i
Sourdough Sam
—Continued
here when we left,” he remarked
to i)um. And Bum seemed to
agree. He kept close to Sam’s
heels as they left the road for a
trail leading off toward Charlie
Marino’s.
In less than a mile Sam ran into
a big 40 horse Diesel caterpillar
clearing land. “Wa’n’t nothin’
like that here, neither,” he re
minded Bum.
Sam shook his head, skirted the
machine, and ran :mack dab into
a great big seven room frame
house ail freshly painted. Old Sam
can taKe a shock, but he staggered
aimer that one. The blame house
v.as standing right on the very
spot where he’d killed a moose the
tall before. And when he bumped
.nto a well rig chugging its way
down to water he looked at it
with startled eyes. ‘‘And I ain’t
nud a drink in six months,” he
said to Bum.
Down the road they went past
Camp No 2, past slashers and
building crews at work, past Har
ry Sears and his gang with their
b.g caterpillar-drawn potato dig- ®
ger. It was very strange to Sam.
By all rights he would have been
lucky to have met a soul on the
trail, and an auto whizzing past
would have been a real event. He
was really bewildered by the in
tense activity.
At last they came to Matanuska
and the little town was the first
thing in the valley he really recog
nized. He dropped into Phil Al- n
len’s place but he didn’t have much
to say. He knew that marshals
usually take charge of people who
imagine they see things that don’t
exist, and there was Joe^Hofman
with his gold badge all ashine.
He studied the whole situation
out through a pint of Seagrams.
It wasn’t possible that this could
be the same Matanuska Valley he
had left only six months before
.... but here he was. ... all
these strange people on the roads!
All this building and excitement!
Why, it was as though many
years had rolled by since he’d
gone to Chickaloon. He couldn’t be
dreaming, could he? 4
At last he decided to take the
bull by the horns. He’d find out
whether he’d missed too many
boats or not.
“Say,” he demanded of Phil,
“what in hell’s been goin’ on
around here anyway?”
Phil has a nice sense of humor
and he realized what was going on
in Sam’s mind. He decided to have
some fun.
“Going on?” he said. “Why,
nothing much. Valley has grown a
lot since you left here ten years
ago, hasn’t it, Sam?”
“TEN YEARS!” You could have
heard Sam clear out across the
Knik flats. He stuck another bot
tle in his pocket, and, avoiding
Joe, strode rapidly off toward his
cabin up by Vic Morgan’s.
“Ten years!” He repeated it
over to himself many times. At
last he turned to the dog.
“Ten years! It don’t seem pos
sible, does it, Bum? Yet I hear’n
of a feller once’t what slept long
er’n that. Yep! Feller named Wip
van Rinkle.”
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