The Trail of 98 by Robert W Service Read Free Book Online

going alone."
    "Why," said the Prodigal, "that's just the man we want. We'll ask him to join
us."
    I brought the two together, and it was arranged. So it came about that we
three left San Francisco on the fourth day of March to seek our fortunes in the
Frozen North.
----

BOOK II
    THE TRAIL
Gold! We leaped
     from our benches. Gold! We sprang from our stools.
Gold! We wheeled in
     the furrow, fired with the faith of fools.
Fearless, unfound, unfitted,
     far from the night and the cold,
Heard we the clarion summons, followed
     the master-lureGold!

CHAPTER I
    "Say! you're looking mighty blue. Cheer up, darn you! What's the matter?"
said the Prodigal affectionately.
    And indeed there was matter enough, for had I not just received letters from
home, one from Garry and one from Mother? Garry's was gravely censorious, almost
remonstrant. Mother, he said, was poorly, and greatly put out over my escapade.
He pointed out that I was in a fair way of being a rolling stone, and hoped that
I would at once give up my mad notion of the South Seas and soberly proceed to
the Northwest.
    Mother's letter was reproachful, in parts almost distressful. She was
failing, she said, and she begged me to be a good son, give up my wanderings and
join my cousin at once. Also she enclosed post-office orders for forty pounds.
Her letter, written in a fine faltering hand and so full of gentle affection,
brought the tears to my eyes; so that it was very bleakly I leaned against the
ship's rail and watched the bustle of departure. Poor Mother! Dear old Garry!
With what tender longing I thought of those two in far-away Glengyle, the Scotch
mist silvering the heather and the wind blowing caller from the sea. Oh, for the
clean, keen breath of it! Yet alas, every day was the memoryfading, and every day was I fitting more
snugly into the new life.
    "I've just heard from the folks," I said, "and I feel like going back on
you."
    "Oh, beat it," he cried; "you can't renig now. You've got to see the thing
through. Mothers are all like that when you cut loose from their apron-strings.
Ma's scared stiff about me, thinks the devil's got an option on my future sure.
They get wised up pretty soon. What you want to do is to get busy and make
yourself acquainted. Here I've been snooping round for the last two hours, and
got a line on nearly every one on board. Say! Of all the locoed outfits this
here aggregation has got everything else skinned to a hard-boiled finish. Most
of them are indoor men, ink-slingers and calico snippers; haven't done a day's
hard work in their lives, and don't know a pick from a mattock. They've got a
notion they've just got to get up there and pick big nuggets out of the water
like cherries out of a cocktail. It's the limit."
    "Tell me about them," I said.
    "Well, see that young fellow standing near us?"
    I looked. He was slim, with gentle, refined features and an unnaturally fresh
complexion.
    "That fellow was a pen-pusher in a mazuma emporiumI mean a bank clerk.
Pinklove's his name. He wanted to get hitched to some girl, but the directors
wouldn't stand for it. Now he's chucked his job and staked his savings on this
trip. There's his girl in the crowd."
    Bedded in that mosaic
of human faces I saw one that was all sweetness, yet shamelessly
tear-stained.
    "Lucky beggar," I said, "to have some one who cares so much about his
going."
    "Unlucky, you mean, lad. You don't want to have any strings on you when you
play this game."
    He pointed to a long-haired young man in a flowing-end tie.
    "See that pale-faced, artistic-looking guy alongside him. That's his partner.
Ineffectual, moony sort of a mut. He's a wood-carver; they call him Globstock;
told me his knowledge of wood-carving would come in handy when we came to make
boats at Lake Bennett. Then there's a third. See that little fellow shooting off
his face?"
    I saw a weazened, narrow-chested mannikin, with an aggressive certainty of
feature.
    "He's a