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Show 118 arms full of wood. It didn't make much sense to me waiting for the ground to freeze, then building a fire to thaw it. Even the ground is crazy up North. It stays frozen all year long except for the top foot or two which thaws during the summer and is called "permafrost." Shafts dug in the summer fill up with mud faster than a man can dig. Therefore, shafts are dug in the winter. "That's as good a place as any," Caribou said, rubbing his whiskers, "Right where you're standing." I lowered ray arms, and the blocks of wood rolled to the ground. And that was where we started our first shaft. We stacked the wood in an area about four feet wide and started the fire. After it burned down, we scraped the ashes away. Then we picked and shoveled, throwing the dirt into a dump which immediately froze again. For one year I had toiled for the treasure, which had been only a dream at the end of the Yukon River. Now the treasure lay under my feet-perhaps ten feet, perhaps sixty. Nothing would stop me from finding it now. Like a mighty Norseman, I swung my heavy pick into the scorched black earth. That is mostly what I did the winter of 18?8 -burn, scrape, and dig. Or, at least, so I thmight then. But now, years later, other memories drift back during the quiet night and waken m e- to laughter or tears. |
