Chapter 11

FRUITLESS TOIL

The two claims on Red Ruin became as honeycombed as a wasp's nest. Day after day Angela watched the bare-armed, red-shirted figure at work, witnessing his failure with a set face. It became patent that the claims were bad ones, and that Red Ruin was living up to its name. All the labor of driving through matted undergrowth and frozen gravel was vain. "Hope long deferred maketh the heart sick," and it made Angela's sick. She knew that sooner or later Jim must accept the inevitable and abandon the quest--there. She hoped it would be soon. After all, failure meant the same as success--to her.

If Red Ruin failed, what else could he do but pack up and go home, as thousands of others were doing? The patched-up steamers that were now plying up the river were packed with a queer gathering of "failures" and "successes." Men who had staked all on this promising gamble were going back to the harness of civilization, sadder and wiser beings. The relatively few successful ones were making programmes for the future--a future in which an unaccustomed luxury figured prominently. Disease and famine were taking their toll of the participants in the great adventure. From all along the Yukon watershed came news of pestilence and panic. Scurvy raged in Circle City, and a hungry mob at Forty Mile was only quelled by troopers with loaded rifles. A boat coming up-river laden with 200 belated gold-mad men and women was stopped by the Commissioner, and all but those who had foresight enough to bring a twelve-months' food supply were refused a landing, for the famine was acute.

These pitiful facts came to Angela's ears. Even money could no longer purchase food. The knowledge put a terrible weapon into her hands. If she destroyed their food supply freedom was assured. For one hour she even contemplated this means of escape. Was it not for his good too? Could he hope to win where thousands had failed? She tried to convince herself that it would be no act of treachery but one of kindness. The lie rankled in her brain. A revulsion of feeling came as she reflected upon the immediate past, for despite all her antagonism she could not but admire the indomitable will of him. Failure was written all over the two honeycombed claims, but it never daunted him. She heard the spade and ax ringing on the hard earth from early morning till late evening, and saw him swinging up the hill, a little grim, but otherwise unchanged.

She was impatiently waiting for him to confess his failure, but he never