“An’ sure, can’t ye keep warm by jumpin’ off the sleds an’ runnin’ after the dogs?” cried an Irishman. “But it’s going to be beastly cold,” objected one of the party.
The dogs can follow the trail besides, it’s going to be moonlight. “The creek is all right, boys,” a large, black-bearded man, evidently the leader, said, “and I think the best thing we can do is to pull out tonight. They had finished eating and were smoking around the fire. He crept so close that he could hear them talking, and by pushing the underbrush aside he could catch occasional glimpses of them. When he saw them make preparations to cook, he hurried home to get something to eat himself, and then hurried back. In the afternoon, with Walt always trailing on their heels, they came back down the creek, unharnessed their dogs and went into camp within two claims of his cabin. Walt crept along the snow at the rim of the creek and saw them change many stakes, destroy old ones, and set up new ones.
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He had not watched them for very long before he was sure that they were professional stampeders, bent on jumping all the claims in sight. So he locked up the cabin and followed them, being at the same time careful to remain hidden.
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He did not like the looks of the newcomers, and one day, when five of them came by with crack dog-teams and the lightest of camping outfits, he could see that they were prepared to make speed, and resolved to keep an eye on them. Walt was worried, however the claim was liable to be jumped at any moment because of this delay, and a fresh stampede had started on the Mazy May. Then Walt Masters received news that old Loren was nearly all right again, and about to move on afoot for Dawson as fast as a weakened man could. Loren Hall was an old man, and he had no dogs, so he had to travel very slowly.Īfter he had been gone some time, word came up the river that he had broken through the ice at Rosebud Creek and frozen his feet so badly that he would not be able to travel for a couple of weeks. Not only did he look after his father’s claim, but he had agreed to keep an eye on the adjoining one of Loren Hall, who had started for Dawson to record it. Walt was well able to stay by himself in the cabin, cook his three meals a day and look after things. In short, it was the old story, and quite a number of the earnest, industrious prospectors had suffered similar losses.īut Walt Masters’ father had recorded his claim at the start, so Walt had nothing to fear now that his father had gone on a short trip up to the White River prospecting for quartz. George Lukens and his brother had lost their claims in a like manner, having delayed too long on the way to Dawson to record them. Si Hartman had gone away on a moose-hunt, to return and find new stakes driven and his claim jumped.
But with the news of their discoveries, strange men began to come and go through the short days and long nights, and many unjust things they did to the men who had worked so long upon the creek. Last year they and several others had spent much toil and time on the Mazy May, and endured great hardships the creek, in turn, was just beginning to show up its richness and to reward them for their heavy labor. Walt was born a thousand miles or so down the Yukon, in a trading post below the Ramparts.Īfter his mother died, his father and he came on up the river, step by step, from camp to camp, till now they are settled down on Mazy May Creek in the Klondike gold country. His father is a good man, strong and brave, and Walt is growing up like him.
Last of all, he has a good heart, and is not afraid of the darkness and loneliness, of man or beast or thing. He can make bread without baking powder, yeast or hops, shoot a moose at 300 yards, and drive the wild wolf-dogs 50 miles a day on the packed trail. Walt has walked all the 14 years of his life in sun-tanned, moose-hide moccasins, and he can go to the Indian camps and “talk big” with the men, and trade calico and beads with them for their precious furs. But he has seen the sun at midnight, watched the ice-jams on one of the mightiest of rivers, and played beneath the northern lights, the one white child in thousands of square miles of frozen wilderness. He has never had a pair of shoes on his feet, nor gone to a picnic or a party, nor talked to a girl.
He has never seen a train of cars nor an elevator in his life, and for that matter he has never once looked upon a cornfield, a plough, a cow, or even a chicken. Payne Walt Masters is not a very large boy, but there is manliness in his makeup, and he himself, although he does not know a great deal that most boys know, knows much that other boys do not know.
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