OCR Text |
Show -Ik Lamp m Vaflevi BY ARTHUR STRINGER , " VSJUiJV 1 M the unmapped wilderaess for their precarious ounce or two of yellow metaL "To me," I maintained, "they're all terribly brave." "And terribly inadequate," amended amend-ed my companion. "How would you have done it?" I asked. I could hear his quiet chuckle chuck-le at the challenge in my voice. "The only way it can be done," he answered. "By big business, by the geologist and the engineer who does more than tickle the surface oi things. Then you get something better bet-ter than claim-jumpers and gun- Arthur Strlnffer la on of America's bst known authors. His facile pen has engaged Itself In depicting many facets of American life. It was altogether In keeping with his lestful search for ne,w material that ho should have gone to THE STORY AND AUTHOR Alaska to see at first hand the story of America's latest frontier, the new settlement set-tlement of the Matanuska Valley. Here was an historical migration of families who had to abandon their Impoverished farms In the Middle West to come, at INSTALLMENT 1 the Invitation of the government, to Alaska to begin life anew. What Stringer saw he depicted In the following follow-ing story of love and adventure. "The Lamp In the Valley" Is Matanuska's young school teacher, Carol Cobura. CHAPTER I I opened the cabin window and felt the night air blow in on my face. There was no mistaking the smell of that air. It carried with it the scent of wide sprucelands and the sparkle of highland Ice fields and the razor-edged aroma of valleys where the sun falls thin on balsam and alder and buckcrop. It was the breath of Alaska, calling me back to the home of my youth. That little ship's cabin became suddenly hateful to me. I was tired of the noise and the accordion music mu-sic of the drunken groups swarming swarm-ing north to their cannery work. I was tired of tobacco smoke and alcoholic al-coholic song and crying babies and squawking radios. So I reached for a wrap and made my way up on deck, where all was "What's taking a peach like you to that tin-can territory?" he finally inquired. "That," I was foolish enough to answer, "is entirely my own affair." But it was plain that I puzzled him. "You're a cheechako," he maun-deringly maun-deringly proclaimed. "That fact, my pink and white friend, is written all over you." It didn't seem worth while telling him I was Alaska born. "And you're still an unpicked peach," he insolently went on, "for no woman who's married is going to be up here stargazing in the dark. But you don't fit in with our fish-pack fish-pack females. And you're sure not the dance-hall type. On the other hand, you're sure no panhandle chalk-wrangler." He nodded his head in confirmation of his own al- "Well, Ericson, you're not quite sober," said the other. "You haven't been sober a day since we pulled out of Seattle. And at the present moment you're not wanted here." "Who says I'm not wanted?" "I do." "What's that to me?" said the man at my side. "It's this," was the unexpectedly prompt reply. And before I knew it I was alone on the crate. But what startled me, after a quick moment of struggle, was that the young man who answered, to the name of Eric the Red had not only been lifted bodily from where he sat, but had been shaken as a rag Is shaken by a terrier and had been swung out over the ship's rail. He was held there by the scruff of the neck, writhing and kicking. He began, in fact, to emit muffled little rat Knnpals at Via hunff rnjpp rmnn toters and fly-by-night camps. You get roads and honest workers and towns and settlements and something some-thing permanent, while your old sourdough squats beside a saloon drum stove and dreams about the strike he's going to make when he gets back to the hill claim he hasn't even done assessment work on." "You seem to know all about Alaska," I ventured. But he disregarded dis-regarded the barb in my voice. "Not as much as I'm going to," he said. "I fell for the North, my first year out of Lehigh. The bug bit me when I prospected the Mi-chikmamau Mi-chikmamau country in Labrador and had to dig in for the winter. Then I went to Flin Flon for a year. Then I headed for Fairbanks and had a couple of seasons on the gold dredges along the Tanana, where the work's plotted out three and four years in advance. That's what you'd call real mining." "Where you're really a part of a machine," I amended. "Sure," he agreed. "But she's a grand old machine. Why, the barge I worked had a million dollars sunk in her before she turned a wheel." "And you're still on the Tanana?" I questioned, absurdly chilled by the aroma of big business. "No; the next summer I did field work for a big company along the upper Yukon. Then I swung in with the Trumbull outfit." "And now?" I prompted. "Now I'm headed for the valley of the Chakitana, where the Trumbull company is going to consolidate its claims and tackle that territory In earnest. It's got something to work with there." "The Chakitana," I echoed, ignoring ig-noring the quiet exultation in his voice. The once-familiar sound of the Chakitana came back to me, across the years, with an oddly disturbing dis-turbing ring. "Do you know that country well?" I asked. "Not yet, of course," he said. "But I know something big is going to break before we get through with it. We'll dig a little deeper than the old pan-tilters who've been fussing around the fringes there. And I want to be in on the show when the color comes." space, with nothing but the star-riffled, star-riffled, black water under his heels. "Don't," I gasped. "A few gallons of sea water," said the untroubled deep voice beside me, "would wash a little of the fireworks fire-works out of his system." "Please don't," I implored, remembering re-membering that a moment's unexpected unex-pected rending of cloth might send the man tumbling down Into the channel. My rescuer turned to me and apparently ap-parently tried to study my face in that misty midnight duskiness. Then he swung out his second long arm and lifted the still struggling figure back over the rail. "Now you get down where you belong," be-long," said the tall man as he gave his captive a final shake. "And if you talk to this girl again, Eric-son, Eric-son, I'll break every bone in your body." It took time for Ericson to get his breath back. "You don't own her," he shrilly announced. "And you don't own me. And if you " But the other cut him short "Are you going?" he demanded. quiet and not a ship's lamp showed between the shadowy bow and the equally shadowy bridge. It was so quiet that I could feel the tremor of the Yukon's screw as she plowed northward through the night. At times It seemed as though we were steaming straight Into a mountain side. But the hills, as always, al-ways, moved apart and let us pass through and as casually came together to-gether again in our wake. And as I sat there, with the night wind fanning my face, I felt that my mission was not a trivial one. I owed something to Alaska. And I had to justify myself through my work there, in what men called the last frontier. It would be different, of course. That new world would have all the roughness of wilderness life. And, jackaroo that I was, I'd have to begin all over again. I'd be a cheechako cheech-ako once more in the colony of old-timers. old-timers. But my country was never ashamed of its pioneer women. And there was something moving and mysterious, I felt, in man's eternal quest for new frontiers. Then the light of mystery faded from the picture. For I woke up to Ericson fell back a step or two as the other advanced. "I'll do more than talk before I'm through with her," he proclaimed. It was a final effort, I felt, to save his face. After asilent moment or two that impressed me as heavy with hate, he retreated into the darkness. The tall man stooped to pick up the fallen flashlight. "That's the curse," he said, "of our West Coast. It's too full of bums and bindle stiffs. They never stay long enough in one place to take root. And then these soapbox agitators come along and spout communism at them." He looked away, for a moment, and then turned back to me. "But that fire-eater fire-eater had no right getting rough with a woman. With a woman like you, I mean." "Why with a woman like me?" I questioned. "I spotted you the first day out," he said, "as a girl who rather wanted want-ed to be let alone." "I do," I said. But that, I felt, might frighten him away. And I didn't want him to go away. "I mean I did," I amended. "You naturally don't belong among those roughnecks." "I'm afraid I do," I told him. "I'm north born." That seemed to surprise him. "You've been out for quite a. time?" he suggested. "For seven long years," I told him. "She's 'a great country," he said out of the silence. And, being north born, I agreed with him. "But it's no place for a woman," he added. "Why not?" I demanded. He laughed a little at that quick challenge. chal-lenge. "Because women want anchorage. They're not satisfied with wildness and roughness. And there's been a sort of conspiracy to keep Seward's Icebox uncivilized. It's too proud of its shirt-sleeve oast. It's too fond of He was held there by the scruff of the neck,, writhing and kicking. kick-ing. coholic discernment. "No, sir; you're no camptown schoolteacher." , "It so happens," I informed him, "that I'm going to teach in the Indian In-dian school at Toklutna." That seemed to hold him for a moment. But his laugh, this time, was more caustic than ever. "Then your first lesson to those little frostbitten Siwashes ought to be that a bunch of rubber-stamp bureaucrats can't run a country the size of Alaska. Look what they've done with the power rights. Look at their fool laws about salmon fishing. fish-ing. And look how they've let the big interests come in and choke the life out of the territory. No wonder it turns an honest worker into a Red. They've got an idea they can turn us workers into an army of tongue-tied tongue-tied sheep. They think" "They don't seem to have left you tongue-tied," I ventured. "You bet they haven't," he announced. an-nounced. "And that's why I'm known as Eric the Red. I can talk to 'em one at a time or five hundred hun-dred strong." But I'd had enough of his soapbox soap-box oratory. "I wish you'd go away," I told him. His movement, as he leaned closer clos-er over me, was an exasperatingly intimate one. "On a night like this," he murmured, mur-mured, "with the stars up there singing together over the mountain tops? Not on your life, lady!" I knew my first tingle of fear as I felt his arm creep like a snake's head about the loose folds of my polo coat. The Yukon, at that moment, mo-ment, seemed a terribly empty ship. "Not on your life," he said for the second time: And he laughed as I tried to writhe free of his encircling en-circling arm. the fact that I was no longer alone on that silent and starlit foredeck. A man, none too steady on his feet, wavered past me in the darkness. dark-ness. He laughed as he passed an exploring ex-ploring hand over the softness of my polo coat. Then he sat down on the crate beside me. I sat silent, without moving, as he turned and tried to throw a bottle bot-tle overboard. "Good-by, sweetheart," he said with thick-voiced indifference. He was, I concluded, one of the West Coast wanderers who had been turning turn-ing the lower decks of the Yukon into a cross between a faro joint and a water-front saloon. But he was sober enough to resent my sustained silence. "Can't you talk, pretty one?" he asked, with his face insolently close to mine. I wasn't afraid of him. I'd seen camp drunkards enough in my day. So I continued to confront him with the thunders of silence. He rose unsteadily to his feet and reached into his pocket. From it he took out a flashlight which he even more insolently held up in front of my face. "Not a bad looker," he had the grace to acknowledge. But it in no way added to my happiness. "Why in hell are you heading for the land of the sourdoughs?" That question I also declined to answer. I even moved a little to one side, to avoid the wavering flashlight. "Put out that light," a deep voice commanded from the darkness of the bridge. It was no easy matter, I remembered, to navigate the waters wa-ters of the Inland Passage. My tormentor did as he was told. But he took his time about it. "We like it dark, don't we?" he said as he reached for my hand. The vigor with which I removed it from his clasp caused him to lose his balance for a moment or two. "Where you'll be safe and well fed and getting the news of the world by radio," I said, thinking of the lone-fire old-timers. "But merely a hired man," my companion added with an unexpected unexpect-ed note of regret. Then he laughed, a little defensively, and leaned closer clos-er to me in the starlight. "What I'd rather know is more about you. And why you're heading north again. And what you're going to do with yourself up there on the last frontier." "I promised my father I'd come back and work for Alaska," I told him. "Dig in and civilize the sourdough?" sour-dough?" he said with a flippancy 1 resented. I told him that I was going to teach in the Indian school at Toklutna. Tok-lutna. "But twenty thousand teachers couldn't tame that country. She was born wild and she seems to want to stay wild." "I have a promise to keep," I told him. "And I've my father's claim to look into." "Why'd he ever send you down to the States?" "He and I were alone, back in the Waceeta hills. And when he struck through to prospect in the Ghost Lake country he felt it wasn't fair to me. He felt I ought to better bet-ter myself, as he put it. So he sent me out to get civilized." My companion's laugh was curt but not unkindly. "It seems to have succeeded," he said. "Where'd you go for your slice of civilization?" "All the way to Michigan," I told him. "I had an aunt there who was supposed to look after me. But she died the year I entered Ann Arbor." "Then you had to shift for yourself? your-self? Or was vour father in Alaska still helping you?" "He'd promised to come down to the States, but he kept putting it off. I think he was afraid of that outside world he knew nothing about. Then he went back in the hills, and I had trouble keeping in touch with him. Nearly a year went by, once, before I got a letter." "That's not so nice," observed my new-found friend. "How did you keep going?" "By working in a girls' camp for the summer. Then by teaching for a year in a north-side Saginaw schooL Then by tutoring a lumberman's lumber-man's feather-headed daughter. And after my final year at Ann Arbor I got a chance to go to England for the summer. I was taken along as a sort of companion for a Detroit automobile-maker's daughter. She wasn't very strong. But she got to like me. And when the family went to Amalfl for the winter they kept me on. Then in the spring they went north to Florence, where they leased a villa just above Fiesole." "I'd call that quite a break," said the man beside me. (TO BE CONTINUED) calling itself the last frontier and doing things on the dime-novel basis. It's banked too long on the bush-rat with a skillet and a slab of sowbelly." sow-belly." "What's wrong with the bush-rat?" bush-rat?" I demanded, remembering that I was the daughter of one. "Nothing," was the deliberated reply, re-ply, "except that he's outlived his usefulness. That's what's the matter mat-ter with, your country. It's too full of grubstaked sourdoughs who go out on the creeks with a tomrocker and imagine they're mining. They scratch at the rubble and hill-cracks for a month or two, and wash out a poke of dust and stay drunk for two-thirds of the year. They're hobos ho-bos at heart. They do nothing for the country. They don't even know the meaning of real mine work." I had seen those lone-fire wanderers wander-ers in their lonely valley bottoms, hawking float-gold from the sand of icy creeks, lugging timber down snowy slopes for their cribwork, thawing out the frozen silt of their test pits with hot stones and a hand winch, facing hunger and hardship J and pushing deeper and deeper into The sound of that carelessly defiant de-fiant laugh was still in the air when I saw a shadow detach itself from the shadowy iron bulwark toward the bow of the boat. It was a man, I realized, who'd been leaning against the rail and watching the starlit water. He moved toward me, in the uncertain light, with rather unhurried steps. Ts this mucker annoying you?" he asked. "I wanted to be alone here, 1 found the courage to protest. But the man on the crate beside me declined to move. It was the tall and shadowy figure above me that came a step or two closer. "Did you hear what the lady said?" he prompted. But still my tormentor held his ground. "Who asked you to barge in on this?", he was reckless enough to challenge. The tall stranger stood silent a moment, in a sort of patiently impatient im-patient tolerance. "Isn't your name Ericson? he finally demanded. "You're tootin' right it is, came the prompt reply. |