The Alma was crushed in the jamming of the floes, but the eggs
were intact. These he back-tripped two miles across the ice to the
shore, where he built a cache, which stood for years after and was
pointed out by men who knew.
Half a thousand frozen miles stretched between him and Dawson, and
the waterway was closed. But Rasmunsen, with a peculiar tense look
in his face, struck back up the lakes on foot. What he suffered on
that lone trip, with nought but a single blanket, an axe, and a
handful of beans, is not given to ordinary mortals to know. Only
the Arctic adventurer may understand. Suffice that he was caught
in a blizzard on Chilkoot and left two of his toes with the surgeon
at Sheep Camp. Yet he stood on his feet and washed dishes in the
scullery of the PAWONA to the Puget Sound, and from there passed
coal on a P. S. boat to San Francisco.
It was a haggard, unkempt man who limped across the shining office
floor to raise a second mortgage from the bank people. His hollow
cheeks betrayed themselves through the scraggy beard, and his eyes
seemed to have retired into deep caverns where they burned with
cold fires. His hands were grained from exposure and hard work,
and the nails were rimmed with tight-packed dirt and coal-dust.
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