The Stampede Page #6

"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

								

seen the last able-bodied man vanish from camp on the Skookum run he
grew restless. He scoffed at fake excitements to Jarvis, the
faro-dealer, who also forbore the trail by virtue of his calling, but he
got no satisfaction. A fortnight later he rolled his blankets and
journeyed toilsomely up the river valley.

"Better late than never," he thought.

Arriving at the empty shack of the negroes, he camped, only to awaken
during the night to the roar of the torrent at his door. Having seen
other mountain streams in the break-up, he waited philosophically,
hunting ptarmigan among the firs back of the cabin.

He had lost track of the days when, down the gulch, in the morning
light, he descried a strange party approaching.

Two men bore between them a stretcher made from their shirts. They
crawled with dreadful slowness, resting every hundred feet. Moreover,
they stumbled and staggered aimlessly through the niggerheads. As they
drew near he sighted their faces, from which the teeth grinned in a
grimace of torture and through which the cheek-bones seemed to
penetrate.

He knew what the signs boded. For years he had ministered to these
necessities, and no man had ever approached his success.

"It is the rape of the North they are doing," he sighed. "We ravage her
stores, but she takes grim toll from all of us." He moved the hot water
forward on the stove, cleared off the rude table, and laid out his
instrument-case.
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