Klondike River Valley (Yukon) -- Gold discoveries -- Fiction; Western stories
Leaving his party on the sand to wait for the putting ashore of the
freight, he strolled up the beach toward the old trading post. He did
not swagger, though he noticed that many of the be-revolvered
individuals did. A strapping, six-foot Indian passed him, carrying an
unusually large pack. Kit swung in behind, admiring the splendid
calves of the man, and the grace and ease with which he moved along
under his burden. The Indian dropped his pack on the scales in front
of the post, and Kit joined the group of admiring gold-rushers who
surrounded him. The pack weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, which
fact was uttered back and forth in tones of awe. It was going some,
Kit decided, and he wondered if he could lift such a weight, much less
walk off with it.
"Going to Lake Linderman with it, old man?" he asked.
The Indian, swelling with pride, grunted an affirmative.
"How much you make that one pack?"
"Fifty dollar."
Here Kit slid out of the conversation. A young woman, standing in the
doorway, had caught his eye. Unlike other women landing from the
steamers, she was neither short-skirted nor bloomer-clad. She was
dressed as any woman travelling anywhere would be dressed. What struck
him was the justness of her being there, a feeling that somehow she
belonged. Moreover, she was young and pretty. The bright beauty and
colour of her oval face held him, and he looked over-long--looked till
she resented, and her own eyes, long-lashed and dark, met his in cool
survey.
From his face they travelled in evident amusement down to the big
revolver at his thigh. Then her eyes came back to his, and in them was
amused contempt. It struck him like a blow. She turned to the man
beside her and indicated Kit. The man glanced him over with the same
amused contempt.
"Chechaquo," the girl said.
The man, who looked like a tramp in his cheap overalls and dilapidated
woollen jacket, grinned dryly, and Kit felt withered though he knew not
why. But anyway she was an unusually pretty girl, he decided, as the
two moved off. He noted the way of her walk, and recorded the judgment
that he would recognize it after the lapse of a thousand years.
"Did you see that man with the girl?" Kit's neighbour asked him
excitedly. "Know who he is?"
Kit shook his head.
"Cariboo Charley. He was just pointed out to me. He struck it big on
Klondike. Old timer. Been on the Yukon a dozen years. He's just come
out."
"What's chechaquo mean?" Kit asked.
"You're one; I'm one," was the answer.
"Maybe I am, but you've got to search me. What does it mean?"
"Tender-foot."
On his way back to the beach Kit turned the phrase over and over. It
rankled to be called tender-foot by a slender chit of a woman.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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