The Gold Hunters
James Oliver Curwood
The Gold Hunters
James Oliver Curwood
This page copyright © 2004 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
CHAPTER I. THE PURSUIT OF THE HUDSON BAY MAIL
CHAPTER II. MINNETAKI IN THE HANDS OF THE OUTLAWS
CHAPTER III. ON THE TRAIL OF THE WOONGAS
CHAPTER IV. ROD FOLLOWS THE MAN-FOOTED BEAR
CHAPTER V. ROD'S FIGHT FOR LIFE
CHAPTER VI. THE SHADOW OF DEATH
CHAPTER VII. ON THE TRAIL OF GOLD
CHAPTER VIII. THE YELLOW BULLET
CHAPTER IX. UP THE OMBABIKA
CHAPTER X. THE MYSTERIOUS SHOT
CHAPTER XI. THE CRY IN THE CHASM
CHAPTER XII. WABI MAKES A STRANGE DISCOVERY
CHAPTER XIII. THE THIRD WATERFALL
CHAPTER XIV. THE PAPER IN THE OLD TIN BOX
CHAPTER XV. THE TREASURE IN THE POOL
CHAPTER XVI. JOHN BALL AND THE MYSTERY OF THE GOLD
CHAPTER XVII. IN A SUBTERRANEAN WORLD
CHAPTER XVIII. JOHN BALL'S STORY
The Gold Hunters A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds
Produced by Suzanne Shell, Bjoern Lijnema and Distributed Proofreaders
[Illustration: The canoe sped out into the gloom.]
THE GOLD HUNTERS
A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds
BY JAMES OLIVER CURWOOD
1909
To the sweet-voiced, dark-eyed little half-Cree maiden at Lac-Bain, who is the Minnetaki of this story; and to “Teddy” Brown, guide and trapper, and loyal comrade of the author in many of his adventures, this book is affectionately dedicated.
CHAPTER I. THE PURSUIT OF THE HUDSON BAY MAIL
The deep hush of noon hovered over the vast solitude of Canadian forest. The moose and caribou had fed since early dawn, and were resting quietly in the warmth of the February sun; the lynx was curled away in his niche between the great rocks, waiting for the sun to sink farther into the north and west before resuming his marauding adventures; the fox was taking his midday slumber and the restless moose-birds were fluffing themselves lazily in the warm glow that was beginning to melt the snows of late winter.
It was that hour when the old hunter on the trail takes off his pack, silently gathers wood for a fire, eats his dinner and smokes his pipe, eyes and ears alert;—that hour when if you speak above a whisper, he will say to you,
“Sh-h-h-h! Be quiet! You can't tell how near we are to game. Everything has had its morning feed and is lying low. The game won't be moving again for an hour or two, and there may be moose or caribou a gunshot ahead. We couldn't hear them—now!”
And yet, after a time one thing detached itself from this lifeless solitude. At first it was nothing more than a spot on the sunny side of a snow-covered ridge. Then it moved, stretched itself like a dog, with its forefeet extended far to the front and its shoulders hunched low—and was a wolf.
A wolf is a heavy sleeper after a feast. A hunter would have said that this wolf had gorged itself the night before. Still, something had alarmed it. Faintly there came to this wilderness outlaw that most thrilling of all things to the denizens of the forest—the scent of man. He came down the ridge with the slow indifference of a full-fed animal, and with only a half of his old cunning; trotted across the softening snow of an opening and stopped where the man-scent was so strong that he lifted his head straight up to the sky and sent out to his comrades in forest and plain the warning signal that he had struck a human trail. A wolf will do this, and no more, in broad day. At night he might follow, and others would join him in the chase; but with daylight about him he gives the warning and after a little slinks away from the trail.
But something held this wolf. There was a mystery in the air which puzzled him. Straight ahead there ran the broad, smooth trail of a sled and the footprints of many dogs. Sometime within the last hour the “dog mail” from Wabinosh House had passed that way on its long trip to civilization. But it was not the swift passage of man and dog that held the wolf rigidly alert, ready for flight—and yet hesitating. It was something from the opposite direction, from the North, out of which the wind was coming. First it was sound; then it was scent—then both, and the wolf sped in swift flight up the sunlit ridge.
In the direction from which the alarm came there stretched a small lake, and on its farther edge, a quarter of a mile away, there suddenly darted out from the dense rim of balsam forest a jumble of dogs and sledge and man. For a few moments the mass of animals seemed entangled in some kind of wreck or engaged in one of those fierce battles in which the half-wild sledge-dogs of the North frequently engage, even on the trail. Then there came the sharp, commanding cries of a human voice, the cracking of a whip, the yelping of the huskies, and the disordered team straightened itself and came like a yellowish-gray streak across the smooth surface of the lake. Close beside the sledge ran the man. He was tall, and thin, and even at that distance one would have recognized him as an Indian. Hardly had the team and its wild-looking driver progressed a quarter of the distance across the lake when there came a shout farther back, and a second sledge burst into view from out of the thick forest. Beside this sledge, too, a driver was running with desperate speed.
The leader now leaped upon his sledge, his voice rising in sharp cries of exhortation, his whip whirling and cracking over the backs of his dogs. The second driver still ran, and thus gained upon the team ahead, so that when they came to the opposite side of the lake, where the wolf had sent out the warning cry to his people, the twelve dogs of the two teams were almost abreast.
Quickly there came a slackening in the pace set by the leading dog of each team, and half a minute later the sledges stopped. The dogs flung themselves down in their harness, panting, with gaping jaws, the snow reddening under their bleeding feet. The men, too, showed signs of terrible strain. The elder of these, as we have said, was an Indian, pure breed of the great Northern wilderness. His companion was a youth who had not yet reached his twenties, slender, but with the strength and agility of an animal in his limbs, his handsome face bronzed by the free life of the forest, and in his veins a plentiful strain of that blood which made his comrade kin.
In those two we have again met our old friends Mukoki and Wabigoon: Mukoki, the faithful old warrior and pathfinder, and Wabigoon, the adventurous half-Indian son of the factor of Wabinosh House. Both were at the height of some great excitement. For a few moments, while gaining breath, they gazed silently into each other's face.
“I'm afraid—we can't—catch them, Muky,” panted the younger. “What do you think—”
He stopped, for Mukoki had thrown himself on his knees in the snow a dozen feet in front of the teams. From that point there ran straight ahead of them the trail of the dog mail. For perhaps a full minute he examined the imprints of the dogs' feet and the smooth path made by the sledge. Then he looked up, and with one of those inimitable chuckles which meant so much when coming from him, he said:
“We catch heem—sure! See—sledge heem godeep . Both ride. Big load for dogs. We catch heem—sure!”
“But our dogs!” persisted Wabigoon, his face still filled with doubt. “They're completely bushed, and my leader has gone lame. See how they're bleeding!”