Adventure Magazine Cover, April 1916 — page 153: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Relocation of Montana Creek the foremost of Casino’s five friends bumped into him and sent him down again. And every time he repeated the rising operation, there came another man with a running shock to bowl him over. Each sprawling tumble he received thrust him deeper into the snow and farther from his stakes and handicapped him by so many precious min- utes. Casino’s gang had him marked, and try as he might he could not rise in the face of the rush. He gave it up at last, let his fifth enemy go uncursed and resignedly allowed the three outsiders in the rear to overrun and trample him in their haste. Then he arose, white as a snow-man from the drifts, wasted more golden minutes locating his stakes and ax in the dark and raced up the boundary toward the corner. So much had the others gained on him that there he staked alone. At the second corner he was also alone; but after he had driven his upper center-stake he caught and passed one of the outsiders just at the rise of the farther bank across the creek ice. As he crossed the ruddy belt of flame-light he saw other forms, up creek and down, dart- ing on the same mission, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he was not the only one delayed. Along Montana’s whole length the scene enacted on the claim he coveted was being repeated galore with but slight variations, like the many moving picture scenes upon a strip of film. Other men, scores of them, were being jostled, tripped, snow-christen- ed, trodden upon and delayed in every con- ceivable manner, and from creek-mouth to creek-head the essay of relocation had re- solved itself into one colossal carnival of racing, ramming and riotous recklessness. Bassett drove his third corner-stake along with the second of the three outsiders, led him in the run for the fourth corner and along the line caught up with the third man: One tap apiece with the axes on that last corner and they flung the implements from _ them as they made for the creek again. The third outsider made a grand sprint of it for a short distance, but he could not keep it up. For the claim was five hun- dred feet long and two thousand feet wide, lying like a double rectangle whose com- mon base was the line of the creek. Thus he had run five thousand feet, almost a mile, around the boundaries, and now in the last few strides he cracked under the I51 strain. Bassett breasted him, forged ahead and hurdled the creek bank onto the ice. ‘“‘Thunderation, Tom!’’ ejaculated Sark, swinging the dog team across to meet him. “TI thought you were never coming. Casi- no’s gone, and his five friends are gone. Did they smother you out?” “‘They sure did,” gasped Bassett, seizing the whip from his partner’s hand and fall- ing upon the sled. “I got a rough passage, all right, but the race ain’t won yet. Go to it, you hoary-hided huskies! Mush!” UNDER the urge of the whip the dogs surged into their breast bands and with Basset lying at full length a ae _and driving and Sark running at the rear on the tail rope, the outfit flashed down the creek. Behind them pealed clamorous voices, the howling of dogs, the pistol-like reports of the whips and the whinging shriek of sledge-runners. The claim race was fin- ished. The river race was on. And Daw- son City was the goal. At the mouth of Montana a gigantic fire had been kindled. Its glare lit the snow for rods around, and in the glare stood the Gold Commissioner, bulking hugely in his furs, umpiring a fair start. There would doubtless be rough riding later on, but just now he was on the job, seeing that each out- fit launched clear from the narrow gap of Montana’s mouth into the wider course of Indian River. “‘How many ahead, Fawcett?’ asked Bas- sett, as they spun by in the red flare. “Twenty teams,”’ Fawcett called in their wake. ‘‘Casino’s leading. But remember there are over three hundred men behind you.” _ “We won’t forgit, for that’s. whar they have to stay!” The rush was close on their heels because, on account of the lesser distance to travel, men had been more prone to take a chance even in the face of heavier odds upon the midway and lower claims of the creek. The stampede was driving down like a great wedge, thick at the head and petering out to single teams in the far upper reaches of Montana. It was twenty-odd miles from Bassett’s claim on Montana to the junction of Indian River and the Yukon, and eighteen more to Dawson itself, a continuous run of approx- mately forty miles. This distance was well within the sprinting powers of a good team CoMmicboooks CO