Smoke Bellew | Page 9

highly poisonous brown beans. As a result, his stomach went
back on him, and for several days the pain and irritation of it and of
starvation nearly broke him down. And then came the day of joy when
he could eat like a ravenous animal, and, wolf-eyed, ask for more.
When they had moved the outfit across the foot-logs at the mouth of
the Canyon, they made a change in their plans. Word had come across
the Pass that at Lake Linderman the last available trees for building
boats were being cut. The two cousins, with tools, whipsaw, blankets,
and grub on their backs, went on, leaving Kit and his uncle to hustle
along the outfit. John Bellew now shared the cooking with Kit, and
both packed shoulder to shoulder. Time was flying, and on the peaks
the first snow was falling. To be caught on the wrong side of the Pass
meant a delay of nearly a year. The older man put his iron back under a
hundred pounds. Kit was shocked, but he gritted his teeth and fastened
his own straps to a hundred pounds. It hurt, but he had learned the
knack, and his body, purged of all softness and fat, was beginning to
harden up with lean and bitter muscle. Also, he observed and devised.
He took note of the head-straps worn by the Indians, and manufactured
one for himself, which he used in addition to the shoulder-straps. It
made things easier, so that he began the practice of piling any light,
cumbersome piece of luggage on top. Thus, he was soon able to bend
along with a hundred pounds in the straps, fifteen or twenty more lying
loosely on top the pack and against his neck, an axe or a pair of oars in
one hand, and in the other the nested cooking-pails of the camp.
But work as they would, the toil increased. The trail grew more rugged;
their packs grew heavier; and each day saw the snow-line dropping
down the mountains, while freight jumped to sixty cents. No word
came from the cousins beyond, so they knew they must be at work
chopping down the standing trees, and whipsawing them into
boat-planks. John Bellew grew anxious. Capturing a bunch of Indians
back-tripping from Lake Linderman, he persuaded them to put their
straps on the outfit. They charged thirty cents a pound to carry it to the
summit of Chilcoot, and it nearly broke him. As it was, some four
hundred pounds of clothes-bags and camp outfit was not handled. He
remained behind to move it along, dispatching Kit with the Indians. At

the summit Kit was to remain, slowly moving his ton until overtaken
by the four hundred pounds with which his uncle guaranteed to catch
him.

V.
Kit plodded along the trail with his Indian packers. In recognition of
the fact that it was to be a long pack, straight to the top of Chilcoot, his
own load was only eighty pounds. The Indians plodded under their
loads, but it was a quicker gait than he had practised. Yet he felt no
apprehension, and by now had come to deem himself almost the equal
of an Indian.
At the end of a quarter of a mile he desired to rest. But the Indians kept
on. He stayed with them, and kept his place in the line. At the half mile
he was convinced that he was incapable of another step, yet he gritted
his teeth, kept his place, and at the end of the mile was amazed that he
was still alive. Then, in some strange way, came the thing called
second wind, and the next mile was almost easier than the first. The
third mile nearly killed him, and, though half delirious with pain and
fatigue, he never whimpered. And then, when he felt he must surely
faint, came the rest. Instead of sitting in the straps, as was the custom of
the white packers, the Indians slipped out of the shoulder- and head-
straps and lay at ease, talking and smoking. A full half hour passed
before they made another start. To Kit's surprise he found himself a
fresh man, and 'long hauls and long rests' became his newest motto.
The pitch of Chilcoot was all he had heard of it, and many were the
occasions when he climbed with hands as well as feet. But when he
reached the crest of the divide in the thick of a driving snow- squall, it
was in the company of his Indians, and his secret pride was that he had
come through with them and never squealed and never lagged. To be
almost as good as an Indian was a new ambition to cherish.
When he had paid off the Indians and