GREENER THAN SPRUCE

Greener than Spruce

By Herbert Farris

Author of “Plenty Grub an’ Plenty Gold,” etc.

“Maybe greener men have hit Alasky—but I doubt it!”

The speaker, a rheumy-eyed, old veteran of the trails, spoke thus disparagingly of young Harris Benton. The old-timer’s perpetual “sun-grin” expanded visibly as he watched Benton’s parka-clad figure disappear around a bend in the river trail.

“Wonder how long he’ll last,” the old fellow speculated, turning to the group on the river bank. “I’ll bet I’ve showed him a dozen times how to tie his snowshoes to his feet, an’ I’ve told him little things about pitchin’ his tent and makin’ camp, till I’m black in the face. It’ll be three-four weeks yet before mushin’ll be any good, but I’ve got a right good notion to load up the old Yukon sled an’ take out after that young chechahco.”

“An’ why?”

The old-timer had paused for that query. The question certainly gave pith and point to the clever thing on the tip of his tongue. The remark would have lost its savor in the telling; the retort, however, was pungent.

“An’ why?” he repeated. “I’ll tell you for why. I’ve been snow-blind twice, so my eyes ain’t what they used to be. Nowadays, when I ain’t wearin’ snow glasses—an’ blast the dang things, I hate ’em!— I’ve got to keep my eyes clamped on the spruce.

“Spruce is dang restful to the eyes. It’s restful because it’s green, but to keep on lookin’ at it, a man’s got to twist his head from one side the river to the other, an’ there’s times when I think I’m li’ble to twist my head plum off—like a screech owl. Now, instead of takin’ all that trouble, I could start out an’ foller after this young Benton. Instead of lookin’ at the spruce then, I could keep my eyes fastened straight ahead on him. He’s greener than any spruce that ever growed.”

If young Harris Benton could have heard this sarcastic speech, he would have been rudely made aware of the withering contempt in which he was held by the general run of Alaskans with whom he had come in contact. Had he been aware of the feeling which existed, he would not have been offended in the least; he would have been amused. He was green but, unlike many greenhorns, he realized the fact and was anxious to learn. Moreover, he was willing to accept the hard knocks—a part of the curriculum of Alaska’s trail school—and come up smiling. For Harris Benton, although he was probably the greenest chechahco in the North, had not been raised a pet.

At noon, young Benton hauled his sled to the river bank and, with considerable difficulty, dropped a dead spruce tree and built a small tea fire. After his noon meal he unloaded his Yukon sled, inverted it so that the steel-shod runners shone like twin mirrors in the rays of the sun; then—and this is almost past believing—he proceeded to smear the steel shoes of the sled runners with lubricating oil.

The dealer who had sold him the oil—either unscrupulous or a practical joker—had seriously informed him that “greased sled runners makes mighty easy slippin’ on the trail.” Harris Benton had innocently bought five gallons of the lubricant.

Where a musher pulls without dogs, as young Benton was doing, every pound of excess weight is an additional check to his progress. And besides the five gallons of lubricating oil, Harris Benton was hauling other nonessentials. He had more clothing than he really needed; about twenty pounds of books and old magazines, and the merchant from whom he had bought his outfit had sold him far too many cooking utensils. Benton’s entire outfit weighed almost twelve hundred pounds, and, since at best he could haul but four hundred pounds on his Yukon sled, he was relaying. He would haul from three to four hundred pounds as far up the river trail as he could possibly travel in a day, cache his load, and return to his camp with his empty sled.

Early in the month of May he reached the Kentna country. He had been on the trail four months, and he had arrived with pick, pan, and shovel, together with ample food to last him through the mining season. Also—as every old-timer in the Kentna country will testify—he had arrived with the ambition and energy of a half dozen men in spite of the grueling work on the trail.

Young Benton spent his first week after arriving at “the cricks” in building a cache for his supplies. It was a simple box affair, built of logs, supported high in air by four posts. He was busily stowing his food and other supplies in the cache, when a voice at his elbow brought him about with a start. Looking up from his work, he saw the old-timer who had offered him many helpful suggestions back at the trading post. The old man was surveying him, his small stock of provisions, and his crude cache, with frank curiosity.

“Well, I see you landed here all right,” he remarked by way of greeting. “I’m camped just above here on Penny Ante Crick, an’ I ain’t got a thing to do till the snow goes off, so I thought I’d mush over an’ see how you’re gettin’ along. Staked yourself a claim yet?”

Benton admitted that he had not. “I didn’t know it was lawful to stake a claim unless you discover gold,” he added.

“Plenty of ’em stakes first an’ find the gold afterward—if there’s any to be found.” The old man’s rheumy eyes were mildly disapproving. “I wouldn’t worry too much about makin’ my discovery, if I was you. Most any gravel you find around here carries some gold. Trouble is to find it in payin’ quantities. So hurry up an’ stake yourself a claim or two, before some of these ground hogs comes in on the first boat this summer an’ grabs it all. Us old-timers takes just what we can work to good advantage, but most greenhorns’ll wear out a pair of hobnail shoes just a-racin’ over the country stakin’. You’re lucky to be here among the first, so hurry up an’ get busy.”

“Thanks for the tip. I’ll——”

“It’s none of my business,” the old-timer suddenly interrupted, “but what in thunder have you brought into the country in that?”

Benton had placed his five-gallon can of lubricating oil near the cache, and it was that which had elicited the question. He was somewhat puzzled.

“Why, that’s my oil,” he said. “How do you carry yours?”

The ancient sour dough had all he could do to keep a straight face. This green chechahco had actually brought kerosene into this wilderness!

“You won’t have no use for a lamp,” he said gently. “All summer you can read fine print right in your tent—any hour of the night, too. I thought ev’ry-body knowed——”

“I have no lamp,” young Benton interrupted impatiently. “I’m green but I’m not quite a fool—I hope. That isn’t oil for a lamp; it’s about four gallons of lubricating oil that I had left over from my winter’s sledding.”

“I see.” The old man shifted his weight from one moccasined foot to the other, swallowing his Adam’s apple twice before he once more found his voice. “I understand you but I don’t know what you mean,” he said. “How much of this oil did you use an’ how did you use it?”

“Well, I used about a gallon.” Young Benton was looking doubtfully at the old man. “I think I see what you’re driving at now. I allowed that storekeeper to sell me five gallons when one was all that I needed.”

The old-timer lifted his tufted eyebrows. “An’ you got through the winter with one gallon,” he said softly, wonderingly.

“Why, I only used it in the morning and again at noon. Just when I—but maybe I didn’t use it often enough. Still, the sled came along pretty well.”

The old-timer barked apologetically in his mittened hand. At last he understood. It had been so many years since he had heard of the old joke of greasing sled runners that he had forgotten. But this boy was so very much in earnest, it wouldn’t do to hurt his feelings. And besides, it might lead to serious trouble. This innocent youth had dragged this worthless stuff over the trail—pounds and pounds of it. Murder had been committed for less than a joke like that!

“The skinflint sold you too much, all right,” he said, as he reached down and thoughtfully “hefted” the can. “But you’ve got it here—I reckon you might as well forget it. Anyhow, you won’t have any more use for it. You’re all through sleddin’. An’ now I’d better be gettin’ along. If you want anything this summer, you’ll find me over on Penny Ante Crick. Number Five Above Discovery’s the name of my claim.”

Harris Benton was highly elated when he next saw the old-timer. Not only had he staked a claim on what he called Benton Gulch but he had actually discovered gold and he had found it in paying quantities. For a week he had panned the gravel on Benton Gulch, and he was now displaying his sample to the old-timer. The old man listened attentively to the boy’s story, but did not enthuse over the sample.

“You’ve come clean over here to Penny Ante Crick to show me this, an’ I’m right sorry to have to disappoint you.” In spite of the old man’s words, young Benton was grinning cheerfully. “It takes a whole lot to discourage a young rooster like you,” he resumed, “but I’ll soon show you why you’ve got to leave that gulch alone. I don’t doubt what you say. You got the gold here to prove it. But how’re you goin’ to work the ground? Answer me that.”

Harris Benton still grinned. “I know why you think I can’t work that ground,” he said. “It’s what you old-timers call a dry gulch. I know there won’t be drinking water there this summer. What you overlooked is this. By digging a ditch less than a quarter mile in length I can get one of the best sluice heads in this country. Right over that shoulder at the head of my gulch is where I——”

“I know where you mean, all right,” interrupted the old-timer. “But have you talked with Joe Murtry yet?”

“Haven’t even seen him. But why should I talk to him? What has he to do with it?”

“Ev’rything. Joe Murtry owns ev’ry drop of water in Caribou Crick. He recorded it last spring a year ago.”

Young Benton was on the point of interrupting, but the old-timer silenced him. “Now don’t start to tell me that all you’ve got to do is to go over to Caribou Crick an’ get Joe Murtry to give you the right to take what water you want, for Joe ain’t that kind. He ain’t only the luckiest man in Alasky—he’s the meanest. If he’s worth a dime, he’s worth a half million right now, but even so, he wouldn’t give a man daylight in a dark cellar. You just forget you ever staked a claim on that little gulch an’ start out prospectin’ for something that’ll do you some good.”

Young Benton thanked the old man for his advice. “But,” he added, “I’m not going to start out prospectin’, when I’ve already discovered gold—unless I’m forced to do so. I’m going over to see Murtry at once.”

“All right; but be ready to run if he comes at you. He’s the meanest man in Alasky, bar none. Joe Murtry never done no man a favor, an’ he never will. Mark what I tell you, son. He’ll chase you off his ground just as soon as you show up an’ tell him what you want. You’re just wastin’ your time. But, then, that’s the trouble with all chechahcos; they won’t listen to an old-timer’s advice.”

Young Benton went at once to Caribou Creek. In spite of what he had heard of Joe Murtry, he was not convinced. There was an abundance of water in Caribou Creek, and surely no man would be mean enough to refuse to allow the use of the surplus. This line of reasoning gave him great confidence, but his first glimpse of Murtry caused his heart to sink.

Murtry was not tall, but he was as broad as two average-sized men. Yet he was not fat. His arms were unusually long, and, due to a slight stoop to his powerful shoulders, his huge hands hung slightly ahead of his knees. Young Benton looked at him and instantly thought of a gorilla. With two others, Murtry was setting up a string of sluice boxes.

Benton watched them for a time; twice, without waiting to be asked, he gave them a hand. Murtry, who had barely spoken, paused at last and sized up his caller. What he saw evidently satisfied him.

“Want a job?” he asked gruffly. “I’m taking one of these men upriver tomorrow, an’ if you’re lookin’ for work, you can stay here an’ help Sam. Do whatever he tells you.”

Here was a golden opportunity. Surely if he favored Murtry, he might expect the big fellow to reciprocate. “I’m not looking for work for the season,” he said, “but I’ll be glad to help out for a few days—if that will do you any good.”

Murtry grunted. “All I need,” he said. “I’ve got a foreman an’ fifteen men waitin’ for me upriver. They mush in from the coast—their time starts the first of June whether they’re here or not. Hunderd an’ fifty miles from here. I’m goin’ up in my boat an’ bring ’em down. You stay an’ help Sam out till I come back with my men, an’ I’ll pay you the goin’ wages—ten bucks an’ grub.”

Sam soon shuffled off to cook the evening meal, and Benton decided to say nothing about his sluice head of water until after they had eaten. Their pipes going, he thought it time to broach the subject.

“I didn’t tell you that I was a neighbor of yours,” he said by way of opening the conversation. “I spent the winter sledding in my outfit.”

“That so?” Murtry said with a mild simulation of interest. “Where you camped?”

Benton indicated the direction. “Right over there,” he said, “I’ve named it Benton Gulch.”

“You ain’t staked that little dry gulch?”

“Why, yes. You see, I believe there’s a little gold there—I don’t know how much—I’ve already done quite a bit of panning and I hope to——”

“You’re a fool!” Murtry interrupted in a rage. “If you don’t know that I own ev’ry drop of water in Caribou Crick, it’s time you was learnin’. How do you aim to work that gulch without water?”

“That’s what I came over to see you about,” said Benton. “I heard that it was your water and I thought that you would be glad to spare me a sluice head.” Benton was speaking calmly, in spite of the other’s belligerent attitude. “Of course,” he went on, “if the water in Caribou Crick should run low this summer or fall, I’d quit taking it out, but——”

“You’d quit takin’ it out!” Murtry cried. “You’re never goin’ to begin takin’ it out! If you ever start monkeyin’ with Caribou Crick, I’ll drill you so full of holes you’ll look like——”

Murtry’s anger was intensified by his failure to find the word he was seeking. “Say,” he cried, “you get clean off this claim! Beat it quick, while you’re all together!”

Benton was sitting at the rough table; he rose slowly. “Why certainly—if it’s your claim—I’ll leave.” He was speaking hesitantly but he was not afraid of the glowering bully who had commanded him to leave. He was simply surprised at the man’s unreasonable anger. “But even if I have no water, that gulch belongs to me, and I mean to hold it.”

“Hold it as long as you want to!” Murtry was shouting after him. “Hold it till you get good an’ tired of doing assessment work on it! Wait a minute till I tell you something you’d just as well know now as later!” Benton paused and Murtry continued. “There ain’t any gold in that gulch, but even if there was, you’d never get to work it. I’ve got the water an’ I aim to keep it!”

The old-timer was right. He was right about everything! He had said that Joe Murtry was the meanest man in Alaska; he had said that no matter how much gold the tiny gulch might carry, Murtry would never allow it to be worked. Benton considered the various things that the old-timer had told him until he reached his camp in Benton Gulch. Well, he decided, he would follow the old man’s advice and quit the gulch on the following day.

Benton had been prospecting the gulch every day for more than a week. Through force of habit he took his pick, shovel and gold pan, and went to work in the narrow cut which he had been running into a shoulder of the hill near his tent. He was far from an expert with the gold pan, but he enjoyed the beginner’s thrill, which always came when he “tailed off” the residue in the pan, and saw the streak of yellow trickling behind the black sand.

Young Benton extended his cut three feet into the hill. He was following along the disintegrated slate bed rock; although he did not realize it, the bedrock was totally different. Before it had been “slick,” now it was rough and “rotten.”

He filled his pan with gravel and carried it to a hole which he had dug in the gulch’s channel. Now the hole was filled with water from the melting snows; in a week, perhaps, it would be dry. At least the old-timer had said that it would, and Benton was now a firm believer in the wisdom of the old man.

It is a maxim with old-timers that “many things are mistaken for gold, but gold is never mistaken for anything else.” A greenhorn is often fooled, for example, by iron pyrites and “cube” iron, but when he discovers gold, the real thing, he knows. So it was with Benton. For a week he had been panning “pinhead stuff” that would “rattle in the pan.” Now, as he “tailed off” the pan he had taken from the disintegrated bed rock, he saw that a half-dozen dull-yellow pieces of gold were in the bottom of the pan. Benton’s old-timer would have pronounced them slugs.

Benton was excited. He held the slugs in the palm of his hand, while he attempted to estimate their value. The smallest of them, he decided, was fully twice as large as a five-dollar gold piece; the largest was surely worth more than twenty dollars. The six slugs would total almost a hundred dollars. Chechahco that he was, Benton still knew that he had uncovered bonanza dirt.

Young Benton went again to his cut. This time he worked feverishly for two hours. His pay streak was rich, extremely so, but there was a heavy overburden to handle. In other words, above the pay he had discovered on bed rock, lay ten, twenty, possibly as much as fifty feet of muck and gravel. Undoubtedly the ground was rich enough that he could take out hundreds of dollars that summer without water, but if he could only manage to get that sluicehead from Caribou Creek, he could with a pressure hose, run that overburden off like so much soup. He must have that water? But how?

At five o’clock next morning young Benton was seated on the stump of a spruce where the clear waters of Caribou Creek gushed into the brown foam-flecked river. He looked at Murtry’s river boat which was beached near by. It rested on two fresh-peeled logs, and Benton saw that all preparations had been recently made to launch the vessel. At six o’clock, Murtry and one of his men put in an appearance. Benton had no time to lose; he spoke to Murtry at once.

“Murtry,” he said, without rising from his stump, “I’ve been thinking the matter over and I wonder if you would consider selling me a sluice head of water from Caribou Crick. I’ll pay you what it is worth.”

Murtry paid him no attention. He and his man put their shoulders at the stern of the boat and skidded the vessel into the river. Murtry made a line fast to a convenient “dead man,” while his man leaped into the stern of the boat and started the engine. No sooner did he have the engine purring rhythmically, than he shut it off.

“What’s the matter?” Murtry, who was about to cast off and leap aboard, made the line fast again. “Anything wrong with that engine?”

“No, but——” The man was looking at Murtry in wide-eyed alarm. He was afraid to tell what was wrong, and yet he dared not remain silent. “Mr. Murtry,” he said, speaking swiftly, as if anxious to break the news as quickly as possible, “there ain’t a single drop of engine oil. I spoke to Sam about it last night after we’d loaded the other stuff aboard, an’ he said there was plenty of oil here. But I just looked an’ there’s nothin’ but gasoline. There’s more gasoline than we need, but there ain’t a drop of——”

“You idiot!” Murtry exclaimed. “Chase right up to camp an’ get some out of the cache an’ hurry!”

Murtry’s man leaped ashore, but stood hesitantly, shifting his feet as if in a quandary.

“Hurry! I don’t want to wait here all day!”

“I’ll go look again, but I looked last evenin’ an’ there wasn’t any there. At least I didn’t see it. That’s why Sam was so sure there was plenty on the boat.”

“Of course it’s there. If you don’t find it in the cache, look in the tool shed.”

At this the man shuffled off. Young Benton was much pleased at Murtry’s unexpected delay, but he was somewhat nettled at the manner in which he had been ignored. He decided to try again, and this time he would do his utmost to make Murtry answer him.

“I suppose you didn’t hear me a bit ago,” he began, “but——”

“I heard you the first time,” Murtry interrupted with an oath. “Now shut your yap an’ get out!”

Benton did not move. Seeing this, Murtry’s great hamlike hands twisted about convulsively; his lips drew back against his uneven teeth, and with an enraged snarl he quickly rushed at the youth.

“I’ll show you if you move or not!” he shouted. “Once I get a hold of you, I’ll——”

Murtry suddenly brought up with a sharp exclamation. Ten feet from Benton, he had stopped with an expression of bewilderment on his broad face. He was gazing like a man fascinated into the barrel of an automatic.

“I came ready for you,” said young Benton coolly. “I’m not on your claim, and I don’t see you or anybody else throwing me off of government land. And now, you can at least listen to what I have to say, even if you don’t care to——”

“I’ll listen, you young pup,” Murtry said, “but there’s a day comin’. You’ll wake up some day an’ learn that what I say goes in this neck of the woods.”

Murtry advanced a step as he said this. “And you,” said Benton as he menaced Murtry with his weapon, “may never wake up, if you come another step in this direction. There, that’s better,” he went on as Murtry retreated a step. “From what I’ve been told, Murtry, you’re a mighty rich man. It won’t bother you in the least to sell—or give me, for that matter—some of your water. You’ve got your pile made. Now be decent and give me a chance to get out of this country with a little money for all the hardship I’ve gone through. Will you listen to a sensible proposition?”

“Rave on,” said Murtry sullenly. “You’ve got me dead to rights. Talk away if it does you any good, but you’ll get nothin’ out of me.”

“I’ll give you a third of all the money I take out,” said Benton, speaking slowly and distinctly. “If you’ll give me the water to work the ground. Is it a go?”

Murtry opened his lips as if he intended to reply; then closed them tightly. A minute passed and he seemed to reconsider. “You might as well trot along,” he said contemptuously. “Use your brains. Why would I take a third? If there’s any money there, I can have it all after you starve out; an’ if there ain’t anything there, what’s the idee of my takin’ a third!”

Benton said nothing more. Argument seemed such a futile thing, so far as Murtry was concerned. Five minutes passed and Murtry’s man appeared empty handed. His manner was apologetic.

“It ain’t there,” he said, whining. “An’ there ain’t any on the boat. Sam or some of the other boys must’ve used it all up last fall before the boat was laid up. I don’t know what to do unless I mush up there an’ have the boys come down in a boat or on a raft.”

For almost a minute, Murtry raved like a maniac. “An’ ev’ry day that my men stay up there, it’s costin’ me a hunderd an’ sixty-five dollars.” He groaned. “Fifteen men at ten a day an’ my foreman at fifteen a day. That’s what comes of puttin’ a man like you in charge of my boat. Say, how long do you think it’d take you to mush up there?”

“A hunderd an’ fifty miles is a good ways—goin’ through the brush like I’ll have to do,” the man said. “I’ll do my best though to make it in ten days.”

“Sixteen hunderd an’ sixty-five dollars!” Again Murtry groaned. “An’ maybe a whole lot more—if you don’t make it in ten days. Well, what are you standin’ there for? Get a move on!”

“Wait just a minute, Mr. Murtry. I’ve just thought about somethin’ that may save you a whole lot of money, an’ save me that long trip upriver on foot. An old-timer over on Penny Ante Crick has been tellin’ all around that this young Benton sledded in nearly five gallons of oil last winter. He was laughin’ about him usin’ it to grease his sled runners, an’ he’s got upward of four gallons of it left. Now, if you could buy it off him——”

“Why, of course,” Murtry interrupted briskly. “I heard about it a month ago. Just forgot it.” He turned to Benton. “How much do you want for that oil?” he asked in a pleasant voice.

Young Benton was thinking fast. He, too, had forgotten all about the oil that he had bought to make slippin’ easy. He had considered the stuff worthless, but now——

“I’ll tell you, Mr. Murtry,” he said thoughtfully, “I had a lot of work sledding that oil in here last winter. I really hadn’t thought about selling it, but since you need it, and I don’t, I’ll let you have it.”

“You mean for nothin’?” Murtry asked incredulously.

“Of course not. I mean for a fair price.”

Murtry became suspicious. “What do you call a fair price?” he countered. “It’s worth nothin’ whatever to you, an’ I’ll give you—let’s see, I’ll give you two dollars a gallon for it an’ allow you a dollar a pound for freightin’ it into the country. Fair enough, ain’t it?”

Benton grinned. “That’s one way of looking at it,” he said amiably, “but I really can’t think of letting it go for what you offer. Two dollars a gallon is more than the oil is worth, but—the freighting the stuff into this country. Man, that was the hardest work I ever did in my life!”

“I get you.” Murtry spoke thickly. “You’ve got me where the wool’s short an’ you aim to gouge me. All right—tell you what I’ll do—I’ll give you a hundred dollars cash on the nail. How ’bout it?”

“That would be gouging, as you call it.” Benton seemed to be considering the matter. “No,” he said at last, “I can’t take that much money. Four gallons of oil isn’t worth a hundred dollars.”

“Say, what in thunder are you drivin’ at?” Murtry cried angrily. “Are you tryin’ to kid somebody?”

“Not at all. You’ve made your offer, and now I’ll make mine.” Benton spoke slowly and distinctly. “As you said a moment ago, that oil is really worth nothing at all to me, so I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll just give you the oil, provided that you’ll give me something that’s worth nothing whatever to you. In case you don’t know, I mean a sluice head of water from Caribou Creek. Are you on?”

Murtry was thinking hard. There was not one chance in a thousand of this confident youngster finding gold on that little dry gulch. There was water to spare, lots of it going to waste, but oil—there was only four gallons of lubricating oil in the country! With a scowl, Murtry nodded his head in the affirmative.

It was a month later before the old-timer visited young Benton on his dry gulch. Fully a half dozen men were bustling about on the claim. Benton himself was closely watching two men who were holding the nozzle of a pressure hose trained against a bank of gravel. The old-timer stood aghast until Benton came over to greet him.

“Well, how in the name of Sam Hill,” said the old man, “did you ever make a deal with Joe Murtry to get this water!”

For reply Benton fished a bit of paper from his pocket, and passed it over. “Read it,” he said with a grin.

The old-timer slowly spelled out the brief document.

In consideration of four gallons of engine oil, I hereby agree to sell, assign, and transfer to Harris Benton, a full sluice head of water to be taken from the waters of Caribou Creek, and I agree to allow him or his agents to go on my claim or claims to dig the necessary ditch to carry said water.

Joe Murtry.

“You’re the first man that ever got the best of Joe Murtry,” gasped the old-timer. “How in thunder did you do it?”

Benton explained.

“And now,” he went on, “I’ve got some good miners working for me, but—you’re an old-timer—do they seem to be working the ground all right?”

“Listen, son,” said the old-timer solemnly. “You don’t need the advice of an old-timer.”

Transcriber’s Note: This story appeared in the June 5, 1926 issue of Western Story magazine.