CHAPTER XIX

WINTER QUARTERS

"Slow her down, Clay, slow her down," pleaded Case. "Slow her down," shouted Alex from the bow. "I can't do much with her going so fast."

It was a different scene from that, in which we last saw the boys. Long gone were the golden days when they had journeyed leisurely up the river with Mrs. Mason nursing Case and the Esquimau lad back to speedy health. Gone also were that exhilaration of shooting the rapids, and gone were the pleasant nights when, with a bad stretch of water ahead of them, the steamer and the _Rambler_ had tied up together at the bank and all had made merry by the light of big fires, singing, talking, and even dancing on the rough, uneven ground. Gone were the pleasant loitering days in gold-mad Dawson, mingling with the old timers, eager to lend a hand wherever needed and gaining in return many new quaint facts of the country and the trail. They had hardly noted the growing keenness in the air until the Kid, anxious still in his love affair, whispered to them that it was time for them to go, that much ice was already bubbling up in the smaller streams, and, knowing the Kid as they did, they had followed his advice. It was an exciting race with winter at their heels, but the _Rambler_ driving ahead with the current at a speed of from twenty-five to twenty-eight miles an hour, kept ahead of the big cold.

At the Indian village they had stopped to get their dogs and buy furs from the Shaman who, fat and sleek, by artful trading, had acquired nearly all the furs from the hunters who were drifting in from the long hunt one by one. To the hunger-pinched poor folks, they gave the provisions Ike had suggested. They also gave them freely of their trinkets that they might not be tempted to trade off the precious food for the Shaman's worthless baubles.

Short as their stay had been, they were surprised at the change in the river. Much ice was bubbling to the surface like yeast. It was not the same Yukon upon which they had ridden up so pleasantly in summer. It was tempestuous with white-capped waves that battered against the _Rambler's_ bow and sent icy showers of spray aft. By midday the fierce wind had died away and thin cakes of ice were floating on the surface.

Slow her down, Clay," Alex begged. "I can't help much at the rate she's going." He was leaning over the bow, boat hook in hand, trying vainly to thrust to one side the blocks of ice that impeded the _Rambler's_ progress. While Case, well once more, was standing at the wheel, his alert eyes picking out the channels of open water freed from ice throes.

Down in the cabin, Ike was already beginning the evening meal and talking gravely to Abe, whose wan face had filled out amazingly and who was clumsily trying to help fadder with the cooking.

"Slow her down, can't you?" Alex yelled again.

Clay left the motor and made his way forward. "Do you see that mountain ahead where the river seems to make a bend? I noticed it when we were going up. Just beyond it is a snug little cove with a shelving beach. Just the place to winter in, it struck me. Now the shores here are not fit for a winter camp. They are too wind-swept. We have just got to make that cove. We simply can't stop. The river will be frozen over by morning and when the ice breaks up in the spring, the _Rambler_ would be crushed into splinters between the floes. At this rate we can not make the cove before night. I don't want the responsibility all on myself. But I think now is the time to make a break for it. The ice is thin yet and the _Rambler_ has got plenty of power and we know she has not got an unsound plank in her. I vote to try for the cove. What do you fellows say?"

"I'm for it," said Case, knocking his ice-cold hands against his body to take away the numbness. "Anything is better than this."

"The cove or bust," Alex exclaimed, as he threw the boat hook up on the cabin top. "This spearing off ice floes is like bobbing for apples, only more so. One just gets wet and tired without getting any apples."

"All right," Clay agreed. "Pick out the smoothest course you can, Case, and hold her to it."

He went back to the motor and slowly shoved the timer ahead. The _Rambler_, which before had been barely moving, suddenly gathered speed and leaped forward at the ice field ahead. She struck with a crash, and, scarcely pausing, darted forward to meet the next, leaving behind a rapidly closing wake filled with shattered ice.

Clay, leaning out of her motor hold, grinned with delight. "She eats them, eats them up alive," he exulted.

But it was a dearly bought victory for the little boat, for when at last she reached the cove, her bow post was a mass of splinters, while long streamers of wood hung from her bruised sides, and showed where the sharp ice had torn streaks out of her oak planking.

"Another victory like that would be a defeat," remarked Case, as from the shore he viewed her wrecked appearance.

A portion of the brief Arctic day remained, and it's dim twilight glow was too precious to be wasted. Alex cut down a dead cottonwood tree and chopped it up for the Yukon stove, which they had bought at Dawson, on the Kid's advice. While he was thus engaged, Ike, leaving Abe to look out for the cooking supper, came on deck to render his assistance. A thick layer of spruce boughs were cut and laid ahead of the boat, and, by use of rollers and block and tackle, the three managed to pull the _Rambler_ out on her springy bed.

"That will help to keep her warmer inside in winter," Clay said with satisfaction. "We could never have kept her warm with her bottom resting on the ice. Now the next thing is to fix up the sides and cabin top so as to protect them from the stinging cold."

Long poles were cut and placed rafterwise from the peak of the pitched cabin roof to the ground. On these rafters they piled layer upon layer of small spruce boughs and banked up around the sides with a generous supply of the fragrant limbs. It was almost dark when their task was completed and they stood back and viewed the result with satisfaction. "A house inside a house," Case said. "All it needs is a good fall of snow to fill up the chinks and we will be as snug as a bug in a rug."

They were all tired, cold, and hungry and it was a joy to descend into the brightly lit cabin where a merry fire crackled in the Yukon stove and a savory supper fresh from the fire, steamed on the table.

"I wonder when we will see the Yukon Kid again," said Case musingly, during a lull in the supper chatter. "He was due to leave St. Michael's yesterday and I bet he started on time, for he's fairly crazy to get back to his lady fair in Dawson."

Alex snorted in disgust. "Looks like all you fellows can think of is girls," he sneered, and his companions shifted sheepishly in their chairs, expecting and dreading a storm of ridicule from his sharp little tongue. But Alex remained silent after his outburst. In truth, he was picturing for himself a dull and sombre future. As the others wandered on to other topics he sat thinking gloomily. Here was the Yukon Kid, mightiest of the mighty men of the North, hanging to the apron strings of a mere slip of a girl. Clay and Case both had girls in Chicago, he knew; they would soon be getting old enough to marry and then the fine long cruises would stop, for their wives would not let them go unless they went with them. Case's red headed girl wouldn't, he was certain. There would be no more trips. Only he and Ike would be left to talk over alone the glory of this trip. A horrible suspicion flashed into his mind, perhaps even Ike had a girl.

"Ike," he demanded, suddenly. "Where does Rebecca work?"

"She works in a shirt waist factory. By and by she be forewoman," Ike said proudly, caught unawares.

A roar of laughter from the boys awoke him to the slip he had made. His face reddened and he resolutely closed his mouth and refused to commit himself further in reply to Alex's adroit question.

"It's all right, Alex," he said stoutly. "Maybe you got one little laugh on me now, you understand. But some day I get big laugh on you because I laugh last."

"Fadder," interrupted Abe, "you better put mukluks by the fire to dry."

It was a rule of the trail, the Kid had tried to impress upon them, to always dry out their footwear after the day's work, but it needed the grave voice of the child to recall it to them. Abe was born on the trail and he was learned in its dangers.

"If Abe says so we had better do it and turn in," Clay remarked, and soon five sets of footwear were ranged around the stock and the five boys were sound asleep in their bunks.

It was Clay's cheery "Get up, grub's ready," that awakened his sleeping companions.

"What do you mean by having breakfast at such an unearthly hour?" grumbled Alex, tumbling out of his bunk and fumbling for his trousers. "Why, the cabin's as dark as pitch."

Clay snapped on the electric lights. "We are late getting up this morning. Remember, young man, this is the season when the days grow short and we've got to make every minute of daylight count. Get up and thank your lucky star that you've got a partner good enough to get up before you, warm the cabin up, fry ham and eggs, and cook coffee for you."

The mention of food sent Alex tumbling into his clothes, an example his companions were not slow to follow.

By the time they had finished eating, a wan light was stealing into the cabin windows. The last mouthful swallowed, they hurried up for a look at the river. It was a sheet of solid white from shore to shore. They all felt a feeling of gratitude that they had won to the little cove and were not penned up out there in that desolate waste exposed to the full fury of every gale. They now had time to note more closely the place in which their winter was to be passed. It was a tiny cove well protected from wintry blasts. On one side of them rose the big mountain; on the other side lofty crumbling cliffs protected them from the raw west winds, while back of them the ground rose in a gradual slope, densely covered by cottonwoods and spruces.

"The first thing to do is to get out our snow shoes and practice breaking trails," Clay declared. "We have got to harden our muscles and get used to it before we start out on the trading trips."

All of the boys, but Ike, had had on snow shoes before, but this task of breaking trail for the dogs was a new trick to them and they could not quite get the hang of it until the little Esquimau lad gravely strapped on a pair and showed them how the big webbed shoe must be lifted carefully up, straight up, until it cleared the surface, so that no snow should be tumbled into the packed place, then how it must be shoved cautiously ahead while the same careful uplifting must be repeated by the other foot. Ike's first experiment plunged him into a snow drift, leaving only his big snow shoes waving madly above the surface.

"Fadder, fadder," cried Abe in delight. "If you want to walk on your hands tie the shoes on them."

Clay and Case grinned at each other. It was the first time either of them had heard the lad laugh. Clearly, under the nourishing food and kind treatment he was receiving, Abe was certainly picking up.

The unaccustomed trail breaking brought into play muscles the boys never dreamed they possessed, and after a few hours' practice, Clay called a halt. "We don't want to try it too long at a time. Tomorrow we will do a little more and keep it up that way until we can do an all-day stunt. Then we will be fit to start out on our trading trips."

About noon the Yukon Kid hove in sight and with but little pressure, was induced to stay to dinner and rest up his tired dogs, which he had evidently been pushing hard.

"I've got a bit of news for you," he said between mouthfuls. "Got the true story of Bill and Jud. Got it straight from an old timer who lived in the same part of Ohio that Bill came from. Bill and Jud are brothers, but no more alike than a rotten egg is like a fresh laid one. Jud, he stuck to the farm and grew up big, strong, and honest, though I guess he would have done that anywhere. Bill hit for the city, and the village folks said they hoped he would never come back for he'd always been mean, lying and thieving, although Jud was always mighty fond of him and was always making excuses for him and claiming that it was only Bill's high spirits that got him into mischief. Well, Bill got a job in a store and mighty proud of it Jud was, always telling people that Bill was getting along fine in the city Pretty soon the store people found out that their cash was turning up short every night and they traced it to Bill. He confessed and Jud put a mortgage on the farm and went up and settled with the store folks so that Bill wouldn't be prosecuted, but the lesson didn't do Bill any good, he kept getting lower and lower until he got to be a common holdup man and burglar. Then Jud up and sold his interest in the farm, and bid good-bye to the village folks, telling them that he was going to get Bill away from the bad fellows who were always leading him into trouble all the time. He made good his word evidently, for here they are up here on the Yukon with Jud looking out for Bill and keeping him as straight as he can. Funny ain't it, how a good man like Jud will let himself be forced into bad ways just to keep a worse man from doing worse things. I reckon Jud would kill any one who tried to hurt his brother. Reckon that's what the Good Book calls brotherly love, but I don't take much stock in that kind of love myself, it's too one-sided."

The Kid did not pause for much more conversation and the boys did not attempt to detain him, for they knew he was eager to be off for Dawson.

"I'll have more time to stay with you on my way back," he shouted back to them as his rested team swung into line. "Oh! by the way. Bill and Jud are on the Yukon now somewhere. Heard they left Nome with two boats and a small outfit, but I haven't passed them on the river."

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