and pleased. Grub as scarce, and they were
not over-plentifully supplied for the quest after Too Much Gold.
"Flour's worth a dollar a pound," he answered. "How like do you
calculate to get your finger on it?"
"Trade 'm a half-interest in that claim of ourn," Kink answered.
"What claim?" Bill was surprised. Then he remembered the
reservation he had staked off for the Swedes, and said, "Oh!"
"I wouldn't be so clost about it, though," he added. "Give 'm the
whole thing while you're about it, in a right free-handed way."
Bill shook his head. "If I did, he'd get clean scairt and prance
off. I'm lettin' on as how the ground is believed to be valuable,
an' that we're lettin' go half just because we're monstrous short
on grub. After the dicker we can make him a present of the whole
shebang."
"If somebody ain't disregarded our notice," Bill objected, though
he was plainly pleased at the prospect of exchanging the claim for
a sack of flour.
"She ain't jumped," Kink assured him. "It's No. 24, and it stands.
The chechaquos took it serious, and they begun stakin' where you
left off. Staked clean over the divide, too. I was gassin' with
one of them which has just got in with cramps in his legs."
It was then, and for the first time, that they heard the slow and
groping utterance of Ans Handerson.
"Ay like the looks," he was saying to the bar-keeper. "Ay tank Ay
gat a claim."
The partners winked at each other, and a few minutes later a
surprised and grateful Swede was drinking bad whisky with two hard-
hearted strangers. But he was as hard-headed as they were hard-
hearted. The sack made frequent journeys to the scales, followed
solicitously each time by Kink Mitchell's eyes, and still Ans
Handerson did not loosen up. In his pale blue eyes, as in summer
seas, immortal dreams swam up and burned, but the swimming and the
burning were due to the tales of gold and prospect pans he heard,
rather than to the whisky he slid so easily down his throat.
The partners were in despair, though they appeared boisterous and
jovial of speech and action.
"Don't mind me, my friend," Hootchinoo Bill hiccoughed, his hand
upon Ans Handerson's shoulder. "Have another drink. We're just
celebratin' Kink's birthday here. This is my pardner, Kink, Kink
Mitchell. An' what might your name be?"
This learned, his hand descended resoundingly on Kink's back, and
Kink simulated clumsy self-consciousness in that he was for the
time being the centre of the rejoicing, while Ans Handerson looked
pleased and asked them to have a drink with him. It was the first
and last time he treated, until the play changed and his canny soul
was roused to unwonted prodigality. But he paid for the liquor
from a fairly healthy-looking sack. "Not less 'n eight hundred in
it," calculated the lynx-eyed Kink; and on the strength of it he
took the first opportunity of a privy conversation with Bidwell,
proprietor of the bad whisky and the tent.
"Here's my sack, Bidwell," Kink said, with the intimacy and surety
of one old-timer to another. "Just weigh fifty dollars into it for
a day or so more or less, and we'll be yours truly, Bill an' me."
Thereafter the journeys of the sack to the scales were more
frequent, and the celebration of Kink's natal day waxed hilarious.
He even essayed to sing the old-timer's classic, "The Juice of the
Forbidden Fruit," but broke down and drowned his embarrassment in
another round of drinks. Even Bidwell honoured him with a round or
two on the house; and he and Bill were decently drunk by the time
Ans Handerson's eyelids began to droop and his tongue gave promise
of loosening.
Bill grew affectionate, then confidential. He told his troubles
and hard luck to the bar-keeper and the world in general, and to
Ans Handerson in particular. He required no histrionic powers to
act the part. The bad whisky attended to that. He worked himself
into a great sorrow for himself and Bill, and his tears were
sincere when he told how he and his partner were thinking of
selling a half-interest in good ground just because they were short
of grub. Even Kink listened and believed.
Ans Handerson's eyes were shining unholily as he asked, "How much
you tank you take?"
Bill and Kink did not hear him, and he was compelled to repeat his
query. They appeared reluctant. He grew keener. And he swayed
back and forward, holding on to the bar and listened with all his
ears while they conferred together on one side, and wrangled as to
whether they should or not, and disagreed in stage whispers over
the price they should set.
"Two hundred and--hic!--fifty," Bill finally announced, "but we
reckon as we won't sell."
"Which is monstrous wise if I might chip in my little say,"
seconded Bidwell.
"Yes, indeedy," added Kink. "We ain't in no charity business a-
disgorgin' free an' generous to Swedes an' white men."
"Ay tank we haf another drink," hiccoughed Ans Handerson, craftily
changing the subject against a more propitious time.
And thereafter, to bring about that propitious time, his own sack
began to see-saw between his hip pocket and the scales. Bill and
Kink were coy, but they finally yielded to his blandishments.
Whereupon he grew shy and drew Bidwell to one side. He staggered
exceedingly, and held on to Bidwell for support as he asked -
"They ban all right, them men, you tank so?"
"Sure," Bidwell answered heartily. "Known 'em for years. Old sour
doughs. When they sell a claim, they sell a claim. They ain't no
air-dealers."
"Ay tank Ay buy," Ans Handerson announced, tottering back to the
two men.
But by now he was dreaming deeply, and he proclaimed he would have
the whole claim or nothing. This was the cause of great pain to
Hootchinoo Bill. He orated grandly against the "hawgishness" of
chechaquos and Swedes, albeit he dozed between periods, his voice
dying away to a gurgle, and his head sinking forward on his breast.
But whenever roused by a nudge from Kink or Bidwell, he never
failed to explode another volley of abuse and insult.
Ans Handerson was calm under it all. Each insult added to the
value of the claim. Such unamiable reluctance to sell advertised
but one thing to him, and he was aware of a great relief when
Hootchinoo Bill sank snoring to the floor, and he was free to turn
his attention to his less intractable partner.
Kink Mitchell was persuadable, though a poor mathematician. He
wept dolefully, but was willing to sell a half-interest for two
hundred and fifty dollars or the whole claim for seven hundred and
fifty. Ans Handerson and Bidwell laboured to clear away his
erroneous ideas concerning fractions, but their labour was vain.
He spilled tears and regrets all over the bar and on their
shoulders, which tears, however, did not wash away his opinion,
that if one half was worth two hundred and fifty, two halves were
worth three times as much.
In the end,--and even Bidwell retained no more than hazy
recollections of how the night terminated,--a bill of sale was
drawn up, wherein Bill Rader and Charles Mitchell yielded up all
right and title to the claim known as 24 ELDORADO, the same being
the name the creek had received from some optimistic chechaquo.
When Kink had signed, it took the united efforts of the three to
arouse Bill. Pen in hand, he swayed long over the document; and,
each time he rocked back and forth, in Ans Handerson's eyes flashed
and faded a wondrous golden vision. When the precious signature
was at last appended and the dust paid over, he breathed a great
sigh, and sank to sleep under a table, where he dreamed immortally
until morning.
But the day was chill and grey. He felt bad. His first act,
unconscious and automatic, was to feel for his sack. Its lightness
startled him. Then, slowly, memories of the night thronged into
his brain. Rough voices disturbed him. He opened his eyes and
peered out from under the table. A couple of early risers, or,
rather, men who had been out on trail all night, were vociferating
their opinions concerning the utter and loathsome worthlessness of
Eldorado Creek. He grew frightened, felt in his pocket, and found
the deed to 24 ELDORADO.
Ten minutes later Hootchinoo Bill and Kink Mitchell were roused
from their blankets by a wild-eyed Swede that strove to force upon
them an ink-scrawled and very blotty piece of paper.
"Ay tank Ay take my money back," he gibbered. "Ay tank Ay take my
money back."
Tears were in his eyes and throat. They ran down his cheeks as he
knelt before them and pleaded and implored. But Bill and Kink did
not laugh. They might have been harder hearted.
"First time I ever hear a man squeal over a minin' deal," Bill
said. "An' I make free to say 'tis too onusual for me to savvy."
"Same here," Kink Mitchell remarked. "Minin' deals is like horse-
tradin'."
They were honest in their wonderment. They could not conceive of
themselves raising a wail over a business transaction, so they
could not understand it in another man.
"The poor, ornery chechaquo," murmured Hootchinoo Bill, as they
watched the sorrowing Swede disappear up the trail.
"But this ain't Too Much Gold," Kink Mitchell said cheerfully.
And ere the day was out they purchased flour and bacon at
exorbitant prices with Ans Handerson's dust and crossed over the
divide in the direction of the creeks that lie between Klondike and
Indian River.
Three months later they came back over the divide in the midst of a
snow-storm and dropped down the trail to 24 ELDORADO. It merely
chanced that the trail led them that way. They were not looking
for the claim. Nor could they see much through the driving white
till they set foot upon the claim itself. And then the air
lightened, and they beheld a dump, capped by a windlass that a man
was turning. They saw him draw a bucket of gravel from the hole
and tilt it on the edge of the dump. Likewise they saw another,
man, strangely familiar, filling a pan with the fresh gravel. His
hands were large; his hair wets pale yellow. But before they
reached him, he turned with the pan and fled toward a cabin. He
wore no hat, and the snow falling down his neck accounted for his
haste. Bill and Kink ran after him, and came upon him in the
cabin, kneeling by the stove and washing the pan of gravel in a tub
of water.
He was too deeply engaged to notice more than that somebody had
entered the cabin. They stood at his shoulder and looked on. He
imparted to the pan a deft circular motion, pausing once or twice
to rake out the larger particles of gravel with his fingers. The
water was muddy, and, with the pan buried in it, they could see
nothing of its contents. Suddenly he lifted the pan clear and sent
the water out of it with a flirt. A mass of yellow, like butter in
a churn, showed across the bottom.
Hootchinoo Bill swallowed. Never in his life had he dreamed of so
rich a test-pan.
"Kind of thick, my friend," he said huskily. "How much might you
reckon that-all to be?"
Ans Handerson did not look up as he replied, "Ay tank fafty
ounces."
"You must be scrumptious rich, then, eh?"
Still Ans Handerson kept his head down, absorbed in putting in the
fine touches which wash out the last particles of dross, though he
answered, "Ay tank Ay ban wort' five hundred t'ousand dollar."
"Gosh!" said Hootchinoo Bill, and he said it reverently.
"Yes, Bill, gosh!" said Kink Mitchell; and they went out softly and
closed the door.
