Argosy, Vol. 120, No. 1 — page 36: what you’re looking at

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

26. THE ARGOSY. camped, built a good fire of drift, and passed a cozy night in blankets. Or, quite quite as likely, the whole thing would blow over within the half hour and let him go on without risk. He elected to keep on because of his de- sire to reach home. So eager was he for his own roof and his own bunk that he risked everything the elements could con- spire against him, carrying on through this purgatory of weather because of the hearth- fire hunger in his heart. You would have Jaughed to see the home that drew him on! There was icy water in the bottom of the whaleboat, water that flooded in over the gunwaleg no matter how skilfully she was handled. When he could spare the effort Dean baled with a desperate haste. «Often in the squall’s three hours of deyiltry he was so Close on the rocks he almost could see them, and safety passed out of reach of human endeavor—a matter for prayer. Soaking wet, cold, snow encrusted, he held on, content that he had saved an hour or two in the journey home. Fortune, Alaska, was once a town, with a dock, houses, two saloons, a church, popu- lation, and high hopes. To hear its inhabi- ‘tants, it was going to be a second Juneau. That must have been all of twenty—no, twenty-five—years ago. Back in the Coast Range was a mountain of pure copper. A syndicate owned the mountain, and proposed to mine itt. To get out the ore a railroad would be necessary, and Fortune was the spot selected as the tide-water terminus of a few mites of nar- row gage. Labor gangs were shipped to Fortune, and housed in long, board shacks. Machinery, rails, pile drivers, and a tug boat came on. With them came the saloons, gamblers, a half dozen draggled women for the dance hall, a pioneer pastor. Oh, For- . tune was going to have everything! That was all so long ago it is doubtful if to-day you could find an Alaskan who ever heard of Fortune. | A financial panic wiped out the develep- ment syndicate, and the railroad was aban- doned at the point where a-half*mile of right of way had been grubbed beyond the sand dupes of the beach. The Klondike was discovered, and the few who remained ‘in Fortune, hoping, disappeared. After the more valuable construction equipment was finally salvaged there remained nothing but a crooked street of cheap frame buildings that turned thear sightless eyes on the deso- lation of sand and an empty sea, bleaching their bones in the eternal rains of the south- east coast, waiting only the day when the drifting sand would give them decent burial. Fortune was gone, jorgotten. It passed without regret in the hectic days when all the world moved toward interior Alaska. ‘The jagged teeth of broken, weed-hung piling marked the grave of what was once a dock. A half dozen board buildings, faded to lavender gray, partially buried in sand, made up the street. Before, behind, to right and to left of it stretched mile on mile of peaceful wilderness. In fifteen years but two living things had clung to Fortune—making an exception only of the shy, wild beasts. They were Frazier Dean and his dog Fang. Dean was given one opportunity for de- cision—no more. Having made up his mind to carry on through the squall, he had to sail or sink, and for three hours he could not have told you which he would do in the next minute. Then the squall blew away as quickly as it had come, leaving a nasty sea and a pitch-black night. He realized then that his impatience had cost him progress, but there was no help for it. He took his less with philosophical resignation, and kept on through the blackness—sinse he must keep on—trusting himself to an uncanny instinct for dead reckoning. It must have been close to midnight when he found his beach. He knew’ it was his beach by the familiar. landfall of jagged hills, bulking dim against a star-lit sky. There was no light to greet him, and that being the normal state of things, left him comforted and without suspicion of what followed. Landing was nasty work in the dark and a lively surf. Dean knew how to handle the whaleboat, and he~preved it in a man- ner that might have evoked applause had- » ae —— - comiclbooksxeo inn