“One of them cussed bums,” he explained.
“That’s why they hurried on ahead of us,
Alan. She says this Fourth of July celebration
is going to mean a lot for Alaska. Wonder what
she means?”
“I wonder,” said Alan.
Half an hour more of the tundra and they came to what
Alan had named Ghost Kloof, a deep and jagged scar
in the face of the earth, running down from the foothills
of the mountains. It was a sinister thing, and
in the depths lay abysmal darkness as they descended
a rocky path worn smooth by reindeer and caribou hoofs.
At the bottom, a hundred feet below the twilight of
the plains, Alan dropped on his knees beside a little
spring that he groped for among the stones, and as
he drank he could hear the weird whispering and gurgling
of water up and down the kloof, choked and smothered
in the moss of the rock walls and eternally dripping
from the crevices. Then he saw Stampede’s
face in the glow of another match, and the little
man’s eyes were staring into the black chasm
that reached for miles up into the mountains.
“Alan, you’ve been up this gorge?”
“It’s a favorite runway for the lynx and
big brown bears that kill our fawns,” replied
Alan. “I hunt alone, Stampede. The
place is supposed to be haunted, you know. Ghost
Kloof, I call it, and no Eskimo will enter it.
The bones of dead men lie up there.”
“Never prospected it?” persisted Stampede.
“Never.”
Alan heard the other’s grunt of disgust.
“You’re reindeer-crazy,” he grumbled.
“There’s gold in this canyon. Twice
I’ve found it where there were dead men’s
bones. They bring me good luck.”
“But these were Eskimos. They didn’t
come for gold.”
“I know it. The Boss settled that for me.
When she heard what was the matter with this place,
she made me take her into it. Nerve? Say,
I’m telling you there wasn’t any of it
left out of her when she was born!” He was silent
for a moment, and then added: “When we came
to that dripping, slimy rock with the big yellow skull
layin’ there like a poison toadstool, she didn’t
screech and pull back, but just gave a little gasp
and stared at it hard, and her fingers pinched my arm
until it hurt. It was a devilish-looking thing,
yellow as a sick orange and soppy with the drip of
the wet moss over it. I wanted to blow it to
pieces, and I guess I would if she hadn’t put
a hand on my gun. An’ with a funny little
smile she says: ’Don’t do it, Stampede.
It makes me think of someone I know—and
I wouldn’t want you to shoot him.’
Darned funny thing to say, wasn’t it? Made
her think of someone she knew! Now, who the devil
could look like a rotten skull?”
