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I. — THE MIRACLE MAN

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From Dawson to the Bering Sea, Cobalt had no other name. The flame of his hair never won him the nickname of "Red" or "Brick." He was only Cobalt from the beginning to the end, and this name, no doubt, was given to him by his eyes, which varied according to his temper from a dull-steel gray to an intense blue with fire behind it. Everyone knew Cobalt. He had come over the pass three years before, and for every step that he took, rumor took ten more. Lightning splashed from the feet of the running gods, and startling reports had spread like lightning from the steps of Cobalt. Many of the things which were said of him never could have been true, but he gathered mystery and an air of enchantment about him. Even what men could not believe, they wanted to believe. There is no human being who has not reveled in fairy tales, and Cobalt was a fairy tale.

He was not beautiful, but he was glorious. When one saw him, one believed, or hypnotized oneself into believing the tales that were told of him. Cobalt never verified or confirmed any of these stories. He never repeated a syllable of them, but of course he must have known about them. All of these tales were remarkable, and some of them were sheer impossibilities, but it is as well to note some of them at the beginning. Men are not what they are, but what other people think them to be. So it was with Cobalt and, in order to know him, one must know of the opinions of his peers.

They told of Cobalt that he once ate eleven pounds of beef, slept twenty hours, and then did a full man's work in hauling for eight days without any sustenance except the bits of snow which he picked up and ate to quench his thirst. Four men attested to the truth of this tale. They said that the thing was the result of a bet, but I never have heard that they actually weighed the meat. Also I have seen eleven pounds of beef and, when cut as steaks, it makes an imposing heap. That tale of Cobalt was typical in that it showed a superhuman quality and also a half-mad, half-gay willingness to tackle anything for a bet, a jest, or a serious purpose.

It was said that once he jumped from a fifty-foot bridge and spoiled a fifty-dollar suit in order to win a one-dollar bet. This tale is among the ridiculous and impossible stories which are told of Cobalt, so that one would say that the man must have been absolutely mad to inspire such talk. However, it just happens that I was present and saw him take the dive.

It was said of Cobalt that in a traveling circus he saw a strong man lift a platform on which there was a piano, a woman playing the piano, and a small dog. The man was labeled the strongest in the world as a matter of course. Cobalt, on another bet, added to the platform another woman, another dog, and the strong man himself and lifted the entire enormous load. Of this story I have nothing to say, and I shall make very little comment upon the others. The items illustrating his strength were innumerable. It was said that he had taken a good-size steel bar and bent it into a horseshoe. This twisted bar was kept on the wall of a saloon in Circle City. Men used to look at it, shake their heads over it, and try their own petty strength in a vain effort to change its shape. They always failed and finally that bar became a rather silly legend at which men laughed.

Then one day Cobalt came back. Someone asked him to unbend the steel bar, and it was handed to him. I myself was there, and I saw the purple vein lift and swell in a straight, diagonal line in his forehead, as he bent the bar into a straight line once more. He threw it to the man who had asked him to attempt the feat, and thereafter the bar was reinstalled upon the wall. Long after, it still remained there and must have been worth a fortune to the saloon keeper, so many people went in to look at the famous bar where the metal had failed to straighten correctly. Nearly everyone handled it and tried it between his hands, or even across his knee, but no one could alter the thing.

It was said that once he hit a man and killed him with a blow to the body. That has been done before, and actually the blow of a gloved hand has killed a man in the ring, a trained heavyweight who was struck over the heart. The miraculous feature of Cobalt's punch was that it had landed not on the left but upon the right side of the body. The blow was said to have broken three ribs. This always seemed to me one of the most incredible tales about Cobalt, but I have talked with Gene Pelham, now of Portland, Maine, and he declares that he was the physician who examined the body. He makes this report: that the man was a big Canuck with the build of a heavyweight wrestling champion and the bones to go with it. Upon the right side of the man, where the ribs spring out most boldly, there was a great purple welt and under this welt there actually were three broken ribs.

I asked the doctor if the breaking of the ribs upon the right side could have killed the man, big and strong as he was. He told me that it could hardly have been breaking of the ribs, but the effects of shock operate strangely. There was a bruise at the base of the Canuck's skull, and the doctor felt sure that his death had been due to concussion of the brain, owing to the manner in which his head struck the floor in falling.

Another exhibit for Cobalt was a row of four whiskey bottles in the Circle City saloon. Three were empty and one was about a third full. It was solemnly declared that he had drunk all of that whiskey during a single long session in the saloon. This would have been about two-thirds of a gallon of strong whiskey. The exhibit was kept on show partly as a curiosity and partly to demonstrate the excellent quality of the red-eye which was sold in the saloon. I leave those to judge of this feat who know what a strong head is needed to resist the punishment contained in a single bottle of whiskey.

In Eagle Falls I saw a large axe blade whose head was completely buried in hardwood and the handle shattered. This had been accomplished, it was said, at a single stroke by Cobalt. I examined the head of the axe carefully, and it seemed to me that I could detect the evidences of hammering to force the axe deeper into the wood.

These anecdotes may help to prepare the reader for the state of mind through which the men of the arctic looked at Cobalt. In person he was not a giant. I never heard his exact height or weight, but he looked not an inch over six feet, and his shoulders were by no means as massive as many I have seen. In fact, there was nothing remarkable about him except when he got in action. To see him sitting, Cobalt was nothing unusual. When he spoke, there was an odd quality about his voice that made men turn their heads and women also. When he walked, his step had the quality of one about to leap away at full speed.

He came in during the early days, well before the Dawson rush. He was twenty-two when he reached Circle City, and he mined there for two years before the Bairds arrived. That was the turning point in Cobalt's life. Most of the men who have been in Circle City can remember Henry Baird, his rosy face, his lack of eyebrows, and his wonderful luck at the mines. And even those who never saw her know all about his daughter, Sylvia.

I suppose she was what a scientist would have called a biological "sport," a freak, a sudden throw forward from her ancestry. Certainly there appeared to be nothing of her father about her. Her hair was glistening black and fine as a spider's web. She had black eyebrows, beautifully arched, and under the brows were blue eyes not gray blue, not sky blue, but the lustrous and unfathomable blue of the sea. She was rather small; I don't think that a big woman could have been made so exquisitely. It was enough for me to sit at Henry Baird's table and look at her hand alone, at the luster of the pink nails and the white glow of the skin. She was a radiant creature.

Nearly everyone in Circle City went mad about her, but I don't think that even the most audacious thought of making love to her. She was too beautiful. Her beauty set her apart. We looked up to her as to a being of another world. We talked to her with an odd respect, as if to some famous sage or reverend divine. Then young Cobalt came in and saw her.

Some people said that he did not need to go mad, because he had always been mad. Nobody but a madman would have done the things he had accomplished or tried to accomplish. Nobody, for instance, would have driven a team of six timber wolves and treated them like dogs. So it followed, as a matter of course, when Cobalt saw the girl, he tried to scale heaven and get at her. He saw her once and went right down to see Henry Baird. Baird was new to the country, but naturally he had heard a great deal about Cobalt.

He was rather frightened when the famous young man came in, took his hand in that terrible grasp of his, and looked him in the face with those steel-gray eyes which turned to pale-blue flame when he spoke of Sylvia. However, Baird was a sensible man. He said that he had not the slightest objection to Cobalt. For his own part he hoped that his daughter would not marry a man with less than a hundred thousand and a home to offer her. Of course, a hundred thousand meant a great deal more in those days than it does now. But everything really depended upon Sylvia herself. Had Cobalt spoken to her before on the subject? Did she care for him?

Cobalt said that he hadn't, but that he would make her care. That was how the trouble started. He went to Sylvia and spoke to her. And Sylvia laughed!

"Are you doing this on a bet, Cobalt?" she asked.