The Trail of the Goldseekers: A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse

"Maybe they can't write," said my partner.

"Perhaps they don't know where they are at, themselves," said I.

"Well, that's exactly the way it looks to me."

"Are there any outfits ahead of us?"

"Yes, old Bob Borlan's about two days up the slope with his train of mules, working like a slave to get through. They're all getting short of grub and losing a good many horses. You'll have to work your way through with great care, or you'll lose a horse or two in getting from here to the divide."

"Well, this won't do. So-long, boys," said one of the young fellows, and they started off with immense vigor, followed by their handsome dogs, and we lined up once more with stern faces, knowing now that a terrible trail for at least one hundred miles was before us. There was no thought of retreat, however. We had set our feet to this journey, and we determined to go.

After a few hours' travel we came upon the grassy shore of another little lake, where the bells of several outfits were tinkling merrily. On the bank of a swift little river setting out of the lake, a couple of tents stood, and shirts were flapping from the limbs of near-by willows. The owners were "The Man from Chihuahua," his partner, the blacksmith, and the two young men from Manchester, New Hampshire, who had started from Ashcroft as markedly tenderfoot as any men could be. They had been lambasted and worried into perfect efficiency as packers and trailers, and were entitled to respect – even the respect of "The Man from Chihuahua."

They greeted us with jovial outcry.

"Hullo, strangers! Where ye think you're goin'?"

"Goin' crazy," replied Burton.

"You look it," said Bill.

"By God, we was all sure crazy when we started on this damn trail," remarked the old man. He was in bad humor on account of his horses, two of which were suffering from poisoning. When anything touched his horses, he was "plum irritable."

He came up to me very soberly. "Have you any idee where we're at?"

"Yes – we're on the head-waters of the Nasse."

"Are we on the Telegraph Trail?"

"No; as near as I can make out we're away to the right of the telegraph crossing."

Thereupon we compared maps. "It's mighty little use to look at maps – they're all drew by guess – an' – by God, anyway," said the old fellow, as he ran his grimy forefinger over the red line which represented the trail. "We've been a slantin' hellwards ever since we crossed the Skeeny – I figure it we're on the old Dease Lake Trail."

To this we all agreed at last, but our course thereafter was by no means clear.

"If we took the old Dease Lake Trail we're three hundred miles from Telegraph Creek yit – an' somebody's goin' to be hungry before we get in," said the old trailer. "I'd like to camp here for a few days and feed up my horses, but it ain't safe – we got 'o keep movin'. We've been on this damn trail long enough, and besides grub is gittin' lighter all the time."

"What do you think of the trail?" asked Burton.

"I've been on the trail all my life," he replied, "an' I never was in such a pizen, empty no-count country in my life. Wasn't that big divide hell? Did ye ever see the beat of that fer a barren? No more grass than a cellar. Might as well camp in a cistern. I wish I could lay hands on the feller that called this 'The Prairie Route' – they'd sure be a dog-fight right here."

The old man expressed the feeling of those of us who were too shy and delicate of speech to do it justice, and we led him on to most satisfying blasphemy of the land and the road-gang.

"Yes, there's that road-gang sent out to put this trail into shape – what have they done? You'd think they couldn't read or write – not a word to help us out."

Partner and I remained in camp all the afternoon and all the next day, although our travelling companions packed up and moved out the next morning. We felt the need of a day's freedom from worry, and our horses needed feed and sunshine.

Oh, the splendor of the sun, the fresh green grass, the rippling water of the river, the beautiful lake! And what joy it was to see our horses feed and sleep. They looked distressingly thin and poor without their saddles. Ladrone was still weak in the ankle joints and the arch had gone out of his neck, while faithful Bill, who never murmured or complained, had a glassy stare in his eyes, the lingering effects of poisoning. The wind rose in the afternoon, bringing to us a sound of moaning tree-tops, and somehow it seemed to be an augury of better things – seemed to prophesy a fairer and dryer country to the north of us. The singing of the leaves went to my heart with a hint of home, and I remembered with a start how absolutely windless the sullen forest of the Skeena had been.

Near by a dam was built across the river, and a fishing trap made out of willows was set in the current. Piles of caribou hair showed that the Indians found game in the autumn. We took time to explore some old fishing huts filled with curious things, – skins, toboggans, dog-collars, cedar ropes, and many other traps of small value to anybody. Most curious of all we found some flint-lock muskets made exactly on the models of one hundred years ago, but dated 1883! It seemed impossible that guns of such ancient models should be manufactured up to the present date; but there they were all carefully marked "London, 1883."

It was a long day of rest and regeneration. We took a bath in the clear, cold waters of the stream, washed our clothing and hung it up to dry, beat the mud out of our towels, and so made ready for the onward march. We should have stayed longer, but the ebbing away of our grub pile made us apprehensive. To return was impossible.

THE CLOUDS

Circling the mountains the gray clouds goHeavy with storms as a mother with child,Seeking release from their burden of snowWith calm slow motion they cross the wild —Stately and sombre, they catch and clingTo the barren crags of the peaks in the west,Weary with waiting, and mad for rest.

THE GREAT STIKEEN DIVIDE

A land of mountains based in hills of fir,Empty, lone, and cold. A land of streamsWhose roaring voices drown the whirrOf aspen leaves, and fill the heart with dreamsOf dearth and death. The peaks are stern and whiteThe skies above are grim and gray,And the rivers cleave their sounding wayThrough endless forests dark as night,Toward the ocean's far-off line of spray.

CHAPTER XV

IN THE COLD GREEN MOUNTAINS

The Nasse River, like the Skeena and the Stikeen, rises in the interior mountains, and flows in a south-westerly direction, breaking through the coast range into the Pacific Ocean, not far from the mouth of the Stikeen.

It is a much smaller stream than the Skeena, which is, moreover, immensely larger than the maps show. We believed we were about to pass from the watershed of the Nasse to the east fork of the Iskoot, on which those far-shining prairies were said to lie, with their flowery meadows rippling under the west wind. If we could only reach that mystical plateau, our horses would be safe from all disease.

We crossed the Cheweax, a branch of the Nasse, and after climbing briskly to the northeast along the main branch we swung around over a high wooded hog-back, and made off up the valley along the north and lesser fork. We climbed all day, both of us walking, leading our horses, with all our goods distributed with great care over the six horses. It was a beautiful day overhead – that was the only compensation. We were sweaty, eaten by flies and mosquitoes, and covered with mud. All day we sprawled over roots, rocks, and logs, plunging into bogholes and slopping along in the running water, which in places had turned the trail into an aqueduct. The men from Duluth had told no lie.

After crawling upward for nearly eight hours we came upon a little patch of bluejoint, on the high side of the hill, and there camped in the gloom of the mossy and poisonous forest. By hard and persistent work we ticked off nearly fifteen miles, and judging from the stream, which grew ever swifter, we should come to a divide in the course of fifteen or twenty miles.

The horses being packed light went along fairly well, although it was a constant struggle to get them to go through the mud. Old Ladrone walking behind me groaned with dismay every time we came to one of those terrible sloughs. He seemed to plead with me, "Oh, my master, don't send me into that dreadful hole!"

But there was no other way. It must be done, and so Burton's sharp cry would ring out behind and our little train would go in one after the other, plunging, splashing, groaning, struggling through. Ladrone, seeing me walk a log by the side of the trail, would sometimes follow me as deftly as a cat. He seemed to think his right to avoid the mud as good as mine. But as there was always danger of his slipping off and injuring himself, I forced him to wallow in the mud, which was as distressing to me as to him.

The next day we started with the determination to reach the divide. "There is no hope of grass so long as we remain in this forest," said Burton. "We must get above timber where the sun shines to get any feed for our horses. It is cruel, but we must push them to-day just as long as they can stand up, or until we reach the grass."

Nothing seemed to appall or disturb my partner; he was always ready to proceed, his voice ringing out with inflexible resolution.

It was one of the most laborious days of all our hard journey. Hour after hour we climbed steadily up beside the roaring gray-white little stream, up toward the far-shining snowfields, which blazed back the sun like mirrors. The trees grew smaller, the river bed seemed to approach us until we slumped along in the running water. At last we burst out into the light above timber line. Around us porcupines galloped, and whistling marmots signalled with shrill vehemence. We were weak with fatigue and wet with icy water to the knees, but we pushed on doggedly until we came to a little mound of short, delicious green grass from which the snow had melted. On this we stopped to let the horses graze. The view was magnificent, and something wild and splendid came on the wind over the snowy peaks and smooth grassy mounds.

We were now in the region of great snowfields, under which roared swift streams from still higher altitudes. There were thousands of marmots, which seemed to utter the most intense astonishment at the inexplicable coming of these strange creatures. The snow in the gullies had a curious bloody line which I could not account for. A little bird high up here uttered a sweet little whistle, so sad, so full of pleading, it almost brought tears to my eyes. In form it resembled a horned lark, but was smaller and kept very close to the ground.

We reached the summit at sunset, there to find only other mountains and other enormous gulches leading downward into far blue cañons. It was the wildest land I have ever seen. A country unmapped, unsurveyed, and unprospected. A region which had known only an occasional Indian hunter or trapper with his load of furs on his way down to the river and his canoe. Desolate, without life, green and white and flashing illimitably, the gray old peaks aligned themselves rank on rank until lost in the mists of still wilder regions.

From this high point we could see our friends, the Manchester boys, on the north slope two or three miles below us at timber line. Weak in the knees, cold and wet and hungry as we were, we determined to push down the trail over the snowfields, down to grass and water. Not much more than forty minutes later we came out upon a comparatively level spot of earth where grass was fairly good, and where the wind-twisted stunted pines grew in clumps large enough to furnish wood for our fires and a pole for our tent. The land was meshed with roaring rills of melting snow, and all around went on the incessant signalling of the marmots – the only cheerful sound in all the wide green land.

We had made about twenty-three miles that day, notwithstanding tremendous steeps and endless mudholes mid-leg deep. It was the greatest test of endurance of our trip.

We had the good luck to scare up a ptarmigan (a sort of piebald mountain grouse), and though nearly fainting with hunger, we held ourselves in check until we had that bird roasted to a turn. I shall never experience greater relief or sweeter relaxation of rest than that I felt as I stretched out in my down sleeping bag for twelve hours' slumber.

I considered that we were about one hundred and ninety miles from Hazleton, and that this must certainly be the divide between the Skeena and the Stikeen. The Manchester boys reported finding some very good pieces of quartz on the hills, and they were all out with spade and pick prospecting, though it seemed to me they showed but very little enthusiasm in the search.

"I b'lieve there's gold here," said "Chihuahua," "but who's goin' to stay here and look fer it? In the first place, you couldn't work fer mor'n 'bout three months in the year, and it 'ud take ye the other nine months fer to git yer grub in. Them hills look to me to be mineralized, but I ain't honin' to camp here."

This seemed to be the general feeling of all the other prospectors, and I did not hear that any one else went so far even as to dig a hole.

As near as I could judge there seemed to be three varieties of "varmints" galloping around over the grassy slopes of this high country. The largest of these, a gray and brown creature with a tawny, bristling mane, I took to be a porcupine. Next in size were the giant whistlers, who sat up like old men and signalled, like one boy to another. And last and least, and more numerous than all, were the smaller "chucks" resembling prairie dogs. These animals together with the ptarmigan made up the inhabitants of these lofty slopes.

I searched every green place on the mountains far and near with my field-glasses, but saw no sheep, caribou, or moose, although one or two were reported to have been killed by others on the trail. The ptarmigan lived in the matted patches of willow. There were a great many of them, and they helped out our monotonous diet very opportunely. They moved about in pairs, the cock very loyal to the hen in time of danger; but not even this loyalty could save him. Hunger such as ours considered itself very humane in stopping short of the slaughter of the mother bird. The cock was easily distinguished by reason of his party-colored plumage and his pink eyes.

We spent the next forenoon in camp to let our horses feed up, and incidentally to rest our own weary bones. All the forenoon great, gray clouds crushed against the divide behind us, flinging themselves in rage against the rocks like hungry vultures baffled in their chase. We exulted over their impotence. "We are done with you, you storms of the Skeena – we're out of your reach at last!"

We were confirmed in this belief as we rode down the trail, which was fairly pleasant except for short periods, when the clouds leaped the snowy walls behind and scattered drizzles of rain over us. Later the clouds thickened, the sky became completely overcast, and my exultation changed to dismay, and we camped at night as desolate as ever, in the rain, and by the side of a little marsh on which the horses could feed only by wading fetlock deep in the water. We were wet to the skin, and muddy and tired.

I could no longer deceive myself. Our journey had become a grim race with the wolf. Our food grew each day scantier, and we were forced to move each day and every day, no matter what the sky or trail might be. Going over our food carefully that night, we calculated that we had enough to last us ten days, and if we were within one hundred and fifty miles of the Skeena, and if no accident befell us, we would be able to pull in without great suffering.

But accidents on the trail are common. It is so easy to lose a couple of horses, we were liable to delay and to accident, and the chances were against us rather than in our favor. It seemed as though the trail would never mend. We were dropping rapidly down through dwarf pines, down into endless forests of gloom again. We had splashed, slipped, and tumbled down the trail to this point with three horses weak and sick. The rain had increased, and all the brightness of the morning on the high mountain had passed away. For hours we had walked without a word except to our horses, and now night was falling in thick, cold rain. As I plodded along I saw in vision and with great longing the plains, whose heat and light seemed paradise by contrast.

The next day was the Fourth of July, and such a day! It rained all the forenoon, cold, persistent, drizzling rain. We hung around the campfire waiting for some let-up to the incessant downpour. We discussed the situation. I said: "Now, if the stream in the cañon below us runs to the left, it will be the east fork of the Iskoot, and we will then be within about one hundred miles of Glenora. If it runs to the right, Heaven only knows where we are."

The horses, chilled with the rain, came off the sloppy marsh to stand under the trees, and old Ladrone edged close to the big fire to share its warmth. This caused us to bring in the other horses and put them close to the fire under the big branches of the fir tree. It was deeply pathetic to watch the poor worn animals, all life and spirit gone out of them, standing about the fire with drooping heads and half-closed eyes. Perhaps they dreamed, like us, of the beautiful, warm, grassy hills of the south.

THE UTE LOVER

Beneath the burning brazen sky,The yellowed tepes stand.Not far away a singing riverSets through the sand.Within the shadow of a lonely elm treeThe tired ponies keep.The wild land, throbbing with the sun's hot magic,Is rapt as sleep.From out a clump of scanty willowsA low wail floats.The endless repetition of a lover'sMelancholy notes;So sad, so sweet, so elemental,All lover's painSeems borne upon its sobbing cadence —The love-song of the plain.From frenzied cry forever falling,To the wind's wild moan,It seems the voice of anguish callingAlone! alone!Caught from the winds forever moaningOn the plain,Wrought from the agonies of womanIn maternal pain,It holds within its simple measureAll death of joy,Breathed though it be by smiling maidenOr lithe brown boy.It hath this magic, sad though its cadenceAnd short refrain;It helps the exiled people of the mountainEndure the plain;For when at night the stars aglitterDefy the moon,The maiden listens, leans to seek her loverWhere waters croon.Flute on, O lithe and tuneful Utah,Reply brown jade;There are no other joys secure to eitherMan or maid.Soon you are old and heavy hearted,Lost to mirth;While on you lies the white man's goryGreed of earth.Strange that to me that burning desertSeems so dear.The endless sky and lonely mesa,Flat and drear,Calls me, calls me as the flute of UtahCalls his mate —This wild, sad, sunny, brazen country,Hot as hate.Again the glittering sky uplifts star-blazing;Again the streamFrom out the far-off snowy mountainsSings through my dream;And on the air I hear the flute-voice callingThe lover's croon,And see the listening, longing maidenLit by the moon.

DEVIL'S CLUB

It is a sprawling, hateful thing,Thorny and twisted like a snake,Writhing to work a mischief, in the brakeIt stands at menace, in its clingIs danger and a venomed sting.It grows on green and slimy slopes,It is a thing of shades and slums,For passing feet it wildly gropes,And loops to catch all feet that runSeeking a path to sky and sun.

IN THE COLD GREEN MOUNTAINS

In the cold green mountains where the savage torrents roared,And the clouds were gray above us,And the fishing eagle soared,Where no grass waved, where no robins cried,There our horses starved and died,In the cold green mountains.In the cold green mountains,Nothing grew but moss and trees,Water dripped and sludgy streamletsTrapped our horses by the knees.Where we slipped, slid, and lunged,Mired down and wildly plungedToward the cold green mountains!

CHAPTER XVI

THE PASSING OF THE BEANS

At noon, the rain slacking a little, we determined to pack up, and with such cheer as we could called out, "Line up, boys – line up!" starting on our way down the trail.

After making about eight miles we came upon a number of outfits camped on the bank of the river. As I rode along on my gray horse, for the trail there allowed me to ride, I passed a man seated gloomily at the mouth of his tent. To him I called with an assumption of jocularity I did not feel, "Stranger, where are you bound for?"

He replied, "The North Pole."

"Do you expect to get there?"

"Sure," he replied.

Riding on I met others beside the trail, and all wore a similar look of almost sullen gravity. They were not disposed to joke with me, and perceiving something to be wrong, I passed on without further remark.

When we came down to the bank of the stream, behold it ran to the right. And I could have sat me down and blasphemed with the rest. I now understood the gloom of the others. We were still in the valley of the inexorable Skeena. It could be nothing else; this tremendous stream running to our right could be no other than the head-waters of that ferocious flood which no surveyor has located. It is immensely larger and longer than any map shows.

We crossed the branch without much trouble, and found some beautiful bluejoint-grass on the opposite bank, into which we joyfully turned our horses. When they had filled their stomachs, we packed up and pushed on about two miles, overtaking the Manchester boys on the side-hill in a tract of dead, burned-out timber, a cheerless spot.

In speaking about the surly answer I had received from the man on the banks of the river, I said: "I wonder why those men are camped there? They must have been there for several days."

Partner replied: "They are all out of grub and are waiting for some one to come by to whack-up with 'em. One of the fellows came out and talked with me and said he had nothing left but beans, and tried to buy some flour of me."

This opened up an entirely new line of thought. I understood now that what I had taken for sullenness was the dejection of despair. The way was growing gloomy and dark to them. They, too, were racing with the wolf.

We had one short moment of relief next day as we entered a lovely little meadow and camped for noon. The sun shone warm, the grass was thick and sweet. It was like late April in the central West – cool, fragrant, silent. Aisles of peaks stretched behind us and before us. We were still high in the mountains, and the country was less wooded and more open. But we left this beautiful spot and entered again on a morass. It was a day of torture to man and beast. The land continued silent. There were no toads, no butterflies, no insects of any kind, except a few mosquitoes, no crickets, no singing thing. I have never seen a land so empty of life. We had left even the whistling marmots entirely behind us.

We travelled now four outfits together, with some twenty-five horses. Part of the time I led with Ladrone, part of the time "The Man from Chihuahua" took the lead, with his fine strong bays. If a horse got down we all swarmed around and lifted him out, and when any question of the trail came up we held "conferences of the powers."

We continued for the most part up a wide mossy and grassy river bottom covered with water. We waded for miles in water to our ankles, crossing hundreds of deep little rivulets. Occasionally a horse went down into a hole and had to be "snailed out," and we were wet and covered with mud all day. It was a new sort of trail and a terror. The mountains on each side were very stately and impressive, but we could pay little attention to views when our horses were miring down at every step.

We could not agree about the river. Some were inclined to the belief that it was a branch of the Stikeen, the old man was sure it was "Skeeny." We were troubled by a new sort of fly, a little orange-colored fellow whose habits were similar to those of the little black fiends of the Bulkley Valley. They were very poisonous indeed, and made our ears swell up enormously – the itching and burning was well-nigh intolerable. We saw no life at all save one grouse hen guarding her young. A paradise for game it seemed, but no game. A beautiful grassy, marshy, and empty land. We passed over one low divide after another with immense snowy peaks thickening all around us. For the first time in over two hundred miles we were all able to ride. Whistling marmots and grouse again abounded. We had a bird at every meal. The wind was cool and the sky was magnificent, and for the first time in many days we were able to take off our hats and face the wind in exultation.