Part 11

Beneath us the green tumult churning, above us the cavernous gloom; Around us, swift twisting and turning, the black, sullen walls of a tomb. We spun like a chip in a mill-race; our hearts hammered under the test; Then--oh, the relief on each chill face!--we soared into sunlight and rest.

Hand sought for hand on the instant. Cried we, "Our troubles are o'er!" Then, like a rumble of thunder, heard we a canorous roar. Leaping and boiling and seething, saw we a cauldron afume; There was the rage of the rapids, there was the menace of doom.

The river springs like a racer, sweeps through a gash in the rock; Buts at the boulder-ribbed bottom, staggers and rears at the shock; Leaps like a terrified monster, writhes in its fury and pain; Then with the crash of a demon springs to the onset again.

Dared we that ravening terror; heard we its din in our ears; Called on the Gods of our fathers, juggled forlorn with our fears; Sank to our waists in its fury, tossed to the sky like a fleece; Then, when our dread was the greatest, crashed into safety and peace.

But what of the others that followed, losing their boats by the score? Well could we see them and hear them, strung down that desolate shore. What of the poor souls that perished? Little of them shall be said-- On to the Golden Valley, pause not to bury the dead.

Then there were days of drifting, breezes soft as a sigh; Night trailed her robe of jewels over the floor of the sky. The moonlit stream was a python, silver, sinuous, vast, That writhed on a shroud of velvet--well, it was done at last.

There were the tents of Dawson, there the scar of the slide; Swiftly we poled o'er the shallows, swiftly leapt o'er the side. Fires fringed the mouth of Bonanza; sunset gilded the dome; The test of the trail was over--thank God, thank God, we were Home!

The Ballad of Gum-Boot Ben

He was an old prospector with a vision bleared and dim. He asked me for a grubstake, and the same I gave to him. He hinted of a hidden trove, and when I made so bold To question his veracity, this is the tale he told.

"I do not seek the copper streak, nor yet the yellow dust; I am not fain for sake of gain to irk the frozen crust; Let fellows gross find gilded dross, far other is my mark; Oh, gentle youth, this is the truth--I go to seek the Ark.

"I prospected the Pelly bed, I prospected the White; The Nordenscold for love of gold I piked from morn till night; Afar and near for many a year I led the wild stampede, Until I guessed that all my quest was vanity and greed.

"Then came I to a land I knew no man had ever seen, A haggard land, forlornly spanned by mountains lank and lean; The nitchies said 'twas full of dread, of smoke and fiery breath, And no man dare put foot in there for fear of pain and death.

"But I was made all unafraid, so, careless and alone, Day after day I made my way into that land unknown; Night after night by camp-fire light I crouched in lonely thought; Oh, gentle youth, this is the truth--I knew not what I sought.

"I rose at dawn; I wandered on. 'Tis somewhat fine and grand To be alone and hold your own in God's vast awesome land; Come woe or weal, 'tis fine to feel a hundred miles between The trails you dare and pathways where the feet of men have been.

"And so it fell on me a spell of wander-lust was cast. The land was still and strange and chill, and cavernous and vast; And sad and dead, and dull as lead, the valleys sought the snows; And far and wide on every side the ashen peaks arose.

"The moon was like a silent spike that pierced the sky right through; The small stars popped and winked and hopped in vastitudes of blue; And unto me for company came creatures of the shade, And formed in rings and whispered things that made me half afraid.

"And strange though be, 'twas borne on me that land had lived of old, And men had crept and slain and slept where now they toiled for gold; Through jungles dim the mammoth grim had sought the oozy fen, And on his track, all bent of back, had crawled the hairy men.

"And furthermore, strange deeds of yore in this dead place were done. They haunted me, as wild and free I roamed from sun to sun; Until I came where sudden flame uplit a terraced height, A regnant peak that seemed to seek the coronal of night.

"I scaled the peak; my heart was weak, yet on and on I pressed. Skyward I strained until I gained its dazzling silver crest; And there I found, with all around a world supine and stark, Swept clean of snow, a flat plateau, and on it lay--the Ark.

"Yes, there, I knew, by two and two the beasts did disembark, And so in haste I ran and traced in letters on the Ark My human name--Ben Smith's the same. And now I want to float A syndicate to haul and freight to town that noble boat."

I met him later in a bar and made a gay remark Anent an ancient miner and an option on the Ark. He gazed at me reproachfully, as only topers can; But what he said I can't repeat--he was a bad old man.

Clancy of the Mounted Police

In the little Crimson Manual it's written plain and clear That who would wear the scarlet coat shall say good-bye to fear; Shall be a guardian of the right, a sleuth-hound of the trail-- In the little Crimson Manual there's no such word as "fail"-- Shall follow on though heavens fall, or hell's top-turrets freeze, Half round the world, if need there be, on bleeding hands and knees. It's duty, duty, first and last, the Crimson Manual saith; The Scarlet Rider makes reply: "It's duty--to the death." And so they sweep the solitudes, free men from all the earth; And so they sentinel the woods, the wilds that know their worth; And so they scour the startled plains and mock at hurt and pain, And read their Crimson Manual, and find their duty plain. Knights of the lists of unrenown, born of the frontier's need, Disdainful of the spoken word, exultant in the deed; Unconscious heroes of the waste, proud players of the game, Props of the power behind the throne, upholders of the name: For thus the Great White Chief hath said, "In all my lands be peace", And to maintain his word he gave his West the Scarlet Police.

Livid-lipped was the valley, still as the grave of God; Misty shadows of mountain thinned into mists of cloud; Corpselike and stark was the land, with a quiet that crushed and awed, And the stars of the weird sub-arctic glimmered over its shroud.

Deep in the trench of the valley two men stationed the Post, Seymour and Clancy the reckless, fresh from the long patrol; Seymour, the sergeant, and Clancy--Clancy who made his boast He could cinch like a bronco the Northland, and cling to the prongs of the Pole.

Two lone men on detachment, standing for law on the trail; Undismayed in the vastness, wise with the wisdom of old-- Out of the night hailed a half-breed telling a pitiful tale, "White man starving and crazy on the banks of the Nordenscold."

Up sprang the red-haired Clancy, lean and eager of eye; Loaded the long toboggan, strapped each dog at its post; Whirled his lash at the leader; then, with a whoop and a cry, Into the Great White Silence faded away like a ghost.

The clouds were a misty shadow, the hills were a shadowy mist; Sunless, voiceless and pulseless, the day was a dream of woe; Through the ice-rifts the river smoked and bubbled and hissed; Behind was a trail fresh broken, in front the untrodden snow.