Page:St. Nicholas (serial) (IA stnicholasserial321dodg).pdf/577

so that they lived almost, if not quite, comfortably.

“No danger about the old river being unsafe in this weather, Viking,” Swedie was saying sleepily, “and it is beautifully bright and clear, so father can see perfectly. He will come home with a sledful of venison and moose-meat and rabbits. We shall have a feast, you and father and I.” He paused a moment, regarding the dog thoughtfully, who returned his gaze with affection, snuggling his great head closer to his little master. “I wonder if I could make a rabbit-pie?” Swedie laid lower down on the coonskin. “Mother used to make them finely, and always a little one for me.” He started up suddenly; the fire was getting quiet. He jumped to the floor, and opening the stove, pushed in three great pieces of birch wood, then walked to the window, pushing back the blind.

“It is as light as day,” he said to Viking, who had followed him. “My father will have no trouble whatever.” He closed the draft in the stove, turned the damper, and climbing to the couch, hugged the dog’s head against his side. “We shall sleep now,” he said.

And while he slept soundly beside the glowing heater, a party of men from fifty miles below the town was coming in to Fortymile with news of one of the richest strikes in the Klondike. It was on White Elephant Creek, just where Swedie’s father’s claims were situated.

The little town went mad with the news the next day. The street was thronged with people hastily preparing to “stampede to the new diggings.” On his way to school Swedie heard and understood.

“A whole mountain of gold!” the people said; “puts Eldorado and Gold Run in the shade completely.”

In one of the store windows was a pile of rich red nuggets, in size from a pea to a hen’s egg.

The little boys at school could talk of nothing else. They even forgot to make fun of Swedie, and the master himself was excited, hearing the lessons heedlessly and dismissing the boys a half-hour too soon, Even the rink was deserted, the lads running down-town to listen for stray bits of gossip, which they would repeat to one another, candidly exaggerating every detail, until the nuggets increased in size to great boulders, and the moon shining on Elephant Mountain made the gold in it sparkle so that one’s eyes were blinded to look at it.

As for Swedie, he and Viking lingered about the streets all day eager for news. The little hoy was wildly happy. If it were true,—and it must he true,— it meant untold things for father, the dogs, and himself. They would get a warmer house, his father would have new gloves and a better coat, they would light the lamps all day, and they would go to Dawson to the theater at Christmas-time. And in the summer they would leave Fortymile and go home to Norway, with boxes of presents for the hundred little cousins and a bag of nuggets for grandmama, whose smile Swedie remembered as almost as sweet and very much like the tender, wistful smile on the face of the little mother asleep back there on the hill. Last of all—at least Swedie put it last, though he could not quite help thinking of it first.—he would get a shining new pair of skates and race in the carnival at Dawson. He expected his father home late that night, and his heart thumped as he thought of telling him the glorious news.

That afternoon it grew suddenly milder, the sky became overcast and the snow fell. Swedie went home and made a pan of biscuits, which had enough happiness stirred into them to make them light as foam. He boiled potatoes and set the table to have everything in readiness when his father should return. He swept the little cabin, working with feverish eagerness, trying to make the time pass swiftly. At five o’clock he went out again. It was very dark and the snow was falling thickly. The air, to Swedie, felt almost warm. Down-town he read a thermometer: six degrees above zero. He was troubled. The river had only just frozen over; this might mean a change. Then, mingling with the groups of men and hearing more news of the strike, he forgot everything else for a while. Later, returning home past the police barracks, he heard two members of the Canadian mounted police talking.

“The ice is breaking up fifteen miles above,” one of them said disgustedly. “Lamont could not get through and will have to wait now till the weather changes again.”