And at Santa Rosa, in a second-hand clothes shop, he sold the suit outright for two dollars and a half. From the same obliging shopman he received four dollars for the wedding ring of his long-dead wife. The span of horses and the wagon he disposed of for seventy-five dollars, although twenty-five was all he received down in cash. Chancing to meet Alton Granger on the street, to whom never before had he mentioned the ten dollars loaned him in ’74, he reminded Alton Granger of the little affair, and was promptly paid. Also, of all unbelievable men to be in funds, he so found the town drunkard for whom he had bought many a drink in the old and palmy days. And from him John Tarwater borrowed a dollar. Finally, he took the afternoon train to San Francisco.
A dozen days later, carrying a half-empty canvas sack of blankets and old clothes, he landed on the beach of Dyea in the thick of the great Klondike Rush. The beach was screaming bedlam. Ten thousand tons of outfit lay heaped and scattered, and twice ten thousand men struggled with it and clamoured about it. Freight, by Indian-back, over Chilcoot to Lake Linderman, had jumped from sixteen to thirty cents a pound, which latter was a rate of six hundred dollars a ton. And the sub-arctic winter gloomed near at hand. All knew it, and all knew that of the twenty thousand of them very few would get across the passes, leaving the rest to winter and wait for the late spring thaw.
Such the beach old John Tarwater stepped upon; and straight across the beach and up the trail toward Chilcoot he headed, cackling his ancient chant, a very Grandfather Argus himself, with no outfit worry in the world, for he did not possess any outfit. That night he slept on the flats, five miles above Dyea, at the head of canoe navigation. Here the Dyea River became a rushing mountain torrent, plunging out of a dark canyon from the glaciers that fed it far above.
And here, early next morning, he beheld a little man weighing no more than a hundred, staggering along a foot-log under all of a hundred pounds of flour strapped on his back. Also, he beheld the little man stumble off the log and fall face-downward in a quiet eddy where the water was two feet deep and proceed quietly to drown. It was no desire of his to take death so easily, but the flour on his back weighed as much as he and would not let him up.
“Thank you, old man,” he said to Tarwater, when the latter had dragged him up into the air and ashore.
While he unlaced his shoes and ran the water out, they had further talk. Next, he fished out a ten-dollar gold-piece and offered it to his rescuer.
Old Tarwater shook his head and shivered, for the ice-water had wet him to his knees.
“But I reckon I wouldn’t object to settin’ down to a friendly meal with you.”
“Ain’t had breakfast?” the little man, who was past forty and who had said his name was Anson, queried with a glance frankly curious.
“Nary bite,” John Tarwater answered.
“Where’s your outfit? Ahead?”
“Nary outfit.”
“Expect to buy your grub on the Inside?”
“Nary a dollar to buy it with, friend. Which ain’t so important as a warm bite of breakfast right now.”
In Anson’s camp, a quarter of a mile on, Tarwater found a slender, red-whiskered young man of thirty cursing over a fire of wet willow wood. Introduced as Charles, he transferred his scowl and wrath to Tarwater, who, genially oblivious, devoted himself to the fire, took advantage of the chill morning breeze to create a draught which the other had left stupidly blocked by stones, and soon developed less smoke and more flame. The third member of the party, Bill Wilson, or Big Bill as they called him, came in with a hundred-and-forty-pound pack; and what Tarwater esteemed to be a very rotten breakfast was dished out by Charles. The mush was half cooked and mostly burnt, the bacon was charred carbon, and the coffee was unspeakable.
Immediately the meal was wolfed down the three partners took their empty pack-straps and headed down trail to where the remainder of their outfit lay at the last camp a mile away. And old Tarwater became busy. He washed the dishes, foraged dry wood, mended a broken pack-strap, put an edge on the butcher-knife and camp-axe, and repacked the picks and shovels into a more carryable parcel.
What had impressed him during the brief breakfast was the sort of awe in which Anson and Big Bill stood of Charles. Once, during the morning, while Anson took a breathing spell after bringing in another hundred-pound pack, Tarwater delicately hinted his impression.
“You see, it’s this way,” Anson said. “We’ve divided our leadership. We’ve got specialities. Now I’m a carpenter. When we get to Lake Linderman, and the trees are chopped and whipsawed into planks, I’ll boss the building of the boat. Big Bill is a logger and miner. So he’ll boss getting out the logs and all mining operations. Most of our outfit’s ahead. We went broke paying the Indians to pack that much of it to the top of Chilcoot. Our last partner is up there with it, moving it along by himself down the other side. His name’s Liverpool, and he’s a sailor. So, when the boat’s built, he’s the boss of the outfit to navigate the lakes and rapids to Klondike.
“And Charles - this Mr. Crayton - what might his speciality be?” Tarwater asked.
“He’s the business man. When it comes to business and organization he’s boss.”
“Hum,” Tarwater pondered. “Very lucky to get such a bunch of specialities into one outfit.”
“More than luck,” Anson agreed. “It was all accident, too. Each of us started alone. We met on the steamer coming up from San Francisco, and formed the party. - Well, I got to be goin’. Charles is liable to get kicking because I ain’t packin’ my share’ just the same, you can’t expect a hundred-pound man to pack as much as a hundred-and-sixty-pounder.”
“Stick around and cook us something for dinner,” Charles, on his next load in and noting the effects of the old man’s handiness, told Tarwater.
And Tarwater cooked a dinner that was a dinner, washed the dishes, had real pork and beans for supper, and bread baked in a frying-pan that was so delectable than the three partners nearly foundered themselves on it. Supper dishes washed, he cut shavings and kindling for a quick and certain breakfast fire, showed Anson a trick with foot-gear that was invaluable to any hiker, sang his “Like Argus of the Ancient Times,” and told them of the great emigration across the Plains in Forty-nine.
“My goodness, the first cheerful and hearty-like camp since we hit the beach,” Big Bill remarked as he knocked out his pipe and began pulling off his shoes for bed.
“Kind of made things easy, boys, eh?” Tarwater queried genially.
All nodded. “Well, then, I got a proposition, boys. You can take it or leave it, but just listen kindly to it. You’re in a hurry to get in before the freeze-up. Half the time is wasted over the cooking by one of you that he might be puttin’ in packin’ outfit. If I do the cookin’ for you, you all’ll get on that much faster. Also, the cookin’ ’ll be better, and that’ll make you pack better. And I can pack quite a bit myself in between times, quite a bit, yes, sir, quite a bit.”
Big Bill and Anson were just beginning to nod their heads in agreement, when Charles stopped them.
“What do you expect of us in return?” he demanded of the old man.
“Oh, I leave it up to the boys.”
“That ain’t business,” Charles reprimanded sharply. “You made the proposition. Now finish it.”
“Well, it’s this way - ”
“You expect us to feed you all winter, eh?” Charles interrupted.
“No, siree, I don’t. All I reckon is a passage to Klondike in your boat would be mighty square of you.”
“You haven’t an ounce of grub, old man. You’ll starve to death when you get there.”
“I’ve been feedin’ some long time pretty successful,” Old Tarwater replied, a whimsical light in his eyes. “I’m seventy, and ain’t starved to death never yet.”