33

When the prospectors got up the following morning, they found that Dalziel was already out on his line.

“A hard worker,” said Kraus as he tossed tea into a large pot of boiling water. “Knows what he wants and how to get it.”

“Why does he have to break the law, then?” asked Clark.

“What do you mean?”

Clark nodded at the stretched wolf pelts.

“Aw, for God’s sake, Bill. You’re not gonna worry about that, are you? He’ll just use ’em here to keep warm at night.”

“Are you kidding? I know Dal. He’s planning on selling them in Edmonton. And the law’s the law, Gus. If you break it a few times and get away with it, you keep on breaking it.”

Kraus shook his head. “Puttin’ the law on him makes it hard for us to deal with him when we need him, like now. That’s his Orange Pekoe you’re about to sip, and his prunes going into your porridge to keep your hair and teeth from falling out, Bill. The scow we’ll be begging a ride out on is his, or half his. You want to drive him out of the country, or have him snub us when we need him?”

Clark scooped some tea with his cup and left the fire, to wander through Dal’s camp.

“Bill’s got his knickers in a knot,” Kraus explained quietly to Vandaele and Campbell, who were watching Clark in surprise. “He’s a stickler for doing the right thing, but he’s pushing it too far this time.”

“It sure seems like it,” said Vandaele. “If Dal flies the pelts out, the Indians aren’t even gonna know. Why doesn’t Bill like Dal?”

“Because of something that happened that winter we were talking about last night,” Kraus said as he stirred the porridge. “After Bill and me got partnered, we set up on McMillan Lake, put a tent there and a cache. Then we built two more caches, one on McLeod Creek where I was and one to the south on a little lake that drains into the Caribou River. Bill had big plans, you see, that he sold to our backers.

“Later on we found the last two caches had been cleaned out. All the food was gone from the McLeod cache, and Bill’s boxes of mineral samples, which were at the cache on the lake, were scattered all over hell’s half acre, useless. A note at the McLeod cache, from Dalziel, said Chief Charlie and his group were hungry so he showed them the food. No explanation of the samples. A bloody mess, I tell you, and Bill was mad.

“Finally we ran into Dal and confronted him. No fun, you know. He can be scary, with his dogs milling around, growling and snapping at our legs, and that bloody big pistol hanging over his shoulder.”

“I’ve noticed that,” said Vandaele. “What the hell is it?”

“A .38 in a .45 frame. He’s good with it, too. Wop told me that a couple of years ago, Dal won a flight to Edmonton off him, in a shooting contest up in Fort Norman. Dal told us that he was here first and didn’t want any prospectors around chasing off the marten and the moose and messing up his traplines.”

“I can see his point,” said Vandaele.

“You bet. Anyway, the next night, after thinking it over, I guess, he turned up at our camp and apologized and gave us back some of our food and also handed over some marten pelts to pay us for what Chief Charlie took. Those pelts paid for most of our winter food! It was a lesson to me. I was happy. But a few days later, Leigh Brintnell flew in some supplies for us and Bill sent out a written complaint to the RCMP with him.”

A couple of hours later the four men were scrambling down out of the bush and onto the Flat River, happy to see that the ice shelf they’d crossed before was gone.

Kraus sent Vandaele and Campbell to fall some dry spruce that were clumped together just up the river, trim them and cut them into eight-foot lengths. They floated them down and rolled them onto the gravel bar. Kraus and Clark cut some green poplar, then found firewood and lit a fire to cook lunch. Over tea, Kraus described his plan for the rafts.

“Looks like we’ll have to build two rafts. Water’s too shallow for a big one. Here’s the technique. There’ll be four of those spruce logs to a raft. The green wood is for crossbraces to hold them together. When the dead wood expands in the water, the raft gets good and tight.”

He scraped some rocks to one side, picked up a stick and sketched the raft in the sand. The four spruce logs had two notched poplar crossbraces on top, two below, bound tight with snare wire.

“Here’s what the notches in the poplar look like. Got it?”

Vandaele and Campbell nodded.

“We put a light platform in the middle,” said Kraus, “to hold the stuff out of the water. Tie the rifles down separate and loose, one piece of rope from the raft to the trigger guard, just long enough so you can kneel, load and fire if you see any game. Stuff them under the cover. Same with the swede saws for sweepers.”

“No paddles?” asked Campbell.

“No, they’re a bugger to carve. Poles will do. We’ll never be too far from shore.”

“Cold wet feet for a while,” said Clark.

“It’s worth it,” said Campbell. “We could be in town in four or five days if we’re lucky with the ice. But I think we’re going to miss our comfortable scow and kicker, eh Harry?”

“Yeah. But there’s a portage about halfway to Faille’s, and we won’t miss packing the scow and kicker over that. How long was that portage, Milt? I never noticed because my back was killing me. It seemed like eternity.”

“It’s a good mile. We’ll have to build two more rafts when we get back on the river, unless there’s ice.”

They all sat silent, watching the fire. Then Vandaele said, “Tell me the truth, Gus. Would you work for Dalziel? If you were me?”

“Sure. With him, you’d learn a lot. He’s the best stick man I’ve ever met. Even Bill would admit that.”

“That’ll all end when Truesdell shuts him down,” said Clark. “Which he will.”

Kraus shook his head. “You gotta hand it to Dal, though,” he said, tapping his finger on his forehead. “It’s a great concept. He can lay out all the lines he wants. The law puts no limits on that, so long as you’re not intruding on somebody else’s line. He can plant guys on the lines and watch the money roll in.” With that, Kraus stood up and looked at Clark. “I ain’t saying I’m going to work for him, Bill. I know how to trap. But in a year, I can get my trapping licence, and after that there’ll be a trapline where I’m prospecting. If I’m prospecting.”

“C’mon, Gus,” said Clark softly. “There’s gold where we’re looking. I’m sure of it.”

“Maybe. But look at Faille. He does his prospecting when he can afford the time. But when he can’t he traps and makes a good living. He’s prospected up and down the Flat and along the Nahanni above the falls. Never found a damn thing, but what’ve we found? He’s got a good cabin in Simpson, some scows and motors, and three or four solid cabins along the Flat and up the Nahanni. That’s what I call a life. That’s what I call getting somewhere.”

“Which is what we’d better do right now,” said Vandaele.

“Yeah,” said Clark, rising. “Let’s put those rafts together.”