Joseph and Paul took Emma and Pearl to their cabin and Paul said good night.
“I’ll come in and start your fire,” Joseph said.
Pearl lit two candles while Joseph removed his mittens and opened the stove door. The ashes were cold. He shaved off fine pieces of wood from the kindling and stacked them on the ashes. When he had a pile, he added some pieces of kindling over them. He took a match and lit the shavings. Soon they and the kindling were burning brightly. The three of them chatted about the day while he worked.
Joseph added some smaller pieces of wood. When they were burning nicely, he put a few more on top, closed the door, and straightened. Pearl was a little sad when the fire was going and the cabin had started to warm up. It was nice to have the heat, but it also meant that Joseph was leaving.
“Thank you, Joseph, for a wonderful day,” Pearl said.
“My pleasure.” Joseph put on his mittens and opened the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow when you bring my loaf of bread.
Pearl’s heart swelled with joy as she watched him drive the dog team into the darkness. She had never felt so happy.
“So, something happened between you two,” Emma said. “What was it?”
Pearl told her about her about their visit at the Berrys’ and then about her accidently slipping her hand in Joseph’s arm while they watched the northern lights.
“And he said he liked it,” Pearl told Emma, as they changed for bed. “And then he put his arm around me.”
“I told you he’d planned a date. I’m so glad for you.”
“Now tell me about how you and Donald spent the day.”
“It was wonderful. He showed me the stake at one end of his claim, then we walked to the stake at the other end so I could see how long the claim was. He showed me the sluice box they had built to run the gravel through when checking for gold.” Emma laughed. “He tried to explain how it worked but I couldn’t understand it. He said I could come out in the summer and he would show me.”
“I’d like to see that, too.”
“Maybe Joseph could take you,” Emma teased.
“That would be nice,” she sighed, “doing anything with him would be nice.”
“Donald explained how he, Sam, and Gordon built the cabin on his place to save time. And he told me that Gordon is bushed.”
“Bushed?” Pearl asked. “What’s that?”
“From the way he explained it, it’s when a man has been in the north too long and he goes a little crazy.”
“So that’s why he set a tent up on his own claim. I wondered.”
“And….” Emma paused.
Pearl looked at her and saw a big smile on her face. “What?” she demanded. “What?”
“Donald kissed me.” Emma’s face glowed joyfully.
“He kissed you?”
“Yes.”
“And you took all this time to tell me. You let me talk all about my day and then you calmly tell me he kissed you.”
Emma laughed. “I wanted to save it for last.”
“I’m so happy for you.” Pearl gave her cousin a hug.
“Thank you.”
Pearl climbed up onto her top bunk and snuggled under the covers. She envied her cousin. She wished Joseph would kiss her. Maybe after tonight, he would. After all, she had certainly let him know how she felt about him.
* * *
Sam woke up the next morning and rekindled the fire in the stove. During the night whoever woke up would add wood to keep the fire going. He climbed back in bed while the cabin warmed up. Sam slept in his woolen underwear and woolen socks and kept his clothes under the covers with him to keep them warm.
“I’ve decided that with my first thousand dollars from the claim I’m going to buy Emma an engagement ring,” Donald said, from the lower bunk.
Sam sighed. He was getting tired of listening to Donald mooning over Emma and making plans for them, especially since Donald had only kissed her once, and that was yesterday, and he still hadn’t told her his feelings for her. So far Sam hadn’t said anything out loud to Donald, but what if Emma had a suitor in the town site they didn’t know about? What if she was tired of waiting for Donald to express the way he felt to her? Not every woman was an Anna Mason waiting for a Joseph Ladue to return home and marry her.
And speaking of Joseph, Sam still wasn’t over his surprise at Joseph bringing Pearl out to the claim. Joseph was spoken for. He shouldn’t be taking another woman on a dog team ride, even if it was only out to the creeks. Pearl didn’t know about Anna Mason. She didn’t know that Joseph loved someone else.
“Then we’d better hurry up and find our paystreak soon.” Sam pulled on his clothes and found his boots. He added more wood to the fire but, before closing the stove door again, he stuck the tip of a candle into the flames to light the wick. Its flickering light barely dispelled the darkness of the cabin and sent shadows wavering and jerking across the walls. He took the tin cup that had a mound of cold wax on the inside and set it on the stove. When the wax had softened, Sam pushed the bottom of the candle in it and waited until the wax hardened again around the candle to hold it upright.
The smoke from the candle made the stale air of the cabin murky.
Sam had just begun breakfast when there was a pounding at the door. His first thought was that Gregory had gone again. He opened the door to find Gordon standing there. His hair was covered by his hat and a full beard hid his face. He was dressed in his woolen shirt and dungarees, no coat. His backpack was strapped to his back and his axe was tucked in a rope he was using as a belt.
“Good morning, Gordon,” Sam said, trying to hide his shock. “Come in out of the cold.”
Gordon stepped into the cabin. Donald scrambled out of his bunk and into his clothes.
“Would you like some coffee? Breakfast?” Sam asked.
“I’ve just come to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” Sam looked at Donald. “Where are you going?”
“My claim is worthless. I’m selling it to the first sucker who will give me enough money for a ticket home.”
Sam felt his jaw drop. What was happening? It felt like they were in a time warp. This was a discussion they had had in August. Now it was near the end of November. He searched his mind for an answer to Gordon’s statement. He grabbed at the memory of his side of the argument.
“I thought we were going to give this one more year,” Sam said, tentatively. He waited for Gordon’s reaction.
“That was if we found something. We haven’t.” Gordon turned to Donald. “Are you coming with me?”
Donald looked bleakly at Sam. He was at a loss, too. “Uh, no, I guess I’ll stay.”
Sam stared at Gordon. He was talking normal, he was acting normal, but his eyes had a feverish look to them. And he was reliving their August conversations. He was talking about leaving just as he had done then.
“So be it,” Gordon said. “I’ll be going.”
“Do you want to take some time and think about it?” Sam asked. He couldn’t just let Gordon walk away in this condition.
Gordon shook his head. “I should have left after that first year. At least by now I would have a good paying job and maybe a family. And speaking of families, is there anything you want me to tell yours?”
“Just that we are doing okay,” Sam said and Donald nodded.
Gordon opened the cabin door.
“Wait, Gordon,” Sam grabbed his coat and held it out to him. “You’ll need this.”
Gordon looked at the coat and then at Sam. He burst out laughing and shook his head.
“Then I’ll come with you.” He quickly put on his coat.
Gordon’s good mood evaporated. He eyed Sam suspiciously. “Why?”
“Uh, for company.”
“I don’t need company,” Gordon said, gruffly. He slammed the door shut.
Sam pulled on his hat and mitts and ran out the door. Maybe if he pointed out the reality of the season.
“Gordon, look around you. It’s winter. Snow is falling. Bonanza Creek is frozen, the Yukon River is frozen. There is no boat to catch.”
Gordon ignored him and continued walking away, but he was going in the wrong direction. He was headed back towards his tent.
Sam heard Donald come up behind him. They both watched as Gordon trudged up the creek.
“We’ll go check on him in a while,” Sam said, quietly. “But I think it’s time we mentioned Gordon’s problem to the men along the creeks. We’ll need help looking for him if he actually does leave.”
* * *
For the past three days there had been a northern cold snap that shut down the saw mill and the hammering of building construction. The snap was so much colder than any Pearl had experienced in Nova Scotia. At home the temperature was measured by mercury in a thermometer. Here, she’d learned, it was measured by the liquids they had on hand. Hudson’s Bay rum froze at -8 degrees Fahrenheit. Kerosene froze at -35 to -55 degrees F, depending on the grade. Pain killer at -72 degrees F and St Jacobs oil at -75 degrees.
In Sam’s letters he’d mentioned they were only about two hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle and the temperatures could dip quite cold, but it wasn’t until she was living it, that Pearl understood. She and Emma had taken to sleeping as close to the stove as they could get and getting up more often to tend the fire. Their food froze in spite of the heat given off by the stove. The water in the bucket had a layer of ice on it. They had to chip at it with the axe and drop the pieces in the kettle to melt.
Then, this morning, the snap was over. It was still cold, but life was back to normal. They had made bread and pies and were now ready to make their deliveries. Snow was falling when they stepped out of their cabin.
Pearl breathed deeply. “It’s great to get out in the fresh air again.”
“Yes,” Emma agreed. “I’m going for a walk after we make our rounds.”
They now had ten customers for bread, five of whom also wanted pies, and when they had delivered their ninth loaf Pearl carried the last one into the warehouse alone. Since their dog team ride out to the claims, Emma had quit coming with her to see Joseph, taking the empty tub back to the cabin instead. Pearl appreciated Emma’s attempt to let her and Joseph have some time alone.
After they’d discussed the cold snap, Joseph said, “Christmas is drawing near and I would like to host a party on Christmas day to celebrate the finding of gold and our new town.”
“Oh, that sounds wonderful.” Pearl clapped her hands. She had been thinking about Christmas the past week and wondering if it was observed in the north and if so, how.
He blushed a little. “And I would like you to be my hostess and to help me plan it.”
Pearl’s breath caught. Her heart beat wildly as she tried to keep her voice calm. “I’d love to help you.”
“Thank you. There will be a lot to do.”
Pearl tried to tell herself that he’d asked her to help plan a party and be the hostess because he didn’t have a wife to do it. And he hadn’t asked her to the party as in a date. But a small voice inside her told her that this was his way of telling her he had feelings for her.
“I don’t know how Christmas is celebrated here in the north,” Pearl said.
“It’s not much different. We invite people, we decorate, we eat, we dance.”
“Sounds easy enough. I guess the first thing we have to do is send out invitations.”
Joseph laughed. “That’s not necessary. All we have to do is tell one person and ask him to pass it on. Word will get out to everyone and those who can make it will show up.”
“Then we really won’t know how many to expect.” That didn’t sound very organized. She’d planned many family parties in Halifax and she knew that head count was important.
Joseph shook his head.
“It’s going to be hard to decide how much food we’ll need.”
“We just do up a lot and sometimes people bring something to add.”
Do up a lot. That sounded very vague to Pearl, but it was the early stages of planning.
“Emma and I will supply the bread.”
Joseph smiled. “I was hoping you would.”
Pearl’s heart leaped. She now knew that she loved this man with the beautiful smile. If only she had the nerve to tell him. She grimaced to herself. She was on this adventure because she was trying to go beyond the boundaries that restricted women in so many ways, and yet she was afraid to cross the one boundary that stopped her from getting what she wanted. A woman never admitted her feelings for a man until he had spoken first.
“What else were you planning on serving?” Pearl asked.
“Paul shot a moose yesterday, so we will have roast moose, potatoes, beans, boiled cornmeal, and fish if I can get some from Kate Carmack. Plus, I’ve been saving some eggs and cheese from the last shipment of supplies.”
“Emma and I can also make some stewed fruit pies for dessert.”
“Then it is all settled,” Joseph said, with a grin. “We will eat at four o’clock so that will give everyone time to come in from the claims and from Fortymile.”
“Fortymile, also? That’s a lot of people.” Pearl was already dubious about how this party was going to turn out. No head count and no set amount of food being prepared.
“Yes. It will be the party of the year.” It appeared that Joseph was not to be discouraged by details or numbers.
Then he must have noticed the frown on Pearl’s face. He patted her hand. “Don’t worry, it will all work out.”
Pearl hurried back to their cabin where Emma was taking off her coat after her walk. “Joseph is planning a Christmas party and he wants me to be his hostess.”
“He does?” Emma squealed. “That’s almost like asking you to be his wife.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that was what he was asking?” Pearl had been thinking that but was afraid to say it. She didn’t want to put a hex on it.
“Maybe he will at Christmas or even New Year’s Eve. Lots of men ask women to marry them at this time of year.”
“Yes, they do,” Pearl said, dreamily, picturing Joseph proposing to her at the Christmas Party in front of everyone. Then she was brought back to the present by the reality of the Christmas Party.
“About the party, it sounds like he’s inviting everyone who lives in the north to it.”
“That’s going to be big.”
“Yes, and we have to make the bread and pies for it.”
“We do? Why does he expect us to do that?”
“Well, I may have volunteered us to do it,” Pearl said, then added hastily. “But that was before he told me how many could be coming.”
“We should have started baking a month ago. What else is he having?”
Pearl tried to remember what he had rattled off. “Roast moose, fish, cheese, eggs, potatoes, and some other things, I can’t remember.”
“Eggs? Where did he get the eggs?”
“They came in on the last boat.”
“I’ve missed eggs,” Emma said. “It might be worth all this work just to have a boiled egg again.”
“It would be nice to have a plum pudding like Grandma’s.” Pearl was referring to the traditional Christmas pudding that their grandmother made every year.
“Do you realize this is the first Christmas without our family?” There was a hint of sadness in Emma’s voice.
“I was just thinking that.” Pearl felt her spirits drop. Her first Christmas without her parents, her brother and sister, her aunts and uncles and cousins, and her grandmother. “But we have Sam and Donald.”
“Yes.” Emma’s face brightened. “And don’t forget Joseph.”
Pearl smiled. Yes, she had Joseph.
“I can hardly wait for Donald to come in again so I can tell him.”
Donald came two, three times a month, catching a ride on a dog team or even snowshoeing down the creek. He stayed with Paul at night and spent the day with Emma. There wasn’t much for them to do but sit at the table and talk and Donald always made sure their wood pile was topped up.
Pearl found herself going to the warehouse to stay out of their way. Sometimes Joseph was able to visit with her, many times he wasn’t. She didn’t mind. She sketched him when he wasn’t looking.
* * *
Sam and Donald stamped the snow off their boots and stepped into the cabin. They had just dug out their first muck of the day and lit another fire in their shaft. Sam opened the door of the wood stove. Even though the fire was still burning it barely kept the frost off the cabin walls. The temperature had dipped down to minus thirty Fahrenheit for the past few days. But, it was the beginning of December. What else did he expect? Sam placed a couple of logs in the stove and left the door open for light.
He picked up the frying pan and dropped it. The handle was so cold that he donned his mitts to put the pan on the red-hot stove. It contained the cold leftovers from their morning meal and he reheated them.
They kept a routine going all day: light a fire, wait for it to burn out and the smoke to clear, go down and dig out the thawed permafrost, light a fire. It was slow work but they weren’t the only ones doing it. The smell of burning wood hung in the valley.
They ate, then bundled up in their winter coats, mitts, and hats again. Sometimes the fire in the shaft burned slowly, sometimes faster. They kept an eye on it, not wanting the ground to refreeze again.
The stillness of the fiercely cold air hit them when they stepped outside.
“I don’t know what is worse,” Donald said. “Breathing the warmer, fetid air of the cabin or this fresher, outdoor air that feels like it is freezing my lungs.”
Their constant trekking through the knee-deep snow had created a well-worn path. They followed it back to Sam’s claim and the shaft they had been digging since mid-November. This was their second attempt. They’d gone down forty-feet in their first one and had found nothing. They’d been hearing stories that up and down the valley men were finding gold while others one claim over weren’t. It seemed to be the luck of the draw.
Sam and Donald walked up to the windlass and looked down the shaft. It was still smoky.
“Guess it’s my turn to go down,” Sam said, taking off his coat.
Donald unwound the rope until the bucket reached the bottom of the shaft. Sam wrapped his mitts around the rope and slithered down into the hole. He found the candle stub and lit the wick so he could see a little better, then picked up the shovel, banging his elbow on the frozen permafrost that felt as hard as granite. The shaft was cramped with barely room to kneel down. After filling the bucket with ashes and thawed gravel and muck, he tugged on the rope.
While Donald pulled the pail up, Sam coughed in the smoky air as he pounded at the ground with a pickaxe trying to dislodge as much as possible. The fire only thawed about six inches each time and he estimated that they were down about twenty-five feet, way farther than Louis Rhodes and Clarence Berry had been when they found gold. Sam held the candle against the newly bared ground. Nothing glittered.
His thoughts turned to Charley Anderson, who had arrived too late to stake a claim and was drowning his sorrows in McPhee’s saloon in Fortymile when two men came in and began drinking with him. Apparently, they were disillusioned about their Eldorado Twenty-Nine and they convinced a drunk Anderson to buy their claim for eight hundred dollars. When Anderson woke the next morning he went across the Fortymile River to ask Inspector Constantine to get his money back. Constantine pointed out that Anderson’s name was plainly visible on the title. He apologized to Anderson and said there was nothing he could do. Anderson figured he might as well see exactly what it was he had bought so he poled up the Yukon River and trudged his way up to the busy creek. Within weeks his claim had proved so rich that he’d been given the nickname ‘Lucky Swede’.
The paystreak was in the ground. It was just a matter of going down in the right spot or to the right depth.
“Bucket coming down,” Donald yelled, interrupting Sam’s thoughts.
Sam looked up and guided the pail to the ground. He wheezed as he filled it again and the process was repeated until there wasn’t any thawed gravel and mud left to scrape.
“Send down some wood,” Sam hollered, as he sent up the last pail full.
When the bucket came down again Sam piled the wood over the ground. He used the candle to light it and then pulled himself hand over hand up the rope, glad to be out of the dungeon. He hauled up the bucket. This was a slow, laborious process but the only way to get down to the gold.
“Anything in the pails?” Sam asked, going over to the dump.
“Nothing yet.”
“So what do we do?” Sam leaned against the windlass. He was getting discouraged. “We’re further down than Louis was.”
Donald shrugged. “We could start tunnelling somewhere else or we could continue with this one. Some men have found gold at twenty-five feet down. Maybe ours is just below the fire now.”
Sam shook his head. “Or it could be twenty-five feet further down.”
They’d been having this conversation since they reached fifteen feet. For some reason everyone was using that as a bench mark of where the old creek bed should be.
“What do you want to do?”
“Let’s go down some more,” Sam said. “I’d hate to quit too soon. Besides there’s nothing else for us to do until spring.”
“Okay. I’m getting cold standing here. Let’s go see how Gordon is doing.”
They followed the path they had created to Gordon’s tent.
“Gordon.” Donald called.
They weren’t surprised when there was no answer. They had gotten used to his wanderings, weren’t even worried anymore when he was gone for a day or two. Somehow, he managed to survive the cold at night and return to this tent. If a prospector along the creeks saw Gordon he would send word back to Sam and Donald. Some of them even invited him in to warm up and share a meal. It was reported that sometimes he just stared at the person until they became uncomfortable and left, but most of the time he hurried away, a frightened look on his face.
Donald lifted the flap and peered in. He grimly looked back at Sam. “Gordon’s gone and so is his backpack and clothes.”
Sam groaned. The only other time Gordon had donned his backpack was last month when he had said he was catching the boat for home.
“We’ve got to find him,” Donald said.
“Okay, I’ll spread the word around here while you go into the town site and see if he went there.” He knew better than to suggest the other way around. Donald used any excuse to go and see Emma.
For the next four days, Sam searched up and down the creeks. No one had seen Gordon. Some of the men, including Henry and Gregory, joined him, while others checked the areas around their claims. No one found any tracks that stood out as beings Gordon’s.
They were getting close to the shortest day of the year and their daylight only lasted five hours, not much time to spread out and do a thorough search of so big an area as the Klondike River watershed.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Gregory asked, as they tromped through the snow drifts in the bush.
“Gregory,” Henry hissed.
“What? I was just wondering.”
It was a question that Sam had been asking himself. What if Gordon had stumbled over a fallen tree and broken a leg? What if he had slowly frozen to death? No. Sam shook his head. That was impossible. Donald had probably found him in Joseph’s saloon and they were having a drink right now.
“He’s lived here a long time,” Sam said, more for his benefit than for Gregory. “He can look after himself.”
At the end of the fourth day, Donald came back and said he hadn’t found Gordon and no one at the town site had seen him. He also mentioned that Joseph Ladue was planning a party for Christmas Day and everyone was welcome.
The miners all agreed to keep watching for any sign of Gordon as they went about their daily routines.
* * *
Sam turned the handle on the windlass and wound the rope until the bucket appeared. He gave it a cursory glance then threw the gravel, muck, and clay onto the dump.
“Bucket coming down,” he shouted and sent it back to Donald.
Something in the next pail caught his eye. A gold nugget? He picked it up and looked at it. It was a nugget. He pushed the dirt aside and found another one.
“Hey, get up here!” Sam yelled down to Donald. He dumped the contents of the bucket onto the ground at his feet and almost threw the bucket down the shaft in his excitement.
“What? Have we found something?”
“Come and have a looksee.” Sam could hardly control his glee as Donald’s head peeked over the edge of the hole. Sam held out his hand so Donald could grab it.
“Where is it?” Donald looked at him eagerly.
Sam pointed to the ground. Donald dropped to his knees and dug through the muck. He came up with three nuggets. Sam held up the two he had.
“We’ve done it!” Donald hollered. “We’ve found gold.”
They stared at each other in shock then jumped up and down and hugged in their jubilation. Sam could not explain the relief, the wonder, the happiness he felt. All the years here in the north had finally paid off. They were really, for sure, going to be rich. No more speculation, no more dreaming. Then his thoughts turned to his other friend and his mood dampened.
“Too bad Gordon wasn’t here.”
“Yes.” Donald’s face turned sober. “But he may still come back.”
They had been saying that every day in the two weeks since Gordon had disappeared. They, and most of the men on the creeks, watched for Gordon whenever they were in the bush chopping trees or walking from one place to another. Sam and Donald still went to Gordon’s tent each day hoping that he had returned from his wanderings. So far they’d been disappointed.
“Yes, you are right.”
They were silent for a moment, remembering their friend.
“Let’s get more gold.” Donald ran over to the windlass. He scrambled down the rope and soon yelled up that the bucket was full.
They kept hauling the gravel out until the ground in the shaft was too frozen to dislodge any more. Donald filled the last bucket, lit a fire, and climbed up the rope. They raised the pail, untied it, and carried it back to their cabin. Sam took their water pail and axe and went to the water hole in the creek. He opened it up and dipped the pail in. When he got back Donald had replenished the wood in the stove and the fire was burning hot.
Sam got his gold pan and put three large double handfuls of dirt and gravel into it. He added water and shook the pan to settle the heavier gold and black sand to the bottom. They went outside and Sam went through the motions of washing the dirt and gravel out of the pan. Donald added more water from the pail he carried and Sam kept the movement going, working against the cold, until there was just gold and some black sand in the crease of the pan. It looked like they had about two ounces of gold. At sixteen dollars an ounce that was thirty-two dollars a pan.
They sat back on their haunches and stared at each other in awe. They had found the paystreak.
“I can’t believe it,” Donald said, looking in wonderment at the gold in the pan.
“Neither can I. To think that all those years of hardship have finally paid off.”
Donald turned his eyes to his friend. “With your permission, Sam, I would like to ask Emma to marry me.”