Proof (White)

UST around the first bend of the Dyea Trail above Ten-Mile Cache, which stands beyond Canyon City, Eric Sark threw his weight back upon the gee-pole of his sledge.

“Whoa!” he yelled.

Obediently the five wolf-dogs stopped to rest, the smoke of their breathing clouding heavily through the frosty night. Their red tongues lolled from their panting mouths, and they vigorously shook their bristling manes as if to get rid of the hoar with which their fur was rimmed.

Ahead of and above Sark’s outfit the white-walled Chilkoot path rose up to Sheep Camp, the last depot within the timber-belt until the fireless summit was crossed. Behind and below stretched the rocky defile wherein lay Canyon City and the road he had followed, straggling across Dyea Flats from the ice-piled shore of Dyea Inlet.

The mountain world about him was very still. No wind moaned down the Pass. The ancient peaks poised like ivory carvings against the searchlight flare of the borealis. While he rested, the only sound to break the primal calm was the huh-ha-huh-ha-huh-ha-huh of the dogs and the hammering of his own heart. Then, as he grasped the gee-pole to mush on again, there came the shrill sound of sledge-runners on the beaten trail, and the muffled whine of punished dogs.

Sark paused and looked back curiously.

Around the bend flashed another sledge, drawn by five lean malemiuts and driven by a seeming lunatic. The seeming lunatic lay face down, holding on to the sledge with his left hand and plying the whip with his right. The wind of his going had blown back his parka-hood so that it flapped uselessly on his shoulders. But the man did not appear to know or care. He bore on, bare-headed, through the frost, the brilliant aurora playing oddly upon his yellow hair, his white, strained face, and upon a bloody scar that reached across his temple.

“What in thunder’s chasing you?” yelled Sark as the other neared him in his frenzied gallop. “Pull up, can’t you? Pull up! Are you deaf? And blind? Can’t you see the trail’s too narrow to”

The rest of Sark’s words were smothered in the crash. The racing outfit hit his standing one with the speed of a locomotive. Both sleds, both men and both teams rolled over and over in the side- snow. Snarling and snapping viciously, the ten wolf-dogs gave indiscriminate battle in the traces.

Sark spat out a mouthful of snow as he got to his knees.

“You locoed gink!” he sputtered. “What in blazes is the matter with you? Drunk? Or just bughouse?”

For answer the yellow-haired man swung his whip butt fair upon Sark’s temple, and Sark promptly fell back again into the side-snow. The blow dazed him for a little, yet he did not lose consciousness, and all the while he lay helpless in the drifts he was aware that his attacker was kicking and beating the dogs to straighten them out in the harness. And as his strength came back, Sark floundered erect in time to see the yellow-haired man speeding down the trail as madly as he had sped up. Before the wolf-dogs disappeared, Sark sensed something familiar in their long lope. He stared at them, then at the team attached to the overturned sledge beside him.

“Hold on!” he commanded, running a few strides after the yellow-haired one. “Our teams are mixed. You’ve got the wrong one.”

Nevertheless, as before, the wild man paid no heed. His sledge heeling over on one runner, he took the turn and vanished.

CALLING down a thousand anathemas upon the head of the other, Sark ran back to the overturned sled. He swiftly righted it and hauled around the five lean malemiuts to give chase, but, as they strained to their places in the harness, he saw that the traces had parted in the collision. At once he re-anchored the sledge and feverishly began to repair the broken leathers, splicing them and tightly binding the splices with cord. The work took some minutes. Several times he paused to wipe away the blood which ran down into his eyes from the welt on his temple and interfered with his sight.

As he finished and once more whirled the malemiuts into line, the shriek of sledge-runners sounded a second time around the bend. Half-a-dozen sledges, tailing each other and going at full gallop, broke into view. At sight of Sark the drivers of the outfits raised a great outcry and mercilessly plied their whips.

“More locoed ginks, eh?” Sark growled at them. “But I’ve had my lesson. Nobody runs over me this time.”

His own whip cracked, urging the malemiuts off the trail into the side-snow. Yet his move was of no avail. The six sleds swerved after his and six teams overrode his own.

Sark, managing to leap clear of the tangle, shook his whip angrily in the faces of the six drivers who rolled off and stumbled toward him.

“Say,” he exploded, “when it comes to good-nature, I’m as good-natured as the next man. But repetitions rile me. And you men are certainly repeating.”

“Shut up!” ordered the big gray-bearded man who had led the rush of the six sleds. “We don’t want your guff. We want you.”

“What for?”

“Stealing our stuff from Ten-Mile Cache. You drop that dog-whip.”

Sark held on to it.

“Look here” he began.

“You drop that dog-whip.”

The gray-bearded man waved a hand to the others, and, as with a single movement, five rifles leaped out from under their sled lashings to the level of their hips.

Sark quickly dropped the whip.

“Say, men, any asylum on this trail?” he asked.

The gray-bearded one gazed at him sharply.

“No! Why?”

“I thought maybe there might be and its contents running loose. I got balled up with one crazy man a few minutes ago. Now here’s six more.”

“Hassing,” ordered the man with the gray beard, ignoring Sark’s sarcasm, “better take his gun.”

“Taken it is, Clavin,” nodded Hassing, a squat, red-faced fellow, stepping forward and pulling another rifle from the sledge to which the five malemiuts were hitched.

“You’re welcome to it,” grinned Sark. “It isn’t mine.”

“No, and the bacon and beans and flour ain’t yours, either,” sneered Hassing, kicking the bags upon the sledge.

“No they’re not! And if you ask me, the sled and the malemiuts aren’t mine. Even the darned dog-whip isn’t mine.”

“Must say you’re all-fired candid, stranger,” cut in Clavin. “But I guess you know there’s no use trying to fool us.”

“You’re sure I’m your robber?”

“Sure as hanging, stranger.”

“And don’t I get a chance to clear myself?”

“All the chance in the world—at Ten-Mile Cache. That’s where the stuff belongs and that’s where we’re going on the jump. We’ve been laying for you three cold nights now, and all Canyon City’s getting mighty anxious about you.”

As Sark was whirled down the slope again, sitting sandwiched between Clavin and Hassing upon the front sled, his feeling was one of amusement. But amusement gave way to serious thought, and that to anxiety and positive foreboding when he reached Ten-Mile Cache and saw the crowd awaiting him with a suggestive coil of rope in their hands. The news had gone forth in Canyon City that the six men set to watch the Cache were chasing the thief up the mountain. One rifle-shot had been heard, and men had run out in throngs to await the return of Clavin and the rest.

IT WAS a motley, hard-bitten mob of frontiersmen, clad in parkas, mackinaws, coonskin, and bearskin, that surged about the sled whereon Sark rode. All scowled at him. Many spat to ward him. Some even tried to pull him away from his custodians, Clavin and Hassing.

“String him up!” was the universal cry. “String him up right now! What’s the use of waiting and gassing round?”

But Clavin shouted down the impulsive mob.

“Don’t make cussed fools of yourselves!” he advised. “Miners’ law’s the same as any law. You got to take evidence and prove a man guilty before you can do any punishing under it. Stand back and come to order. Light a fire. And appoint a chairman.”

At once a huge fire of dead spruce was kindled.

And at once the position of chairman was thrust upon Clavin himself.

Clavin stood upon a sledge in the snow and, before the throng crowding into the firelight, stated the charge against the prisoner. Then he called Hassing as the first witness.

“Tonight for the third time we was lying in the spruce back of the Cache,” began Hassing, “to get the skunk as was taking our stuff. ’Twas mighty cold and nothing doing till ’long about midnight. Then we see something moving and we crawled up. But the skunk was leery. He seen us as soon as we seen him, and he jumped for the sled he had piled full of stuff and hit the trail up the mountain. I was nearest, and I cracked at him once. He fell off the sled, got up and jumped on again. Ball just grazed him.” He paused significantly and pointed a finger at Sark’s temple, showing bloody under the edge of his parka-hood. “Chased him then and got him red-handed with the goods on him—just around the first bend.”

Hassing ceased abruptly and slouched aside. Clavin called upon his four companions in turn. Their testimony, as bald as Hassing’s, was but corroboration of Hassing’s. Next the contents of Sark’s sled was judicially examined and the stolen sacks of flour, bacon and beans duly identified by the owners. Finally Clavin called on the accused.

“Stranger,” he observed, “you was aching up at the bend for a chance to clear yourself. Now’s your chance. Go to it!”

SARK stood up, a dark, gigantic figure against the flames.

“I can’t say as I’ve evidence to offer,” he testified. “I’ve only a white man’s word. But it’s God’s truth when I say I’m not the man you chased. Your man was a yellow-haired man with his parka hood off and a bloody welt on his forehead. He blew up behind me when I stopped to breathe my dogs around the bend. Drove bang into me, upset me and whacked me over the head with the butt of his whip. He queered me a minute and before I could get to him he was sifting down again with my outfit.”

“And left you his own?” cross-examined Hassing, who by common consent assumed the pose of lawyer for the prosecution. “Golly, stranger, can’t you figure out some better tale than that? We didn’t meet Mr. Imaginary Man. And he’d sure come back to meet us, wouldn’t he, considering we wanted to see him so bad?”

“He did, I tell you.”

“We didn’t meet him, I tell you.”

“Then he left the trail before he got to you.”

“Couldn’t do it, stranger. Couldn’t leave the trail between the Cache and the bend. Ask any one in the crowd. It’s all straight rock-wall on one side, and there’s been a snow-slide hanging hair-triggered for thirty-six hours on the other. No sane man would sneak out and hide under a slide. And if he had sneaked out, he’d have brought down the slide. I tell you no sane man would try it.”

“But this man wasn’t sane. He was scared insane, or mighty near it. And by the look on his face he’d have taken a chance on the mouth of Hell itself.”

Thus Hassing and Sark continued arguing back and forth till the chairman broke in on them.

“You got to produce this yellow-haired fellow you talk about, before he counts,” he told Sark.

“How in thunder can I?” demanded the latter. “If he didn’t run into you, he must have got away.”

“Got away? Where? Pah! Don’t throw such a fairy tale at us. Got any more evidence?”

“Yes. I want to tell you who I am and explain my movements. My name’s Sark—Eric Sark. I haven’t been many hours on this trail. You say whoever robbed the Cache tonight has been at it all along. You say this is the third night you’ve laid for him. Well, that puts me out of the running. I struck Dyea this afternoon.”

“Oh, you did, eh?” interposed Hassing. “Well, that’s something to go on. To prove whether you’re lying or not, all we got to do is to look at the passenger list of the steamer you come on. What boat was it?”

“No boat. I’m fresh from the peak of British Columbia. By dog-sled off the Tatshenshini River.”

“Aw, shucks! That’s as bad as the yellow-haired story. If you ain’t appeared through regular channels, who’s to identify you? Who’s to prove you came that way?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Sark.

“Then neither do we,” Hassing scoffed.

“Any more evidence?” inquired Clavin, impatiently.

“Only that my dogs weren’t malemiuts. They were MacKenzie River huskies. And my name was on my packs.”

“Well, if that’s all, I guess we’ll take the vote,” concluded Clavin. “Them as believes Sark’s guilty line up on the far side of the fire. Them as believes him innocent stay on his side.”

In a compact body the crowd shifted to the farther side.

WHEN the movement ceased, a solitary man was left sitting upon his dog-sled on Sark’s side.

“Mighty near unanimous!” Clavin commented, glowering at the solitary man. “You voting for the prisoner, Tom Bassett?”

Bassett heaved up his thick-set body and turned a sharp-featured face upon the chair man.

“I sure am, Clavin. And do you savvy why? Because Sark told such a thundering poor tale! If it had been a lie, it would have been all frilled up fit to blind a judge and jury. But it wasn’t. And such a danged thin story can’t be anything but true.”

“But we got circumstantial evidence that says otherwise,” declaimed Clavin. “We got the proof. You can’t get over proof.”

“Clavin, if you live as long in the North as I have, you’ll find out different. You’ll find out there’s things true as can’t be proved true. And I’ll be shot and bludgeoned if here isn’t one of them. Sark’s story sure sounds true to me. Besides,” turning round to the prisoner, “I like his looks. What’s more, I like his voice. It rings right. Partner, I want to shake with you and go right on record here as believing you wouldn’t steal a bloody bean!”

“Thanks, Bassett,” returned Sark simply. “I’m glad there’s one man in the gang ready to talk that way.”

He reached out his hand to shake, and was promptly flung face down upon Bassett’s sled by a violent jerk of Bassett’s arm.

“Hold tight!” whispered Bassett, falling on top of him and using his whip on his team as he fell.

Like a thunderbolt the team sprang away under the lash and dashed up the trail.

SO RAPID and so unexpected was Bassett’s move that his sled had gained a great lead before the crowd even made a break. Then, uttering furious cries, the men jumped for their own outfits. But the denseness of the crowd hampered free movement of teams and sleds. There were several jams before the chase was fairly started, and the lost minutes caused by those jams allowed Bassett and Sark to near the bend as their pursuers topped the first hog-back above the Cache.

Looking down, the two saw a string of pitching sledges and undulating husky-backs writhing up the mountain-side. Above the string waved bushy tails and snake-like whips, and the shouts of the drivers rolled in a thunderous roar.

“We got to make it, Sark!” Bassett kept reiterating through teeth clenched against the hurtling wind of their passage. “We got to make the slide before they come up. Then we’ll get clear away over the Pass. Savvy?”

“Sure,” answered Sark, his mouth opening with the pop of an uncorked bottle. “Wonder the yellow-haired fellow didn’t think of that! But I guess the think was all scared out of him. Don’t spare the whip, Bassett!”

Bassett flayed his huskies cruelly, and in a dozen more leaps the team reached the bend. There was no time to waste in whoaing the animals. Going at full speed, Sark and Bassett simply flung themselves off sidewise, at the same time jerking the sledge over on its side so that it plowed a great furrow to its own anchorage.

By the time it stopped, the two men were a hundred yards along the lip of the canyon which ran at an angle to the bend. They were continually feeling the rocks as they ran, and with one accord they abruptly stopped at a loose boulder. It was a huge, ice-scoured ball, balanced by some Titan’s hand upon the canyon edge. Sark and Bassett put shoulders to it, heaved and stepped swiftly back. Leaping and quivering like a live thing, the missile plunged downward. It struck the first enormous bosses of the snow-slide with a weight of many tons. The far-stretching cornice of the slide curled over like a mile-long comber and, as a comber rushes shoreward, rushed down the canyon side.

The drivers of the pursuing sleds saw it coming. They wheeled in their tracks and frantically whipped back to safety over the hog-back above Ten-Mile Cache.

“That puts the stopper on them,” exulted Bassett, watching. “No catching us now. They can’t bring dog teams over that stuff. And our trail’s clear ahead. We better be hitting it, Sark!”

“Wait, by thunder!” exclaimed Sark, suddenly halting him. “What’s that going down? Look!—when the Northern Lights flash—between the slide rock and the tangle of spruce logs!”

They stared at the breast of the whizzing slide, and the aurora, flaming abruptly, painted darkly against the white the out lines of a man, five huskies, and a sled. Like a phantom dog-train it seemed, riding a ghost-trail through snow-swept space; but, when it hit a felled pine-tree, careened and came to rest upon the crest of the hog-back above Ten-Mile Cache, Sark and Bassett knew it for a material-outfit.

They both turned and for a grim moment looked mutely into each other’s eyes. Then, leaving their team and speeding on their snowshoes, they dashed down over the chaos of snow, rocks and tangled logs that choked the whole trail from the hog-back to the bend.

They arrived at the hog-back before the men below had mounted, ran along the crest and halted beside the motionless sled. The packs were gone, but the man lay on his back across the sled, his white face, marred by a bloody welt over the temple, turned up to the stars, his mop of yellow hair hanging down to the snow. The dogs, big MacKenzie River huskies, likewise lay upon their backs, humped in grotesque attitudes among the twisted harness.

“Slide rock got them!” breathed Sark, finally. “It’s certain as dynamite when it starts. Look at his legs and the legs of my poor beggars of dogs. He sure took a desperate chance, Bassett, hiding out under an avalanche!”

“Sure desperate,” agreed Bassett solemnly. “But still, if you figure it out, Sark, your chance ten minutes ago was just the same as his.

“Say,” and he whirled toward Clavin, Hassing, and the rest who showed heads and shoulders as they ran up the slope, “talk about your circumstantial evidence! Talk about your proof! Come here and we’ll show you something transcending proof!”