The Yukon Trail

The Yukon Trail, by William
MacLeod Raine,

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Raine, Illustrated by George Ellis Wolfe
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Title: The Yukon Trail A Tale of the North
Author: William MacLeod Raine

Release Date: October 11, 2006 [eBook #19527]
Language: English
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THE YUKON TRAIL
A Tale of the North
by
WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE
Author of Wyoming, Bucky O'Connor, Etc.
With Illustrations by George Ellis Wolfe

[Illustration: NOW HE CAUGHT HER BY THE SHOULDERS (See
page 108)]

New York Grosset & Dunlap Publishers Copyright, 1917, by William
MacLeod Raine All Rights Reserved Published May 1917

TO MY BROTHER EDGAR C. RAINE
who knew the Lights of Dawson when they were a magnet to the feet
of those answering the call of Adventure, who mushed the Yukon Trail
from its headwaters to Bering Sea, who still finds in the Frozen North

the Romance of the Last Frontier.

Contents
I. Going "In" 1 II. Enter a Man 10 III. The Girl from Drogheda 23 IV.
The Crevasse 34 V. Across the Traverse 49 VI. Sheba sings--and Two
Men listen 58 VII. Wally gets Orders 71 VIII. The End of the Passage
82 IX. Gid Holt goes prospecting 93 X. The Rah-Rah Boy functions
109 XI. Gordon invites himself to Dinner--and does not enjoy it 125
XII. Sheba says "Perhaps" 137 XIII. Diane and Gordon differ 144 XIV.
Genevieve Mallory takes a Hand 156 XV. Gordon buys a Revolver 170
XVI. Ambushed 181 XVII. "God save you kindly" 193 XVIII. Gordon
spends a Busy Evening 201 XIX. Sheba does not think so 210 XX.
Gordon finds himself Unpopular 217 XXI. A New Way of leaving a
House 227 XXII. Gid Holt comes to Kusiak 232 XXIII. In the Dead of
Night 241 XXIV. Macdonald follows a Clue 247 XXV. In the Blizzard
256 XXVI. Hard Mushing 268 XXVII. Two on the Trail 275 XXVIII.
A Message from the Dead 286 XXIX. "Don't touch him! Don't you
dare touch him!" 292 XXX. Holt frees his Mind 301 XXXI. Sheba digs
308 XXXII. Diane changes her Mind 318

Illustrations
Now he caught her by the shoulders Frontispiece "So you think I'm a
'fraid-cat, Mr. Elliot?" 44 The situation was piquant, even though it was
at her expense 236 For him the beauty of the night lay largely in her
presence 322

The Yukon Trail
CHAPTER I
GOING "IN"

The midnight sun had set, but in a crotch between two snow-peaks it
had kindled a vast caldron from which rose a mist of jewels, garnet and
turquoise, topaz and amethyst and opal, all swimming in a sea of
molten gold. The glow of it still clung to the face of the broad Yukon,
as a flush does to the soft, wrinkled cheek of a girl just roused from
deep sleep.
Except for a faint murkiness in the air it was still day. There was light
enough for the four men playing pinochle on the upper deck, though
the women of their party, gossiping in chairs grouped near at hand, had
at last put aside their embroidery. The girl who sat by herself at a little
distance held a magazine still open on her lap. If she were not reading,
her attitude suggested it was less because of the dusk than that she had
surrendered herself to the spell of the mysterious beauty which for this
hour at least had transfigured the North to a land all light and
atmosphere and color.
Gordon Elliot had taken the boat at Pierre's Portage, fifty miles farther
down the river. He had come direct from the creeks, and his
impressions of the motley pioneer life at the gold-diggings were so
vivid that he had found an isolated corner of the deck where he could
scribble them in a notebook while still fresh.
But he had not been too busy to see that the girl in the wicker chair was
as much of an outsider as he was. Plainly this was her first trip in.
Gordon was a stranger in the Yukon