The Stampede Page #4

"The Stampede" by Rex Ellingwood Beach is an adventure novel set against the backdrop of the Alaskan gold rush. The story follows a group of prospectors and adventurers who embark on a perilous journey in search of fortune and glory amidst the harsh and unforgiving wilderness. As they confront the challenges of nature, rivalries, and their own ambitions, the characters reveal their true natures and the complexities of human desire. With vivid descriptions and a gripping plot, Beach's narrative explores themes of hope, greed, and the relentless pursuit of dreams in a rapidly changing world.

• Short story

								

on. They suffered silently, because it takes effort to groan, and they
hoarded every atom of endurance.

Many, many times Buck repeated a poem, timing his steps to its rhythm,
rendering it over and over till it wore a rut through his brain, his
eyes fixed dully upon the glaring fires above the hilltops. For years a
faintness came over him with the memory of these lines:

    Then dark they lie, and stark they lie, rookery, dune, and floe,
    And the Northern Lights came down o' nights to dance with the
        houseless snow.

Reaching the cabin, they found an army of men sleeping heavily upon the
wet moss. Among them was the great form of Knute, but nowhere did they
spy Sully.

With much effort they tore off the constricting boots and, using them
for pillows, sank into a painful lethargy.

Awakened early by the others, they took their stiffly frozen footgear
beneath the blankets to thaw against their warm bodies, but their feet
were swelled to double size and every joint had ossified rheumatically.
Eventually they hobbled about, preparing the first square meal since the
start--two days and three nights.

Still they saw no Sully, though Crowley's eyes darted careful inquiry
among the horde of stampeders which moved about the cabin. Later, he
seemed bent on some hidden design, so they crawled out of sight of the
camp, then, commencing at the upper stake of Discovery, he stepped off
the claims from post to post.

It is customary to blaze the boundaries of locations on tree trunks, but
from topographical irregularities it is difficult to properly gauge
these distances, hence, many rich fractions have been run over by the
heedless, to fall to him who chained the ground.

Upon pacing the third one, he showed excitement.

"You walk this one again--mebbe I made a mistake."

Buck returned, crashing through the brush.

"I make it seventeen hundred."

The claim above figured likewise, and they trembled with elation as they
blazed their lines.

Returning to camp, they found the recorder in the cabin with the scurvy
patients. Unfolding the location notices, his face went black as he
read, while he snarled, angrily:

"'Fraction between Three and Four' and 'Fraction between Four and Five,'
eh? You're crazy."

"I reckon not," said Crowley, lifting his lips at the corners
characteristically.

"There ain't any fraction there," the other averred, loudly. "We own
them claims. I told you we had everything covered."

"You record them fractions!"

"I won't do it! I'll see you in--"

Crowley reached forth suddenly and strangled him as he sat. He buried
his thumbs in his throat, forcing him roughly back against a bunk.
Farther and farther he crushed him till the man lay pinioned and
writhing on his back. Then he knelt on him, shaking and worrying like a
great terrier.

At the first commotion the cripples scrambled out of bed, shouting
lustily through their livid gums, their bloated features mottled and
sickly with fright. One lifted himself toward the Winchester, and it
fell from his hands full cocked when Buck hurled him into a corner,
where he lay screaming in agony.

Drawn by the uproar, the stampeders outside rushed toward the shack to
be met in the door by the young man.

"Keep back!"

"What's up!"

"Fight!"

"Let me in!"

A man bolted forward, but was met with such a driving blow in the face
that he went thrashing to the slush. Another was hurled back, and then
they heard Crowley's voice, rough and throaty, as he abused the
recorder. Strained to the snapping-point, his restraint had shattered to
bits and now passion ran through him, wild and unbridled.

From his words they grasped the situation, and their sympathies changed.
They crowded the door and gazed curiously through the window to see him
jam the recorder shapelessly into a chair, place pen and ink in his
hand, and force him to execute two receipts. It is not a popular
practice, this blanketing, as the temper of the watchers showed.

"Serves 'em right, the hogs," some one said, and he voiced the universal
sentiment.

That night, as they ravened over their meager meal, Knute came to them,
hesitatingly. He was greatly worried and apprehension wrinkled his
wooden face.

"Saay! W'at you t'ink 'bout Sully?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"By yingo, ay t'ink he's lose!"

"Lost! How's that?"

In his dialect, broken by anxiety, he told how Sully and he had
quarreled on the big divide. Maddened by failure to gain on Crowley, the
former had insisted on following the mountain crests in the hope of
quicker travel. The Swede had yielded reluctantly till, frightened by
the network of radiating gulches which spread out beneath their feet in
a bewildering sameness, he had refused to go farther. They had
quarreled. In a fit of fury Sully had hurled his pack away, and Knute's
last vision of him had been as he went raving and cursing onward like a
madman, traveling fast in his fury. Knute had retreated, dropped into
the valley, and eventually reached his goal.

There is no time for reliefs on a stampede. The gentler emotions are
left in camp with the women. He who would risk life, torture, and
privation for a stranger will trample pitilessly on friend and enemy
blinded by the gold glitter or drunken with the chase of the rainbow.

For five days and nights the army lived on its feet, streaming up
gullies where lay the hint of wealth or swarming over the somber bluffs;
and hourly the madness grew, feeding on itself, till they fought like
beasts. Fabulous values were begotten. Giant sales were bruited about.
Flying rumors of gold at the cross-roots inflamed them to further
frenzy.

A town site was laid out and a terrible scramble for lots ensued.

One man was buried in the plot he claimed, his disputant being adjudged
the owner by virtue of his quicker draw. It was manslaughter, they knew,
but no one spared the time to guard him, so he went free. Nor did he run
away. One cannot, while the craze is on.

Five days of this, and then the stream broke. With it broke the delirium
of the five hundred. The valleys roared and bawled from bluff to bluff,
while the flats became seas of seething ice and rubbish. Thus, cut off
from home, they found their grub was gone, for every one had clung till
his food grew low. As the obsession left them their brotherhood
returned--food was apportioned in community, and they spoke vaguely of
the fate of Sully.

For still another half-fortnight they lay about the cabin while the
streams raged, and then Crowley spoke to his partner. Rolling their
blankets, they started, and, although many were tempted to go, none had
the courage, preferring to starve on quarter rations till the waters
lowered.

Ascending for miles where the torrent narrowed, they felled a tree
across for a bridge and, ascending the ridges, took the direction of
camp. In a new and broken country, not formed of continuous ranges, this
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