in march and april, 1918, the canadians were lying along the low ground beyond vimy ridge, facing the germans who held the lens-mericourt-arleux front. the 43rd was entrenched about a mile forward from the base of the ridge. we had taken over from the "yorks and lane's" who had done a lot of excellent engineering in the sector they had been holding. the trenches had been deepened and well drained. the dug-outs were numerous, large, and mostly safe. the months of their tenure had been quiet, and everything was in good repair. no man's land was wide, a quarter mile in places, smooth, covered with grass, and inhabited by colonies of larks. apparently no raiding had been done, for that always brings some artillery retaliation showing in parapets and barbed wire knocked about, and ground torn by explosives.
when the canadians commenced raiding, the hun still held himself well in check, in spite of the loss of a few men killed or taken prisoner every night or two. he had a tremendous surprise developing for our fifth army away to our right flank, and he didn't care to "start anything" with us that might disarrange his plans. not that we were left severely alone, for it was on this same comparatively quiet front, on wednesday afternoon, april 3rd, that i saw more enemy shells drop on one particular spot in a limited time than i ever saw happen in any other sector.
our regimental aid post was a spacious comfortable place underground off "vancouver road," and there some 3rd field ambulance "bearers" had taken up their quarters along with our medical section. the dug-out had only the one defect of not being any too deep for safety. well, it so happened that something had aroused the enemy's suspicions about our post. maybe the fresh earth thrown out from a little trench-improvement work near us had attracted the notice of the german air-men. whatever the cause they evidently had come to the decision that it would be wise to "shoot us up," which they did with a vengeance. captain mackenzie and i were coming down the sunken road when the fusilade opened. at first we thought it was the usual stray shell or two, but for three hours we couldn't get within fifty yards of the place. the hun gunners lobbed them over unceasingly. the dust of an explosion was still in the air when you could hear the hum of another shell coming. we were held up and just had to wait for the "strafe" to cease, anxiously wondering if the roof was holding and our men were safe.
it stopped at last and we ran down the road. one of the entrances was smashed in but the other still held up. we went downstairs to find our men crowded into one small portion of the post that remained intact. all around was evidence of their miraculous escape. i shuddered to think what would have been, had a shell penetrated the roof there and burst among them.
mcclymont told me that their lights were blown out seventy-two times by the concussion of shells exploding near the entrances, and that when they went out about the twenty-fifth time macpherson started them singing some music-hall choruses to relieve the strain. about the fiftieth time, by mutual unspoken consent, they changed to hymns! i'd have changed long before that; indeed i doubt if i could have found voice steady enough for song!
the foregoing facts i glean from an old notebook in which at the time i further jotted down that "the hun threw 235 "5.9" shells on and around our r.a.p. in less than three hours. one entrance was crumpled in and dirt and bricks heaped on our beds. twenty men there but no one hurt. the shelling represents a waste of twenty-five thousand dollars, and our cosy home gone."
that night we moved across the road to a deeper dug-out, one that had been built by the germans, located by sergt. sims. talking in the evening after supper about the day's event, our conversation naturally went afield to other adventures, and i was led to speak of a narrow escape from death i had in very different circumstances in a distant land.
* * * * *
in nearly eleven years of the yukon trails, living on the creeks among the mountains in early klondike days, i could not fail to have my share of memorable experiences, some of them with more than a spice of hazard. i lived just the regular life of a "musher"—a man on the trail—and while that mode of life assuredly held nothing of monotony, yet i grew so accustomed to it that it all seemed part of the usual, familiar course of things.
after the summer, beautiful but brief, there came the eight months of grim, relentless winter. then we had to face the long darkness and the deadly cold; to travel vast, white valleys filled with an almost terrifying silence broken only by the ugly howling of the wolves; to battle through deep and drifting snow along miles of lonely summits, with blizzards blinding and bewildering. but against each problem or task that nature set us we matched, with zest, our wits and skill. there was the joy of conflict in it. experience made us self-reliant and we learned to love the life, so free and clean, so full of stirring incident and victorious combat with the elements. only now am i commencing to get the true perspective of those yukon days, and by comparison with the soft conventional life of these later years, recognizing how unique and interesting they were.
there comes to my mind a very unpleasant time i had one winter night, when i lost my way, broke my word, and spoiled a happy gathering. if it were a sermon, my text would be, "let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."
the christmas festivities in the yukon long ago usually continued for about a month. the weather was so frosty that work on the windlass was both disagreeable and risky, so it became customary for the mid-winter weeks to be occupied in visiting or entertaining neighbours and friends. small "parties" were held in a sort of rotation at the larger cabins up and down the valleys. everybody was merrymaking. hospitality knew no artificial bonds, for in those golden days, there was neither prince nor peasant, rich nor poor. don't think from this that we had no right social standards. i know that much of the fiction about the north is built on the theory that the men in the klondike diggings practically adopted the moral code of the brothel. that assumption may make a novel "spicy" and increase its sale, but nevertheless it is quite untrue. we, of the creeks, had worthy moral standards, simple but definite, and rigidly enforced. our social grading, however, was not based on the length and value of a man's "poke," nor on his grandfather's record. if he lived an honest, decent life among us, he was barred from nothing.
in addition to the many smaller affairs, each gulch, where there were miners, would have one big evening for all, church or roadhouse being requisitioned for the occasion. these were called christmas tree entertainments, or simply "trees" for short. it was one of my duties to name the members of committees to have charge of all arrangements, and i was also expected to be chairman at all the "trees." to meet this last requirement each creek had to choose a different date so that i could make the rounds.
in the winter of 1905 we had carried through our entertainments at last chance, gold bottom, and gold run. sulphur creek was the last, and they had been working to make it the best of all. it was to be held on dec. 28th. one of the sulphur men, robertson, had come over to gold bottom to "size up" the programme there and report to his committee. he told me that sulphur's tree would easily eclipse the others, and that i must on no account miss it. "you can depend on me, robertson," i said, "and i'll see whether you sulphurites can make good your boast. i'll have to 'mush' across from gold run that afternoon, but i won't disappoint you."
at noon dec. 28th a very happy party of six old "tillicums" were gathered in jordan's cabin on gold run. his partner jim prophet was there, coldrick the londoner, macgregor the australian, bousfield and myself. prophet had been lucky enough to get a moose that had strayed into the valley within rifle-shot and it lay partly cut up on some poles by the "cache." so he had invited his friends in to help eat some of the choicest parts, moose-steak in ordinary being, of course, too common for a special feast. i shall forbear entering into details of that meal, but our meat-dish was young moose-heart stuffed, roasted, with fresh klondike river grayling as an entree. grayling are caught in the fall when slush ice is running in the river. they are sluggishly heading for deep water. you fish for them with rod and line baiting with raw meat. when you pull one out he freezes stiff almost before you can get him off the hook. you catch what you need, take them home, and stack them up like firewood in the cache where they will remain frozen. there you have your winter's supply of absolutely fresh fish.
we were sitting at the table when there came a knock on the door, and in response to jordan's hearty "come in," it was opened and the form of our good friend corp. haddock, of the north west mounted police, emerged through the mist. he sat down a minute or two but wouldn't stay. he was calling at all the cabins giving orders that no one was to attempt to leave the valley until the weather moderated. the barracks thermometer registered 65° below zero, and a dense fog had formed. under these conditions it was perilous to attempt any journey away from human habitations. no one spoke of my intended trip, (although i found out later that haddock knew my plans), until he had gone, when coldrick said, "that puts the finish on your mush to sulphur, pringle." "no," i replied, "i gave my word i'd be there and they will be looking for me. i have crossed that divide fifty times. i know every flake of snow on it. unless the corporal catches me and puts me in the 'cage,' i'll be chairman at the sulphur church this evening."
this sounds boastful and foolhardy, but as a fact it was neither. i realized perfectly what i was facing, and knew that, barring accidents, i could keep my promise. i had fifteen miles in all to go, and only one mile of it difficult travelling through deep snow on the low summit, and for that i had my snowshoes. true, it was extremely cold, but i was suitably clothed and knew how to take care of myself, surely, after six years constantly on the trail.
so jordan went out to get my snowshoes. he came in with the unexpected news that my snowshoes, and likewise their two pair, had disappeared from their pegs. it was plain that haddock was "wise," and had taken them along with him down creek in a well-meant effort to make me stay indoors. i would have to go six miles down the trail and back to get another pair, and they also might not be there. that was out of the question. i hesitated only long enough to picture the trail. there was only that one mile on which i used the shoes, and though the snow there was deep i could wade through without them. it would mean perhaps an hour longer, but it wasn't two o'clock yet and i had a full six hours to travel fifteen miles. i decided to go.
i set out and made fast time until i struck the drifts on the summit. the short spell of gloom we called day had ended, and it was rapidly growing dark. before i got over that mile there would be no light, and this unpleasant white fog would be blindfolding my eyes as well. with it all i didn't worry. this was a difficult job that faced me, but i was in my own workshop, had my own tools, and was working at my own trade. fate, however, had decreed that i should botch things this time.
somehow, unwittingly, i turned a gradual quarter circle to the right in the drifts, and was then travelling along the low, undulating divide instead of across it. laboriously but confidently i kept on through the darkness and the fog, unconscious of my error, until, after three hours, i found myself at the foot of a grade that i had thought was the slope down into the sulphur valley. i soon found my mistake. it must have been some large cup-shaped depression on the divide, its bottom strewn with a fearsome tangle of fallen trees carried down by a snow or landslide. for two testing hours i fought my way through that piled up brush and snow. when i got clear i felt myself on an up-grade.
it was a long climb out of that hateful valley and i knew now that i was lost. to try to retrace my steps would have been suicide. i had given up all hope of reaching sulphur in time for the tree and was growing a trifle anxious. it was terribly cold and dark. i had been working extremely hard for hours and i was getting hungry. i didn't dare to stand still or rest. my moccasin thong had come undone and i had to take off my mitts to fix it. so sharp was the frost that my fingers grew almost too stiff to do the work and i nearly failed to tie the lace. they were white and numb when i thrust them into my fur gauntlets, beating them against my chest as i went on. my whole body sensed the chill and threat of that momentary stop. it told me that if i were forced to take my last chance for life and try to build a fire, i would almost surely fail; to find dry wood, to prepare it, to light it, and wait nursing it into a flame sufficient to warm me would be a succession of almost hopeless chances, too desperate to take now unless there were no other way.
my climb brought me at last out above the frost-fog, and i thanked god i could see his stars and get my bearings. far away to right and left in the darkness i knew the valleys of gold run and sulphur lay, but between me and them stretched impossible miles of rough country. puzzled a moment my anxious eyes caught the flicker of a light, low down in the north, hardly to be distinguished from the stars on the sky-line. this was indeed my "star of hope." it meant warmth, and warmth was life to me. i fixed its location and with new heart headed for it.
for six hours i travelled straight away like a hunted moose. i was young, lean and fit as a wolf. i was tired but not at all exhausted. in wind and limb i was good for miles yet. but i was becoming exceedingly hungry, and felt the clutching, icy fingers of the frost getting through my clothes, and i knew there was no time to waste. hunger and ninety-five degrees of frost on the trail combining against you with darkness as their ally, will soon club you into unconsciousness.
however the game isn't lost or won until the referee blows his whistle. i was determined to fight it right out to the finish. the light was my goal and i forgot all else. i must get to it even though i might have to crawl at last with frozen hands and feet. in the hollows i lost sight of it, picking it up again on higher ground, until, when i knew i hadn't much time left me, it glimmered clear, down hill, not a hundred yards away. i'll tell you the lights in paradise will not look so beautiful to me as did the jo-jo roadhouse bonfire that night, for they had a big fire outside under an iron tank melting snow for water and it was the flame of this i had seen.
my fumbling at the latch roused swanson, the owner, from his sleep. he opened the door and pulled me in and i was safe. i had been beaten in my endeavour to get to sulphur in time for the tree, but i was victor in a more serious contest. i had won a game against heavy odds in which the stakes were life, or death, or maiming.
they told me later at sulphur, that at half-past eight the crowd at the tree got uneasy, and by nine o'clock the concert was declared off and a well-equipped search-party set out with dog-teams. they went the round-about but well-trodden trail down to the mouth of gold run, and up that creek, until they found my solitary tracks turning off to the divide. they sent their dogs back to the gold run cabin with one of the party, and followed my trail all night on snowshoes, making the jo-jo late next morning an hour after i had left on swanson's shoes for sulphur.
i arrived at that camp by an easy route early in the afternoon. i had made their tree a failure, i had broken my word, i had disobeyed police orders, but i didn't get a scolding even, from anybody.
