The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, January 3, 1904, Page 4

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CAL re, ¥oiilips & A PEARLE 1gh the snow, sob- nibg & his luck, the read the 1 - book to n he turred ss the snow-cov- vas not startled be- took upon it greater rew in ser. Op- ressed h own impotence, he alte the midst of the white waste nd whirled about. His right hand slt m its ten; and a revolver at level glistened in the pale light of Don’t shoot. The sghadow I haven't a gun.” had' assumed tangible ehape, and at the nd of its human voice a trepidat affected Fortune La Pearle’s knees, and his stomach weas stricken with the qualms of sud- den rélief Perhaps things fell out differently because Uri Bram had no gun that hen he sat on the hard benches Dorado end saw murder done. that fact also might be attributea the trip on the Long Trail which he took subsequently with a most unlikely comrade. But be it as it may, he re- peated 2 second time: “Don’t ghoot. Can’t you' see I haven't a gun?” “Then what the flaming hell did you for?” demanded the gam- ring his revolver. 1 Bram shrugged his shoulders. “It don't 1 ter much, anyhow. I want you with me.” “To my ehack, over on the edge of the camp But Fortune La. Pearle drove the heel of his moccasin Into the snow and at- tested lvy‘ his various deitles to the madness of Uri Bram. “Who are you?” he perorated, “and what am I, that I should put my neck into the rope at your hidding?” “I am Uri Bram,” the other sald sim- ply, “and my shack is over there on the edge of camp.- I ddn't know who you are, but you've thrust the soul from a Jiving man’s. body—there’s the blood red on your sleeve,.and, like a second Cain, the hand of all mankind is against you, and there is no place you may lay ye head. Now, I have a shack—" “For the love of your mother, hold your say, man,” interrupted Fortune La Pearle, “or I'll make you a second Abel for the joy of it. So help me, I will! Witk a thousand men to lay me by the , what ¢ I want to whole damn that's wha crushea by and Uri Bram He was not give ind that wk ongest in his lf ard in another at's why § told vou about my shack. I can stow you there so they'll ever find you d T've got grub in plenty. Elsewise you cs get away. No dogs, no nothing, the sea closed St. Michael the nearest post, runn to carry the news before you, same over the portage to Anv a chance in the world for you. Now wait till it blows over. They'll for- get all about you in a month or less, what of stampeding to York and what not, and you can hit the trail under their noses and they won’'t bother I've got my own ideas of justice. When 1 ran after you out of El Dorado and along the beach it wasn't to catch you or give you up. My ideas are my own and that’s not one of them.” He ceased as the murderer drew a prayer book from his pocket. With the surora borealis glimmering yellow in the northwest, heads bared to the frost and naked hands grasping the sacred book, Fortune La Pearle swore him to the words he had spoken —an oath which Uri Bram never intended break- ing and never broke. At the door of the shack the gambler hesitated for an instant, marveling at the strangeness of this man, who had befriended him, and doubting. But by the candlelight he found the cabi- comfortable and without occupants, and he was quickly rolling a cigarette while the other man made coffee. His muscles relaxed in the warmth and he lay back with half-assumed indolence, intently studying Url's face through the curling wisps of smoke. It was & powerful face, but its strength was of that pecullar sort which stands girt in and unrelated. The seams were deep-graven, more like scars, while the stern features were in no way softened by hints of sympathy or humor. Under prominent bushy brows the eyes shone cold and gray. The cheekbones, high and for- bidding, were undermined by deep hol- lows. The chin and jaw displayed a steadiness of purpofe which the narrow forehead advertised as single, and, it needs be, pitiless. Everything was harsh, the nose, the lips, the voice, the lines about the mouth. It was the face of one who communed much with him- self, unused to seeking counsel from the world; the face of one who wrestled oft of night with angels, and rose to face the day with shut lips that no man the ~not might know, He was narrow but Qeep; and Fortune, his own humanity broad and shallow, could make nothing of him. Did Uri sing when merry and sigh when sad he could have understood; but as it was the cryptic features were undecipherable; he could not measure the soul they concealed. “Lend a hand, Mister Man,” Uri or- dered, when the cups had been emptied. “We've got to fix up for visitors.” Fortune purred his name for the other’s benefit and assisted under- standingly. The bunk was bullt against a side and end of the cabin. It was a rude affalr, the bottom being composed of driftwood logs overlaid with moss. At the foot the rough ends of these timbers projected in an uneven row. From the side next the wall Uri rippéd back the moss and removed three of the logs. The jag- ged ends he sawed off and replaced, so that the projecting row remained unbroken. Fortune carried in sacks of flour from the cache and piled them on the floor beneath the aperture. On these Url laid a pair of sea bags, and over all spread several th¥ck- nesses of moss and blankets. Upon this Fortune could lie, with the sleep- ing furs stretched over him from one side of the bunk to the other, and all men could look upon it and declare it empty. In the weeks which followed ssveral domiciliary visits were pald, not a shack or tent in Nome escaping, but Fortune lay in his cranny undisturbed. In n&. little attention was given to Url Bram’s cabin, for it was the last place under the sun to expect to find the murderer of Jobn Randolph. Except during such interruptions Fortune lolled about the cabin, playing long games of solitaire and smoking endless cigarettes. Though his volatile nature loved geniality, the play of words and laughter, he quickly accommodated himself to Url's taciturnity, Beyond the actions and plans of his pursuers, the state of the trails and the price of dogs they never talked; and these things were only discussed at rare intervals and briefly. But Fortune fell to working out & system, and hour after hour and | day after day he shuffled and dealt, shuffied and dealt, noted the combina- tions of the cards in long columns, and shuffied and dealt again. Toward the end even this absorntion failed him, and, head bowed upon the table, he vistoned the lively all night houses of Nome, where the gamekeepers and lookouts worked in shifts and the clat- tering roulette ball never slept. At such times his loneliness and bankruptey stunned him till he sat for hours In the same unblinking, unchanging position. At other times his long pent bitterness found voice in passionate outbursts; for he had rubbed the world the wrong way and did not like the feel of it. “Life’s a skin game,” he was fond of repeating, and on this one note he rang the changes. “I never had half a chanee,” he complained. “I was faked in my birth and flimflammed with my mother’s milk. The dice were loaded when she tossed the box, and 1 was born to prove the loss. But that was no reason she should blame me for it and look on me as & cold deck; but she did —aye, she did. Why didn’t she give me & show? Why didn’t the world? Why a1d 1 go broke in Seattle? Why did I take the steerage and live like a hog to Nome? Why did I go to Hl Dorade? I was heading for Big Pete's and only went for matches. Why didn’t I have matches? Why did I want to smoke? Don't you see? All worked out, every ‘bit of it, all parts fitting snug. Before 1 wes born, like as not. T'll put the sack I never hope to get on it, before I was born. That's why! That's why John Randol' MApassed the word and his checks indc the same time. Damn him! It served him well right! Why didn’t he keep his tongue between his teeth and give e & chance? He knew I was next to broke. Why didn’t I hold my hand? Oh, why? Why? Why?" And Fortune La Pearle would roll upon the floor, vainly interrogating the scheme of things. At such outbreaks Uri sald no word, gave no sign, save that his gray eyes seemed to turn dull and muddy, as though from lack of interest. There was nothing in common between these two men, and this fact Fortune grasped sufficlently to wonder sometimes why Url stood by him. But the time of walting came to an end. Even a community’s blood lust cannot stand before its gold lust. The murder of John Randolph had already passed into the annals of the camp, and there it rested. Had the murderer appeared the men of Nome would cer- tainly have stopped stampeding long enough to see justice done, whereas the ‘Wwhereabouts of Fortune La Pearle was no longer an insistent problem. There was gold In the creek beds and ruby beaches and, when the sea opened, the men, with healthy sacks, would sail away to where the good things of life were sold absurdly cheap. So one night Fortune helped Usi Bram harness the dogs and lash the sled, and the train took the winter trail south on the ice. But it was not all south; for they left the sea east from St. Michael, crossed the divide, and struck the Yukon at Anvik, many hundreds of miles from its mouth. Then on, into the northeast, past Koy- okuk, Tanana and Minook, till they rounded the Great Curve at Fort Yukon, crossed and recrossed the Arctic Circle, and headed south through the Flats. It was a weary jour- ney, and Fortune would have wondered why the man went with him had not Uri told him that he owned olaims and had men working at Bagle. Eagle lay on the edge of the line; a few miles further on the British flag waved over the barracks at Fort Cudahy. Then came Dawson, Pelly, the Five Fingers, - Bkagway to Bennett Windy Arm, Caribu Crossing, Linder- man, the Chilcoot and Dyea, On the morning after passing Hagle they rose early. This was their last camp, and they were now to part. For- tune’s heart was light. There was a promise of spring in the land, and the days were growing longer. The way was passing into Canadian territory Liberty was at hand, the sun was re- turning, and each day saw him nearer to the Great Outside. The world was big, and he could once again paint his fortune in royal red. He whistled about the breakfast and hummed snatches of light song while Uri put the dogs In harness and packed up. But when all was ready, Fortune's feet itching to be off, Uri pulled an unused backlog .to the fi~e and sat down. “Ever hear of. the Trail?” He glanced up meditatively and For- tune shook his head, inwardly chafing at the delay. “Sometimes there are meetings under circumstances which make men re- member,” Ur! continued, speaking in & low voice and very slowly, “and I met a man under such circumstances on the Dead Horse Trail. Freighting an out- fit over the White Pass In '97 broke many & man's heart, for thers was a world of reason when they gave that trafl its name. The horses died like mosquitoes in the first frost, and from they - votted in heaps. They dled at the Rocks, they were polsoned at the summit and they starved at the Lakes: they fell off the trail, what there was of it, or they went through it In the river they drowned under their loads, or ‘were smashed to pleces against the baglders; they snapped their legs in the crevices and broke their backs falling backward with their packs: in the sloughs they sank from sight or smothered In the slime, and they were disemboweled in the bogs wWwhere the corduroy logs turned end up in the mud; men shot them, worked them to death, and when they were gone went back to the beach and bought more. Some did not bother to shoot them, stripping the saddles off and the shoes and leaving them where they fell. TBeir hearts turned to stone —those which did not break—and they became beasts, the men of Dead Horse Trail. “It was there I met a man with the heart of a Christ and ths patience. And he was honest. When he rested at mid- day be took the packs from the horses %0 that they, too, might rest. He pald $50 a hundredweight for their fodder, ard more. He used his own bed to blanket their backs when they rubbed raw. Other men let the saddles eat holes the size of water buckets. Other men, when the shoes gave out, let them wear their hoofs down to the bleeding stumps. He spent his last dol- lar for horseshoe nafls. I know this, because we slept in the one bed and ate from the on€ pot, and became blood brothers where men lost their grip of tAings and dled blaspheming God. He ‘Was never too tired to ease a strap or tighten & cinch, and often there was tears In his eyes when he looked on all that waste of misery. At & passage In the rocks, where the brutes upreared hindlegged and stretehed their forelegs upward like cats to clear the wall, the way was plled with carcasses where they had toppled back. And here he stood, In the stench of hell, with a cheery word and a hand on the rump at the right time, till the string passed by. And when one bogged he blocked the trafl till it was clear again; nor did the man live who crowded him at such time. “At the end of the trall a man who had killed fifty horses wanted to buy, but we looked at him and at our own— mountain cayuses from Eastern OQre- gon. Five thousand he offered, and we were broke, but we remembered the poison grass of the summit ahd the pagsage In the rocks, and the man who was my brother spoke no word, but di- vided the cayuses into two bunches— (Continued on Page Five.) Dead Horse