“And I’m sort of sorry I shot him up for
it. I am, for a fact.”
“You killed him?”
“Not quite. I clipped one ear off as a
reminder, down in Chink Holleran’s place.
Mighty sorry. Didn’t think then how decent
it was of him to buy me a ticket to Nome. I just
let go in the heat of the moment. He did me a
favor in cleanin’ me, Alan. He did, so help
me! You don’t realize how free an’
easy an’ beautiful everything is until you’re
busted.”
Smiling, his odd face almost boyish behind its ambush
of hair, he saw the grim look in Alan’s eyes
and about his jaws. He caught hold of the other’s
arm and shook it.
“Alan, I mean it!” he declared. “That’s
why I think money is a fool thing. It ain’t
spendin’ money that makes me happy.
It’s findin’ it—the
gold in the mountains—that makes the blood
run fast through my gizzard. After I’ve
found it, I can’t find any use for it in particular.
I want to go broke. If I didn’t, I’d
get lazy and fat, an’ some newfangled doctor
would operate on me, and I’d die. They’re
doing a lot of that operatin’ down in Frisco,
Alan. One day I had a pain, and they wanted to
cut out something from inside me. Think what can
happen to a man when he’s got money!”
“You mean all that, Stampede?”
“On my life, I do. I’m just aching
for the open skies, Alan. The mountains.
And the yellow stuff that’s going to be my playmate
till I die. Somebody’ll grub-stake me in
Nome.”
“They won’t,” said Alan suddenly.
“Not if I can help it. Stampede, I want
you. I want you with me up under the Endicott
Mountains. I’ve got ten thousand reindeer
up there. It’s No Man’s Land, and
we can do as we please in it. I’m not after
gold. I want another sort of thing. But I’ve
fancied the Endicott ranges are full of that yellow
playmate of yours. It’s a new country.
You’ve never seen it. God only knows what
you may find. Will you come?”
The humorous twinkle had gone out of Stampede’s
eyes. He was staring at Alan.
“Will I come? Alan, will a cub nurse
its mother? Try me. Ask me. Say it
all over ag’in.”
The two men gripped hands. Smiling, Alan nodded
to the east. The last of the fog was clearing
swiftly. The tips of the cragged Alaskan ranges
rose up against the blue of a cloudless sky, and the
morning sun was flashing in rose and gold at their
snowy peaks. Stampede also nodded. Speech
was unnecessary. They both understood, and the
thrill of the life they loved passed from one to the
other in the grip of their hands.
