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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13135 ***
+
+PARDNERS
+
+by
+
+REX E. BEACH
+
+Author of "The Barrier," "The Spoilers"
+
+Illustrated
+
+1904
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PARDNERS
+THE MULE DRIVER, AND THE GARRULOUS MUTE
+THE COLONEL AND THE HORSE-THIEF
+THE THAW AT SLISCO'S
+BITTER ROOT BILLINGS, ARBITER
+THE SHYNESS OF SHORTY
+THE TEST
+NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE
+WHERE NORTHERN LIGHTS COME DOWN O' NIGHTS
+THE SCOURGE
+
+
+
+
+PARDNERS
+
+"Most all the old quotations need fixing," said Joyce in tones
+forbidding dispute.  "For instance, the guy that alluded to marriages
+germinating in heaven certainly got off on the wrong foot.  He meant
+pardnerships.  The same works ain't got capacity for both, no more'n
+you can build a split-second stop-watch in a stone quarry.  No, sir!
+A true pardnership is the sanctifiedest relation that grows, is, and
+has its beans, while any two folks of opposite sect can marry and peg
+the game out some way.  Of course, all pardnerships ain't divine.  To
+every one that's heaven borned there's a thousand made in ----.
+There goes them cussed dogs again!"
+
+He dove abruptly at the tent flap, disappearing like a palmed coin,
+while our canvas structure reeled drunkenly at his impact.  The
+sounds of strife without rose shrilly into blended agony, and the
+yelps of Keno melted away down the gulch in a rapid and rabid
+diminuendo.
+
+Inasmuch as I had just packed out from camp in a loose pair of rubber
+boots, and was nursing two gall blisters, I did not feel called upon
+to emulate this energy of arbitration, particularly in bare feet.
+
+"That black malamoot is a walking delegate for strife," he remarked,
+returning.  "Sometime I'll lose my temper--and that's the kind of
+pardners me and Justus Morrow was."
+
+Never more do I interrupt the allegory of my mate, no matter how
+startling its structure.  He adventures orally when and in the manner
+the spirit calls, without rote, form, or tone production.  Therefore
+I kicked my blistered heels in the air and grunted aimless
+encouragement.
+
+"I was prospectin' a claim on Caribou Creek, and had her punched as
+full of holes as a sponge cake, when the necessity of a change
+appealed to me.  I was out of everything more nourishing than hope
+and one slab of pay-streaked bacon, when two tenderfeet 'mushed' up
+the gulch, and invited themselves into my cabin to watch me pan.
+It's the simplest thing known to science to salt a tenderfoot, so I
+didn't have no trouble in selling out for three thousand dollars.
+
+"You see, they couldn't kick, 'cause some of us 'old timers' was
+bound to get their money anyhow--just a question of time; and their
+inexperience was cheap at the price.  Also, they was real nice boys,
+and I hated to see 'em fall amongst them crooks at Dawson.  It was a
+short-horned triumph, though.  Like the Dead Sea biscuits of
+Scripture, it turned to ashes in my mouth.  It wasn't three days
+later that they struck it; right in my last shaft, within a foot of
+where I quit diggin'.  They rocked out fifty ounces first day.  When
+the news filtered to me, of course, I never made no holler.  I
+couldn't--that is, honestly--but I bought a six hundred dollar grub
+stake, loaded it aboard a dory, and--having instructed the trader
+regarding the disposition of my mortal, drunken remains, I fanned
+through that camp like a prairie fire shot in the sirloin with a hot
+wind.
+
+"Of course, it wasn't such a big spree; nothing gaudy or Swedelike;
+but them that should know, claimed it was a model of refinement.
+Yes, I have got many encomiums on its general proportions and
+artistic finish.  One hundred dollars an hour for twenty-four hours,
+all in red licker, confined to and in me and my choicest
+sympathizers.  I reckon all our booze combined would have made a fair
+sluice-head.  Anyhow, I woke up considerable farther down the dim
+vistas of time and about the same distance down the Yukon, in the
+bottom of my dory, seekin' new fields at six miles an hour.  The
+trader had follered my last will and testament scrupulous, even to
+coverin' up my legs.
+
+"That's how I drifted into Rampart City, and Justus Morrow.
+
+"This here town was the same as any new camp; a mile long and
+eighteen inches wide, consisting of saloons, dance-halls, saloons,
+trading-posts, saloons, places to get licker, and saloons.  Might not
+have been so many dancehalls and trading-posts as I've mentioned, and
+a few more saloons.
+
+"I dropped into a joint called The Reception, and who'd I see playing
+'bank' but 'Single Out' Wilmer, the worst gambler on the river.
+Mounted police had him on the woodpile in Dawson, then tied a can on
+him.  At the same table was a nice, tender Philadelphia squab, 'bout
+fryin' size, and while I was watching, Wilmer pulls down a bet
+belonging to it.  That's an old game.
+
+"'Pardon me,' says the broiler; 'you have my checks.'
+
+"'What?' growls 'Single Out;' 'I knowed this game before you quit
+nursin', Bright Eyes.  I can protect my own bets.'
+
+"'That's right,' chimes the dealer, who I seen was 'Curly' Budd,
+Wilmer's pardner.
+
+"'Lord!' thinks I, 'there's a pair to draw to.'
+
+"'Do you really think you had ought to play this?  It's a man's
+game,' says Wilmer nasty.
+
+"I expected to see the youngster dog it.  Nothin' of the kind.
+
+"'That's my bet!' he says again, and I noticed something dry in his
+voice, like the rustle of silk.
+
+"Single Out just looks black and snarls at the dealer.
+
+"'Turn the cards!'
+
+"'Oh, very well,' says the chechako, talking like a little girl.
+
+"Somebody snickered and, thinks I 'there's sprightly doin's
+hereabouts.  I'll tarry a while and see 'em singe the fowl.  I like
+the smell of burning pin feathers; it clears my head.'
+
+"Over in the far corner was another animal in knee panties, riggin'
+up one of these flash-light, snappy-shot, photograft layouts.  I
+found afterwards that he done it for a living; didn't work none, just
+strayed around as co-respondent for an English newspaper syndicate,
+taking pictures and writing story things.  I didn't pay much
+attention to him hiding under his black cloth, 'cause the faro-table
+was full of bets, and it's hard to follow the play.  Well,
+bye-and-bye Wilmer shifted another stack belonging to the Easterner.
+
+"The lad never begged his pardon nor nothin'.  His fist just shot out
+and landed on the nigh corner of Wilmer's jaw, clean and fair, and
+'Single Out' done as pretty a headspin as I ever see--considering
+that it was executed in a cuspidore.  'Twas my first insight into the
+amenities of football.  I'd like to see a whole game of it.  They say
+it lasts an hour and a half.  Of all the cordial, why-how-do-you-do
+mule kicks handed down in rhyme and story, that wallop was the
+adopted daddy.
+
+"When he struck, I took the end of the bar like a steeplechaser, for
+I seen 'Curly' grab at the drawer, and I have aversions to witnessing
+gun plays from the front end.  The tenderfoot riz up in his chair,
+and snatchin' a stack of reds in his off mit, dashed 'em into
+'Curly's' face just as he pulled trigger.  It spoiled his aim, and
+the boy was on to him like a mountain lion, follerin' over the table,
+along the line of least resistance.
+
+"It was like takin' a candy sucker from a baby.  'Curly' let go of
+that 'six' like he was plumb tired of it, and the kid welted him over
+the ear just oncet.  Then he turned on the room; and right there my
+heart went out to him.  He took in the line up at a sweep of his
+lamps:
+
+"'Any of you gentlemen got ideas on the subject?' he says, and his
+eyes danced like waves in the sunshine.
+
+"It was all that finished and genteel that I speaks up without
+thinkin', 'You for me pardner!'
+
+"Just as I said it, there come a swish and flash as if a kag of black
+powder had changed its state of bein'.  I s'pose everybody yelled and
+dodged except the picture man.  He says, 'Thank you, gents; very
+pretty tableau.'
+
+"It was the first flash-light I ever see, and all I recall now is a
+panorama of starin' eyeballs and gaping mouths.  When it seen it
+wasn't torpedoed, the population begin crawlin' out from under chairs
+and tables.  Men hopped out like toads in a rain.
+
+"I crossed the boy's trail later that evening; found him watchin' a
+dance at the Gold Belt.  The photografter was there, too, and when
+he'd got his dog-house fixed, he says:
+
+"'Everybody take pardners, and whoop her up.  I want this picture for
+the _Weekly_.  Get busy, you, there!"  We all joined in to help
+things; the orchestra hit the rough spots, and we went highfalutin'
+down the centre, to show the English race how our joy pained us, and
+that life in the Klondyke had the Newport whirl, looking like society
+in a Siwash village.  He got another good picture.
+
+"Inside of a week, Morrow and I had joined up.  We leased a claim and
+had our cabin done, waiting for snow to fall so's to sled our grub
+out to the creek.  He took to me like I did to him, and he was an
+educated lad, too.  Somehow, though, it hadn't gone to his head,
+leaving his hands useless, like knowledge usually does.
+
+"One day, just before the last boat pulled down river, Mr. Struthers,
+the picture man, come to us--R. Alonzo Struthers, of London and
+'Frisco, he was--and showin' us a picture, he says:
+
+"'Ain't that great?  Sunday supplements!  Full page!  Big display!
+eh?'
+
+"It sure was.  'Bout 9x9, and showing every detail of the Reception
+saloon.  There was 'Single Out' analyzing the cuspidore and 'Curly'
+dozin', as contorted and well-done as a pretzel.  There was the crowd
+hiding in the corners, and behind the faro-table stood the kid, one
+hand among the scattered chips and cards, the other dominating the
+layout with 'Curley's' 'six.'  It couldn't have looked more natural
+if we'd posed for it.  It was a bully likeness, I thought, too, till
+I seen myself glaring over the bar.  All that showed of William P.
+Joyce, bachelor of some arts and plenty of science, late of Dawson,
+was the white of his eyes.  And talkin' of white--say, I looked like
+I had washing hung out.  Seemed like the draught had riz my hair up,
+too.
+
+"'Nothing like it ever seen,' continues Struthers.  'I'll call it
+'The Winning Card,' or 'At Bay,' or something like that.  Feature it
+as a typical Klondyke card game.  I'll give you a two-page write-up.
+Why, it's the greatest thing I ever did!'
+
+"'I'm sorry,' says Morrow, thoughtful, 'but you musn't run it.'
+
+"'What! says he, and I thinks, 'Oh, Lord!  There goes my only show to
+get perpetufied in ink.'
+
+"'I can't let you use it.  My wife might see it.'
+
+"'Your wife!' says I.  'Are you married, pardner?'
+
+"'Yes, I'm married,' and his voice sounded queer.  'I've got a
+boy--too, see.'
+
+"He took a locket from his flannel shirt and opened it.  A
+curly-headed, dimpled little youngster laughed out at me.
+
+"'Well, I'm d----!' and then I took off my hat, for in the other side
+was a woman--and, gentlemen, she _was_ a woman!  When I seen her it
+made me feel blushy and ashamed.  Gee!  She was a stunner.  I just
+stared at her till Struthers looked over my shoulder, and says,
+excited:
+
+"'Why, it's Olive Troop, the singer!'
+
+"'Not any more,' says Morrow, smiling.
+
+"'Oh!  So you're the fellow she gave up her art for?  I knew her on
+the stage.'
+
+"Something way deep down in the man grated on me, but the kid was
+lookin' at the picture and never noticed, while hunger peered from
+his face.
+
+"'You can't blame me,' he says finally.  'She'd worry to death if she
+saw that picture.  The likeness is too good.  You might substitute
+another face on my shoulders; that can be done, can't it?'
+
+"'Why, sure; dead easy, but I'll not run it at all if you feel that
+way,' says the artist.
+
+"Then, Morrow resumes, 'You'll be in Denver this fall, Struthers, eh?
+Well, I want you to take a letter to her.  She'll be glad to see an
+old friend like you, and to hear from me.  Tell her I'm well and
+happy, and that I'll make a fortune, sure.  Tell her, too, that there
+won't be any mail out of here till spring.'
+
+"Now, I don't claim no second sight in the matter of female features:
+I ain't had no coachin'; not even as much as the ordinary, being
+raised on a bottle, but I've studied the ornery imprints of men's
+thoughts, over green tables and gun bar'ls, till I can about guess
+whether they've drawed four aces or an invite to a funeral.  I got
+another flash from that man I didn't like, though his words were
+hearty.  He left, soon after, on the last boat.
+
+"Soon as ever the ground froze we began to sink.  In those days steam
+thawers wasn't dreamed of, so we slid wood down from the hills, and
+burned the ground with fires.  It's slow work, and we didn't catch
+bed-rock till December, but when we did we struck it right.  Four
+feet of ten-cent dirt was what she averaged.  Big?  Well, I wonder!
+It near drove Morrow crazy.
+
+"'Billy, old boy, this means I'll see her next summer!'
+
+"Whenever he mentioned her name, he spoke like a man in church or out
+of breath.  Somehow it made me feel like takin' off my cap--forty
+below at that, and my ears freeze terrible willing since that winter
+on the Porcupine.
+
+"That evening, when I wasn't looking, he sneaked the locket out of
+his shirt and stared at it, famished.  Then he kissed it, if you
+might rehabilitate such a scandalous, hold-fast-for-the-corner
+performance by that name.
+
+"'I must let her know right away,' says he.  'How can I do it?'
+
+"'We can hire a messenger, and send him to Dawson,' says I.
+'Everybody in camp will pay five dollars a letter, and he can bring
+back the outside mail.  They have monthly service from there to the
+coast.  He'll make the trip in ninety days, so you'll get news from
+home by the first of March.  Windy Jim will go.  He'd leave a good
+job and a warm camp any time to hit the trail.  Just hitch up the
+dogs, crack a whip, and yell 'Mush on!' and he'll get the snow-shoe
+itch, and water at the mouth for hardship.'
+
+"Not being house-broke and tame myself, I ain't authority on the joys
+of getting mail from home, but, next to it, I judge, comes writing to
+your family.  Anyhow, the boy shined up like new money, and there was
+from one to four million pages in his hurried note.  I don't mean to
+say that he was grouchy at any time.  No, sir!  He was the
+nickel-plated sunbeam of the whole creek.  Why, I've knowed him to do
+the cooking for two weeks at a stretch, and never kick--and _wash the
+dishes, too_,--which last, as anybody knows, is crucifyin'er than
+that smelter test of the three Jews in the Scripture.  Underneath all
+of his sunshine, though, I saw hints of an awful, aching, devilish,
+starvation.  It made me near hate the woman that caused it.
+
+"He was a wise one, too.  I've seen him stirring dog-feed with one
+hand and spouting 'Gray's Elegy' with the other.  I picked up a heap
+of knowledge from him, for he had American history pat.  One story I
+liked particular was concerning the origin of placer mining in this
+country, about a Greaser, Jason Somebody, who got the gold fever and
+grub-staked a mob he called the Augerknots--carpenters, I judge, from
+the mess they made of it.  They chartered a schooner and prospected
+along Asy Miner, wherever that is.  I never seen any boys from there,
+but the formation was wrong, like Texas, probably, 'cause they sort
+of drifted into the sheep business.  Of course, that was a long ways
+back, before the '49 rush, but the way he told it was great.
+
+"Well, two weeks after Windy left we worked out of that rich spot and
+drifted into barren ground.  Instead of a fortune, we'd sunk onto the
+only yellow spot in the whole claim.  We cross-cut in three places,
+and never raised a colour, but we kept gophering around till March,
+in hopes.
+
+"'Why did I write that letter?' he asked one day.  'I'd give anything
+to stop it before it gets out.  Think of her disappointment when she
+hears I'm broke!'
+
+"'Nobody can't look into the ground,' says I.  'I don't mind losin'
+out myself, for I've done it for twenty years and I sort of like it
+now, but I'm sorry for the girl.'
+
+"'It means another whole season,' he says.  'I wanted to see them
+this summer, or bring them in next fall.'
+
+"'Sufferin' sluice-boxes!  Are you plumb daffy?  Bring a woman into
+the Yukon--and a little baby.'
+
+"'She'd follow me anywhere.  She's awful proud; proud as a Kentucky
+girl can be, and those people would make your uncle Lucifer look like
+a cringing cripple, but she'd live in an Indian hut with me.'
+
+"'Sure!  And follerin' out the simile, nobody but a Siwash would let
+her.  If she don't like some other feller better while you're gone,
+what're you scared about?'
+
+"He never answered; just looked at me pityfyin', as much as to say,
+'Well, you poor, drivelin, old polyp!'
+
+"One day Denny, the squaw-man, drove up the creek:
+
+"'Windy Jim is back with the mail,' says he, and we hit for camp on
+the run.  Only fifteen mile, she is, but I was all in when we got
+there, keepin' up with Justus.  His eyes outshone the snow-glitter
+and he sang--all the time he wasn't roasting me for being so
+slow--claimed I was active as a toad-stool.  A man ain't got no
+license to excite hisself unless he's struck pay dirt--or got a
+divorce.
+
+"'Gi'me my mail, quick!' he says to Windy, who had tinkered up a
+one-night stand post-office and dealt out letters, at five dollars
+per let.'
+
+"'Nothing doing,' says Windy.
+
+"'Oh, yes there is,' he replies, still smiling; 'she writes me every
+week.'
+
+"'I got all there was at Dawson,' Windy give back, 'and there ain't a
+thing for you!'
+
+"I consider the tragedy of this north country lies in its mail
+service.  Uncle Sam institutes rural deliveries, so the bolomen can
+register poisoned arrowheads to the Igorrotes in exchange for recipes
+to make roulade of naval officer, but his American miners in Alaska
+go shy on home news for eight months every year.
+
+"That was the last mail we had till June.
+
+"When the river broke we cleaned up one hundred and eighty-seven
+dollars' worth of lovely, yellow dust, and seven hundred and
+thirty-five dollars in beautiful yellow bills from the post.
+
+"The first boat down from Dawson brought mail, and I stood beside him
+when he got his.  He shook so he held on to the purser's window.
+Instead of a stack of squares overrun with female chiropody, there
+was only one for him--a long, hungry sport, with indications of a law
+firm in the northwest corner.  It charmed him like a rattler.  He
+seemed scared to open it.  Two or three times he tried and stopped.
+
+"'They're dead,' thinks I; and, sure enough, when he'd looked, I knew
+it was so, and felt for his hand.  Sympathy don't travel by word of
+mouth between pardners.  It's the grip of the hand or the look of the
+eye.
+
+"'What cause?' says I.
+
+"He turned, and s'help me, I never want to see the like again.  His
+face was plumb grey and dead, like wet ashes, while his eyes scorched
+through, all dry and hot.  Lines was sinkin' into it as I looked.
+
+"'It's worse,' says he, 'unless it's a joke.' He handed me the dope:
+'In re Olive Troop Morrow _vs_. Justus Morrow,' and a letter stating
+that out of regard for her feelings, and bein' a gentleman, he wasn't
+expected to cause a scandal, but to let her get the divorce by
+default.  No explanation; no word from her; nothing.
+
+"God knows what that boy suffered the next few weeks, but he fought
+it out alone.  She was proud, but he was prouder.  Her silence hurt
+him the worst, of course; but what could he do?  Go to her?  Fine!
+Both of us broke and in debt.  Also, there's such a thing as diggin'
+deep enough to scrape the varnish off of a man's self-respect,
+leavin' it raw and shrinking.  No!  He done like you or me--let her
+have her way.  He took off the locket and hid it, and I never heard
+her name mentioned for a year.
+
+"I'd been up creek for a whip-saw one day, and as I came back I heard
+voices in the cabin.  'Some musher out from town,' thinks I, till
+something in their tones made me stop in my tracks.
+
+"I could hear the boy's voice, hoarse and throbbing, as though he
+dragged words out bleeding, then I heard the other one laugh--a
+nasty, sneering laugh that ended in a choking rattle, like a noose
+had tightened on his throat.
+
+"I jumped for the door, and rounding the corner, something near took
+me off my feet; something that shot through the air, all pretty and
+knickerbockery, with a two-faced cap, and nice brown leggin's.  Also,
+a little camera was harnessed to it by tugs.  It arose, displaying
+the face of R. Alonzo Struthers, black and swollen, with chips
+stickin' in it where he'd hit the woodpile.  He glared at Morrow, and
+his lips foamed like a crab out of water.
+
+"'I hope I'm not intrudin', I ventures.
+
+"When the kid seen me, he says, soft and weak, like something ailed
+his palate:
+
+"'Don't let me kill him, Billy.'"
+
+[Illustration:  "Don't let me kill him, Billy."]
+
+"Struthers spit, and picked splinters forth from his complexion.
+
+"'I told you for your own good.  It's common gossip,' says he.
+'Everybody is laughing at you, an--'
+
+"Then I done a leap for life for the kid, 'cause the murder light
+blazed up white in his face, and he moved at the man like he had
+something serious in view.
+
+"'Run, you idiot!' I yells to Struthers as I jammed the youngster
+back into the cabin.  All of a sudden the gas went out of him and he
+broke, hanging to me like a baby.
+
+"'It can't be,' he whispers.  'It can't be.'  He throwed hisself on
+to a goods' box, and buried his face in his hands.  It gripes me to
+hear a man cry, so I went to the creek for a pail of water.
+
+"I never heard what Struthers said, but it don't take no Nick Carter
+to guess.
+
+"That was the fall of the Fryin' Pan strike--do you mind it?
+Shakespeare George put us on, so me and the kid got in ahead of the
+stampede.  We located one and two above discovery, and by Christmas
+we had a streak uncovered that was all gold.  She was coarse, and we
+averaged six ounces a day in pick-ups.  Man, that _was_ ground!  I've
+flashed my candle along the drift face, where it looked like gold had
+been shot in with a scatter-gun.
+
+"We was cleaned up and had our 'pokes' at the post when the first
+boat from Dawson smoked 'round the bend.
+
+"Now, in them days, a man's averdupoise was his abstract of title.
+There was nothing said about records and patentees as long as you
+worked your ground; but, likewise, when you didn't work it, somebody
+else usually did.  We had a thousand feet of as good dirt as ever
+laid out in the rain; but there was men around drulin' to snipe it,
+and I knowed it was risky to leave.  However, I saw what was gnawin'
+at the boy, and if ever a man needed a friend and criminal lawyer,
+that was the time.  According to the zodiac, certain persons, to the
+complainant unknown, had a mess of trouble comin' up and I wanted to
+have the bail money handy.
+
+"We jumped camp together.  I made oration to the general gnat-bitten
+populace, from the gang-plank, to the effect that one William P.
+Joyce, trap, crap, and snap shooter was due to happen back casual
+most any time, and any lady or gent desirous of witnessing at first
+hand, a shutzenfest with live targets, could be gratified by
+infestin' in person or by proxy, the lands, tenements, and
+hereditaments of me and the kid.
+
+"'Well, we hit the Seattle docks at a canter, him headed for the
+postal telegraph, me for a fruit-stand.  I bought a dollar's worth of
+everything, from cracker-jack to cantaloupe, reserving the local
+option of eatin' it there in whole or in part, and returning for
+more.  First fresh fruit in three years.  I reckon my proudest hour
+come when I found, beyond peradventure, that I hadn't forgot the
+'Georgy Grind.'  What?  'Georgy Grind' consists of feeding
+rough-hewed slabs of watermelon into your sou' sou'east corner, and
+squirting a stream of seeds out from the other cardinal points,
+without stopping or strangling.
+
+"I et and et, and then wallered up to the hotel, sweatin' a different
+kind of fruit juice from every pore.  Not wishing to play any
+favourites, I'd picked up a basket of tomatoes, a gunny-sack of
+pineapples, and a peck of green plums on the way.  Them plums done
+the business.  I'd orter let bad enough alone.  They was non-union,
+and I begin having trouble with my inside help.  Morrow turned in a
+hurry-up call for the Red Cross, two medical colleges, and the
+Society of Psycolic Research.  Between 'em they diagnosed me as
+containing everything from 'housemaid's knee' to homesickness of the
+vital organs, but I _know_.  I swallered a plum pit, and it sprouted.
+
+"Next day, when I come out of it, Justus had heard from Denver.  His
+wife had been gone a year, destination unknown.  Somebody thought she
+went to California, so, two days later, we registered at the Palace,
+and the 'Frisco police begin dreaming of five thousand dollar rewards.
+
+"It was no use, though.  One day I met Struthers on Market Street,
+and he was scared stiff to hear that Morrow was in town.  It seems he
+was night editor of one of the big dailies.
+
+"'Do you know where the girl is?' says I.
+
+"'Yes, she's in New York,' he answers, looking queer, so I hurried
+back to the hotel.
+
+"As I was explaining to Morrow, a woman passed us in the hall with a
+little boy.  In the dimness, the lad mistook Justus.
+
+"'Oh, papa, papa!" he yells, and grabs him by the knees, laughing and
+kicking.
+
+"'Ah-h!' my pardner sighs, hoarse as a raven, and quicker'n light he
+snatched the little shaver to him, then seeing his mistake, dropped
+him rough.  His face went grey again, and he got wabbly at the
+hinges, so I helped him into the parlour.  He had that hungry, Yukon
+look, and breathed like he was wounded.
+
+"'You come with me,' says I, 'and get your mind off of things.  The
+eastern limited don't leave till midnight.  Us to the theatre!'
+
+"It was a swell tepee, all right.  Variety house, with moving
+pictures, and actorbats, and two-ton soubrettes, with Barrios
+diamonds and hand-painted socks.
+
+"First good show I'd seen in three years, and naturally humour broke
+out all over me.  When joy spreads its wings in my vitals, I sound
+like a boy with a stick running past a picket-fence.  Not so Morrow.
+He slopped over the sides of his seat, like he'd been spilled into
+the house.
+
+"Right after the sea-lions, the orchestra spieled some teetery music,
+and out floats a woman, slim and graceful as an antelope.  She had a
+big pay-dump of brown hair, piled up on her hurricane deck, with eyes
+that snapped and crinkled at the corners.  She single-footed in like
+a derby colt, and the somnambulists in the front row begin to show
+cause.  Something about her startled me, so I nudged the kid, but he
+was chin-deep in the plush, with his eyes closed.  I marked how
+drawed and haggard he looked; and then, of a sudden he raised half on
+to his feet.  The girl had begun to sing.  Her voice was rich and
+low, and full of deep, still places, like a mountain stream.  But
+Morrow!  He sunk his fingers into me, and leaned for'rad, starin' as
+though Paradise had opened for him, while the sweat on his face shone
+like diamond chips.
+
+"It was the girl of the locket, all right, on the stage again--in
+vaudeville.
+
+"Her song bubbled along, rippling over sandy, sunlit gravel bars, and
+slidin' out through shadowy trout pools beneath the cool, alder
+thickets, and all the time my pardner sat burning his soul in his
+eyes, his breath achin' out through his throat.  Incidental, his
+digits was knuckle-deep into the muscular tissue of William P., the
+gent to the right.
+
+"When she quit, I had to jam him back.
+
+"For an encore she sang a reg'lar American song, with music to it.
+When she reached the chorus she stopped.  Then away up in the balcony
+sounded the tiny treble of a boy's soprano, sweet as the ring of
+silver.  The audience turned, to a man, and we seen, perched among
+the newsboys, the littlest, golden-haired youngster, 'bout the size
+of your thumb, his eyes glued to the face of his mother on the stage
+below, pourin' out his lark song, serious and frightened.  Twice he
+done it, while by main stren'th I held his father to the enjoyments
+of a two-dollar orchestra chair.
+
+"'Let us in,' we says, three minutes later, to the stranger at the
+stage door, but he looked upon us with unwelcome, like the
+seven-headed hydrant of Holy Writ.
+
+"'It's agin' the rules,' says he.  'You kin wait in the alley with
+the other Johnnies.'
+
+"I ain't acclimated to the cold disfavour of a stage door, never
+having soubretted along the bird and bottle route.  I was for the
+layin' on of hands.  Moreover, I didn't like the company we was in,
+'Johnnies,' by designations of the Irish terrier at the wicket.  They
+smoked ready-made cigarettes, and some of 'em must have measured full
+eight inches acrost the chest.
+
+"'Let us stroll gently but firmly into, over, and past the remains of
+this party, to the missus,' says I, but Morrow got seized with the
+shakes, of a sudden.
+
+"'No, no.  We'll wait here.'
+
+"At last she come out, steppin' high.  When she moved she rustled and
+rattled like she wore sandpaper at the ankles.
+
+"Say, she was royal!  She carried the youngster in her arms, sound
+asleep, and it wasn't till she stepped under the gaslight that she
+seen us.
+
+"'Oh!' she cried, and went white as the lace of her cloak.  Then she
+hugged the kiddie clost to her, standing straight and queenly, her
+eyes ablaze, her lips moist, and red, and scornful.
+
+"God, she was grand--but him?  He looked like a barnacle.
+
+"'Olive!' says he, bull-froggy, and that's all.  Just quit like a dog
+and ate her up by long-distance eyesight.  Lord!  Nobody would have
+knowed him for the same man that called the crookedest gamblers on
+the Yukon, and bolted newspaper men raw.  He had ingrowing language.
+It oozed out through his pores till he dreened like a harvest hand.
+I'd have had her in my arms in two winks, so that all hell and a
+policeman couldn't have busted my holt till she'd said she loved me.
+
+"She shrivelled him with a look, the likes of which ain't strayed
+over the Mason-Dixon line since Lee surrendered, and swept by us,
+invitin' an' horspitable as an iceberg in a cross sea.  Her cab door
+slammed, and I yanked Morrow out of there, more dead than alive.
+
+"'Let me go home,' says he wearily.
+
+"'You bet!' I snorts.  'It's time you was tucked in.  The dew is
+fallin' and some rude person might accost you.  You big slob!
+There's a man's work to do to-night, and as I don't seem to have no
+competition in holding the title, I s'pose it's my lead.'  I throwed
+him into a carriage.  'You'd best put on your nighty, and have the
+maid turn down your light.  Sweet dreams, Gussie!'  I was plumb sore
+on him.  History don't record no divorce suits in the Stone Age, when
+a domestic inclined man allus toted a white-oak billy, studded with
+wire nails, according to the pictures, and didn't scruple to use it,
+both at home and abroad.  Women was hairy, them days, and harder to
+make love, honour and obey; but principles is undyin'.
+
+"I boarded another cab:
+
+"'Drive me to number ----,' giving him the address I'd heard her use.
+
+"'Who is it,' came her voice when I rang the bell.
+
+"'Messenger boy,' I replies, perjuring my vocal cords.
+
+"When she opened the door, I pushed through and closed it behind me.
+
+"'What does this mean?' she cried.  'Help!'
+
+"'Shut up!  It means you're killing the best boy in the world, and I
+want to know why.'
+
+"'Who are you?'
+
+"'I'm Bill Joyce, your husband's pardner.  Old Tarantula Bill, that
+don't fear no man, woman, or child that roams the forest.  I'm here
+to find what ails you--'
+
+"'Leave this house, sir!'
+
+"'Well, not to any extent.  You're a good girl; I knowed it when I
+first seen your picture.  Now, I want you to tell me--'
+
+"'Insolent!  Shall I call the police?'  Her voice was icy, and she
+stood as solid as stone.
+
+"'Madam, I'm as gentle as a jellyfish, and peaceful to a fault, but
+if you raise a row before I finish my talk I'll claim no
+responsibility over what occurs to the first eight or ten people that
+intrudes,' and I drawed my skinnin' knife, layin' it on the planner.
+'Philanthropy is raging through my innards, and two loving hearts
+need joining!'
+
+"'I don't love him,' she quotes, like a phonograft, ignoring my
+cutlery.
+
+"'I'll take exception to that ruling,' and I picks up a picture of
+Justus she'd dropped as I broke in.  She never batted an eye.
+
+"'I nursed that lad through brain fever, when all he could utter was
+your name.'
+
+"'Has he been sick?'  The first sign of spring lit up her peaks.
+
+"'Most dead.  Notice of the divorce done it.  He's in bad shape yet.'
+Morrow never had a sick day in his life, but I stomped both feet on
+the soft pedal, and pulled out the tremulo stop.
+
+"'Oh! Oh!'  Her voice was soft, though she still stood like a birch.
+
+"'Little girl,' I laid a hand on her shoulder.  'We both love that
+boy.  Come, now, what is the matter?'
+
+"She flashed up like powder.
+
+"'Matter?  I thought he was a gentleman, even though he didn't love
+me; that he had a shred of honour, at least.  But no!  He went to
+Alaska and made a fortune.  Then he squandered it, drinking,
+fighting, gambling, and frittering it away on women.  Bah!  Lewd
+creatures of the dance-halls, too.'
+
+"'Hold up!  Your dope sheet is way to the bad.  There's something
+wrong with your libretto.  Who told you all that?'
+
+"'Never mind.  I have proof.  Look at these, and you dare to ask me
+why I left him?'
+
+"She dragged out some pictures and throwed 'em at me.
+
+"'Ah!  Why didn't I let the kid kill him?' says I, through my teeth.
+
+"The first was the gambling-room of the Reception.  There stood
+Morrow with the men under foot; there was the bottles and glasses;
+the chips and cards, and also the distressful spectacle of Tarantula
+Bill Joyce, a number twelve man, all gleaming teeth, and rolling
+eyeballs, inserting hisself into a number nine opening, and doing
+surprising well at it.
+
+"'Look at them.  Look at them well,' she gibed.
+
+"The second was the Gold-Belt dance-hall, with the kid cavorting
+through a drunken orgy of painted ladies, like a bull in a pansy
+patch.  But the other--it took my breath away till I felt I was on
+smooth ice, with cracks showing.  It was the inside of a cabin, after
+a big 'pot-latch,' displaying a table littered up with fizz bottles
+and dishes galore.  Diamond Tooth Lou stood on a chair, waving kisses
+and spilling booze from a mug.  In the centre stood Morrow with
+another girl, nestling agin his boosum most horrible lovin'.  Gee!
+It was a home splitter and it left me sparring for wind.  The whole
+thing exhaled an air of debauchery that would make a wooden Indian
+blush.  No one thing in particular; just the general local colour of
+a thousand-dollar bender.
+
+"'Charming, isn't it?' she sneered.
+
+"'I don't savvy the burro.  There's something phony about it.  I can
+explain the other two, but this one--.'  Then it come to me in a
+flash.  The man's face was perfect, but he wore knickerbockers!  Now,
+to my personal knowledge, the only being that ever invaded Rampart
+City in them things was R. Alonzo Struthers.
+
+"'There's secrets of the dark-room that I ain't wise to,' says I,
+'but I feel that this is going to be a bad night for the newspaper
+enterprise of 'Frisco if it don't explain.  I'll fetch the man that
+busted your Larrys and Peanuts.'
+
+"'Our what?' says she.
+
+"'Larrys and Peanuts--that's Roman.  The kid told me all about 'em.
+They're sort of little cheap gods!'
+
+"'Will you ever go?' she snapped.  'I don't need your help.  Tell him
+I hate him!'  She stamped her foot, and the iron come into her again
+till the pride of all Kentucky blazed in her eyes.
+
+"She couldn't understand my explanations no more than I could, so I
+ducked.  As I backed out the door, though, I seen her crumple up and
+settle all of a heap on the floor.  She certainly did hate that man
+scandalous.
+
+"I'm glad some editors work nights.  Struthers wasn't overjoyed at my
+call, particular, as I strayed in with two janitors dangling from me.
+They said he was busy and couldn't be interrupted, and they seemed to
+insist on it.'
+
+"'It's a bully night,' says I, by way of epigram, unhooking the pair
+of bouncers.  "'You wouldn't like me to take you ridin' perhaps?'
+
+"'Are you drunk, or crazy?' says he.  'What do you mean by breaking
+into my office?  I can't talk to you; we're just going to press.'
+
+"'I'd like to stay and watch it,' says I, 'but I've got a news item
+for you.'  At the same time I draws my skinner and lays it on the
+back of his neck, tempting.  Steel, in the lamp-light, is
+discouraging to some temperaments.  One of the body-guards was took
+with urgent business, and left a streamer of funny noises behind him,
+while the other gave autumn-leaf imitations in the corner.  Struthers
+looked like a dose of seasickness on a sour stomach.
+
+"Get your hat.  Quick!' I jobbed him, gentle and encouraging.
+
+"Age allus commands respect.  Therefore the sight of a six-foot,
+grizzled Klondiker in a wide hat, benevolently prodding the night
+editor in the short ribs and apple sauce, with eight bright and
+chilly inches, engendered a certain respect in the reportorial staff.
+
+"'You're going to tell Mrs. Morrow all about the pretty pictures,' I
+says, like a father.
+
+"'Let me go, damn you!' he frothed, but I wedged him into a corner of
+the cab and took off his collar--in strips.  It interfered with his
+breathing, as I couldn't get a holt low enough to regulate his
+respiration.  He kicked out two cab windows, but I bumped his head
+agin the woodwork, by way of repartee.  It was a real pleasure, not
+to say recreation, experimenting with the noises he made.  Seldom I
+get a neck I give a cuss to squeeze.  His was number fifteen at
+first, by the feel; but I reduced it a quarter size at a time.
+
+"When we got there I helped him out, one hand under his chin, the
+other back of his ears.  I done it as much from regard of the
+neighbours as animosities to him, for it was the still, medium small
+hours.  I tiptoed in with my treatise on the infamies of photography
+gurgling under my hand, but at the door I stopped.  It was ajar; and
+there, under the light, I spied Morrow.  In his arms I got glimpses
+of black lace and wavy, brown hair, and a white cheek that he was
+accomplishing wonders with.  They wouldn't have heard a man-hole
+explosion.
+
+"'He's still fitting to be my pardner,' I thinks, and then I heard
+Struthers's teeth chatter and grind.  I looked at him, and the secret
+of the whole play came to me.
+
+"Never having known the divine passion, it ain't for me to judge, but
+I tightened on his voice-box and whispered:
+
+"'You've outlived your period of usefulness, Struthers, and it's time
+to go.  Let us part friends, however.'  So I bade him Godspeed from
+the top step.
+
+"Looking back on the evening now, that adieu was my only mistake.  I
+limped for a week--he had a bottle in his hip pocket."
+
+
+
+
+THE MULE DRIVER AND THE GARRULOUS MUTE
+
+Bill had finished panning the concentrates from our last clean-up,
+and now the silver ball of amalgam sizzled and fried on the shovel
+over the little chip-fire, while we smoked in the sun before the
+cabin.  Removed from the salivating fumes of the quicksilver, we
+watched the yellow tint grow and brighten in the heat.
+
+"There's two diseases which the doctors ain't got any license to
+monkey with," began Bill, chewing out blue smoke from his lungs with
+each word, "and they're both fevers.  After they butt into your
+system they stick crossways, like a swallered toothpick; there ain't
+any patent medicine that can bust their holt."
+
+I settled against the door-jamb and nodded.
+
+"I've had them both, acute and continuous, since I was old enough
+to know my own mind and the taste of tobacco; I hold them mainly
+responsible for my present condition."  He mournfully viewed his
+fever-ridden frame which sprawled a pitiful six-feet-two from the
+heels of his gum-boots to the grizzled hair beneath his white Stetson.
+
+"The first and most rabid," he continued, "is horse-racing--and
+t'other is the mining fever, which last is a heap insidiouser in its
+action and more lingering in its effect.
+
+"It wasn't long after that deal in the Territory that I felt the
+symptoms coming on agin, and this time they pinted most emphatic
+toward prospecting, so me and 'Kink' Martin loaded our kit onto the
+burros and hit West.
+
+"Kink was a terrible good prospector, though all-fired unlucky and
+peculiar.  Most people called him crazy, 'cause he had fits of goin'
+for days without a peep.
+
+"Hosstyle and ornery to the whole world; sort of bulging out and
+exploding with silence, as it were.
+
+"We'd been out in the hills for a week on our first trip before he
+got one of them death-watch faces on him, and boycotted the English
+langwidge.  I stood for it three days, trying to jolly a grin on to
+him or rattle a word loose, but he just wouldn't jolt.
+
+"One night we packed into camp tired, hungry, and dying for a good
+feed.
+
+"I hustled around and produced a supper fit for old Mr. Eppycure.
+Knowing that Kink had a weakness for strong coffee that was simply a
+hinge in him, I pounded up about a quart of coffee beans in the
+corner of a blanket and boiled out a South American liquid that was
+nothing but the real Arbuckle mud.
+
+"This wasn't no chafing-dish party either, because the wood was wet
+and the smoke chased me round the fire.  Then it blazed up in spurts
+and fired the bacon-grease, so that when I grabbed the skillet the
+handle sizzled the life all out of my callouses.  I kicked the fire
+down to a nice bed of coals and then the coffee-pot upset and put it
+out.  Ashes got into the bacon, and--Oh! you know how joyful it is to
+cook on a green fire when you're dead tired and your hoodoo's on
+vicious.
+
+"When the 'scoffings' were finally ready, I wasn't in what you might
+exactly call a mollyfying and tactful mood nor exuding genialness and
+enthusiasms anyways noticeable."
+
+"I herded the best in camp towards him, watching for a benevolent
+symptom, but he just dogged it in silence and never changed a hair.
+That was the limit, so I inquired sort of ominous and gentle, 'Is
+that coffee strong enough for ye, Mr. Martin?'
+
+"He give a little impecunious grunt, implying, 'Oh! it'll do,' and
+with that I seen little green specks begin to buck and wing in front
+of my eyes; reaching back of me, I grabbed the Winchester and throwed
+it down on him.
+
+"'Now, you laugh, darn you,' I says, 'in a hurry.  Just turn it out
+gleeful and infractious.'
+
+"He stared into the nozzle of that Krupp for a minute, then swallered
+twice to tune up his reeds, and says, friendly and perlite, but
+serious and wheezy:
+
+"'Why, what in hell ails you, William?'
+
+"'Laugh, you old dong-beater,' I yells, rising gradually to the
+occasion, 'or I'll bust your cupola like a blue-rock.'
+
+"'I've got to have merriment,' I says.  'I pine for warmth and genial
+smiles, and you're due to furnish the sunshine.  You emit a few
+shreds of mirth with expedition or the upper end of your spinal-cord
+is going to catch cold.'
+
+"Say! his jaws squeaked like a screen door when he loosened, but he
+belched up a beauty, sort of stagy and artificial it was, but a great
+help.  After that we got to know each other a heap better.  Yes, sir;
+soon after that we got real intimate.  He knocked the gun out of my
+hands, and we began to arbitrate.  We plumb ruined that spot for a
+camping place; rooted it up in furrows, and tramped each other's
+stummicks out of shape.  We finally reached an amicable settlement by
+me getting him agin a log where I could brand him with the coffee-pot.
+
+"Right there we drawed up a protoplasm, by the terms of which he was
+to laugh anyways twice at meal-times.
+
+"He told me that he reckoned he was locoed, and always had been since
+a youngster, when the Injuns run in on them down at Frisbee, the time
+of the big 'killing.'  Kink saw his mother and father both murdered,
+and other things, too, which was impressive, but not agreeable for a
+growing child.  He had formed a sort of antipathy for Injuns at that
+time, which he confessed he hadn't rightly been able to overcome.
+
+"Now, he allus found himself planning how to hand Mr. Lo the double
+cross and avoid complications.
+
+"We worked down into South Western Arizony to a spot about
+thirty-five miles back of Fort Walker and struck a prospect.  Sort of
+a teaser it was, but worth working on.  We'd just got nicely started
+when Kink comes into camp one day after taking a passiar around the
+butte for game, and says:
+
+"'The queerest thing happened to me just now, Kid.'
+
+"'Well, scream it at me,' I says, sort of smelling trouble in the air.
+
+"'Oh!  It wasn't much,' says he.  'I was just working down the big
+canyon over there after a deer when I seen two feather-dusters coming
+up the trail.  I hid behind a rock, watching 'em go past, and I'm
+durned if my gun didn't go off accidental and plumb ruin one of 'em.
+Then I looks carefuller and seen it wasn't no feather-duster at
+all--nothing but an Injun.'
+
+"'What about the other one?'
+
+"'That's the strangest part,' says Kink.  'Pretty soon the other one
+turns and hits the back-trail like he'd forgot something; then I seen
+him drop off his horse, too, sudden and all togetherish.  I'm awful
+careless with this here gun,' he says.  I hate to see a man laugh
+from his tonsils forrard, the way he did.  It ain't humorous.
+
+"'See here,' I says, 'I ain't the kind that finds fault with my
+pardner, nor saying this to be captious and critical of your play;
+but don't you know them Cochises ain't on the warpath?  Them Injuns
+has been on their reservation for five years, peaceable,
+domesticated, and eating from the hand.  This means trouble."
+
+"'My old man didn't have no war paint on him one day back at
+Frisbee,' whispers Kink, and his voice sounded puckered up and dried,
+'and my mother wasn't so darned quarrelsome, either.'
+
+"Then I says, 'Well! them bodies has got to be hid, or we'll have the
+tribe and the bluebellies from the fort a scouring these hills till a
+red-bug couldn't hide.'
+
+"'To hell with 'em,' says Kink.  'I've done all I'm going to for 'em.
+Let the coyotes finish the job.'
+
+"'No, siree,' I replies.  'I don't blame you for having a prejudice
+agin savages, but _my_ parents is still robust and husky, and I have
+an idea that they'd rather see me back on the ranch than glaring
+through the bars for life.  I'm going over to bury the meat.'
+
+"Off I went, but when I slid down the gulch, I only found one body.
+T'other had disappeared.  You can guess how much time I lost getting
+back to camp.
+
+"'Kink,' I says, 'we're a straddle of the raggedest proposition in
+this country.  One of your dusters at this moment is jamming his
+cayuse through the horizon between here and the post.  Pretty soon
+things is going to bust loose.  'Bout to-morrer evening we'll be
+eating hog-bosom on Uncle Sam.'
+
+"'Well!  Well!' says Kink, 'ain't that a pity.  Next time I'll
+conquer my natural shyness and hold a post-mortem with a rock.'
+
+"'There won't be no next time, I reckon,' I says, ''cause we can't
+make it over into Mexico without being caught up.  They'll nail us
+sure, seeing as we're the only white men for twenty-five miles
+around.'
+
+"'I'd rather put up a good run than a bad stand, anyhow,' says he,
+'and I allows, furthermore, there's going to be some hard trails to
+foller and a tolable disagreeable fight before I pleads 'not guilty'
+to the Colonel.  We'll both duck over into the Santa--'
+
+"'Now, don't tell me what route you're going,' I interrupts,' 'cause
+I believe I'll stay and bluff it through, rather than sneak for it,
+though neither proposition don't appeal to me.  I may get raised out
+before the draw, but the percentage is just as strong agin your game
+as mine.'
+
+"'Boy, if I was backing your system,' says Kink, 'I'd shore copper
+this move and play her to lose.  You come on with me, and we'll make
+it through--mebbe.'
+
+"'No,' I says; 'here I sticks.'
+
+"I made up a pack-strap out of my extry overhalls while he got grub
+together, to start south through one hundred miles of the ruggedest
+and barrenest country that was ever left unfinished.
+
+"Next noon I was parching some coffee-beans in the frying-pan, when I
+heard hoofs down the gully back of me.  I never looked up when they
+come into the open nor when I heard a feller say 'Halt!'
+
+"'Hello there!' somebody yells.  'You there at the fire.'  I kept on
+shaking the skillet over the camp-fire.
+
+"'What's the matter with him?' somebody said.  A man got off and
+walked up behind me.
+
+"'See here, brother,' he says, tapping me on the shoulder; 'this
+don't go.'
+
+"I jumped clean over the fire, dropped the pan, and let out a deaf
+and dumb holler, 'Ee! Ah!'
+
+"The men began to laugh; it seemed to rile the little leftenant.
+
+"'Cut this out,' says he.  'You can talk as well as I can, and you're
+a going to tell us about this Injun killin'.  Don't try any fake
+business, or I'll roast your little heels over that fire like yams.'
+
+"I just acted the dummy, wiggled my fingers, and handed him the
+joyful gaze, heliographing with my teeth as though I was glad to see
+visitors.  However, I wondered if that runt would really give my
+chilblains a treat.  He looked like a West Pointer, and I didn't know
+but he'd try to haze me.
+
+"Well!  they 'klow-towed' around there for an hour looking for clues,
+but I'd hid all the signs of Kink, so finally they strapped me onto a
+horse and we hit back for the fort.
+
+"The little man tried all kinds of tricks to make me loosen on the
+way down, but I just acted wounded innocence and 'Ee'd' and 'Ah'd' at
+him till he let me alone.
+
+"When we rode up to the post he says to the Colonel:
+
+"'We've got the only man there is in the mountains back there, sir,
+but he's playing dumb.  I don't know what his game is.'
+
+"'Dumb, eh?' says the old man, looking me over pretty keen.  'Well! I
+guess we'll find his voice if he's got one.'
+
+"He took me inside, and speaking of examinations, probably I didn't
+get one.  He kept looking at me like he wanted to place me, but I
+give him the 'Ee! Ah!' till everybody began to laugh.  They tried me
+with a pencil and paper, but I balked, laid my ears back, and
+buck-jumped.  That made the old man sore, and he says: 'Lock him up!
+Lock him up; I'll make him talk if I have to skin him.'  So I was
+dragged to the 'skookum-house,' where I spent the night figuring out
+my finish.
+
+"I could feel it coming just as plain, and I begun to see that when I
+did open up and prattle after Kink was safe, nobody wouldn't believe
+my little story.  I had sized the Colonel up as a dead stringy old
+proposition, too.  He was one of these big-chopped fellers with a
+mouth set more'n half way up from his chin and little thin lips like
+the edge of a knife blade, and just as full of blood--face, big and
+rustic-finished.
+
+"I says to myself, 'Bud, it looks like you wouldn't be forced to
+prospect for a living any more this season.  If that old sport turns
+himself loose you're going to get 'life' three times and a holdover.'
+
+"Next morning they tried every way to make me talk.  Once in a while
+the old man looked at me puzzled and searching, but I didn't know him
+from a sweat-pad, and just paid strict attention to being dumb.
+
+"It was mighty hard, too.  I got so nervous my mouth simply ached to
+let out a cayoodle.  The words kept trying to crawl through my
+sesophagus, and when I backed 'em up, they slid down and stood around
+in groups, hanging onto the straps, gradually filling me with witful
+gems of thought.
+
+"The Colonel talked to me serious and quiet, like I had good ears,
+and says, 'My man, you can understand every word I say, I'm sure, and
+what your object is in maintaining this ridiculous silence, I don't
+know.  You're accused of a crime, and it looks serious for you."
+
+"Then he gazes at me queer and intent, and says, 'If you only knew
+how bad you are making your case you'd make a clean breast of it.
+Come now, let's get at the truth.'
+
+"Them thought jewels and wads of repartee was piling up in me fast,
+like tailings from a ground-sluice, till I could feel myself getting
+bloated and pussy with langwidge, but I thought, 'No! to-morrow Kink
+'ll be safe, and then I'll throw a jolt into this man's camp that'll
+go down in history.  They'll think some Chinaman's been thawing out a
+box of giant powder when I let out my roar.'
+
+"I goes to the guard-house again, with a soldier at my back.
+Everything would have been all right if we hadn't run into a mule
+team.
+
+"They had been freighting from the railroad, and as we left the
+barracks we ran afoul of four outfits, three span to the wagon, with
+the loads piled on till the teams was all lather and the wheels
+complainin' to the gods, trying to pass the corner of the barracks
+where there was a narrow opening between the buildings.
+
+"Now a good mule-driver is the littlest, orneriest speck in the human
+line that's known to the microscope, but when you get a poor one,
+he'd spoil one of them cholera germs you read about just by contact.
+The leader of this bunch was worse than the worst; strong on
+whip-arm, but surprising weak on judgment.  He tried to make the
+turn, run plump into the corner of the building, stopped, backed,
+swung, and proceeded to get into grief.
+
+"The mules being hot and nervous, he sent them all to the loco patch
+instanter.  They began to plunge and turn and back and snarl.  Before
+you could say 'Craps! you lose,' them shave-tails was giving the
+grandest exhibition of animal idiocy in the Territory, barring the
+teamster.  He follered their trail to the madhouse, yanking the
+mouths out of them, cruel and vicious.
+
+"Now, one mule can cause a heap of tribulation, and six mules can
+break a man's heart, but there wasn't no excuse for that driver to
+stand up on his hind legs, close his eyes, and throw thirty foot of
+lash into that plunging buckin', white-eyed mess.  When he did it,
+all the little words inside of me began to foam and fizzle like
+sedlitz; out they came, biting, in mouthfuls, and streams, and
+squirts, backwards, sideways, and through my nose.
+
+"'Here! you infernal half-spiled, dog-robbing walloper,' I says; 'you
+don't know enough to drive puddle ducks to a pond.  You quit heaving
+that quirt or I'll harm you past healing.'
+
+"He turned his head and grit out something through his teeth that
+stimulated my circulation.  I skipped over the wheels and put my left
+onto his neck, fingering the keys on his blow-pipe like a flute.
+Then I give him a toss and gathered up the lines.  Say! it was like
+the smell of grease-paint to an actor man for me to feel the ribbons
+again, and them mules knew they had a chairman who savvied 'em too,
+and had mule talk pat, from soda to hock.
+
+"I just intimated things over them with that whip, and talked to them
+like they was my own flesh and blood.  I starts at the worst words
+the English langwidge and the range had produced, to date, and got
+steadily and rapidly worse as long as I talked.
+
+"Arizony may be slow in the matter of standing collars and rag-time,
+but she leads the world in profanity.  Without being swelled on
+myself, I'll say, too, that I once had more'n a local reputation in
+that line, having originated some quaint and feeling conceits which
+has won modest attention, and this day I was certainly trained to the
+minute.
+
+"I addressed them brutes fast and earnest for five minutes steady,
+and never crossed my trail or repeated a thought.
+
+"It must have been sacred and beautiful.  Anyhow, it was strong
+enough to soak into their pores so that they strung out straight as a
+chalk-line.  Then I lifted them into the collars, and we rumbled past
+the building, swung in front of the commissary door, cramped and
+stopped.  With the wheelers on their haunches, I backed up to the
+door square as a die.
+
+"I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and looked up into the grinning
+face of about fifty swatties, realizing I was a mute--and a prisoner.
+
+"I heard a voice say, 'Bring me that man.'  There stood the Colonel
+oozing out wrath at every pore.
+
+"I parted from that wagon hesitating and reluctant, but two soldiers
+to each leg will bust any man's grip, I lost some clothes, too, after
+we hit the ground, but I needed the exercise.
+
+"The old man was alone in his office when they dragged me in, and he
+sent my guards out.
+
+"'So you found your voice, did you?' he says.
+
+"'Yes, sir," I answers.  'It came back unexpected, regular miracle.'
+
+"'He drummed on the table for a long time, and then says, sort of
+immaterial and irreverent, 'You're a pretty good mule puncher, eh?'
+
+"'It ain't for me to say I'm the best in the Territory,' I says; 'but
+I'm curious to meet the feller that claims the title.'
+
+"He continues, 'It reminds me of an exhibition I saw once, back in
+New Mexico, long time ago, at the little Flatwater Canyon.'
+
+"'Maybe you've heard tell of the fight there when the Apaches were
+up?  Yes?  Well, I happened to be in that scrimmage.'
+
+"'I was detailed with ten men to convoy a wagon train through to Fort
+Lewis.  We had no trouble till we came to the end of that canyon,
+just where she breaks out onto the flats.  There we got it.  They
+were hidden up on the ridges; we lost two men and one wagon before we
+could get out onto the prairie.
+
+"'I got touched up in the neck, first clatter, and was bleeding
+pretty badly; still I hung to my horse, and we stood 'em off till the
+teams made it out of the gulch; but just as we came out my horse fell
+and threw me--broke his leg.  I yelled to the boys:
+
+"'"Go on!  For God's sake go on!"  Any delay there meant loss of the
+whole outfit.  Besides, the boys had more than they could manage,
+Injuns on three sides.
+
+"'We had a young Texan driving the last wagon.  When I went down he
+swung those six mules of his and came back up that trail into the
+gut, where the bullets snapped like grasshoppers.
+
+"'It was the prettiest bit of driving I ever saw, not to mention
+nerve.  He whirled the outfit between me and the bluff on two wheels,
+yelling, "Climb on!  Climb on!  We ain't going to stay long!"  I was
+just able to make it onto the seat.  In the turn they dropped one of
+his wheelers.  He ran out on the tongue and cut the brute loose.  We
+went rattling down the gulch behind five mules.  All the time there
+came out of that man's lungs the fiercest stream of profanity my ears
+ever burned under.  I was pretty sick for a few weeks, so I never got
+a chance to thank that teamster.  He certainly knew the mind of an
+army mule, though.  His name was--let me see--Wiggins--yes, Wiggins.
+
+"'Oh, no it wasn't,' I breaks in, foolish; 'it was Joyce.'
+
+"Then I stopped and felt like a kid, for the Colonel comes up and
+shuts the circulation out of both my hands.
+
+"'I wasn't sure of you, Bill,' he says, 'till I saw you preside over
+those mules out there and heard your speech--then I recognized the
+gift.'  He laughed like a boy, still making free with my hands.  'I'm
+darn glad to see you, Bill Joyce.  Now then,' he says, 'tell me all
+about this killing up in the hills,' and I done so.
+
+"After I finished he never said anything for a long time, just
+drummed the desk again and looked thoughtful.
+
+"'It's too bad you didn't speak out, Bill, when you first came in.
+Now, you've showed everybody that you can talk--just a little,
+anyhow,' and he smiles, 'and they all think you're the man caused the
+trouble.  I don't see but that you've got to stand trial.  I wish I
+could help you, Bill.'
+
+"'But see here, Colonel,' I says; 'I couldn't squeal on Kink.  We're
+_pardners_.  I just _had_ to give him a chance to cut.  I played dumb
+'cause I knew if I talked at all, being simple and guileless, you all
+would twist me up and have the whole thing in a jiffy.  That man give
+me the last drop of water in his canteen on the Mojave, and him with
+his own tongue swelled clean out of his mouth, too.  When we was
+snowed in, up in the Bitter Roots, with me snow-blind and starving,
+he crawled from Sheeps-Horn clean to Miller's--snow twelve foot deep,
+too, and nary a snow-shoe in miles, but he brought the outfit in to
+where I was lyin' 'bout gone in.  He lost some fingers and more toes
+wallering through them mountain drifts that day, but he never laid
+down till he brought the boys back.
+
+"'Colonel! we've slept on the same blanket, we've et the same grub,
+we've made and lost together, and I had to give him a show, that's
+all.  I'm into this here trouble now.  Tell me how I'm going to get
+out.  What would you do?'
+
+"He turns to the open window and says: 'Partners are partners!
+That's my horse out there at that post.  If I were you I'd run like
+hell.'
+
+"That was the willingest horse I ever rode, and I hated to sell him,
+but he was tolable used up when I got across the line."
+
+THE COLONEL AND THE HORSE-THIEF
+
+Those marks on my arm?  Oh!  I got 'em playin' horse-thief.  Yes,
+playin'.  I wasn't a real one, you know--Well, I s'pose it was sort
+of a queer game.  Came near bein' my last too, and if Black Hawk
+hadn't been the best horse in Texas the old Colonel would've killed
+me sure.  He chased me six miles as it was--me with one arm full of
+his buckshot and anxious to explain, and him strainin' to get in
+range again and not wishin' any further particulars.
+
+That was way back in the sixties, when I was as wild a lad as ever
+straddled a pony.
+
+You see five of us had gone over into the Crow Nation to race horses
+with the Indians, and it was on the way back that the old man and the
+bullet holes figger in the story.
+
+At the beginnin' it was Jim Barrett's plan, and it had jest enough
+risk and devilment in it to suit a harum-scarum young feller like me;
+so we got five of the boys who had good horses, lumped together all
+of our money, and rode out to invade the reservation.
+
+You know how an Indian loves to run horses?  Well, the Crows had a
+good deal of money then, and our scheme was to go over there, get up
+a big race, back our horses with all we had, and take down the wealth.
+
+Takin' chances?  Don't you believe it.  That's where the beauty of
+Jim's plan commenced to sort of shine through.
+
+You see, as soon as the money was up and the horses started, every
+Indian would be watchin' the race and yellin' at the nags, then, in
+the confusion, our boys was to grab the whole pot, Indian's money and
+ours too, and we'd make our get away across the river back into Texas.
+
+We figured that we could get a few minutes start of 'em, and, with
+the horses we had under us, there wasn't much danger of their gettin'
+in range before we crossed back to where they couldn't follow us.
+
+Well, sir!  I never see anything work out like that scheme did.  Them
+Crows was dead anxious to run their ponies and seemed skeered that we
+wouldn't let 'em get all their money up.
+
+As we was eatin' supper the night before the race, Donnelly says:
+"Boys, I'm sore that we didn't have more coin.  If we'd worked 'em
+right they'd 'a' give us odds.  We could 'a' got five to three
+anyhow, and maybe more."
+
+"They shore have got a heap of confidence in them skates of their'n,"
+says Kink Martin.  "I never see anybody so anxious to play a race in
+my life.  If it wasn't all planned out the way it is, I'd like to
+stick and see which hoss is the best.  I'd back Black Hawk agin any
+hunk of meat in the Territory, with the Kid here in the saddle."
+
+They'd ribbed it up for me to ride Martin's mare, Black Hawk, while a
+little feller named Hollis rode his own horse.
+
+Donnelly's part was to stay in the saddle and keep the other horses
+close to Barrett and Martin.  They was to stick next to the money,
+and one of 'em do the bearin' off of the booty while the other made
+the protection play.
+
+We hoped in the excitement to get off without harmin' any of Uncle
+Sam's pets, but all three of the boys had been with the Rangers and I
+knew if it came to a show down, they wouldn't hesitate to "pot" one
+or two in gittin' away.
+
+We rode out from camp the next mornin' to where we'd staked out a
+mile track on the prairie and it seemed as if the whole Crow Nation
+was there, and nary a white but us five.
+
+They'd entered two pretty good-lookin' horses and had their jockeys
+stripped down to breech-clouts, while Hollis and me wore our whole
+outfits on our backs, as we didn't exactly figger on dressin' after
+the race, leastways, not on that side of the river.
+
+Just before we lined up, Jim says: "Now you ---- all ride like ----,
+and when you git to the far turn we'll let the guns loose and
+stampede the crowd.  Then jest leave the track and make a break fer
+the river, everybody fer himself.  We'll all meet at them cottonwoods
+on the other side, so we can stand 'em off if they try to swim across
+after us."
+
+That would have been a sure enough hot race if we had run it out, for
+we all four got as pretty a start as I ever see and went down the
+line all together with a-bangin' of hoofs and Indian yells ringin' in
+our ears.
+
+I had begun to work Black Hawk out of the bunch to get a clear start
+across the prairie at the turn, when I heard the guns begin snappin'
+like pop-corn.
+
+"They've started already," yelled Hollis, and we turned the rearin'
+horses toward the river, three miles away, leavin' them two savages
+tearin' down the track like mad.
+
+I glanced back as I turned, but, instead of seein' the boys in the
+midst of a decent retreat, the crowd was swarmin' after 'em like a
+nest of angry hornets, while Donnelly, with his reins between his
+teeth, was blazin' away at three reds who were right at Barrett's
+heels as he ran for his horse.  Martin was lashin' his jumpin' cayuse
+away from the mob which sputtered and spit angry shots after him.
+Bucks were runnin' here and there and hastily mountin' their
+ponies--while an angry roar came to me, punctuated by the poppin' of
+the guns.
+
+Hollis and I reached the river and swam it half a mile ahead of the
+others and their yellin' bunch of trailers, so we were able to
+protect 'em in their crossin'.
+
+I could see from their actions that Bennett and Martin was both hurt
+and I judged the deal hadn't panned out exactly accordin' to
+specifications.
+
+The Crows didn't attempt to cross in the teeth of our fire, however,
+being satisfied with what they'd done, and the horses safely brought
+our three comrades drippin' up the bank to where we lay takin'
+pot-shots at every bunch of feathers that approached the opposite
+bank.
+
+We got Barrett's arm into a sling, and, as Martin's hurt wasn't
+serious, we lost no time in gettin' away.
+
+"They simply beat us to it," complained Barrett, as we rode south.
+"You all had jest started when young Long Hair grabs the sack and
+ducks through the crowd, and the whole bunch turns loose on us at
+once.  We wasn't expectin' anything so early in the game, and they
+winged me the first clatter.  I thought sure it was oft with me when
+I got this bullet in the shoulder, but I used the gun in my left hand
+and broke for the nearest pony."
+
+"They got me, too, before I saw what was up," added Martin; "but I
+tore out of there like a jack-rabbit.  It was all done so cussed
+quick that the first thing I knew I'd straddled my horse and was
+makin' tracks.  Who'd a thought them durned Indians was dishonest
+enough fer a trick like that?"
+
+Then Donnelly spoke up and says: "Boys, as fur as the coin goes,
+we're out an' injured; we jest made a 'Mexican stand-off'--lost our
+money, but saved our lives--and mighty lucky at that, from
+appearances.  What I want to know now is, how we're all goin' to get
+home, clean across the State of Texas, without a dollar in the
+outfit, and no assets but our guns and the nags."
+
+That was a sure tough proposition, and we had left it teetotally out
+of calculations.  We'd bet every bean on that race, not seein' how we
+could lose.  In them days there wasn't a railroad in that section,
+ranches were scatterin', and people weren't givin' pink teas to every
+stranger that rode up--especially when they were as hard-lookin' as
+we were.
+
+"We've got to eat, and so's the horses," says Hollis, "but no rancher
+is goin' to welcome with open arms as disreputable an outfit as we
+are.  Two men shot up, and the rest of us without beddin', grub,
+money, or explanations.  Them's what we need--explanations.  I don't
+exactly see how we're goin' to explain our fix to the honest
+hay-diggers, either.  Everybody'll think some sheriff is after us,
+and two to one they'll put some officer on our trail, and we'll have
+more trouble.  I believe I've had all I want for awhile."
+
+"I'll tell you how we'll work it," I says.  "One of us'll be the
+sheriff of Guadalupe County, back home, with three deputies, bringin'
+back a prisoner that we've chased across the State.  We'll ride up to
+a ranch an' demand lodgin' for ourselves and prisoner in the name of
+the State of Texas and say that we'll pay with vouchers on the county
+in the morning."
+
+"No, sir! not fer me," says Martin.  "I'm not goin' in fer forgery.
+It's all right to practice a little mild deception on our red
+brothers, as we figgered on doing, but I'm not goin' to try to
+flimflam the State of Texas.  Our troubles 'd only be startin' if we
+began that game."
+
+"Your plan's all right, Kid," says Bennett to me.  "You be the
+terrible desperado that I'm bringin' home after a bloody fight, where
+you wounded Martin and me, and 'most escaped.  You'll have ev'ry
+rancher's wife givin' you flowers and weepin' over your youth and
+kissin' you good-bye.  In the mornin', when we're ready to go and I'm
+about to fix up the vouchers for our host, you break away and ride
+like the devil.  We'll all tear off a few shots and foller in a
+hurry, leavin' the farmer hopin' that the villain is recaptured and
+the girls tearfully prayin' that the gallunt and misguided youth
+escapes."
+
+It seemed to be about our only resort, as the country was full of bad
+men, and we were liable to get turned down cold if we didn't have
+some story, so we decided to try it on.
+
+We rode up to a ranch 'bout dark, that night, me between the others,
+with my hands tied behind me, and Jim called the owner out.
+
+"I want a night's lodgin' fer my deputies and our prisoner," he says.
+"I'm the sheriff of Guadalupe County, and I'll fix up the bill in the
+mornin'."
+
+"Come in!  Come in!" the feller says, callin' a man for the horses.
+"Glad to accommodate you.  Who's your prisoner?"
+
+"That's Texas Charlie that robbed the Bank of Euclid single-handed,"
+answers Jim.  "He give us a long run clean across the State, but we
+got him jest as he was settin' over into the Indian Territory.
+Fought like a tiger."
+
+It worked fine.  The feller, whose name was Morgan, give us a good
+layout for the night and a bully breakfast next morning.
+
+That desperado game was simply great.  The other fellers attended to
+the horses, and I jest sat around lookin' vicious, and had my grub
+brought to me, while the women acted sorrowful and fed me pie and
+watermelon pickles.
+
+When we was ready to leave next morning, Jim says: "Now, Mr. Morgan,
+I'll fix up them vouchers with you," and givin' me the wink, I let
+out a yell, and jabbin' the spurs into Black Hawk, we cleared the
+fence and was off like a puff of dust, with the rest of 'em shootin'
+and screamin' after me like mad.
+
+Say!  It was lovely--and when the boys overtook me, out of sight of
+the house, Morgan would have been astonished to see the sheriff, his
+posse, and the terrible desperado doubled up in their saddles
+laughin' fit to bust.
+
+Well, sir! we never had a hitch in the proceedings for five days, and
+I was gettin' to feel a sort of pride in my record as a bank-robber,
+forger, horse-thief, and murderer, accordin' to the way Bennett
+presented it.  He certainly was the boss liar of the range.
+
+He had a story framed up that painted me as the bloodiest young tough
+the Lone Star had ever produced, and it never failed to get me all
+the attention there was in the house.
+
+One night we came to the best lookin' place we'd seen, and, in answer
+to Jim's summons, out walked an old man, followed by two of the
+prettiest girls I ever saw, who joined their father in invitin' us in.
+
+"Glad to be of assistance to you, Mr. Sheriff," he said.  "My name is
+Purdy, sir!  Colonel Purdy, as you may have heard.  In the Mexican
+War, special mention three times for distinguished conduct.  These
+are my daughters, sir!  Annabel and Marie."  As we went in, he
+continued: "You say you had a hard time gettin' your prisoner?  He
+looks young for a criminal.  What's he wanted for?"
+
+Somehow, when I saw those girls blushin' and bowin' behind their
+father, I didn't care to have my crimes made out any blacker'n
+necessary and I tried to give Jim the high-sign to let me off
+easy--just make it forgery or arson--but he was lookin' at the
+ladies, and evidently believin' in the strength of a good impression,
+he said: "Well, yes!  He's young but they never was a old man with
+half his crimes.  He's wanted for a good many things in different
+places, but I went after him for horse-stealin' and murder.  Killed a
+rancher and his little daughter, then set fire to the house and ran
+off a bunch o' stock."
+
+"Oh!  Oh!  How dreadful!" shuddered the girls, backin' off with
+horrified glances at me.
+
+I tried to get near Jim to step on his foot, but the old man was
+glarin' at me somethin' awful.
+
+"Come to observe him closely, he has a depraved face," says he.  "He
+looks the thorough criminal in every feature, dead to every decent
+impulse, I s'pose."
+
+I could have showed him a live impulse that would have surprised him
+about then.
+
+In those days I was considered a pretty handsome feller too, and I
+knew I had Jim beat before the draw on looks, but he continues makin'
+matters worse.
+
+"Yes, and he's desperate too.  One of the worst I ever see.  We had
+an awful fight with him up here on the line of the Territory.  He
+shot Martin and me before we got him.  Ye see, I wanted to take him
+alive, and so I took chances on gettin' hurt.
+
+"Thank ye, Miss; my arm does ache considerable; of course, if you'd
+jest as soon dress it--Oh, no!  I'm no braver'n anybody else, I
+guess.  Nice of ye to say so, anyhow," and he went grinnin' out into
+the kitchen with the girls to fix up his arm.
+
+The old man insisted on havin' my feet bound together and me fastened
+to a chair, and said: "Yes, yes, I know you can watch him, but you're
+in my house now, and I feel a share of the responsibility upon me.
+I've had experience with desperate characters and I'm goin' to be
+sure that this young reprobate don't escape his just punishment.  Are
+you sure you don't need more help gettin' him home?  I'll go with you
+if--"
+
+"Thank ye," interrupted Hollis.  "We've chased the scoundrel four
+hundred miles, and I reckon, now we've got him, we can keep him."
+
+At supper, Jim with his arm in a new sling, sat between the two girls
+who cooed over him and took turns feedin' him till it made me sick.
+
+The old man had a nigger move my chair up to the foot of the table
+and bring me a plate of coarse grub after they all finished eatin'.
+
+He had tied my ankles to the lower rung of the chair himself, and
+when I says to the nigger, "Those cords have plum stopped my
+circulation, just ease 'em up a little," he went straight up.
+
+"Don't you touch them knots, Sam!" he roared.  "I know how to secure
+a man, and don't you try any of your games in my house, either, you
+young fiend.  I'd never forgive myself if you escaped."
+
+I ate everything I could reach, which wasn't much, and when I asked
+for the butter he glared at me and said: "Butter's too good for
+horse-thieves; eat what's before you."
+
+Every time I'd catch the eye of one of the girls and kind of grin and
+look enticing, she'd shiver and tell Jim that the marks of my
+depravity stood out on my face like warts on a toad.
+
+Jim and the boys would all grin like idiots and invent a new crime
+for me.  On the square, if I'd worked nights from the age of three I
+couldn't have done half they blamed me for.
+
+They put it to the old man so strong that when he turned in he
+chained me to Sam, the cross-eyed nigger that stood behind me at
+supper, and made us sleep on the floor.
+
+I told Sam that I cut a man's throat once because he snored, and that
+nigger never closed an eye all night.  I was tryin' to get even with
+somebody.
+
+After breakfast, when it came time to leave, Donnelly untied my feet
+and led me out into the yard, where the girls were hangin' around the
+Colonel and Jim, who was preparin' to settle up.
+
+As we rode up the evening before, I had noticed that we turned in
+from the road through a lane, and that the fence was too high to
+jump, so, when I threw my leg over Black Hawk, I hit Donnelly a swat
+in the neck, and, as he did a stage-fall, I swept through the gate
+and down the lane.
+
+The old man cut the halter off one of his Mexican war-whoops, and
+broke through the house on the run, appearin' at the front door with
+his shot-gun just as I checked up to make the turn onto the main road.
+
+As I swung around, doubled over the horse's neck, he let drive with
+his old blunderbuss, and I caught two buckshot in my right arm where
+you see them marks.
+
+I had sense enough to hang on and ride for my life, because I knew
+the old fire-eater would reckon it a pleasure to put an end to such a
+wretch as me, if he got half a chance.
+
+I heard him howl, "Come on boys!  We'll get him yet," and, over my
+shoulder, I saw him jump one of his loose horses standin' in the yard
+and come tearin' down the lane, ahead of the befuddled sheriff and
+posse, his white hair streamin' and the shot-gun wavin' aloft, as
+though chargin' an army of greasers at the head of his regiment.
+
+From the way he drew away from the boys, I wouldn't have placed any
+money that he was wrong either.
+
+I've always wondered how the old man ever got through that war with
+only three recommendations to the government.
+
+He certainly kept good horses too, for in five minutes we'd left the
+posse behind, and I saw him madly urgin' his horse into range,
+reloadin' as he came.
+
+As I threw the quirt into the mare with my good arm, I allowed I'd
+had about all the horse-stealin' I wanted for a while.
+
+The old devil finally saw he was losin' ground in spite of his best
+efforts, and let me have both barrels.  I heard the shot patter on
+the hard road behind me, and hoped he'd quit and go home, but I'm
+blamed if he didn't chase me five miles further before turnin' back,
+in hopes I'd cast a shoe or something would happen to me.
+
+I believe I was on the only horse in Texas that could have outrun the
+Colonel and his that mornin'.
+
+About noon I stopped at a blacksmith's shop, half dead with pain, and
+had my arm dressed and a big jolt of whiskey.
+
+As the posse rode up to me, sittin' in the sun by the lathered flanks
+of my horse and nursin' my arm, Jim yells out: "Here he is!  Surround
+him, boys!  You're our prisoner!"
+
+"No!  I'm blamed if I am," I says.  "You'll have to get another
+desperado.  After this, I'm the sheriff!"
+
+
+
+
+THE THAW AT SLISCO'S
+
+The storm broke at Salmon Lake, and we ran for Slisco's road-house.
+It whipped out from the mountains, all tore into strips coming
+through the saw-teeth, lashing us off the glare ice and driving us up
+against the river banks among the willows.  Cold?  Well, some!  My
+bottle of painkiller froze slushy, like lemon punch.
+
+There's nothing like a warm shack, with a cache full of grub, when
+the peaks smoke and the black snow-clouds roar down the gulch.
+
+Other "mushers" were ahead of us at the road-house, freighters from
+Kougarok, an outfit from Teller going after booze, the mail-carrier,
+and, who do you reckon?--Annie Black.  First time I had seen her
+since she was run out of Dawson for claim jumping.
+
+Her and me hadn't been essential to one another since I won that suit
+over a water right on Eldorado.
+
+"Hello, Annie," says I, clawing the ice out of my whiskers; "finding
+plenty of claims down here to relocate?"
+
+"Shut up, you perjured pup," says she, full of disappointing
+affabilities; "I don't want any dealings with a lying, thieving
+hypocrite like you, Billy Joyce."
+
+Annie lacks the sporting instinct; she ain't got the disposition for
+cup-racing.  Never knew her to win a case, and yet she's the
+instigatress of more emotional activities than all the marked cards
+and home distilled liquor in Alaska.
+
+"See here," says I, "a prairie dog and a rattler can hole up
+together, but humans has got to be congenial, so, seein' as we're all
+stuck to live in the same room till this blizzard blizzes out, let's
+forget our troubles.  I'm as game a Hibernian as the next, but I
+don't hibernate till there's a blaze of mutual respect going."
+
+"Blaze away," says she, "though I leave it to the crowd if you don't
+look and act like a liar and a grave robber."  Her speech is sure
+full of artless hostilities.
+
+Ain't ever seen her?  Lord!  I thought everybody knew Annie Black.
+She drifted into camp one day, tall, slab-sided, ornery to the view,
+and raising fifty or upwards; disposition uncertain as frozen
+dynamite.  Her ground plans and elevations looked like she was laid
+out for a man, but the specifications hadn't been follered.  We ain't
+consumed by curiosity regarding the etymology of every stranger that
+drifts in, and as long as he totes his own pack, does his
+assessments, and writes his location notices proper, it goes.
+Leastways, it went till she hit town.  In a month she had the
+brotherly love of that camp gritting its teeth and throwing back
+twisters.  'Twas all legitimate, too, and there never was a
+pennyweight of scandal connected with her name.  No, sir!  Far's
+conduct goes, she's always been the shinin' female example of this
+country; but them qualities let her out.
+
+First move was to jump Bat Ruggles's town lot.  He had four courses
+of logs laid for a cabin when "Scotty" Bell came in from the hills
+with $1800 in coarse gold that he'd rocked out of a prospect shaft on
+Bat's Moose's Creek claim.
+
+Naturally Bat made general proclamation of thirst, and our town
+kinder dozed violently into a joyful three days' reverie, during
+which period of coma the recording time on Bat's lot ran out.
+
+He returns from his "hootch-hunt" to complete the shack, and finds
+Annie overseeing some "Siwashes" put a pole roof on it.  Of course he
+promotes a race-war immediate, playing the white "open" and the red
+to lose, so to speak, when she up an' spanks his face, addressing
+expurgated, motherly cuss-words at him like he'd been a bad boy and
+swallered his spoon, or dug an eye out of the kitten.  Bat realizes
+he's against a strange system and draws out of the game.
+
+A week later she jumps No. 3, Gold Bottom, because Donnelly stuck a
+pick in his foot and couldn't stay to finish the assessment.
+
+"I can't throw her off, or shoot her up," says he, "or even cuss at
+her like I want to, 'cause she's a lady."  And it appeared like
+that'd been her graft ever since--presumin' on her sex to make
+disturbances.  In six months we hated her like pizen.
+
+There wasn't a stampede in a hundred miles where her bloomers wasn't
+leading, for she had the endurance of a moose; and between
+excitements she prospected for trouble in the manner of relocations.
+
+I've heard of fellers speakin' disrespectful to her and then
+wandering around dazed and loco after she'd got through painting word
+pictures of 'em.  It goes without saying she was generally popular
+and petted, and when the Commissioner invited her to duck out down
+the river, the community sighed, turned over, and had a peaceful
+rest--first one since she'd come in.
+
+I hadn't seen her from that time till I blowed into Slisco's on the
+bosom of this forty mile, forty below blizzard.
+
+Setting around the fire that night I found that she'd just lost
+another of her famous lawsuits--claimed she owned a fraction
+'longside of No. 20, Buster Creek, and that the Lund boys had changed
+their stakes so as to take in her ground.  During the winter they'd
+opened up a hundred and fifty feet of awful rich pay right next to
+her line, and she'd raised the devil.  Injunctions, hearings and
+appeals, and now she was coming back, swearing she'd been "jobbed,"
+the judge had been bought, and the jury corrupted.
+
+"It's the richest strike in the district," says she.  "They've rocked
+out $11,000 since snow flew, and there's 30,000 buckets of dirt on
+the dump.  They can bribe and bulldoze a decision through this court,
+but I'll have that fraction yet, the robbers."
+
+"Robbers be cussed," speaks up the mail man.  "You're the cause of
+the trouble yourself.  If you don't get a square deal, it's your own
+fault--always looking for technicalities in the mining laws.  It's
+been your game from the start to take advantage of your skirts, what
+there is of 'em, and jump, jump, jump.  Nobody believes half you say.
+You're a natural disturber, and if you was a man you'd have been hung
+long ago."
+
+I've heard her oral formations, and I looked for his epidermis to
+shrivel when she got her replications focused.  She just soared up
+and busted.
+
+"Look out for the stick," thinks I.
+
+"Woman, am I," she says, musical as a bum gramophone under the slow
+bell.  "I take advantage of my skirts, do I?  Who are you, you mangy
+'malamoot,' to criticise a lady?  I'm more of a man than you, you
+tin-horn; I want no favours; I do a man's work; I live a man's life;
+I am a man, and I'm proud of it, but you--; Nome's full of your kind;
+you need a woman to support you; you're a protoplasm, a polyp.  Those
+Swedes changed their stakes to cover my fraction.  I know it, they
+know it, and if it wasn't Alaska, God would know it, but He won't be
+in again till spring, and then the season's only three months long.
+I've worked like a man, suffered like a man--"
+
+"Why don't ye' lose like a man?" says he.
+
+"I will, and I'll fight like one, too," says she, while her eyes
+burned like faggots.  "They've torn away the reward of years of work
+and agony, and they forget I can hate like a man."
+
+She was stretched up to high C, where her voice drowned the howl of
+the storm, and her seamed old face was a sight.  I've seen mild,
+shrinky, mouse-shy women 'roused to hell's own fury, and I felt that
+night that here was a bad enemy for the Swedes of Buster Creek.
+
+She stopped, listening.
+
+"What's that? There's some one at the door."
+
+"Nonsense," says one of the freighters.  "You do so much knocking you
+can hear the echo."
+
+"There's some one at that door," says she.
+
+"If there was, they'd come in," says Joe.
+
+"Couldn't be, this late in this storm," I adds.
+
+She came from behind the stove, and we let her go to the door alone.
+Nobody ever seemed to do any favours for Annie Black.
+
+"She'll be seein' things next," says Joe, winking.  "What'd I tell
+you?  For God's sake close it--you'll freeze us."
+
+Annie opened the door, and was hid to the waist in a cloud of steam
+that rolled in out of the blackness.  She peered out for a minute,
+stooped, and tugged at something in the dark.  I was at her side in a
+jump, and we dragged him in, snow-covered and senseless.
+
+"Quick--brandy," says she, slashing at his stiff "mukluks."  "Joe,
+bring in a tub of snow."  Her voice was steel sharp.
+
+"Well, I'm danged," says the mail man.  "It's only an Injun.  You
+needn't go crazy like he was a white."
+
+"Oh, you _fool_" says Annie.  "Can't you see?  Esquimaux don't travel
+alone.  There's white men behind, and God help them if we don't bring
+him to."
+
+She knew more about rescustications than us, and we did what she
+said, till at last he came out of it, groaning--just plumb wore out
+and numb.
+
+"Talk to him, Joe; you savvy their noise," says I.
+
+The poor devil showed his excitement, dead as he was.
+
+"There's two men on the big 'Cut-off,'" Joe translates.  "Lost on the
+portage.  There was only one robe between 'em, so they rolled up in
+it, and the boy came on in the dark.  Says they can't last till
+morning."
+
+"That lets them out," says the mail carrier.  "Too bad we can't reach
+them to-night."
+
+"What!" snaps Annie.  "Reach 'em?  Huh!  I said you were a jellyfish.
+Hurry up and get your things on, boys."
+
+"Have a little sense," says Joe.  "You surely ain't a darn fool.  Out
+in this storm, dark as the inside of a cow; blowin' forty mile, and
+the 'quick' froze.  Can't be done.  I wonder who they are?"
+
+He "kowtowed" some more, and at the answer of the chattering savage
+we looked at Annie.
+
+"Him called Lund," shivered the Siwash.
+
+I never see anybody harder hit than her.  I love a scrap, but I
+thinks "Billy, she's having a stiffer fight than you ever associated
+with."
+
+Finally she says, kind of slow and quiet: "Who knows where the
+'Cut-off' starts?"
+
+Nobody answers, and up speaks the U. S. man again.
+
+"You've got your nerve, to ask a man out on such a night."
+
+"If there was one here, I wouldn't have to ask him.  There's people
+freezing within five miles of here, and you hug the stove, saying:
+'It's stormy, and we'll get cold.'  Of course it is.  If it wasn't
+stormy they'd be here too, and it's so cold, you'll probably freeze.
+What's that got to do with it?  Ever have your mother talk to you
+about duty?  Thank Heaven I travelled that portage once, and I can
+find it again if somebody will go with me."
+
+'Twas a blush raising talk, but nobody upset any furniture getting
+dressed.
+
+She continues:
+
+"So I'm the woman of this crowd and I hide behind my skirts.  Mr.
+Mail Man, show what a glorious creature you are.  Throw yourself--get
+up and stretch and roar.  Oh, you barn-yard bantam!  Has it had its
+pap to-night?  I've a grand commercial enterprise; I'll take all of
+your bust measurements and send out to the States for a line of
+corsets.  Ain't there half a man among you?"
+
+She continued in this vein, pollutin' the air, and, having no means
+of defence, we found ourselves follerin' her out into a yelling storm
+that beat and roared over us like waves of flame.
+
+Swede luck had guided their shaft onto the richest pay-streak in
+seven districts, and Swede luck now led us to the Lund boys, curled
+up in the drifted snow beside their dogs; but it was the level head
+and cool judgment of a woman that steered us home in the grey whirl
+of the dawn.
+
+During the deathly weariness of that night I saw past the calloused
+hide of that woman and sighted the splendid courage cached away
+beneath her bitter oratory and hosstyle syllogisms.  "There's a story
+there," thinks I, "an' maybe a man moved in it--though I can't
+imagine her softened by much affection."  It pleased some guy to
+state that woman's the cause of all our troubles, but I figger
+they're like whisky--all good, though some a heap better'n others, of
+course, and when a frail, little, ninety pound woman gets to bucking
+and acting bad, there's generally a two hundred pound man hid out in
+the brush that put the burr under the saddle.
+
+During the next three days she dressed the wounds of them
+Scow-weegians and nursed them as tender as a mother.
+
+The wind hadn't died away till along came the "Flying Dutchman" from
+Dugan's, twenty miles up, floatin' on the skirts of the blizzard.
+
+"Hello, fellers.  Howdy, Annie.  What's the matter here?" says he.
+"We had a woman at Dugan's too--purty as a picture; different from
+the Nome bunch--real sort of a lady."
+
+"Who is she?" says I, "an' what's she doin' out here on the trail?"
+
+"Dunno, but she's all right; come clean from Dawson with a dog team;
+says she's looking for her mother."
+
+I heard a pan clatter on the floor where Annie was washing dishes,
+and her face went a sickly grey.  She leaned across, gripping the
+table and straining to ask something, but the words wouldn't come,
+while "Dutch" continues:
+
+"Somethin' strange about it, I think.  She says her ma's over in the
+Golden Gate district, workin' a rich mine.  Of course we all laughed
+at her, and said there wasn't a woman in the whole layout, 'ceptin'
+_some_ folks might misconstrue Annie here into a kind of a female.
+She stuck to it though, much as to say we was liars.  She's comin'
+on--what's the matter, Annie--you ain't sore at me effeminatin' you
+by the gentle name of female, are you?"
+
+She had come to him, and gripped his shoulder, till her long, bony
+fingers buried themselves in his mackinaw.  Her mouth was twitching,
+and she hadn't got shed of that "first-aid-to-the-injured" look.
+
+"What name?  What name, Dutch?  What name?"  She shook him like a rat.
+
+"Bradshaw--but you needn't run your nails through and clinch 'em.
+Ow!  Le'go my white meat.  You act like she was your long lost baby.
+What d'ye think of that idea, fellers?  Ain't that a pleasin'
+conceit?  Annie Black, and a baby.  Ha!  Ha! that's a hit.  Annie and
+a daughter.  A cow-thief and a calla-lily."
+
+"Dutch," says I, "you ain't a-goin' to make it through to Lane's
+Landing if you don't pull your freight," and I drags the darn fool
+out and starts him off.
+
+When I came in she was huddled onto a goods box, shaking and sobbing
+like any woman, while the boys sat around and champed their bits and
+stomped.
+
+"Take me away, Billy," she says.  "For God's sake take me away before
+she sees me." She slid down to the floor and cried something awful.
+Gents, that was sure the real distress, nothing soft and sloppy, but
+hard, wrenchy, deep ones, like you hear at a melodrayma.  'Twas only
+back in '99 that I seen an awful crying match, though both of the
+ladies had been drinking, so I felt like I was useder to emotion than
+the balance of the boys, and it was up to me to take a holt.
+
+"Madam," says I, and somehow the word didn't seem out of place any
+more--"Madam, why do you want to avoid this party?"
+
+"Take me away," she says.  "It's my daughter.  She's going to find me
+this way, all rough and immodest and made fun of.  But that's the
+worst you can say, isn't it?  I'm a square woman--you know I am,
+don't you, boys?" and she looked at us fierce and pleadin'.
+
+"Sure," says Joe.  "We'll boost you with the girl all right."
+
+"She thinks her father's dead, but he isn't--he ran away with a show
+woman--a year after we were married.  I never told her about it, and
+I've tried to make a little lady of her."
+
+We found out afterwards that she had put the girl in a
+boarding-school, but couldn't seem to make enough for both of them,
+and when the Klondyke was struck thought she saw a chance.  She came
+north, insulted by deck hands and laughed at by the officers.  At
+Skagway she nursed a man through typhoid, and when he could walk he
+robbed her.  The mounted police took everything else she had and
+mocked at her.  "Your kind always has money," they said.
+
+That's how it had been everywhere, and that's why she was so hard and
+bitter.  She'd worked and fought like a man, but she'd suffered like
+a woman.
+
+"I've lied and starved and stolen for her," said Annie, "to make her
+think I was doing well.  She said she was coming in to me, but I knew
+winter would catch her at Dawson, and I thought I could head her off
+by spring."
+
+"Now, she's here; but, men, as your mothers loved you, save me from
+my little girl."
+
+She buried her face, and when I looked at the boys, tears stood in
+Joe Slisco's eyes and the others breathed hard.  Ole Lund, him that
+was froze worst about the hands, spoke up:
+
+"Someboady tak de corner dat blanket an' blow may nose."
+
+Then we heard voices outside.
+
+"Hello, in there."
+
+Annie stood up, clutching at her throat, and stepped behind the
+corner of the bunks as the door opened, framing the prettiest picture
+this old range rider ever saw.
+
+'Twas a girl, glowing pink and red where the cold had kissed her
+cheeks, with yellow curlicues of hair wandering out under her yarn
+cap.  Her little fox-trimmed parka quit at the knees, showing the
+daintiest pair of--I can't say it.  Anyhow, they wasn't, they just
+looked like 'em, only nicer.
+
+She stood blinking at us, coming from the bright light outside, as
+cute as a new faro box--then:
+
+"Can you tell me where Mrs. Bradshaw lives?  She's somewhere in this
+district.  I'm her daughter--come all the way from the States to see
+her."
+
+When she smiled I could hear the heart-strings of those ragged,
+whiskered, frost-bit "mushers" bustin' like banjo strings.
+
+"You know her, don't you?" she says, turning to me.
+
+"Know her, Miss?  Well, I should snort!  There ain't a prospector on
+the range that ain't proud and honoured to call her a friend.
+Leastways, if there is I'll bust his block," and I cast the bad eye
+on the boys to wise 'em up.
+
+"Ain't I right, Joe?"
+
+"Betcher dam life," says Joe, sort of over-stepping the conventions.
+
+"Then tell me where her claim is.  It's quite rich, and you must know
+it," says she, appealing to him.
+
+Up against it?  Say!  I seen the whites of his eyes show like he was
+drownding, and he grinned joyful as a man kicked in the stummick.
+
+"Er--er--I just bought in here, and ain't acquainted much," says he.
+"Have a drink," and, in his confusions, he sets out the bottle of
+alkalies that he dignifies by the alias of booze.  Then he continues
+with reg'lar human intelligence.
+
+"Bill, here, he can tell you where the ground is," and the whelp
+indicates me.
+
+Lord knows my finish, but for Ole Lund.  He sits up in his bunk,
+swaddled in Annie Black's bandages, and through slits between his
+frost bites, he moults the follering rhetoric:
+
+"Aye tole you vere de claim iss.  She own de Nomber Twenty fraction
+on Buster Creek, 'longside may and may broder.  She's dam good
+fraction, too."
+
+I consider that a blamed white stunt for Swedes; paying for their
+lives with the mine they swindled her out of.
+
+Anyhow, it knocked us galley-west.
+
+I'd formulated a swell climax, involving the discovery of the mother,
+when the mail man spoke up, him that had been her particular
+abomination, a queer kind of a break in his voice:
+
+"Come out of that."
+
+Mrs. Bradshaw moved out into the light, and, if I'm any judge, the
+joy that showed in her face rubbed away the bitterness of the past
+years.  With an aching little cry the girl ran to her, and hid in her
+arms like a quail.
+
+We men-folks got accumulated up into a dark corner where we shook
+hands and swore soft and insincere, and let our throats hurt, for all
+the world like it was Christmas or we'd got mail from home.
+
+
+
+
+BITTER ROOT BILLINGS, ARBITER
+
+Billings rode in from the Junction about dusk, and ate his supper in
+silence.  He'd been East for sixty days, and, although there lurked
+about him the hint of unwonted ventures, etiquette forbade its
+mention.  You see, in our country, that which a man gives voluntarily
+is ofttimes later dissected in smoky bunk-houses, or roughly handled
+round flickering camp fires, but the privacies he guards are
+inviolate.  Curiosity isn't exactly a lost art, but its practice
+isn't popular nor hygenic.
+
+Later, I found him meditatively whittling out on the porch, and, as
+the moment seemed propitious, I inquired adroitly:--"Did you have a
+good time in Chicago, 'Bitter Root'?"
+
+"Bully," said he, relapsing into weighty absorption.
+
+"What'd you do?" I inquired with almost the certainty of appearing
+insistent.
+
+"Don't you never read the papers?" he inquired, with such evident
+compassion that Kink Martin and the other boys snickered.  This from
+"Bitter Root," who scorns literature outside of the "Arkansas
+Printing," as he terms the illustrations!
+
+"Guess I'll have to show you my press notices," and from a hip pocket
+he produced a fat bundle of clippings in a rubber band.  These he
+displayed jealously, and I stared agape, for they were front pages of
+great metropolitan dailies, marred with red and black scare heads, in
+which I glimpsed the words, "Billings, of Montana," "'Bitter Root' on
+Arbitration," "A Lochinvar Out of the West," and other things as
+puzzling.
+
+"Press Notices!" echoed Kink scornfully.  "Wouldn't that rope ye?  He
+talks like Big Ike that went with the Wild West Show.  When a puncher
+gets so lazy he can't earn a livin' by the sweat of his pony, he
+grows his hair, goes on the stage bustin' glass balls with shot
+ca'tridges and talks about 'press notices.'  Let's see 'em, Billings.
+You pinch 'em as close to your stummick as though you held cards in a
+strange poker game."
+
+"Well, I _have_ set in a strange game, amongst aliens," said
+Billings, disregarding the request, "and I've held the high cards,
+also I've drawed out with honours.  I've sailed the medium high seas
+with mutiny in the stoke-hold; I've changed the laws of labour,
+politics and municipal economies.  I went out of God's country right
+into the heart of the decayin' East, and by the application of a
+runnin' noose in a hemp rope I strangled oppression and put eight
+thousand men to work." He paused ponderously.  "I'm an Arbitrator!"
+
+"The deuce you are," indignantly cried "Reddy" the cook.  "Who says
+so?"
+
+"Reddy" isn't up in syntax, and his unreasoning loyalty to Billings
+is an established fact of such standing that his remarks afford no
+conjecture.
+
+"Yes, I've cut into the 'Nation's Peril' and the 'Cryin' Evil' good
+and strong--walkin' out from the stinks of the Union Stock Yards, of
+Chicago, into the limelight of publicity, via the 'drunk and
+disorderly' route.
+
+"You see I got those ten carloads of steers into the city all right,
+but I was so blame busy splatterin' through the tracked-up wastes of
+the cow pens, an' inhalin' the sewer gas of the west side that I
+never got to see a newspaper.  If I'd 'a' read one, here's what I'd
+'a' found, namely: The greatest, stubbornest, riotin'est strike ever
+known, which means a heap for Chicago, she being the wet-nurse of
+labour trouble.
+
+"The whole river front was tied up.  Nary a steamer had whistled
+inside the six-mile crib for two weeks, and eight thousand men was
+out.  There was hold-ups and blood-sheddin' and picketin', which last
+is an alias for assault with intents, and altogether it was a prime
+place for a cowman, on a quiet vacation--just homelike and natural.
+
+"It was at this point that I enters, bustin' out of the smoke of the
+Stock Yards, all sweet and beautiful, like the gentle heeroine in the
+play as she walks through the curtains at the back of the stage.
+
+"Now you know there's a heap of difference between the Stock Yards
+and Chicago--it's just like coming from Arkansas over into the United
+States.
+
+"Well, soon as I sold the stock I hit for the lake front and began to
+ground sluice the coal dust off of my palate.
+
+"I was busy working my booze hydraulic when I see an arid appearin'
+pilgrim 'longside lookin' thirsty as an alkali flat.
+
+"'Get in,' says I, and the way he obeyed orders looked like he'd had
+military training.  I felt sort of drawed to him from the way he
+handled his licker; took it straight and runnin' over; then sopped
+his hands on the bar and smelled of his fingers.  He seemed to just
+soak it up both ways--reg'lar human blotter.
+
+"'You lap it up like a man,' says I, 'like a cowman--full
+growed--ever been West?'
+
+"'Nope,' says he, 'born here.'
+
+"'Well I'm a stranger,' says I, 'out absorbin' such beauties of
+architecture and free lunch as offers along the line.  If I ain't
+keepin' you up, I'd be glad of your company.'
+
+"'I'm your assistant lunch buster,' says he, and in the course of
+things he further explained that he was a tugboat fireman, out on a
+strike, givin' me the follerin' information about the tie-up:--
+
+"It all come up over a dose of dyspepsia--"
+
+"Back up," interrupted Kink squirming, "are you plumb bug?  Get
+together!  You're certainly the Raving Kid.  Ye must have stone
+bruised your heel and got concession of the brain."
+
+"Yes sir!  Indigestion," Billings continued.  "Old man Badrich, of
+the Badrich Transportation Company has it terrible.  It lands on his
+solar every morning about nine o'clock, gettin' worse steady, and
+reaches perihelion along about eleven.  He can tell the time of day
+by taste.  One morning when his mouth felt like about ten-forty-five
+in comes a committee from Firemen & Engineers Local No. 21, with a
+demand for more wages, proddin' him with the intimations that if he
+didn't ante they'd tie up all his boats."
+
+"I 'spose a teaspoonful of bakin' soda, assimilated internally around
+the environments of his appendix would have spared the strike and
+cheated me out of bein' a hero.  As the poet might have said--'Upon
+such slender pegs is this, our greatness hung.'"
+
+"Oh, Gawd!" exclaimed Mulling, piously.
+
+"Anyhow, the bitterness in the old man's inner tubes showed in the
+bile of his answer, and he told 'em if they wanted more money he'd
+give 'em a chance to earn it--they could work nights as well as days.
+He intimated further that they'd ought to be satisfied with their
+wages as they'd undoubtedly foller the same line of business in the
+next world, and wouldn't get a cent for feedin' the fires neither.
+
+"Next mornin' the strike was called, and the guy that breathed
+treachery and walk-outs was one 'Oily' Heegan, further submerged
+under the titles of President of the Federation of Fresh Water
+Firemen; also Chairman of the United Water-front Workmen, which last
+takes in everything doin' business along the river except the
+wharf-rats and typhoid germs, and it's with the disreputableness of
+this party that I infected myself to the detriment of labour and the
+triumph of the law.
+
+"D. O'Hara Heegan is an able man, and inside of a week he'd spread
+the strike 'till it was the cleanest, dirtiest tie-up ever known.
+The hospitals and morgues was full of non-union men, but the river
+was empty all right.  Yes, he had a persuadin' method of arbitration
+quite convincing to the most calloused, involving the layin' on of
+the lead pipe.
+
+"Things got to be pretty fierce bye-and-bye, for they had the police
+buffaloed, and disturbances got plentyer than the casualties at a
+butchers' picnic.  The strikers got hungry, too, finally, because the
+principles of unionism is like a rash on your mechanic, skin
+deep--inside, his gastrics works three shifts a day even if his
+outsides is idle and steaming with Socialism.
+
+"Oily fed 'em dray loads of eloquence, but it didn't seem to be real
+fillin'.  They'd leave the lectures and rob a bakery.
+
+"He was a wonder though; just sat in his office, and kept the ship
+owners waitin' in line, swearin' bitter and refined cuss-words about
+'ignorant fiend' and 'cussed pedagogue,' which last, for Kink's
+enlightenment, means a kind of Hebrew meetin'-house.
+
+"These here details my new friend give me, ending with a eulogy on
+Oily Heegan, the Idol of the Idle.
+
+"'If he says starve, we starve,' says he, 'and if he says work, we
+work.  See!  Oh he's the goods, he is!  Let's go down by the
+river--mebbe we'll see him.'  So me and Murdock hiked down Water
+Street, where they keep mosquito netting over the bar fixtures and
+spit at the stove.
+
+"We found him, a big mouthed, shifty, kind of man, 'bout as cynical
+lookin' in the face as a black bass, and full of wind as a toad fish.
+I exchanged drinks for principles of socialism, and doin' so happened
+to display my roll.  Murdock slipped away and made talk with a
+friend, then, when Heegan had left, he steers me out the back way
+into an alley.  'Short cut,' says he 'to another and a better place.'
+
+"I follers through a back room; then as I steps out the door I'm
+grabbed by this new friend, while Murdock bathes my head with a
+gas-pipe billy, one of the regulation, strike promotin' kind, like
+they use for decoyin' members into the glorious ranks of Labour.
+
+"I saw a 'Burning of Rome' that was a dream, and whole cloudbursts of
+shootin' stars, but I yanked Mr. Enthusiastic Stranger away from my
+surcingle and throwed him agin the wall.  In the shuffle Murdock
+shifts my ballasts though, and steams up the alley with my
+greenbacks, convoyed by his friend.
+
+"'Wow-ow,' says I, givin' the distress signal so that the windows
+rattled, and reachin' for my holster.  I'd 'a' got them both, only
+the gun caught in my suspender.  You see, not anticipatin' any live
+bird shoot I'd put it inside my pants-band, under my vest, for
+appearances.  A forty-five is like fresh air to a drownding
+man--generally has to be drawed in haste--and neither one shouldn't
+be mislaid.  I got her out at last and blazed away, just a second
+after they dodged around the comer.  Then I hit the trail after 'em,
+lettin' go a few sky-shots and gettin' a ghost-dance holler off my
+stummick that had been troubling me.  The wallop on the head made me
+dizzy though, and I zigzagged awful, tackin' out of the alley right
+into a policeman.
+
+"'Whee!' says I in joy, for he had Murdock safe by the bits, buckin'
+considerable.
+
+"'Stan' aside and le'mme 'lectrocute 'im,' says I.  I throwed the gun
+on him and the crowd dogged it into all the doorways and windows
+convenient, but I was so weak-minded in the knees I stumbled over the
+curb and fell down.
+
+"Next thing I knew we was all bouncin' over the cobble-stones in a
+patrol wagon.
+
+"Well, in the morning I told my story to the Judge, plain and
+unvarnished.  Then Murdock takes the stand and busts into song,
+claiming that he was comin' through the alley toward Clark Street
+when I staggered out back of a saloon and commenced to shoot at him.
+He saw I was drunk, and fanned out, me shootin' at him with every
+jump.  He had proof, he said, and he called for the president of his
+Union, Mr. Heegan.  At the name all the loafers and stew-bums in the
+court-room stomped and said, 'Hear, hear,' while up steps this
+Napoleon of the Hoboes.
+
+"Sure, he knew Mr. Murdock--had known him for years, and he was
+perfectly reliable and honest.  As to his robbing me, it was
+preposterous, because he himself was at the other end of the alley
+and saw the whole thing, just as Mr. Murdock related it.
+
+"I jumps up.  'You're a liar, Heegan.  I was buyin' booze for the two
+of you;' but a policeman nailed me, chokin' off my rhetorics.  Mr.
+Heegan leans over and whispers to the Judge, while I got chilblains
+along my spine.
+
+"'Look here, kind Judge,' says I real winning and genteel, 'this man
+is so good at explainin' things away, ask him to talk off this bump
+over my ear.  I surely didn't get a buggy spoke and laminate myself
+on the nut.
+
+"'That'll do,' says the Judge.  'Mr. Clerk, ten dollars and
+costs--charge, drunk and disorderly.  Next!'
+
+"'Hold on there,' says I, ignorant of the involutions of justice, 'I
+guess I've got the bulge on you this time.  They beat you to me,
+Judge.  I ain't got a cent.  You can go through me and be welcome to
+half you find.  I'll mail you ten when I get home though, honest.'
+
+"At that the audience giggled, and the Judge says:--
+
+"'Your humour doesn't appeal to me, Billings.  Of course, you have
+the privilege of working it out.' Oh, Glory, the 'Privilege!'
+
+"Heegan nodded at this, and I realized what I was against.
+
+"'Your honour,' says I with sarcastic refinements, 'science tells us
+that a perfect vacuum ain't possible, but after watching you I know
+better, and for you, Mr. Workingman's Friend,--us to the floor,' and
+I run at Heegan.
+
+"Pshaw!  I never got started, nor I didn't rightfully come to till I
+rested in the workhouse, which last figger of speech is a pure and
+beautiful paradox.
+
+"I ain't dwellin' with glee on the next twenty-six days--ten dollars
+and costs, at four bits a day, but I left there saturated with such
+hatreds for Heegan that my breath smelted of 'em.
+
+"I wanders down the river front, hoping the fortunes of war would
+deliver him to me dead or alive, when the thought hit me that I'd
+need money.  It was bound to take another ten and costs shortly after
+we met, and probably more, if I paid for what I got, for I figgered
+on distendin' myself with satisfaction and his features with
+uppercuts.  Then I see a sign, 'Non-Union men wanted--Big wages.'  In
+I goes, and strains my langwidge through a wire net at the cashier.
+
+"'I want them big wages,' says I.
+
+"'What can you do?'
+
+"'Anything to get the money,' says I.  'What does it take to
+liquidate an assault on a labour leader?'
+
+"There was a white-haired man in the cage who began to sit up and
+take notice.
+
+"'What's your trouble?' says he, and I told him.
+
+"'If we had a few more like you, we'd bust the strike,' says he, kind
+of sizin' me up.  'I've got a notion to try it anyhow,' and he smites
+the desk.  'Collins what d'ye say if we tow the "Detroit" out?  Her
+crew has stayed with us so far, and they'll stick now if we'll say
+the word.  The unions are hungry and scrapping among themselves, and
+the men want to go back to work.  It's just that devil of a Heegan
+that holds 'em.  If they see we've got a tug crew that'll go, they'll
+arbitrate, and we'll kill the strike.'
+
+"'Yes, sir!' says Collins, 'but where's the tug crew, Mr. Badrich?'
+
+"'Right here!  We three, and Murphy, the bookkeeper.  Blast this
+idleness!  I want to fight.'
+
+"'I'll take the same,' says I, 'when I get the price.'
+
+"'That's all right.  You've put the spirit into me, and I'll see you
+through.  Can you run an engine?  Good!  I'll take the wheel, and the
+others'll fire.  It's going to be risky work, though.  You won't back
+out, eh?'"
+
+Reddy interrupted Billings here loudly, with a snort of disgust,
+while "Bitter Root" ran his fingers through his hair before
+continuing.  Martin was listening intently.
+
+"The old man arranged to have a squad of cops on all the bridges, and
+I begin anticipatin' hilarities for next day.
+
+"The news got out of course, through the secrecies of police
+headquarters, and when we ran up the river for our tow, it looked
+like every striker west of Pittsburg had his family on the docks to
+see the barbecue, accompanied by enough cobble-stones and scrap iron
+to ballast a battleship.  All we got goin' up was repartee, but I
+figgered we'd need armour gettin' back.
+
+"We passed a hawser to the 'Detroit,' and I turned the gas into the
+tug, blowin' for the Wells Street Bridge.  Then war began.  I leans
+out the door just in time to see the mob charge the bridge.  The cops
+clubbed 'em back, while a roar went up from the docks and roof tops
+that was like a bad dream.  I couldn't see her move none though, and
+old man Badrich blowed again expurgatin' himself of as nobby a line
+of cuss words as you'll muster outside the cattle belt.
+
+"'Soak 'em,' I yells, 'give 'em all the arbitration you've got handy.
+If she don't open; we'll jump her,' and I lets out another notch, so
+that we went plowin' and boilin' towards the draw.
+
+"It looked like we'd have to hurdle it sure enough, but the police
+beat the crowd back just in time.  She wasn't clear open though, and
+our barge caromed off the spiles.  It was like a nigger buttin' a
+persimmon tree--we rattled off a shower of missiles like an abnormal
+hail storm.  Talk about your coast defence; they heaved everything at
+us from bad names to railroad iron, and we lost all our window glass
+the first clatter, while the smoke stack looked like a pretzel with
+cramps.
+
+"When we scraped through I looked back with pity at the 'Detroit's'
+crew.  She hadn't any wheel house, and the helmsman was due to get
+all the attention that was comin' to him.  They'd built up a
+barricade of potato sacks, chicken coops and bic-a-brac around the
+wheel that protected 'em somewhat, but even while I watched, some
+Polack filtered a brick through and laid out the quartermaster cold,
+and he was drug off.  Oh! it was refined and esthetic.
+
+"Well, we run the gauntlet, presented every block with stuff rangin'
+in tensile strength from insults to asphalt pavements, and
+noise!--say, all the racket in the world was a whisper.  I caught a
+glimpse of the old man leanin' out of the pilot house, where a window
+had been, his white hair bristly, and his nostrils h'isted,
+embellishin' the air with surprisin' flights of gleeful profanity.
+
+"'Hooray!  this is livin' he yells, spyin' me shovelin' the deck out
+from under the junk.  'Best scrap I've had in years,' and just then
+some baseball player throwed in from centre field, catching him in
+the neck with a tomato.  Gee!  that man's an honour to the faculty of
+speech.
+
+"I was doin' bully till a cobble-stone bounced into the engine room,
+makin' a billiard with my off knee, then I got kind of peevish.
+
+"Rush Street Bridge is the last one, and they'd massed there on both
+sides, like fleas on a razorback.  Thinks I, 'If we make it through
+here, we've busted the strike,' and I glances back at the 'Detroit'
+just in time to see her crew pullin' their captain into the deck
+house, limp and bleedin'.  The barricade was all knocked to pieces
+and they'd flunked absolute.  Don't blame 'em much either, as it was
+sure death to stand out in the open under the rain of stuff that come
+from the bridges.  Of course with no steerin' she commenced to swing
+off.
+
+"I jumps out the far side of the engine room and yells fit to bust my
+throat.
+
+"'Grab that wheel!  Grab it quick--we'll hit the bridge,' but it was
+like deef and dumb talk in a boiler shop, while a wilder howl went up
+from the water front as they seen what they'd done and smelled
+victory.  There's an awfulness about the voice of a blood-maddened
+club-swingin' mob; it lifts your scalp like a fright wig,
+particularly if you are the clubee.
+
+"'We've got one chance,' thinks I, 'but if she strikes we're gone.
+They'll swamp us sure, and all the police in Cook County won't save
+enough for to hold services on.'  Then I throwed a look at the
+opening ahead and the pessimisms froze in me.
+
+"I forgot all about the resiliency of brickbats and the table manners
+of riots, for there, on top of a bunch of spiles, ca'm, masterful and
+bloated with perjuries, was Oily Heegan dictatin' the disposition of
+his forces, the light of victory in his shifty, little eyes.
+
+"'Ten dollars and costs,' I shrieks, seein' red.  'Lemme crawl up
+them spiles to you.'
+
+"Then inspiration seized me.  My soul riz up and grappled with the
+crisis, for right under my mit, coiled, suggestive and pleadin', was
+one of the tug's heavin' lines, 'bout a three-eighths size.  I slips
+a runnin' knot in the end and divides the coils, crouchin' behind the
+deck-house till we come abeam of him, then I straightened, give it a
+swinging heave, and the noose sailed up and settled over him fine and
+daisy.
+
+"I jerked back, and Oily Heegan did a high dive from Rush Street that
+was a geometrical joy.  He hit kind of amateurish, doin' what we used
+to call a 'belly-buster' back home, but quite satisfyin' for a maiden
+effort, and I reeled him in astern.
+
+"Your Chicago man ain't a gamey fish.  He come up tame and squirting
+sewage like a dissolute porpoise, while I played him out where he'd
+get the thrash of the propeller.
+
+"'Help,' he yells, 'I'm a drownding.'
+
+"'Ten dollars and costs," says I, lettin' him under again.  'Do you
+know who you're drinkin' with this time, hey?'
+
+"I reckon the astonishment of the mob was equal to Heegan's; anyhow
+I'm told that we was favoured with such quietness that my voice
+sounded four blocks, simply achin' with satisfactions.  Then
+pandemonium tore loose, but I was so engrosed in sweet converse I
+never heard it or noticed that the 'Detroit' had slid through the
+draw by a hair, and we was bound for the blue and smilin' lake.
+
+"'For God's sake, lemme up,' says Heegan, splashin' along and
+look-in' strangly.  I hauls him in where he wouldn't miss any of my
+ironies, and says:--
+
+"'I just can't do it, Oily--it's wash day.  You're plumb nasty with
+boycotts and picketin's and compulsory arbitrations.  I'm goin' to
+clean you up,' and I sozzled him under like a wet shirt.
+
+"I drug him out again and continues:--
+
+"'This is Chinamen's work, Oily, but I lost my pride in the
+Bridewell, thanks to you.  It's tough on St. Louis to laundry you up
+stream this way, but maybe the worst of your heresies 'll be purified
+when they get that far.'  You know the Chicago River runs up hill out
+of Lake Michigan through the drainage canal and into the St. Louis
+waterworks.  Sure it does--most unnatural stream I ever see about
+direction and smells.
+
+"I was gettin' a good deal of enjoyment and infections out of him
+when old man Badrich ran back enamelled with blood and passe tomato
+juice, the red in his white hair makin' his top look like one of
+these fancy ice-cream drinks you get at a soda fountain.
+
+"'Here! here! you'll kill him,' says he, so I hauled him aboard,
+drippin' and clingy, wringin' him out good and thorough--by the neck.
+He made a fine mop.
+
+"These clippings," continued "Bitter Root," fishing into his pocket,
+"tell in beautiful figgers how the last seen of Oily Heegan he was
+holystoning the deck of a sooty little tugboat under the
+admonishments and feet of 'Bitter Root' Billings of Montana, and they
+state how the strikers tried to get tugs for pursuit and couldn't,
+and how, all day long, from the housetops was visible a tugboat madly
+cruisin' about inside the outer cribs, bustin' the silence with
+joyful blasts of victory, and they'll further state that about dark
+she steamed up the river, tired and draggled, with a bony-lookin'
+cowboy inhalin' cigareets on the stern-bits, holding a three-foot
+knotted rope in his lap.  When a delegation of strikers met her,
+inquirin' about one D. O'Hara Heegan, it says like this," and
+Billings read laboriously as follows:--
+
+"'Then the bronzed and lanky man arose with a smile of rare
+contentment, threw overboard his cigarette, and approaching the
+boiler-room hatch, called loudly: "Come out of that," and the
+President of the Federation of Fresh Water Firemen dragged himself
+wearily out into the flickering lights.  He was black and drenched
+and streaked with sweat; also, he shone with the grease and oils of
+the engines, while the palms of his hands were covered with painful
+blisters from unwonted, intimate contact with shovels and drawbars.
+It was seen that he winced fearfully as the cowboy twirled the rope
+end.
+
+"'"He's got the makin's of a fair fireman,'" said the stranger, "'all
+he wants is practice.'"
+
+"Then, as the delegation murmured angrily, he held up his hand and,
+in the ensuing silence, said:--
+
+"'"Boys, the strike's over.  Mr. Heegan has arbitrated."'"
+
+
+
+
+THE SHYNESS OF SHORTY
+
+Bailey smoked morosely as he scanned the dusty trail leading down
+across the "bottom" and away over the dry grey prairie toward the
+hazy mountains in the west.
+
+From his back-tilted chair on the veranda, the road was visible for
+miles, as well as the river trail from the south, sneaking up through
+the cottonwoods and leprous sycamores.
+
+He called gruffly into the silence of the house, and his speech held
+the surliness of his attitude.
+
+"Hot Joy!  Bar X outfit comin'.  Git supper."
+
+A Chinaman appeared in the door and gazed at the six-mule team
+descending the distant gully to the ford.
+
+"Jesse one man, hey?  All light," and slid quietly back to the
+kitchen.
+
+Whatever might be said, or, rather, whatever might be suspected, of
+Bailey's road-house--for people did not run to wordy conjecture in
+this country--it was known that it boasted a good cook, and this
+atoned for a catalogue of shortcomings.  So it waxed popular among
+the hands of the big cattle ranges near-bye.  Those given to idle
+talk held that Bailey acted strangely at times, and rumour painted
+occasional black doings at the hacienda, squatting vulture-like above
+the ford, but it was nobody's business, and he kept a good cook.
+
+Bailey did not recall the face that greeted him from above the three
+span as they swung in front of his corral, but the brand on their
+flanks was the Bar X, so he nodded with as near an approach to
+hospitality as he permitted.
+
+It was a large face, strong-featured and rugged, balanced on wide,
+square shoulders, yet some oddness of posture held the gaze of the
+other till the stranger clambered over the wheel to the ground.  Then
+Bailey removed his brier and heaved tempestuously in the throes of
+great and silent mirth.
+
+It was a dwarf.  The head of a Titan, the body of a whisky barrel,
+rolling ludicrously on the tiny limbs of a bug, presented so
+startling a sight that even Hot Joy, appearing around the corner,
+cackled shrilly.  His laughter rose to a shriek of dismay, however,
+as the little man made at him with the rush and roar of a cannon
+ball.  In Bailey's amazed eyes he seemed to bounce galvanically,
+landing on Joy's back with such vicious suddenness that the breath
+fled from him in a squawk of terror; then, seizing his cue, he kicked
+and belaboured the prostrate Celestial in feverish silence.  He
+desisted and rolled across the porch to Bailey.  Staring truculently
+up et the landlord, he spoke for the first time.
+
+"Was I right in supposin' that something amused you?"
+
+Bailey gasped incredulously, for the voice rumbled heavily an octave
+below his own bass.  Either the look of the stocky catapult, as he
+launched himself on the fleeing servant, or the invidious servility
+of the innkeeper, sobered the landlord, and he answered gravely:
+
+"No, sir; I reckon you're mistaken.  I ain't observed anything
+frivolous yet."
+
+"Glad of it," said the little man.  "I don't like a feller to hog a
+joke all by himself.  Some of the Bar X boys took to absorbin' humour
+out of my shape when I first went to work, but they're sort of
+educated out of it now.  I got an eye from one and a finger off of
+another; the last one donated a ear."
+
+Bailey readily conceived this man as a bad antagonist, for the heavy
+corded neck had split buttons from the blue shirt, and he glimpsed a
+chest hairy, and round as a drum, while the brown arms showed knotty
+and hardened.
+
+"Let's liquor," he said, and led the way into the big, low room,
+serving as bar, dining- and living-room.  From the rear came vicious
+clatterings and slammings of pots, mingled with Oriental
+lamentations, indicating an aching body rather than a chastened
+spirit.
+
+"Don't see you often," he continued, with a touch of implied
+curiosity, which grew as his guest, with lingering fondness, up-ended
+a glass brimful of the raw, fiery spirits.
+
+"No, the old man don't lemme get away much.  He knows that dwellin'
+close to the ground, as I do, I pine for spiritual elevation," with a
+melting glance at the bottles behind the bar, doing much to explain
+the size of his first drink.
+
+"Like it, do ye?" questioned Bailey indicating the shelf.
+
+"Well, not exactly!  Booze is like air--I need it.  It makes a new
+man out of me--and usually ends by gettin' both me and the new one
+laid off."
+
+"Didn't hear nothing of the weddin' over at Los Huecos, did ye?"
+
+"No!  Whose weddin'?"
+
+"Ross Turney, the new sheriff."
+
+"Ye don't say!  Him that's been elected on purpose to round up the
+Tremper gang, hey?  Who's his antagonist?"
+
+"Old man Miller's gal.  He's celebratin' his election by gettin'
+spliced.  I been expectin' of 'em across this way to-night, but I
+guess they took the Black Butte trail.  You heard what he said,
+didn't ye?  Claims that inside of ninety days he'll rid the county of
+the Trempers and give the reward to his wife for a bridal present.
+Five thousand dollars on 'em, you know." Bailey grinned evilly and
+continued: "Say!  Marsh Tremper'll ride up to his house some night
+and make him eat his own gun in front of his bride, see if he don't.
+Then there'll be cause for an inquest and an election."  He spoke
+with what struck the teamster as unnecessary heat.
+
+"Dunno," said the other; "Turney's a brash young feller, I hear, but
+he's game.  'Tain't any of my business, though, and I don't want none
+of his contrac'.  I'm violently addicted to peace and quiet, I am.
+Guess I'll unhitch," and he toddled out into the gathering dusk to
+his mules, while the landlord peered uneasily down the darkening
+trail.
+
+As the saddened Joy lit candles in the front room there came the
+rattle of wheels without, and a buckboard stopped in the bar of light
+from the door.  Bailey's anxiety was replaced by a mask of listless
+surprise as the voice of Ross Turney called to him.
+
+"Hello there, Bailey!  Are we in time for supper?  If not, I'll start
+an insurrection with that Boxer of yours.  He's got to turn out the
+snortingest supper of the season to-night.  It isn't every day your
+shack is honoured by a bride.  Mr. Bailey, this is my wife, since ten
+o'clock A. M."  He introduced a blushing, happy girl, evidently in
+the grasp of many emotions.  "We'll stay all night, I guess,"
+
+"Sure," said Bailey.  "I'll show ye a room," and he led them up
+beneath the low roof where an unusual cleanliness betrayed the
+industry of Joy.
+
+The two men returned and drank to the bride, Turney with the reckless
+lightness that distinguished him, Bailey sullen and watchful.
+
+"Got another outfit here, haven't you?" questioned the bridegroom.
+"Who is it?"
+
+Before answer could be made, from the kitchen arose a tortured howl
+and the smashing of dishes, mingled with stormy rumblings.  The door
+burst inward, and an agonized Joy fled, flapping out into the night,
+while behind him rolled the caricature from Bar X.
+
+"I just stopped for a drink of water," boomed the dwarf, then paused
+at the twitching face of the sheriff.
+
+He swelled ominously, like a great pigeon, purple and congested with
+rage.  Strutting to the new-comer, he glared insolently up into his
+smiling face,
+
+"What are ye laughin' at, ye shavetail?"  His hands were clenched,
+till his arms showed tense and rigid, and the cords in his neck were
+thickly swollen.
+
+"Lemme in on it, I'm strong on humour.  What in ---- ails ye?" he
+yelled, in a fury, as the tall young man gazed fixedly, and the
+glasses rattled at the bellow from the barreled-up lungs.
+
+"I'm not laughing at you," said the sheriff.
+
+"Oh, ain't ye?" mocked the man of peace.  "Well, take care that ye
+don't, ye big wart, or I'll trample them new clothes and browse
+around on some of your features.  I'll take ye apart till ye look
+like cut feed.  Guess ye don't know who I am, do ye?  I'm--"
+
+"Who is this man, Ross?" came the anxious voice of the bride,
+descending the stairs.
+
+The little man spun like a dancer, and, spying the girl, blushed to
+the colour of a prickly pear, then stammered painfully, while the
+sweat stood out under the labour of his discomfort:
+
+"Just 'Shorty,' Miss," he finally quavered.  "Plain 'Shorty' of the
+Bar X--er--a miserable, crawlin' worm for disturbin' of you."  He
+rolled his eyes helplessly at Bailey, while he sopped with his
+crumpled sombrero at the glistening perspiration.
+
+"Why didn't ye tell me?" he whispered ferociously at the host, and
+the volume of his query carried to Joy, hiding out in the night.
+
+"Mr. Shorty," said the sheriff gravely; "let me introduce my wife,
+Mrs. Turney."
+
+The bride smiled sweetly at the tremulous little man, who broke and
+fled to a high bench in the darkest corner, where he dangled his
+short legs in a silent ecstasy of bashfulness.
+
+"I reckon I'll have to rope that Chink, then blindfold and back him
+into the kitchen, if we git any supper," said Bailey, disappearing.
+
+Later the Chinaman stole in to set the table, but he worked with
+hectic and fitful energy, a fearful eye always upon the dim bulk in
+the corner, and at a fancied move he shook with an ague of
+apprehension.  Backing and sidling, he finally announced the meal,
+prepared to stampede madly at notice.
+
+During the supper Shorty ate ravenously of whatever lay to his hand,
+but asked no favours.  The agony of his shyness paralysed his huge
+vocal muscles till speech became a labour quite impossible.
+
+To a pleasant remark of the bride he responded, but no sound issued,
+then breathing heavily into his larynx, the reply roared upon them
+like a burst of thunder, seriously threatening the gravity of the
+meal.  He retired abruptly into moist and self-conscious silence,
+fearful of feasting his eyes on this disturbing loveliness.
+
+As soon as compatible with decency, he slipped back to his bunk in
+the shed behind, and lay staring into the darkness, picturing the
+amazing occurrences of the evening.  At the memory of her level
+glances he fell a-tremble and sighed ecstatically, prickling with a
+new, strange emotion.  He lay till far into the night, wakeful and
+absorbed.  He was able, to grasp the fact but dimly that all this
+dazzling perfection was for one man.  Were it not manifestly
+impossible he supposed other men in other lands knew other ladies as
+beautiful, and it furthermore grew upon him blackly, in the thick
+gloom, that in all this world of womanly sweetness and beauty, no
+modicum of it was for the misshapen dwarf of the Bar X outfit.  All
+his life he had fought furiously to uphold the empty shell of his
+dignity in the eyes of his comrades, yet always morbidly conscious of
+the difference in his body.  Whisky had been his solace, his
+sweetheart.  It changed him, raised and beatified him into the
+likeness of other men, and now, as he pondered, he was aware of a
+consuming thirst engendered by the heat of his earlier emotions.
+Undoubtedly it must be quenched.
+
+He rose and stole quietly out into the big front room.  Perhaps the
+years of free life in the open had bred a suspicion of walls, perhaps
+he felt his conduct would not brook discovery, perhaps habit,
+prompted him to take the two heavy Colts from their holsters and
+thrust them inside his trousers band.
+
+He slipped across the room, silent and cavern-like, its blackness
+broken by the window squares of starry sky, till he felt the paucity
+of glassware behind the bar.
+
+"Here's to Her,"  It burned delightfully.
+
+"Here's to the groom."  It tingled more alluringly.
+
+"I'll drink what I can, and get back to the bunk before it works," he
+thought, and the darkness veiled the measure of his potations.
+
+He started at a noise on the stairway.  His senses not yet dulled,
+detected a stealthy tread.  Not the careless step of a man unafraid,
+but the cautious rustle and halt of a marauder.  Every nerve bristled
+to keenest alertness as the faint occasional sounds approached,
+passed the open end of the bar where he crouched, leading on to the
+window.  Then a match flared, and the darkness rushed out as a candle
+wick sputtered.
+
+Shorty stretched on tiptoe, brought his eye to the level of the bar,
+and gazed upon the horrent head of Bailey.  He sighed thankfully, but
+watched with interest his strange behaviour.
+
+Bailey moved the light across the window from left to right three
+times, paused, then wigwagged some code out into the night.
+
+"He's signalling," mused Shorty.  "Hope he gets through quick.  I'm
+getting full."  The fumes of the liquor were beating at his senses,
+and he knew that soon he would move with difficulty.
+
+The man, however, showed no intention of leaving, for, his signals
+completed, he blew out the light, first listening for any sound from
+above, then his figure loomed black and immobile against the dim
+starlight of the window.
+
+"Oh, Lord!  I got to set down," and the watcher squatted upon the
+floor, bracing against the wall.  His dulling perceptions were
+sufficiently acute to detect shuffling footsteps on the porch and the
+cautious unbarring of the door.
+
+"Gettin' late for visitors," he thought, as he entered a blissful
+doze.  "When they're abed, I'll turn in."
+
+It seemed much later that a shot startled him.  To his dizzy hearing
+came the sound of curses overhead, the stamp and shift of feet, the
+crashing fall of struggling men, and, what brought him unsteadily to
+his legs, the agonized scream of a woman.  It echoed through the
+house, chilling him, and dwindled to an aching moan.
+
+Something was wrong, he knew that, but it was hard to tell just what.
+He must think.  What hard work it was to think, too; he'd never
+noticed before what a laborious process it was.  Probably that
+sheriff had got into trouble; he was a fresh guy, anyhow; and he'd
+laughed when he first saw Shorty.  That settled it.  He could get out
+of it himself.  Evidently it was nothing serious, for there was no
+more disturbance above, only confused murmurings.  Then a light
+showed in the stairs, and again the shuffling of feet came, as four
+strange men descended.  They were lighted by the sardonic Bailey, and
+they dragged a sixth between them, bound and helpless.  It was the
+sheriff.
+
+Now, what had he been doing to get into such a fix?
+
+The prisoner stood against the wall, white and defiant.  He strained
+at his bonds silently, while his captors watched his futile
+struggles.  There was something terrible and menacing in the
+quietness with which they gloated--a suggestion of some horror to
+come.  At last he desisted, and burst forth.
+
+"You've got me all right.  You did this, Bailey, you ---- traitor."
+
+"He's never been a traitor, as far as we know," sneered one of the
+four.  "In fact, I might say he's been strictly on the square with
+us."
+
+"I didn't think you made war on women, either, Marsh Tremper, but it
+seems you're everything from a dog-thief down.  Why couldn't you
+fight me alone, in the daylight, like a man?"
+
+"You don't wait till a rattler's coiled before you stamp his head
+off," said the former speaker.  "It's either you or us, and I reckon
+it's you."
+
+So these were the Tremper boys, eh?  The worst desperadoes in the
+Southwest; and Bailey was their ally.  The watcher eyed them, mildly
+curious, and it seemed to him that they were as bad a quartette as
+rumour had painted--bad, even, for this country of bad men.  The
+sheriff was a fool for getting mixed up with such people.  Shorty
+knew enough to mind his own business, anyway, if others didn't.  He
+was a peaceful man, and didn't intend to get mixed up with outlaws.
+His mellow meditations were interrupted by the hoarse speech of the
+sheriff, who had broken down into his rage again, and struggled madly
+while words ran from him.
+
+"Let me go!  ---- you, let me free.  I want to fight the coward that
+struck my wife.  You've killed her.  Who was it?  Let me get at him."
+
+Shorty stiffened as though a douche of ice-water had struck him.
+"Killed her!  Struck his wife!"  My God!  Not that sweet creature of
+his dreams who had talked and smiled at him without noting his
+deformity--
+
+An awful anger rose in him and he moved out into the light.
+
+"Han'sup!"
+
+Whatever of weakness may have dragged at his legs, none sounded in
+the great bellowing command that flooded the room.  At the compelling
+volume of the sound every man whirled and eight empty hands shot
+skyward.  Their startled eyes beheld a man's squat body weaving
+uncertainly on the limbs of an insect, while in each hand shone a
+blue-black Colt that waved and circled in maddening, erratic orbits.
+
+At the command, Marsh Tremper's mind had leaped to the fact that
+behind him was one man; one against five, and he took a gambler's
+chance.
+
+As he whirled, he drew and fired.  None but the dwarf of Bar X could
+have lived, for he was the deadliest hip shot in the territory.  His
+bullet crashed into the wall, a hand's breadth over Shorty's
+"cow-lick."  It was a clean heart shot; the practised whirl and flip
+of the finished gun fighter; but the roar of his explosion was echoed
+by another, and the elder Tremper spun unsteadily against the table
+with a broken shoulder.
+
+"Too high," moaned the big voice.  "--The liquor."
+
+He swayed drunkenly, but at the slightest shift of his quarry, the
+aimless wanderings of a black muzzle stopped on the spot and the body
+behind the guns was congested with deadly menace.
+
+"Face the wall," he cried.  "Quick!  Keep 'em up higher!"  They
+sullenly obeyed; their wounded leader reaching with his uninjured
+member.
+
+To the complacent Shorty, it seemed that things were working nicely,
+though he was disturbingly conscious of his alcoholic lack of
+balance, and tortured by the fear that he might suddenly lose the
+iron grip of his faculties.
+
+Then, for the second time that night, from the stairs came the voice
+that threw him into the dreadful confusion of his modesty.
+
+"O Ross!" it cried, "I've brought your gun," and there on the steps,
+dishevelled, pallid and quivering, was the bride, and grasped in one
+trembling hand was her husband's weapon.
+
+"Ah--h!" sighed Shorty, seraphically, as the vision beat in upon his
+misty conceptions.  "_She ain't hurt_!"
+
+In his mind there was no room for desperadoes contemporaneously with
+Her.  Then he became conscious of the lady's raiment, and his brown
+cheeks flamed brick-red, while he dropped his eyes.  In his
+shrinking, grovelling modesty, he made for his dark corner.
+
+One of those at bay, familiar with this strange abashment, seized the
+moment, but at his motion the sheriff screamed: "Look out!"
+
+The quick danger in the cry brought back with a surge the men against
+the wall and Shorty swung instantly, firing at the outstretched hand
+of Bailey as it reached for Tremper's weapon.
+
+The landlord straightened, gazing affrightedly at his finger tips.
+
+"Too low!" and Shorty's voice held aching tears.  "I'll never touch
+another drop; it's plumb ruined my aim."
+
+"Cut these strings, girlie," said the sheriff, as the little man's
+gaze again wavered, threatening to leave his prisoners.
+
+"Quick.  He's blushing again.".
+
+When they were manacled, Shorty stood in moist exudation, trembling
+and speechless, under the incoherent thanks of the bride and the
+silent admiration of her handsome husband.  She fluttered about him
+in a tremor of anxiety, lest he be wounded, caressing him here and
+there with solicitous pats till he felt his shamed and happy spirit
+would surely burst from its misshapen prison.
+
+"You've made a good thing to-night," said Turney, clapping him
+heartily on his massive back.  "You get the five thousand all right.
+We were going to Mexico City on that for a bridal trip when I rounded
+up the gang, but I'll see you get every cent of it, old man.  If it
+wasn't for you I'd have been a heap farther south than that by now."
+
+The open camaraderie and good-fellowship that rang in the man's voice
+affected Shorty strangely, accustomed as he was to the veiled
+contempt or open compassion of his fellows.  Here was one who
+recognized him as a man, an equal.
+
+He spread his lips, but the big voice squeaked dismally, then,
+inflating deeply, he spoke so that the prisoners chained in the
+corral outside heard him plainly.
+
+"I'd rather she took it anyhow," blushing violently.
+
+"No, no," they cried.  "It's yours."
+
+"Well, then, half of it"--and for once Shorty betrayed the strength
+of Gibraltar, even in the face of the lady, and so it stood.
+
+As the dawn spread over the dusty prairie, tipping the westward
+mountains with silver caps, and sucking the mist out of the
+cotton-wood bottoms, he bade them adieu.
+
+"No, I got to get back to the Bar X, or the old man'll swear I been
+drinking again, and I don't want to dissipate no wrong impressions
+around."  He winked gravely.  Then, as the sheriff and his surly
+prisoners drove off, he called:
+
+"Mr. Turney, take good care of them Trempers.  I think a heap of 'em,
+for, outside of your wife, they're the only ones in this outfit that
+didn't laugh at me."
+
+
+
+
+THE TEST
+
+Pierre "Feroce" showed disapproval in his every attitude as plainly as
+disgust peered from the seams in his dark face; it lurked in his scowl
+and in the curl of his long rawhide that bit among the sled dogs.  So
+at least thought Willard, as he clung to the swinging sledge.
+
+They were skirting the coast, keeping to the glare ice, wind-swept and
+clean, that lay outside the jumbled shore pack.  The team ran silently
+in the free gait of the grey wolf, romping in harness from pure joy of
+motion and the intoxication of perfect life, making the sled runners
+whine like the song of a cutlass.
+
+This route is dangerous, of course, from hidden cracks in the floes,
+and most travellers hug the bluffs, but he who rides with Pierre
+"Feroce" takes chances.  It was this that had won him the name of
+"Wild" Pierre--the most reckless, tireless man of the trails, a scoffer
+at peril, bolting through danger with rush and frenzy, overcoming
+sheerly by vigour those obstacles which destroy strong men in the North.
+
+The power that pulsed within him gleamed from his eyes, rang in his
+song, showed in the aggressive thrust of his sensual face.
+
+This particular morning, however, Pierre's distemper had crystallized
+into a great contempt for his companion.  Of all trials, the most
+detestable is to hit the trail with half a man, a pale, anemic weakling
+like this stranger.
+
+Though modest in the extent of his learning, Pierre gloated in a
+freedom of speech, the which no man dared deny him.  He turned to eye
+his companion cynically for a second time, and contempt was patent in
+his gaze.  Willard appeared slender and pallid in his furs, though his
+clear-cut features spoke a certain strength and much refinement.
+
+"Bah!  I t'ink you dam poor feller," he said finally.  "'Ow you 'goin'
+stan' thees trip, eh?  She's need beeg mans, not leetle runt like you."
+
+Amusement at this frankness glimmered in Willard's eyes.
+
+"You're like all ignorant people.  You think in order to stand hardship
+a man should be able to toss a sack of flour in his teeth or juggle a
+cask of salt-horse."
+
+"Sure t'ing," grinned Pierre.  "That's right.  Look at me.  Mebbe you
+hear 'bout Pierre 'Feroce' sometime, eh?"
+
+"Oh, yes; everybody knows you; knows you're a big bully.  I've seen you
+drink a quart of this wood alcohol they call whisky up here, and then
+jump the bar from a stand, but you're all animal--you haven't the
+refinement and the culture that makes real strength.  It's the mind
+that makes us stand punishment."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Canadian.  "Wat a fonny talk.  She'll take
+the heducate man for stan' the col', eh?  Mon Dieu!"  He roared again
+till the sled dogs turned fearful glances backward and bushy tails
+drooped under the weight of their fright.  Great noise came oftenest
+with great rage from Pierre, and they had too frequently felt the both
+to forget.
+
+"Yes, you haven't the mentality.  Sometime you'll use up your physical
+resources and go to pieces like a burned wick."
+
+Pierre was greatly amused.  His yellow teeth shone, and he gave vent to
+violent mirth as, following the thought, he pictured a naked mind
+wandering over the hills with the quicksilver at sixty degrees.
+
+"Did you ever see a six-day race?  Of course not; you barbarians
+haven't sunk to the level of our dissolute East, where we joy in Roman
+spectacles, but if you had you'd see it's will that wins; it's the man
+that eats his soul by inches.  The educated soldier stands the campaign
+best.  You run too much to muscle--you're not balanced."
+
+"I t'ink mebbe you'll 'ave chance for show 'im, thees stout will of
+yours.  She's goin' be long 'mush' troo the mountains, plentee snow,
+plentee cold."
+
+Although Pierre's ridicule was galling, Willard felt the charm of the
+morning too strongly to admit of anger or to argue his pet theory.
+
+The sun, brilliant and cold, lent a paradoxical cheerfulness to the
+desolation, and, though never a sign of life broke the stillness around
+them, the beauty of the scintillant, gleaming mountains, distinct as
+cameos, that guarded the bay, appealed to him with the strange
+attraction of the Arctics; that attraction that calls and calls
+insistently, till men forsake God's country for its mystery.
+
+He breathed the biting air cleaned by leagues of lifeless barrens and
+voids of crackling frost till he ached with the exhilaration of a
+perfect morning on the Circle.
+
+Also before him undulated the grandest string of dogs the Coast had
+known.  Seven there were, tall and grey, with tails like plumes, whom
+none but Pierre could lay hand upon, fierce and fearless as their
+master.  He drove with the killing cruelty of a stampeder, and they
+loved him.
+
+"You say you have grub cached at the old Indian hut on the Good Hope?"
+questioned Willard.
+
+"Sure!  Five poun' bacon, leetle flour and rice.  I cache one gum-boot
+too, ha!  Good thing for make fire queeck, eh?"
+
+"You bet; an old rubber boot comes handy when it's too cold to make
+shavings."
+
+Leaving the coast, they ascended a deep and tortuous river where the
+snow lay thick and soft.  One man on snow-shoes broke trail for the
+dogs till they reached the foothills.  It was hard work, but infinitely
+preferable to that which followed, for now they came into a dangerous
+stretch of overflows.  The stream, frozen to its bed, clogged the
+passage of the spring water beneath, forcing it up through cracks till
+it spread over the solid ice, forming pools and sheets covered with
+treacherous ice-skins.  Wet feet are fatal to man and beast, and they
+made laborious detours, wallowing trails through tangled willows waist
+deep in the snow smother, or clinging precariously to the overhanging
+bluffs.  As they reached the river's source the sky blackened suddenly,
+and great clouds of snow rushed over the bleak hills, boiling down into
+the valley with a furious draught.  They flung up their flimsy tent,
+only to have it flattened by the force of the gale that cut like
+well-honed steel.  Frozen spots leaped out white on their faces, while
+their hands stiffened ere they could fasten the guy strings.
+
+Finally, having lashed the tent bottom to the protruding willow tops,
+by grace of heavy lifting they strained their flapping shelter up
+sufficiently to crawl within.
+
+"By Gar!  She's blow hup ver' queeck," yelled Pierre, as he set the
+ten-pound sheet-iron stove, its pipe swaying drunkenly with the heaving
+tent.
+
+"Good t'ing she hit us in the brush."  He spoke as calmly as though
+danger was distant, and a moment later the little box was roaring with
+its oil-soaked kindlings.
+
+"Will this stove burn green willow tops?" cried Willard.
+
+"Sure!  She's good stove.  She'll burn hicicles eef you get 'im start
+one times.  See 'im get red?"
+
+They rubbed the stiff spots from their cheeks, then, seizing the axe,
+Willard crawled forth into the storm and dug at the base of the gnarled
+bushes.  Occasionally a shrub assumed the proportions of a man's
+wrist--but rarely.  Gathering an armful, he bore them inside, and
+twisting the tips into withes, he fed the fire.  The frozen twigs
+sizzled and snapped, threatening to fail utterly, but with much blowing
+he sustained a blaze sufficient to melt a pot of snow.  Boiling was out
+of the question, but the tea leaves became soaked and the bacon
+cauterized.
+
+Pierre freed and fed the dogs.  Each gulped its dried salmon, and,
+curling in the lee of the tent, was quickly drifted over.  Next he cut
+blocks from the solid bottom snow and built a barricade to windward.
+Then he accumulated a mow of willow tops without the tent-fly.  All the
+time the wind drew down the valley like the breath of a giant bellows.
+
+"Supper," shouted Willard, and as Pierre crawled into the candle-light
+he found him squatted, fur-bundled, over the stove, which settled
+steadily into the snow, melting its way downward toward a firmer
+foundation.
+
+The heat was insufficient to thaw the frozen sweat in his clothes; his
+eyes were bleary and wet from smoke, and his nose needed continuous
+blowing, but he spoke pleasantly, a fact which Pierre noted with
+approval.
+
+"We'll need a habeas corpus for this stove if you don't get something
+to hold her up, and I might state, if it's worthy of mention, that your
+nose is frozen again."
+
+Pierre brought an armful of stones from the creek edge, distributing
+them beneath the stove on a bed of twisted willows; then swallowing
+their scanty, half-cooked food, they crawled, shivering, into the
+deerskin sleeping-bags, that animal heat might dry their clammy
+garments.
+
+Four days the wind roared and the ice filings poured over their shelter
+while they huddled beneath.  When one travels on rations delay is
+dangerous.  Each morning, dragging themselves out into the maelstrom,
+they took sticks and poked into the drifts for dogs.  Each animal as
+found was exhumed, given a fish, and became straightway reburied in the
+whirling white that seethed down from the mountains.
+
+On the fifth, without warning, the storm died, and the air stilled to a
+perfect silence.
+
+"These dog bad froze," said Pierre, swearing earnestly as he harnessed.
+"I don' like eet much.  They goin' play hout I'm 'fraid." He knelt and
+chewed from between their toes the ice pellets that had accumulated.  A
+malamoot is hard pressed to let his feet mass, and this added to the
+men's uneasiness.
+
+As they mounted the great divide, mountains rolled away on every hand,
+barren, desolate, marble-white; always the whiteness; always the
+listening silence that oppressed like a weight.  Myriads of creek
+valleys radiated below in a bewildering maze of twisting seams.
+
+"Those are the Ass's Ears, I suppose," said Willard, gazing at two
+great fangs that bit deep into the sky-line.  "Is it true that no man
+has ever reached them?"
+
+"Yes.  The hinjun say that's w'ere hall the storm come from, biccause
+w'en the win' blow troo the Ass's Ear, look out!  Somebody goin' ketch
+'ell."
+
+Dogs' feet wear quickly after freezing, for crusted snow cuts like a
+knife.  Spots of blood showed in their tracks, growing more plentiful
+till every print was a crimson stain.  They limped pitifully on their
+raw pads, and occasionally one whined.  At every stop they sank in
+track, licking their lacerated paws, rising only at the cost of much
+whipping.
+
+On the second night, faint and starved, they reached the hut.  Digging
+away the drifts, they crawled inside to find it half full of snow--snow
+which had sifted through the crevices.  Pierre groped among the shadows
+and swore excitedly.
+
+"What's up?" said Willard.
+
+Vocal effort of the simplest is exhausting when spent with hunger, and
+these were the first words he had spoken for hours.
+
+"By Gar! she's gone.  Somebody stole my grub!"
+
+Willard felt a terrible sinking, and his stomach cried for food.
+
+"How far is it to the Crooked River Road House?"
+
+"One long day drive--forty mile."
+
+"We must make it to-morrow or go hungry, eh?  Well this isn't the first
+dog fish I ever ate." Both men gnawed a mouldy dried salmon from their
+precious store.
+
+As Willard removed his footgear he groaned.
+
+"Wat's the mattaire?"
+
+"I froze my foot two days ago--snow-shoe strap too tight."  He
+exhibited a heel, from which, in removing his inner sock, the flesh and
+skin had come away.
+
+"That's all right," grinned Pierre.  "You got the beeg will lef' yet.
+It take the heducate man for stan' the col', you know."
+
+Willard gritted his teeth.
+
+They awoke to the whine of a grey windstorm that swept the cutting snow
+in swirling clouds and made travel a madness.  The next day was worse.
+
+Two days of hunger weigh heavy when the cold weakens, and they grew
+gaunt and fell away in their features.
+
+"I'm glad we've got another feed for the dogs," remarked Willard.  "We
+can't let them run hungry, even if we do."
+
+"I t'ink she's be hall right to-mor'," ventured Pierre.  "Thees ain't
+snow--jus' win'; bimeby all blow hout.  Sacre!  I'll can eat 'nuff for
+'ole harmy."
+
+For days both men had been cold, and the sensation of complete warmth
+had come to seem strange and unreal, while their faces cracked where
+the spots had been.
+
+Willard felt himself on the verge of collapse.  He recalled his words
+about strong men, gazing the while at Pierre.  The Canadian evinced
+suffering only in the haggard droop of eye and mouth; otherwise he
+looked strong and dogged.
+
+Willard felt his own features had shrunk to a mask of loose-jawed
+suffering, and he set his mental sinews, muttering to himself.
+
+He was dizzy and faint as he stretched himself in the still morning air
+upon waking, and hobbled painfully, but as his companion emerged from
+the darkened shelter into the crystalline brightness he forgot his own
+misery at sight of him.  The big man reeled as though struck when the
+dazzle from the hills reached him, and he moaned, shielding his sight.
+Snow-blindness had found him in a night.
+
+Slowly they plodded out of the valley, for hunger gnawed acutely, and
+they left a trail of blood tracks from the dogs.  It took the combined
+efforts of both men to lash them to foot after each pause.  Thus
+progress was slow and fraught with agony.
+
+As they rose near the pass, miles of Arctic wastes bared themselves.
+All about towered bald domes, while everywhere stretched the monotonous
+white, the endless snow unbroken by tree or shrub, pallid and menacing,
+maddening to the eye.
+
+"Thank God, the worst's over," sighed Willard, flinging himself onto
+the sled.  "We'll make it to the summit next time; then she's down hill
+all the way to the road house."
+
+Pierre said nothing.
+
+Away to the northward glimmered the Ass's Ears, and as the speaker eyed
+them carelessly he noted gauzy shreds and streamers veiling their tops.
+The phenomena interested him, for he knew that here must be wind--wind,
+the terror of the bleak tundra; the hopeless, merciless master of the
+barrens!  However, the distant range beneath the twin peaks showed
+clear-cut and distinct against the sky, and he did not mention the
+occurrence to the guide, although he recalled the words of the Indians:
+"Beware of the wind through the Ass's Ears."
+
+Again they laboured up the steep slope, wallowing in the sliding snow,
+straining silently at the load; again they threw themselves, exhausted,
+upon it.  Now, as he eyed the panorama below, it seemed to have
+suffered a subtle change, indefinable and odd.  Although but a few
+minutes had elapsed, the coast mountains no longer loomed clear against
+the horizon, and his visual range appeared foreshortened, as though the
+utter distances had lengthened, bringing closer the edge of things.
+The twin peaks seemed endlessly distant and hazy, while the air had
+thickened as though congested with possibilities, lending a remoteness
+to the landscape.
+
+"If it blows up on us here, we're gone," he thought, "for it's miles to
+shelter, and we're right in the saddle of the hills."
+
+Pierre, half blinded as he was, arose uneasily and cast the air like a
+wild beast, his great head thrown back, his nostrils quivering.
+
+"I smell the win'," he cried.  "Mon Dieu!  She's goin' blow!"
+
+A volatile pennant floated out from a near-bye peak, hanging about its
+crest like faint smoke.  Then along the brow of the pass writhed a wisp
+of drifting, twisting flakelets, idling hither and yon, astatic and
+aimless, settling in a hollow.  They sensed a thrill and rustle to the
+air, though never a breath had touched them; then, as they mounted
+higher, a draught fanned them, icy as interstellar space.  The view
+from the summit was grotesquely distorted, and glancing upward they
+found the guardian peaks had gone a-smoke with clouds of snow that
+whirled confusedly, while an increasing breath sucked over the summit,
+stronger each second.  Dry snow began to rustle slothfully about their
+feet.  So swiftly were the changes wrought, that before the mind had
+grasped their import the storm was on them, roaring down from every
+side, swooping out of the boiling sky, a raging blast from the voids of
+sunless space.
+
+Pierre's shouts as he slashed at the sled lashings were snatched from
+his lips in scattered scraps.  He dragged forth the whipping tent and
+threw himself upon it with the sleeping-bags.  Having cut loose the
+dogs, Willard crawled within his sack and they drew the flapping canvas
+over them.  The air was twilight and heavy with efflorescent granules
+that hurtled past in a drone.
+
+They removed their outer garments that the fur might fold closer
+against them, and lay exposed to the full hate of the gale.  They hoped
+to be drifted over, but no snow could lodge in this hurricane, and it
+sifted past, dry and sharp, eddying out a bare place wherein they lay.
+Thus the wind drove the chill to their bones bitterly.
+
+An unnourished human body responds but weakly, so, vitiated by their
+fast and labours, their suffering smote them with tenfold cruelty.
+
+All night the north wind shouted, and, as the next day waned with its
+violence undiminished, the frost crept in upon them till they rolled
+and tossed shivering.  Twice they essayed to crawl out, but were driven
+back to cower for endless, hopeless hours.
+
+It is in such black, aimless times that thought becomes distorted.
+Willard felt his mind wandering through bleak dreams and tortured
+fancies, always to find himself harping on his early argument with
+Pierre: "It's the mind that counts."  Later he roused to the fact that
+his knees, where they pressed against the bag, were frozen; also his
+feet were numb and senseless.  In his acquired consciousness he knew
+that along the course of his previous mental vagary lay madness, and
+the need of action bore upon him imperatively.
+
+He shouted to his mate, but "Wild" Pierre seemed strangely apathetic.
+
+"We've got to run for it at daylight.  We're freezing.  Here!  Hold on!
+What are you doing?  Wait for daylight!"  Pierre had scrambled stiffly
+out of his cover and his gabblings reached Willard.  He raised a
+clenched fist into the darkness of the streaming night, cursing
+horribly with words that appalled the other.
+
+"Man! man! don't curse your God.  This is bad enough as it is.  Cover
+up.  Quick!"
+
+Although apparently unmindful of his presence, the other crawled back
+muttering.
+
+As the dim morning greyed the smother they rose and fought their way
+downward toward the valley.  Long since they had lost their griping
+hunger, and now held only an apathetic indifference to food, with a
+cringing dread of the cold and a stubborn sense of their extreme
+necessity.
+
+They fell many times, but gradually drew themselves more under control,
+the exercise suscitating them, as they staggered downward, blinded and
+buffeted, their only hope the road-house.
+
+Willard marvelled dully at the change in Pierre.  His face had
+shrivelled to blackened freezes stretched upon a bony substructure, and
+lighted by feverish, glittering, black, black eyes.  It seemed to him
+that his own lagging body had long since failed, and that his aching,
+naked soul wandered stiffly through the endless day.  As night
+approached Pierre stopped frequently, propping himself with legs far
+apart; sometimes he laughed.  Invariably this horrible sound shocked
+Willard into a keener sense of the surroundings, and it grew to
+irritate him, for the Frenchman's mental wanderings increased with the
+darkness.  What made him rouse one with his awful laughter?  These
+spells of walking insensibility were pleasanter far.  At last the big
+man fell.  To Willard's mechanical endeavours to help he spoke
+sleepily, but with the sanity of a man under great stress.
+
+"Dat no good.  I'm goin' freeze right 'ere--freeze stiff as 'ell.  Au
+revoir."
+
+"Get up!" Willard kicked him weakly, then sat upon the prostrate man as
+his own faculties went wandering.
+
+Eventually he roused, and digging into the snow buried the other, first
+covering his face with the ample parka hood.  Then he struck down the
+valley.  In one lucid spell he found he had followed a sled trail,
+which was blown clear and distinct by the wind that had now almost died
+away.
+
+Occasionally his mind grew clear, and his pains beat in upon him till
+he grew furious at the life in him which refused to end, which forced
+him ever through this gauntlet of misery.  More often he was conscious
+only of a vague and terrible extremity outside of himself that goaded
+him forever forward.  Anon he strained to recollect his destination.
+His features had set in an implacable grimace of physical torture--like
+a runner in the fury of a finish--till the frost hardened them so.  At
+times he fell heavily, face downward, and at length upon the trail,
+lying so till that omnipresent coercion that had frozen in his brain
+drove him forward.
+
+He heard his own voice maundering through lifeless lips like that of a
+stranger: "The man that can eat his soul will win, Pierre."
+
+Sometimes he cried like a child and slaver ran from his open mouth,
+freezing at his breast.  One of his hands was going dead.  He stripped
+the left mitten off and drew it laboriously over the right.  One he
+would save at least, even though he lost the other.  He looked at the
+bare member dully, and he could not tell that the cold had eased till
+the bitterness was nearly out of the air.  He laboured with the fitful
+spurts of a machine run down.
+
+Ten men and many dogs lay together in the Crooked River Road House
+through the storm.  At late bedtime of the last night came a scratching
+on the door.
+
+"Somebody's left a dog outside," said a teamster, and rose to let him
+in.  He opened the door only to retreat affrightedly.
+
+"My God!" he said.  "My God!" and the miners crowded forward.
+
+A figure tottered over the portal, swaying drunkenly.  They shuddered
+at the sight of its face as it crossed toward the fire.  It did not
+walk; it shuffled, haltingly, with flexed knees and hanging shoulders,
+the strides measuring inches only--a grisly burlesque upon senility.
+
+Pausing in the circle, it mumbled thickly, with great effort, as though
+gleaning words from infinite distance:
+
+"Wild Pierre--frozen--buried--in--snow--hurry!"  Then he straightened
+and spoke strongly, his voice flooding the room:
+
+"It's the mind, Pierre.  Ha! ha! ha!  The mind."
+
+He cackled hideously, and plunged forward into a miner's arms.
+
+
+It was many days before his delirium broke.  Gradually he felt the
+pressure of many bandages upon him, and the hunger of convalescence.
+As he lay in his bunk the past came to him hazy and horrible; then the
+hum of voices, one loud, insistent, and familiar.
+
+He turned weakly, to behold Pierre propped in a chair by the stove,
+frost-scarred and pale, but aggressive even in recuperation.  He
+gesticulated fiercely with a bandaged hand, hot in controversy with
+some big-limbed, bearded strangers.
+
+"Bah!  You fellers no good--too beeg in the ches', too leetle in the
+forehead.  She'll tak' the heducate mans for stan' the 'ardsheep--lak'
+me an' Meestaire Weelard."
+
+
+
+
+NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE
+
+Big George was drinking, and the activities of the little Arctic
+mining camp were paralysed.  Events invariably ceased their progress
+and marked time when George became excessive, and now nothing of
+public consequence stirred except the quicksilver, which was retiring
+fearfully into its bulb at the song of the wind which came racing
+over the lonesome, bitter, northward waste of tundra.
+
+He held the centre of the floor at the Northern Club, and proclaimed
+his modest virtues in a voice as pleasant as the cough of a
+bull-walrus.
+
+"Yes, me!  Little Georgie!  I did it.  I've licked 'em all from
+Herschel Island to Dutch Harbour, big uns and little uns.  When they
+didn't suit I made 'em over.  I'm the boss carpenter of the Arctic
+and I own this camp; don't I, Slim?  Hey?  Answer me!" he roared at
+the emaciated bearer of the title, whose attention seemed wandering
+from the inventory of George's startling traits toward a card game.
+
+"Sure ye do," nervously smiled Slim, frightened out of a heart-solo
+as he returned to his surroundings.
+
+"Well, then, listen to what I'm saying.  I'm the big chief of the
+village, and when I'm stimulated and happy them fellers I don't like
+hides out and lets me and Nature operate things.  Ain't that right?"
+He glared inquiringly at his friends.
+
+Red, the proprietor, explained over the bar in a whisper to Captain,
+the new man from Dawson: "That's Big George, the whaler.  He's a
+squaw-man and sort of a bully--see?  When he's sober he's on the
+level strickly, an' we all likes him fine, but when he gets to
+fightin' the pain-killer, he ain't altogether a gentleman.  Will he
+fight?  Oh!  Will he fight?  Say! he's there with chimes, he is!
+Why, Doc Miller's made a grub-stake rebuildin' fellers that's had a
+lingerin' doubt cached away about that, an' now when he gets the
+booze up his nose them patched-up guys oozes away an' hibernates till
+the gas dies out in him.  Afterwards he's sore on himself an'
+apologizes to everybody.  Don't get into no trouble with him, cause
+he's two checks past the limit.  They don't make 'em as bad as him
+any more.  He busted the mould."
+
+George turned, and spying the new-comer, approached, eyeing him with
+critical disfavour.
+
+Captain saw a bear-like figure, clad cap-a-pie in native fashion.
+Reindeer pants, with the hair inside, clothed legs like rock pillars,
+while out of the loose squirrel parka a corded neck rose, brown and
+strong, above which darkly gleamed a rugged face seamed and scarred
+by the hate of Arctic winters.  He had kicked off his deer-skin
+socks, and stood bare-footed on the cold and draughty floor, while
+the poison he had imbibed showed only in his heated face, Silently he
+extended a cracked and hardened hand, which closed like the armoured
+claw of a crustacean and tightened on the crunching fingers of the
+other.  Captain's expression remained unchanged and, gradually
+slackening his grip, the sailor roughly inquired:
+
+"Where'd you come from?"
+
+"Just got in from Dawson yesterday," politely responded the stranger.
+
+"Well! what're you goin' to do now you're here?" he demanded.
+
+"Stake some claims and go to prospecting, I guess.  You see, I wanted
+to get in early before the rush next spring."
+
+"Oh!  I 'spose you're going to jump some of our ground, hey?  Well,
+you ain't!  We don't want no claim jumpers here," disagreeably
+continued the seaman; "we won't stand for it.  This is my camp--see?
+I own it, and these is my little children."  Then, as the other
+refused to debate with him, he resumed, groping for a new ground of
+attack.
+
+"Say!  I'll bet you're one of them eddicated dudes, too, ain't you?
+You talk like a feller that had been to college," and, as the other
+assented, he scornfully called to his friends, saying "Look here,
+fellers!  Pipe the jellyfish!  I never see one of these here animals
+that was worth a cuss; they plays football an' smokes cigareets at
+school; then when they're weaned they come off up here an' jump our
+claims 'cause we can't write a location notice proper.  They ain't no
+good.  I guess I'll stop it."
+
+Captain moved toward the door, but the whaler threw his bulky frame
+against it and scowlingly blocked the way.
+
+"No, you don't.  You ain't goin' to run away till I've had the next
+dance, Mister Eddication!  Humph!  I ain't begun to tell ye yet what
+a useless little barnacle you are."
+
+Red interfered, saying: "Look 'ere, George, this guy ain't no
+playmate of yourn.  We'll all have a jolt of this disturbance
+promoter, an' call it off."  Then, as the others approached he winked
+at Captain, and jerked his head slightly toward the door.
+
+The latter, heeding the signal, started out, but George leaped after
+him and, seizing an arm, whirled him back, roaring:
+
+"Well, of all the cussed impidence I ever see!  You're too high-toned
+to drink with us, are you?  You don't get out of here now till you
+take a lickin' like a man."
+
+He reached over his head and, grasping the hood of his fur shirt,
+with one movement he stripped it from him, exposing a massive naked
+body, whose muscles swelled and knotted beneath a skin as clear as a
+maiden's, while a map of angry scars strayed across the heavy chest.
+
+As the shirt sailed through the air.  Red lightly vaulted to the bar
+and, diving at George's naked middle, tackled beautifully, crying to
+Captain: "Get out quick; we'll hold him."
+
+Others rushed forward and grasped the bulky sailor, but Captain's
+voice replied: "I sort of like this place, and I guess I'll stay a
+while.  Turn him loose."
+
+"Why, man, he'll kill ye," excitedly cried Slim.  "Get out!"
+
+The captive hurled his peacemakers from him and, shaking off the
+clinging arms, drove furiously at the insolent stranger.
+
+In the cramped limits of the corner where he stood.  Captain was
+unable to avoid the big man, who swept him with a crash against the
+plank door at his back, grasping hungrily at his throat.  As his
+shoulders struck, however, he dropped to his knees and, before the
+raging George could seize him, he avoided a blow which would have
+strained the rivets of a strength-tester and ducked under the other's
+arms, leaping to the cleared centre of the floor.
+
+Seldom had the big man's rush been avoided and, whirling, he swung a
+boom-like arm at the agile stranger.  Before it landed, Captain
+stepped in to meet his adversary and, with the weight of his body
+behind the blow, drove a clenched and bony fist crashing into the
+other's face.  The big head with its blazing shock of hair snapped
+backward and the whaler drooped to his knees at the other's feet.
+
+The drunken flush of victory swept over Captain as he stood above the
+swaying figure; then, suddenly, he felt the great bare arms close
+about his waist with a painful grip.  He struck at the bleeding face
+below him and wrenched at the circling bands which wheezed the breath
+from his lungs, but the whaler squeezed him writhing to his breast,
+and, rising, unsteadily wheeled across the floor and in a shiver of
+broken glass fell crashing against the bar and to the floor.
+
+As the struggling men writhed upon the planks the door opened at the
+hurried entrance of an excited group, which paused at the sight of
+the ruin, then, rushing forward, tore the men apart.
+
+The panting Berserker strained at the arms about his glistening body,
+while Captain, with sobbing sighs, relieved his aching lungs and
+watched his enemy, who frothed at the interference.
+
+"It was George's fault," explained Slim to the questions of the
+arrivals.  "This feller tried to make a get-away, but George had to
+have his amusement."
+
+A new-comer addressed the squaw-man in a voice as cold as the wind.
+"Cut this out, George!  This is a friend of mine.  You're making this
+camp a regular hell for strangers, and now I'm goin' to tap your
+little snap.  Cool off--see?"
+
+Jones's reputation as a bad gun-man went hand in hand with his name
+as a good gambler, and his scanty remarks invariably evoked attentive
+answers, so George explained: "I don't like him Jones, and I was jus'
+makin' him over to look like a man.  I'll do it yet, too," he flashed
+wrathfully at his quiet antagonist.
+
+"'Pears to me like he's took a hand in the remodelling himself,"
+replied the gambler, "but if you're lookin' for something to do,
+here's your chance.  Windy Jim just drove in and says Barton and Kid
+Sullivan are adrift on the ice."
+
+"What's that?" questioned eager voices, and, forgetting the recent
+trouble at the news, the crowd pressed forward anxiously.
+
+"They was crossing the bay and got carried out by the off-shore
+gale," explained Jones.  "Windy was follerin' 'em when the ice ahead
+parted and begun movin' out.  He tried to yell to 'em, but they was
+too far away to hear in the storm.  He managed to get back to the
+land and follered the shore ice around.  He's over at Hunter's cabin
+now, most dead, face and hands froze pretty bad."
+
+A torrent of questions followed and many suggestions as to the fate
+of the men.
+
+"They'll freeze before they can get ashore," said one.
+
+"The ice-pack'll break up in this wind," added another, "and if they
+don't drown, they'll freeze before the floe comes in close enough for
+them to land."
+
+From the first announcement of his friends' peril, Captain had been
+thinking rapidly.  His body, sore from his long trip and aching from
+the hug of his recent encounter, cried woefully for rest, but his
+voice rose calm and clear:
+
+"We've got to get them off," he said.  "Who will go with me?  Three
+is enough."
+
+The clamouring voices ceased, and the men wheeled at the sound,
+gazing incredulously at the speaker.  "What!"--"In this
+storm?"--"You're crazy," many voices said.
+
+He gazed appealingly at the faces before him.  Brave and adventurous
+men he knew them to be, jesting with death, and tempered to perils in
+this land where hardship rises with the dawn, but they shook their
+ragged heads hopelessly.
+
+"We _must_ save them!" resumed Captain hotly.  "Barton and I played
+as children together, and if there's not a man among you who's got
+the nerve to follow me--I'll go alone by Heavens!"
+
+In the silence of the room, he pulled the cap about his ears and,
+tying it snugly under his chin, drew on his huge fur mittens; then
+with a scornful laugh he turned toward the door.
+
+He paused as his eye caught the swollen face of Big George.  Blood
+had stiffened in the heavy creases of his face like rusted stringers
+in a ledge, while his mashed and discoloured lips protruded thickly.
+His hair gleamed red, and the sweat had dried upon his naked
+shoulders, streaked with dirt and flecked with spots of blood, yet
+the battered features shone with the unconquered, fearless light of a
+rough, strong man.
+
+Captain strode to him with outstretched hand.  "You're a man," he
+said.  "You've got the nerve, George, and you'll go with me, won't
+you?"
+
+"What!  Me?" questioned the sailor vaguely.  His wondering glance
+left Captain, and drifted round the circle of shamed and silent
+faces--then he straightened stiffly and cried: "Will I go with you?
+Certainly!  I'll go to ---- with you."
+
+Ready hands harnessed the dogs, dragged from protected nooks where
+they sought cover from the storm which moaned and whistled round the
+low houses.  Endless ragged folds of sleet whirled out of the north,
+then writhed and twisted past, vanishing into the grey veil which
+shrouded the landscape in a twilight gloom.
+
+The fierce wind sank the cold into the aching flesh like a knife and
+stiffened the face to a whitening mask, while a fusillade of frozen
+ice-particles beat against the eyeballs with blinding fury.
+
+As Captain emerged from his cabin, furred and hooded, he found a long
+train of crouching, whining animals harnessed and waiting, while
+muffled figures stocked the sled with robes and food and stimulants.
+
+Big George approached through the whirling white, a great squat
+figure with fluttering squirrel tails blowing from his parka, and at
+his heels there trailed a figure, skin-clad and dainty.
+
+"It's my wife," he explained briefly to Captain.  "She won't let me
+go alone."
+
+They gravely bade farewell to all, and the little crowd cheered
+lustily against the whine of the blizzard as, with cracking whip and
+hoarse shouts, they were wrapped in the cloudy winding sheet of snow.
+
+
+Arctic storms have an even sameness; the intense cold, the heartless
+wind which augments tenfold the chill of the temperature, the air
+thick and dark with stinging flakes rushing by in an endless cloud.
+A drifting, freezing, shifting eternity of snow, driven by a ravening
+gale which sweeps the desolate, bald wastes of the Northland.
+
+The little party toiled through the smother till they reached the
+"egloos" under the breast of the tall, coast bluffs, where coughing
+Eskimos drilled patiently at ivory tusks and gambled the furs from
+their backs at stud-horse poker.
+
+To George's inquiries they answered that their largest canoe was the
+three-holed bidarka on the cache outside.  Owing to the small
+circular openings in its deck, this was capable of holding but three
+passengers, and Captain said; "We'll have to make two trips, George."
+
+"Two trips, eh?" answered the other.  "We'll be doin' well if we last
+through one, I'm thinking."
+
+Lashing the unwieldy burden upon the sled, they fought their way
+along the coast again till George declared they were opposite the
+point where their friends went adrift.  They slid their light craft
+through the ragged wall of ice hummocks guarding the shore pack, and
+dimly saw, in the grey beyond them, a stretch of angry waters mottled
+by drifting cakes and floes.
+
+George spoke earnestly to his wife, instructing her to keep the team
+in constant motion up and down the coast a rifle-shot in either
+direction, and to listen for a signal of the return.  Then he picked
+her up as he would a babe, and she kissed his storm-beaten face.
+
+"She's been a good squaw to me," he said, as they pushed their
+dancing craft out into the breath of the gale, "and I've always done
+the square thing by her; I s'pose she'll go back to her people now,
+though."
+
+The wind hurried them out from land, while it drove the sea-water in
+freezing spray over their backs and changed their fur garments into
+scaly armour, as they worked through the ice cakes, peering with
+strained eyes for a sign of their friends.
+
+The sailor, with deft strokes, steered them, between the grinding
+bergs, raising his voice in lone signals like the weird cry of a
+siren.
+
+Twisting back and forth through the floes, they held to their quest,
+now floating with the wind, now paddling desperately in a race with
+some drifting mass which dimly towered above them and splintered
+hungrily against its neighbour close in their wake.
+
+Captain emptied his six-shooter till his numbed fingers grew rigid as
+the trigger, and always at his back swelled the deep shouts of the
+sailor, who, with practised eye and mighty strokes, forced their way
+through the closing lanes between the jaws of the ice pack.
+
+At last, beaten and tossed, they rested disheartened and hopeless.
+Then, as they drifted, a sound struggled to them against the wind--a
+faint cry, illusive and fleeting as a dream voice--and, still
+doubting, they heard it again.
+
+"Thank God!  We'll save 'em yet," cried Captain, and they drove the
+canoe boiling toward the sound.
+
+Barton and Sullivan had fought the cold and wind stoutly hour after
+hour, till they found their great floe was breaking up in the heaving
+waters.
+
+Then the horror of it had struck the Kid, till he raved and cursed up
+and down their little island, as it dwindled gradually to a small
+acre.
+
+He had finally yielded to the weight of the cold which crushed
+resistance out of him, and settled, despairing and listless, upon the
+ice.  Barton dragged him to his feet and forced him round their
+rocking prison, begging him to brace up, to fight it out like a man,
+till the other insisted on resting, and dropped to his seat again.
+
+The older man struck deliberately at the whitening face of his
+freezing companion, who recognized the well-meant insult and refused
+to be roused into activity.  Then to their ears had come the faint
+cries of George, and, in answer to their screams, through the gloom
+they beheld a long, covered, skin canoe, and the anxious faces of
+their friends.
+
+Captain rose from his cramped seat, and, ripping his crackling
+garments from the boat where they had frozen, he wriggled out of the
+hole in the deck and grasped the weeping Barton.
+
+"Come, come, old boy!  It's all right now," he said.
+
+"Oh, Charlie, Charlie!" cried the other.  "I might have known you'd
+try to save us.  You're just in time, though, for the Kid's about all
+in."  Sullivan apathetically nodded and sat down again.
+
+"Hurry up there; this ain't no G. A. R. Encampment, and you ain't got
+no time to spare," said George, who had dragged the canoe out and,
+with a paddle, broke the sheets of ice which covered it.  "It'll be
+too dark to see anything in half an hour."
+
+The night, hastened by the storm, was closing rapidly, and they
+realized another need of haste, for, even as they spoke, a crack had
+crawled through the ice-floe where they stood, and, widening as it
+went, left but a heaving cake supporting them.
+
+George spoke quietly to Captain, while Barton strove to animate the
+Kid.  "You and Barton must take him ashore and hurry him down to the
+village.  He's most gone now."
+
+"But you?" questioned the other.  "We'll have to come back for you,
+as soon as we put him ashore."
+
+"Never mind me," roughly interrupted George.  "It's too late to get
+back here.  When you get ashore it'll be dark.  Besides Sullivan's
+freezing, and you'll have to rush him through quick.  I'll stay here."
+
+"No!  No!  George!" cried the other, as the meaning of it bore in
+upon him.  "I got you into this thing, and it's my place to stay
+here.  You must go--"
+
+But the big man had hurried to Sullivan, and, seizing him in his
+great hands, shook the drowsy one like a rat, cursing and beating a
+goodly share of warmth back into him.  Then he dragged the listless
+burden to the canoe and forced him to a seat in the middle opening.
+
+"Come, come," he cried to the others; "you can't spend all night
+here.  If you want to save the Kid, you've got to hurry.  You take
+the front seat there, Barton," and, as he did so, George turned to
+the protesting Captain: "Shut up, curse you, and get in!"
+
+"I won't do it," rebelled the other.  "I can't let you lay down your
+life in this way, when I made you come."
+
+George thrust a cold face within an inch of the other's and grimly
+said: "If they hadn't stopped me, I'd beat you into dog-meat this
+morning, and if you don't quit this snivelling I'll do it yet.  Now
+get in there and paddle to beat ---- or you'll never make it back.
+Quick!"
+
+"I'll come back for you then, George, if I live to the shore,"
+Captain cried, while the other slid the burdened canoe into the icy
+waters.
+
+As they drove the boat into the storm, Captain realized the
+difficulty of working their way against the gale.  On him fell the
+added burden of holding their course into the wind and avoiding the
+churning ice cakes.  The spray whipped into his face like shot, and
+froze as it clung to his features.  He strained at his paddle till
+the sweat soaked out of him and the cold air filled his aching lungs.
+
+Unceasingly the merciless frost cut his face like a keen blade, till
+he felt the numb paralysis which told him his features were hardening
+under the touch of the cold.
+
+An arm's length ahead the shoulders of the Kid protruded from the
+deck hole where he had sunk again into the death sleep, while Barton,
+in the forward seat, leaned wearily on his ice-clogged paddle,
+moaning as he strove to shelter his face from the sting of the
+blizzard.
+
+An endless time they battled with the storm, slowly gaining, foot by
+foot, till in the darkness ahead they saw the wall of shore ice and
+swung into its partial shelter.
+
+Dragging the now unconscious Sullivan from the boat, Captain rolled
+and threshed him, while Barton, too weak and exhausted to assist,
+feebly strove to warm his stiffened limbs.
+
+In answer to their signals, the team appeared, maddened by the lash
+of the squaw.  Then they wrapped Sullivan in warm robes, and forced
+scorching brandy down his throat, till he coughed weakly and begged
+them to let him rest.
+
+"You must hurry him to the Indian village," directed Captain.  "He'll
+only lose some fingers and toes now, maybe; but you've got to hurry!"
+
+"Aren't you coming, too?" queried Barton.  "We'll hire some Eskimos
+to go after George.  I'll pay 'em anything."
+
+"No, I'm going back to him now; he'd freeze before we could send
+help, and, besides, they wouldn't come out in the storm and the dark."
+
+"But you can't work that big canoe alone.  If you get out there and
+don't find him you'll never get back.  Charlie! let me go, too," he
+said; then apologized.  "I'm afraid I won't last, though; I'm too
+weak."
+
+The squaw, who had questioned not at the absence of her lord, now
+touched Captain's arm.  "Come," she said; "I go with you." Then
+addressing Barton, "You quick go Indian house; white man die, mebbe.
+Quick!  I go Big George."
+
+"Ah, Charlie, I'm afraid you'll never make it," cried Barton, and,
+wringing his friend's hand, he staggered into the darkness behind the
+sled wherein lay the fur-bundled Sullivan.
+
+Captain felt a horror of the starving waters rise up in him and a
+panic shook him fiercely, till he saw the silent squaw waiting for
+him at the ice edge.  He shivered as the wind searched through his
+dampened parka and hardened the wet clothing next to his body, but he
+took his place and dug the paddle fiercely into the water, till the
+waves licked the hair of his gauntlets.
+
+The memory of that scudding trip through the darkness was always
+cloudy and visioned.  Periods of keen alertness alternated with
+moments when his weariness bore upon him till he stiffly bent to his
+work, wondering what it all meant.
+
+It was the woman's sharpened ear which caught the first answering
+cry, and her hands which steered the intricate course to the heaving
+berg where the sailor crouched, for, at their approach, Captain had
+yielded to the drowse of weariness and, in his relief at the finding,
+the blade floated from his listless hands.
+
+He dreamed quaint dreams, broken by the chilling lash of spray from
+the strokes of the others, as they drove the craft back against the
+wind, and he only partly awoke from his lethargy when George wrenched
+him from his seat and forced him down the rough trail toward warmth
+and safety.
+
+Soon, however, the stagnant blood tingled through his veins, and
+under the shelter of the bluffs they reached the village, where they
+found the anxious men waiting.
+
+Skilful natives had worked the frost from Sullivan's members, and the
+stimulants in the sled had put new life into Barton as well.  So, as
+the three crawled wearily through the dog-filled tunnel of the egloo,
+they were met by two wet-eyed and thankful men, who silently wrung
+their hands or uttered broken words.
+
+When they had been despoiled of their frozen furs, and the welcome
+heat of whisky and fire had met in their blood, Captain approached
+the whaler, who rested beside his mate.
+
+"George, you're the bravest man I ever knew, and your woman is worthy
+of you," he said.  He continued slowly, "I'm sorry about the fight
+this morning, too."
+
+The big man rose and, crushing the extended palm in his grasp, said:
+"We'll just let that go double, partner.  You're as game as I ever
+see."  Then he added: "It was too bad them fellers interferred jest
+when they did--but we can finish it up whenever you say," and as the
+other, smiling, shook his head, he continued:
+
+"Well, I'm glad of it, 'cause you'd sure beat me the next time."
+
+
+
+
+WHERE NORTHERN LIGHTS COME DOWN O' NIGHTS
+
+The Mission House at Togiak stands forlornly on a wind-swept Alaskan
+spit, while huddled around it a swarm of dirt-covered "igloos" grovel
+in an ecstacy of abasement.
+
+Many natives crawled out of these and stared across the bay as down a
+gully came an Arctic caravan, men and dogs, black against, the deadly
+whiteness.  Ahead swung the guide, straddling awkwardly on his five
+foot webs, while the straining pack pattered at his heels.  Big
+George, the driver, urged them with strong words, idioms of the
+Northland, and his long whip bit sharply at their legs.
+
+His companion, clinging to the sled, stumbled now and then, while his
+face, splitting from the snap of the frost, was smothered in a
+muffler.  Sometimes he fell, plunging into the snow, rising
+painfully, and groaning with the misery of "snow-blindness."
+
+"Most there now.  Cap, keep up your grit."
+
+"I'm all right," answered the afflicted man, wearily.  "Don't mind
+me."
+
+George, too, had suffered from the sheen of the unbroken whiteness,
+and, while his eyes had not wholly closed, he saw but dimly.  His
+cheeks were grease-smeared, and blackened with charred wood to break
+the snow-glare, but through his mask showed signs of suffering, while
+his blood-shot eyes dripped scalding tears and throbbed
+distressfully.  For days he had not dared to lose sight of the guide.
+Once he had caught him sneaking the dogs away, and he feared he had
+killed the man for a time.  Now Jaska broke trail ahead, his sullen,
+swollen features baleful in their injury.
+
+Down the steep bank they slid, across the humped up sea ice at the
+river mouth and into the village.
+
+At the greeting of their guide to his tribesmen, George started.
+Twelve years of coast life had taught him the dialect from Point
+Barrow south, and he glanced at Captain to find whether he, too, had
+heard the message.  As Jaska handed a talisman to the chief he strode
+to him and snatched it.
+
+"Oho!  It's Father Orloff, is it?  D---- him!"  He gazed at the
+token, a white spruce chip with strange marks and carvings.
+
+"What does it mean, George?" said the blind man.
+
+"It's a long story, Charlie, and black.  You should have known it
+before we started.  I'm a marked man in this coast country.  It's
+Orloff's work, the renegade.  'Father,' he calls himself.  Father to
+these devils he rules and robs for himself in the name of the Church.
+His hate is bitter, and he'd have my life if these watery-livered
+curs didn't dread the sound of my voice.  God help him when we meet."
+
+He shook his hairy claws at the hostile circle, then cried to the
+chief in the native tongue:--
+
+"Oh, Shaman!  We come bleeding and weary.  Hunger grips us and our
+bones are stiff with frost.  The light is gone from my brother's eyes
+and we are sick.  Open you the door to the Mission House that the
+'Minoks' may rest and grow strong."
+
+The Indians clustered before the portal, with its rude cross above,
+and stared malignantly, while the chief spoke.  At the name of his
+enemy the unsightly eyes of George gleamed, and he growled
+contemptuously, advancing among them.  They scattered at the manner
+of his coming, and he struck the padlocked door till it rattled
+stiffly.  Then spying the cross overhead he lifted up and gripped the
+wood.  It came away ripping, and with wails of rage and horror at the
+sacrilege, they closed about him.
+
+"Here, Cap!  Bust her in quick!"  He dragged Captain before the
+entrance, thrusting the weapon upon him, then ran ferociously among
+the people.  He snatched them to him, cuffing like a bear and
+trampling them into the snow.  Those who came into the reach of his
+knotty arms crumpled up and twisted under his feet.  He whirled into
+the group, roaring hoarsely, his angry, grease-blackened face hideous
+with rage.  The aborigine is not a fighting machine; for him the
+side-step and counter have no being.  They melted ahead of his
+blazing wrath, and he whisked them, fleeing, by their garments, so
+that they felt the stamp of his moccasined heels.
+
+Captain dragged the team within, and George following, blocked the
+shattered door.
+
+"We're safe as long as we stay in the Church," said he.
+
+"Right of sanctuary, eh?  Does it occur to you how we're going to get
+out?"
+
+"Never mind, we'll get out somehow," said he, and that night, as
+Charlie Captain, late University man and engineer, lay with eyes
+swathed in steaming cloths, the whaler spoke operosely and with the
+bitterness of great wrong.
+
+"It happened when we rocked the bars of Forty Mile, before ever a
+Chechako had crossed the Chilcoot.  I went over to the headwaters of
+the Tanana.  Into the big valley I went and got lost in the Flats.
+'Tis a wild country, rimmed by high mountains, full of niggerheads
+and tundra, with the river windin' clean back to the source of the
+Copper.  I run out of grub.  We always did them days, and built a
+raft to float down to the Yukon.  A race with starvation, and a dead
+heat it near proved, too, though I had a shade the best of it.  I
+drifted out into the main river, ravin' mad, my 'Mukluks' eat off and
+my moose-hide gun cover inside of me.
+
+"A girl spied me from the village, and 'twas her brought me ashore in
+her birch-bark and tended me in her wick-i-up till reason came and
+the blood ran through me again.
+
+"I mind seein' a white man stand around at times and hearin' him beg
+her to leave me to the old squaws.  She didn't though.  She gave me
+bits of moose meat and berries and dried salmon, and when I come to
+one day I saw she was little and brown and pleadin' and her clothes
+all covered with beads.  Her eyes was big and sad, Cap, and dimples
+poked into her cheeks when she laughed.
+
+"'Twas then that Orloff takes a hand--the white man.  A priest he
+called himself; breed, Russian.  Maybe he was, but a blacker hearted
+thief never wronged a child.  He wanted the girl, Metla, and so did
+I.  When I asked her old man for her he said she was promised to the
+Russian.  I laughed at him, and a chief hates to be mocked.  You know
+what sway the Church has over these Indians.  Well, Orloff is a
+strong man.  He held 'em like a rock.  He worked on 'em till one day
+the tribemen came to me in a body and said, 'Go!'
+
+"'Give me the girl, and I will,' says I.
+
+"Orloff sneered.  'She was mine for a month before ye came,' says he
+with the fiend showin' back of his eyes.  'Do ye want her now?'
+
+"For a minute I believed him.  I struck once to kill, and he went
+down.  They closed on me as fast as I shook 'em off.  'Twas a
+beautiful sight for a ruction, on the high banks over the river, but
+I was like water from the sickness.  I fought to get at their priest
+where he lay, to stamp out his grinning face before they downed me,
+but I was beat back to the bluff and I battled with my heels over the
+edge.  I broke a pole from the fish-rack and a good many went down.
+Then I heard Metla calling softly from below:--
+
+"'Jump!' she said.  'Big one, jump.'
+
+"She had loosed a canoe at the landing and now held it in the boiling
+current underneath, paddling desperately.
+
+"As they ran out of the tents with their rifles I leaped.
+
+"A long drop and cold water, but I hit feet first.  When I rose the
+little girl was alongside.
+
+"It's a ticklish thing to crawl over the stern of a canoe in the
+spatter of slugs, with the roar of muzzle-loaders above.  It's
+shakin' to the nerves, but the maid never flinched, not even when a
+bullet split the gunnel.  She ripped a piece of her dress and plugged
+a hole under the water line while I paddled out of range.
+
+"The next winter at Holy Cross she ran to me shaking one day.
+
+"'He is here!  He is here!  Oh, Big man, I am afraid!'
+
+"'Who's here?' says I.
+
+"'He is here--Father Orloff,' and her eyes was round and scared so
+that I took her up and kissed her while she clung to me--she was such
+a little girl.
+
+"'He spoke to me at the water-hole, "I have come for you."  I ran
+very fast, but he came behind.  "Where is George?"' he said.
+
+"I went out of the cabin down to the Mission, and into the house of
+Father Barnum.  He was there.
+
+"'Orloff!  What do ye want?' I says.
+
+"Father Barnum speaks up--'he's known for a good man the length of
+the river.  George,' says he, 'Father Orloff tells me you stole the
+girl Metla from her tribe.  'Tis a shameful thing for a white to take
+a red girl for his wife, but it's a crime to live as you do.'
+
+"'What?' says I.
+
+"'We can't sell you provisions nor allow you to stay in the village.'
+
+"Orloff grins.  'You must go on,' he says, 'or give her up.'
+
+"'No!  I'll do neither.'  And I shows the paper from the missionary
+at Nulato statin' that we were married.  'She's my wife,' says I,
+'and too good for me.  She's left her people and her gods, and I'll
+care for her.'  I saw how it hurt Orloff, and I laid my hand on his
+shoulder close to the neck.  'I distrust ye, and sure as Fate ye'll
+die the shocking death if ever harm comes to the little one.'
+
+"That was the winter of the famine, though every winter was the same
+then, and I went to Anvik for grub--took all the strong men and dogs
+in the village.  I was afraid when I left, too, for 'twas the time I
+should have been with her, but there was no one else to go.
+
+"'When you come back,' she said, 'there will be another--a little
+boy--and he will grow mighty and strong, like his father.'  She hung
+her arms around me, Cap, and I left with her kisses warm on my lips.
+
+"It was a terrible trip, the river wet with overflows and the
+cut-offs drifted deep, so I drove back into Holy Cross a week late
+with bleedin' dogs and frozen Indians strainin' at the sled ropes.
+
+"I heard the wail of the old women before.  I come to the cabin, and
+when Metla had sobbed the story out in her weakness, I went back into
+the dark and down to the Mission.  I remember how the Northern Lights
+flared over the hills above, and the little spruces on the summit
+looked to me like headstones, black against the moon--and I laughed
+when I saw the snow red in the night glare, for it meant blood and
+death.
+
+"It was as lusty a babe as ever crowed, but Orloff had come to the
+sick bed and sent her squaws away.  Baptism and such things he said
+he'd do.  The little fellow died that night.
+
+"They say the Mission door was locked and barred, but I pushed
+through it like paper and came into Father Barnum's house, where they
+sat.  Fifty below is bad for the naked flesh.  I broke in,
+bare-headed, mittenless, and I'd froze some on the way down.  He saw
+murder in my eyes and tried to run, but I got him as he went out of
+the room.  He tore his throat loose from my stiffened fingers and
+went into the church, but I beat down the door with my naked fists,
+mocking at his prayers inside, and may I never be closer to death
+than Orloff was that night.
+
+"Then a squaw tugged at my parka.
+
+"'She is dying, Anguk,' she said, and I ran back up the hill with the
+cold bitin' at my heart.
+
+"There was no death that night in Holy Cross, though God knows one
+naked soul was due to walk out onto the snow.  At daylight, when I
+came back for him, he had fled down the river with the fastest dogs,
+and to this day I've never seen his face, though 'tis often I've felt
+his hate.
+
+"He's grown into the strongest missionary on the coast, and he never
+lets a chance go by to harry me or the girl.
+
+"D'ye mind the time 'Skagway' Bennet died?  We was pardners up Norton
+Sound way when he was killed.  They thought he suicided, but I know.
+I found a cariboo belt in the brush near camp--the kind they make on
+the Kuskokwim, Father Orion's country.  His men took the wrong one,
+that's all.
+
+"I'm sorry I didn't tell ye this, Cap, before we started, for now
+we're into the South Country, where he owns the natives.  He knows
+we've come, as the blood-token of the guide showed.  He wants my
+life, and there's great trouble comin' up.  I'm hopin' ye'll soon get
+your sight, for by now there's a runner twenty miles into the hills
+with news that we're blind in the church at Togiak.  Three days he'll
+be goin', and on the fifth ye'll hear the jangle of Russian
+dog-bells.  He'll kill the fastest team in Nushagak in the comin',
+and God help us if we're here."
+
+George scraped a bit of frost-lace from the lone window pane.  Dark
+figures moved over the snow, circling the chapel, and he knew that
+each was armed.  Only their reverence for the church held them from
+doing the task set by Orloff, and he sighed as he changed the
+bandages on his suffering mate.
+
+They awoke the next morning to the moan of wind and the sift of snow
+clouds past their walls.  Staring through his peep-hole, George
+distinguished only a seethe of whirling flakes that greyed the view,
+blotting even the neighbouring huts, and when the early evening
+brought a rising note in the storm the trouble lifted from his face.
+
+"A three-day blizzard," he rejoiced, "and the strongest team on the
+coast can't wallow through it under a week.  These on-shore gales is
+beauts."
+
+For three days the wind tore from off the sea into the open bight at
+whose head lay Togiak, and its violence wrecked the armour of shore
+ice in the bay till it beat and roared against the spit, a threshing
+maelstrom of shattered bergs.  The waters piled into the inlet driven
+by the lash of the storm till they overflowed the river ice behind
+the village, submerging and breaking it into ragged, dangerous
+confusion.
+
+On the third day, with Arctic vagary, the wind gasped reluctantly and
+scurried over the range.  In its wake the surging ocean churned
+loudly and the back-water behind the town, held by the dam of
+freezing slush-ice at the river mouth, was skimmed by a thin
+ice-paper, pierced here and there by the up-ended piles from beneath.
+This held the night's snow, so that morning showed the village girt
+on three sides by a stream soft-carpeted and safe to the eye, but
+failing beneath the feet of a child.
+
+"You're eyes are comin' along mighty slow," worried George.  "I'm
+hopin' his reverence is up to his gills in drifts back yonder.  "We
+must leave him a sled trail for a souvenir."
+
+"How can we, with the place guarded?"
+
+"Hitch the dogs and run for it by night, He'll burn us out when he
+comes.  Fine targets we'd make on the snow by the light of a burning
+shack.  If ye can see to shoot we'll go tonight.  Hello!  What's
+that?"
+
+Outside came the howl of malamoots and the cry of men.  Leaping to
+the window, George rubbed it free and stared into the sunshine.
+
+"Too late!  Too late!" he said.  "Here he comes!  It's time I killed
+him."  He spoke gratingly, with the dull anger of years.
+
+On the bright surface of the opposite hillside a sled bearing a
+muffled figure appeared silhouetted against the glisten of the crust.
+Its team, maddened by the village scent, poured down the incline
+toward the river bank and the guide swung onto the runners behind,
+while the voice of the people rose to their priest.  In a whirl of
+soft snow they drove down onto the treachery of the ice.  The screams
+of the natives frenzied the pack and they rioted out onto the bending
+sheet, while the long sledge, borne by its momentum, shot forward
+till the splitting cry of the ice sounded over the lamentations.  It
+slackened, sagged and disappeared in a surge of congealing waters.
+The wheel dogs were dragged into the opening and their mates ahead
+jerked backward onto them.  In a fighting tangle, all settled into
+the swirl.
+
+Orloff leaped from the sinking sled, but hindered by his fur
+swaddling, crashed through and lunged heavily in his struggles to
+mount the edge of the film.  As he floundered onto the caving surface
+it let him back and the waters covered him time and again.  He
+pitched oddly about, and for the first time they saw his eyes were
+bound tightly with bandages, which he strove to loosen.
+
+"My God!  He's snow-blind!" cried George, and in a moment he appeared
+among the frantic mob fringing the shore.
+
+The guide broke his way toward a hummock of old ice forming an islet
+near by, and the priest half swam, half scrambled behind, till they
+crawled out upon this solid footing.  Here the wintry wind searched
+them and their dripping clothes stiffened quickly.  Orloff dragged
+the strips from his face, and as the sun glitter pierced his eyes he
+writhed as though seared by the naked touch of hot steel.
+
+He shouted affrightedly in his blindness, but the mocking voice of
+Big George answered him and he cowered at the malevolence in the
+words.
+
+"Here I am, Orloff.  It's help ye want, is it?  I'll shoot the man
+that tries to reach ye.  Ha, ha!  You're freezin' eh?  Georgie will
+talk to keep ye awake.  A dirty trick of the river to cheat me so.
+I've fattened for years on the hope of stampin' your life out and now
+it's robbed me.  But I'll stick till ye're safe in Hell."
+
+The man cried piteously, turning his bleared eyes toward the sound.
+
+"Shoot, why don't you, and end it?  Can't you see we're freezing?"
+He stood up in his carapace of stiffened clothes, shivering palsiedly.
+
+"The truest thing ye ever said," cried George, and he swung his colts
+into view.  "It'll favour you and I'll keep my vow."  He raised the
+gun.  The splashing of the distant dogs broke the silence.  A native
+knelt stiffly.
+
+"George!  George!"  Captain had stumbled down among them and plucked
+at his arm, peering dimly into his distorted face.  "Great God, are
+you a murderer?  They'll be dead before we can save them."
+
+"Save 'em ?" said George, while reason fought with his mania.  "Whose
+goin' to save 'em?  He needs killin'.  I'm hungry for his life."
+
+"He's a man, George.  They're both human, and they're dying in sight
+of us.  Give him a chance.  Fight like a man."
+
+As he spoke the fury fell away from the whaler and he became the
+alert, strong man of the frontier, knowing the quick danger and
+meeting it.
+
+He bellowed at the natives and they fled backward before his voice,
+storming the cache where lay the big skin canoes.  They slid one down
+and seizing paddles crushed the ice around it till it floated, then
+supported by the prow, George stamped the ice into fragments ahead,
+and they forced their way slowly along the channel he made.  Soaked
+to the armpits he smashed a trail through which they reached the
+hummock where the others lay, too listless for action.
+
+At the shore they bore the priest to their shelter while the guide
+was snatched into a near-by hut.  They hacked off his brittle clothes
+and supported him to the bed.  As he walked his feet clattered on the
+board floor like the sound of wooden shoes.  They were white and
+solid, as were his hands.
+
+"He's badly frozen," whispered Captain, "can we save him?"  They
+rubbed and thawed for hours, but the sluggish blood refused to flow
+into the extremities and Captain felt that this man would die for
+lack of amputation.
+
+Through all the Russian was silent, gazing strangely at George.
+
+"'Tis no use," finally said the big man, despairingly, "I've seen too
+many of 'em; we've done our best."
+
+He disappeared, and there sounded the jingle of harness as the dogs
+were hitched.  As he entered for the camp outfit Orloff spoke:
+
+"George Brace, I've harmed you bitterly these many years, and you're
+a good man to help me so.  It's no use.  We have both fought the Cold
+Death, and know when to quit.  I came here to kill you, but you will
+go out across the mountains free, while I rave in madness and the
+medicine men make charms over me.  When you come into Bethel Mission
+I'll be dead.  Good-bye."
+
+"Good Hell!  We're takin' ye to Bethel and a doctor in ten minutes.
+A week's travel as the trail goes, but we'll save a chunk of ye yet,
+old man."
+
+Five days later a broken team crawled over the snow to the Moravian
+Mission, urged by two men gaunt from the trail, and blistered by the
+cold.  From the sledge came shrieks and throaty mutterings, horrid
+gabblings of post-freezing madness and Dr. Forrest, lifting back the
+robe, found Orloff lashed into his couch.
+
+"Five days from Togiak.  Two hundred miles in heavy trails,"
+explained George wearily, as the cries of the maniac dimmed behind
+the log walls.
+
+Two hours later Forrest spoke gravely as they nursed their frost
+bites in his room.
+
+"We have operated.  He will recover."
+
+"It's a sad, sad day,"' mourned George.  "It just takes the taste out
+of everything for me.  He's a cripple now, eh ?"
+
+"Yes!  Helpless!  I did not know Father Orloff had many--er--friends
+hereabout," continued the doctor.  "He was thought to be hated by the
+whites.  I'm glad the report was wrong."
+
+"Friends be damned," said the other strongly.  "What's a friend?  Ye
+can get them any place, but where can ye find another enemy like that
+man?"
+
+
+
+
+THE SCOURGE
+
+Coming down coast from the Kotzebue country they stumbled onto the
+little camp in the early winter, and as there was food a plenty, of
+its kind, whereas they had subsisted for some days on puree of seal
+oil and short ribs of dog, Captain and Big George decided to winter.
+A maxim of the north teaches to cabin by a grub-pile.
+
+It was an odd village they beheld that first day.  Instead of the
+clean moss-chinked log shelters men were wont to build in this land,
+they found the community housed like marmots in holes and burrows.
+
+It seemed that the troop had landed, fresh from the States, a hundred
+and a quarter strong, hot with the lust for gold, yet shaken by the
+newspaper horrors of Alaska's rigorous hardships and forbidding
+climate.
+
+Debouching in the early fall, they had hastily prepared for an
+Associated Press-painted Arctic winter.
+
+Had they been forced to winter in the mountains of Idaho, or among
+Montana's passes, they would have prepared simply and effectively.
+Here, however, in a mystic land, surrounded by the unknown, they grew
+panic stricken and lost their wits.
+
+Thus, when the two "old timers" came upon them in the early winter
+they found them in bomb-proof hovels, sunk into the muck, banked with
+log walls, and thatched over with dirt and sod.
+
+"Where are your windows and ventilators?" they were asked, and
+collectively the camp laughed at the question.  _They_ knew how to
+keep snug and warm even if half-witted "sourdoughs" didn't.  _They_
+weren't taking any chances on freezing, not on your tin-type, no
+outdoor work and exposure for them!
+
+As the winter settled, they snuggled back, ate three meals and more
+daily of bacon, beans, and baking-powder bread; playing cribbage for
+an appetite.  They undertook no exercise more violent than seven-up,
+while the wood-cutting fell as a curse upon those unfortunates who
+lost at the game.  They giggled at Captain and the big whaler who
+daily, snow or blow, hit the trail or wielded pick and shovel.
+
+However, as the two maintained their practice, the camp grew to
+resent their industry, and, as is possible only in utterly idle
+communities, there sprung up a virulence totally out of proportion,
+and, founded without reason, most difficult to dispel.  Before they
+knew it, the two were disliked and distrusted; their presence
+ignored; their society shunned.
+
+Captain had talked to many in the camp.  "You'll get scurvy, sure,
+living in these dark houses.  They're damp and dirty, and you don't
+exercise.  Besides, there isn't a pound of fresh grub in camp."
+
+Figuratively, the camp's nose had tilted at this, and it stated
+pompously that it were better to preserve its classic purity of
+features and pro rata of toes, than to jeopardize these adjuncts
+through fear of a possible blood disease.
+
+"Blood disease, eh?"  George snorted like a sea-lion.  "Wait till
+your legs get black and you spit your teeth out like plum-pits--mebbe
+you'll listen then.  It'll come, see if it don't."
+
+He was right.  Yet when the plague did grip the camp and men died,
+one in five, they failed to rise to it.  Instead of fighting manfully
+they lapsed into a frightened, stubborn coma.
+
+There was one, and only one, who did not.  Klusky the Jew; Klusky the
+pariah.  They said he worked just to be ornery and different from the
+rest, he hated them so.  They enjoyed baiting him to witness his
+fury.  It sated that taint of Roman cruelty inherent in the man of
+ignorance.  He was all the amusement they had, for it wasn't policy
+to stir up the two others--they might slop over and clean up the
+village.  So they continued to goad him as they had done since
+leaving 'Frisco.  They gibed and jeered till he shunned them, living
+alone in the fringe of the pines, bitter and vicious, as an outcast
+from the pack will grow, whether human or lupine.  He frequented only
+the house of Captain and George, because they were exiles like
+himself.
+
+The partners did not relish this overmuch, for he was an odious
+being, avaricious, carping, and dirty.
+
+"His face reminds me of a tool," said George, once, "nose an' chin
+shuts up like calipers.  He's got the forehead of a salmon trout, an'
+his chin don't retreat, it stampedes, plumb down ag'in his apple.
+Look out for that droop of the mouth.  I've seen it before, an' his
+eyes is bad, too.  They've stirred him up an' pickled all the good he
+ever had.  Some day he'll do a murder."
+
+"I wonder what he means by always saying he'll have revenge before
+spring.  It makes me creep to hear him cackle and gloat.  I think
+he's going crazy."
+
+"Can't tell.  This bunch would bust anybody's mental tugs, an' they
+make a mistake drivin' him so.  Say!  How's my gums look tonight?"
+George stretched his lips back, showing his teeth, while Captain made
+careful examination.
+
+"All right.  How are mine?"
+
+"Red as a berry."
+
+Every day they searched thus for the symptoms, looking for
+discolouration, and anxiously watching bruises on limb or body.  Men
+live in fear when their comrades vanish silently from their midst.
+Each night upon retiring they felt legs nervously, punching here and
+there to see that the flesh retained its resiliency.
+
+So insidious is the malady's approach that it may be detected only
+thus.  A lassitude perhaps, a rheumatic laziness, or pains and
+swelling at the joints.  Mayhap one notes a putty-like softness of
+the lower limbs.  Where he presses, the finger mark remains, filling
+up sluggishly.  No mental depression at first, nor fever, only a
+drooping ambition, fatigue, enlarging parts, now gradual, now sudden.
+
+The grim humour of seeing grown men gravely poking their legs with
+rigid digits, or grinning anxiously into hand-mirrors had struck some
+of the tenderfeet at first, but the implacable progress of the
+disease; its black, merciless presence, pausing destructively here
+and there, had terrorized them into a hopeless fatalism till they
+cowered helplessly, awaiting its touch.
+
+One night Captain announced to his partner.  "I'm going over to the
+Frenchmen's, I hear Menard is down."
+
+"What's the use of buttin' in where ye ain't wanted?  As fer me, them
+frogeaters can all die like salmon; I won't go nigh 'em an' I've told
+'em so.  I give 'em good advice, an' what'd I get?  What'd that daffy
+doctor do?  Pooh-poohed at me an' physiced them.  Lord!  Physic a man
+with scurvy--might as well bleed a patient fer amputation."  George
+spoke with considerable heat.
+
+Captain pulled his parka hood well down so that the fox-tails around
+the edge protected his features, and stepped out into the evening.
+He had made several such trips in the past few months to call on men
+smitten with the sickness, but all to no effect.  Being "chechakos"
+they were supreme in their conceit, and refused to heed his advice.
+
+Returning at bed time he found his partner webbing a pair of
+snow-shoes by the light of a stinking "go-devil," consisting of a
+string suspended in a can of molten grease.  The camp had sold them
+grub, but refused the luxury of candles.  Noting his gravity, George
+questioned:
+
+"Well, how's Menard?"
+
+"Dead!"  Captain shook himself as though at the memory.  "It was
+awful.  He died while I was talking to him."
+
+"Don't say!  How's that?"
+
+"I found him propped up in a chair.  He looked bad, but said he was
+feeling fine--"
+
+"That's the way they go.  I've seen it many a time--feelin' fine
+plumb to the last."
+
+"He'd been telling me about a bet he had with Promont.  Promont was
+taken last week, too, you know, same time.  Menard bet him twenty
+dollars that he'd outlast him."
+
+"'I'm getting all right,' says he, 'but poor Promont's going to die.
+I'll get his twenty, sure!'  I turned to josh with the boy a bit, an'
+when I spoke to Menard he didn't answer.  His jaw had sagged and he'd
+settled in his chair.  Promont saw it, too, and cackled.  'H'I 'ave
+win de bet!  H'I 'ave win de bet!'  That's all.  He just slid off.
+Gee!  It was horrible."
+
+George put by his work and swore, pacing the rough pole floor.
+
+"Oh, the cussed fools!  That makes six dead from the one cabin--six
+from eighteen, an' Promont'll make seven to-morrow.  Do ye mind how
+we begged 'em to quit that dug-out an' build a white man's house, an'
+drink spruce tea, an' _work_!  They're too ---- lazy.  They lie
+around in that hole, breath bad air, an' rot."
+
+"And just to think, if we only had a crate of potatoes in camp we
+could save every man jack of 'em.  Lord!  They never even brought no
+citric acid nor lime juice--nothin'!  If we hadn't lost our grub when
+the whale-boat upset, eh?  That ten-gallon keg of booze would help
+some.  Say!  I got such a thirst I don't never expect to squench it
+proper;" he spoke plaintively.
+
+"Klusky was here again while you was gone, too.  I itch to choke that
+Jew whenever he gets to ravin' over these people.  He's sure losin'
+his paystreak.  He gritted his teeth an' foamed like a mad malamoot,
+I never see a low-downer lookin' aspect than him when he gets mad."
+
+"'I'll make 'em come to me,' says he, 'on their bellies beggin'.  It
+ain't time yet.  Oh, no!  Wait 'till half of 'em is dead, an' the
+rest is rotten with scurvy.  Then they'll crawl to me with their gums
+thick and black, an' their flesh like dough; they'll kiss my feet an'
+cry, an' I'll stamp 'em into the snow!'  You'd ought a heard him
+laugh.  Some day I'm goin' to lay a hand on that man, right in my own
+house."
+
+As they prepared for bed.  Captain remarked:
+
+"By the way, speaking of potatoes, I heard to-night that there was a
+crate in the Frenchmen's outfit somewhere, put in by mistake.
+perhaps, but when they boated their stuff up river last fall it
+couldn't be found--must have been lost."
+
+It was some days later that, returning from a gameless hunt, Captain
+staggered into camp, weary from the drag of his snow-shoes.
+
+Throwing himself into his bunk he rested while George prepared the
+meagre meal of brown beans, fried salt pork, and sour-dough bread.
+The excellence of this last, due to the whaler's years of practice,
+did much to mitigate the unpleasantness of the milkless, butterless,
+sugarless menu.
+
+Captain's fatigue prevented notice of the other's bearing.  However,
+when he had supped and the dishes were done George spoke, quietly and
+without emotion.
+
+"Well, boy, the big thing has come off."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+For reply he took the grease dip and, holding it close, bared his
+teeth.
+
+With a cry Captain leaped from his bunk, and took his face between
+his hands.
+
+"Great God!  George!"
+
+He pushed back the lips.  Livid blotches met his gaze--the gums
+swollen and discoloured.  He dropped back sick and pale, staring at
+his bulky comrade, dazed and uncomprehending.
+
+Carefully replacing the lamp, George continued:
+
+"I felt it comin' quite a while back, pains in my knees an' all
+that--thought mebbe you'd notice me hobblin' about.  I can't git
+around good--feel sort of stove up an' spavined on my feet."
+
+"Yes, yes, but we've lived clean, and exercised, and drank spruce
+tea, and--everything," cried the other.
+
+"I know, but I've had a touch before; it's in my blood I reckon.  Too
+much salt grub; too many winters on the coast.  She never took me so
+sudden an' vicious though.  Guess the stuff's off."
+
+"Don't talk that way," said Captain, sharply.  "You're not going to
+die--I won't let you."
+
+"Vat's the mattaire?" came a leering voice and, turning they beheld
+Klusky, the renegade.  He had entered silently, as usual, and now
+darted shrewd inquiring glances at them.
+
+"George has the scurvy."
+
+"Oi!  Oi!  Oi!  Vat a peety."  He seemed about to say more but
+refrained, coming forward rubbing his hands nervously.
+
+"It ain't possible that a 'sour dough' shall have the scoivy."
+
+"Well, he has it--has it bad but I'll cure him.  Yes, and I'll save
+this whole ---- camp, whether they want it or not."  Captain spoke
+strongly, his jaws set with determination.  Klusky regarded him
+narrowly through close shrunk eyes, while speculation wrinkled his
+low forehead.
+
+"Of course!  Yes!  But how shall it be, eh?  Tell me that."  His
+eagerness was pronounced.
+
+"I'll go to St. Michaels and bring back fresh grub."
+
+"You can't do it, boy," said George.  "It's too far an' there ain't a
+dog in camp.  You couldn't haul your outfit alone, an' long before
+you'd sledded grub back I'd be wearin' one of them gleamin' orioles,
+I believe that's what they call it, on my head, like the pictures of
+them little fat angelettes.  I ain't got no ear for music, so I'll
+have to cut out the harp solos."
+
+"Quit that talk, will you?" said Captain irritably.  "Of course, one
+man can't haul an outfit that far, but two can, so I'm going to take
+Klusky with me."  He spoke with finality, and the Jew started, gazing
+queerly.  "We'll go light, and drive back a herd of reindeer."
+
+"By thunder!  I'd clean forgot the reindeer.  The government was
+aimin' to start a post there last fall, wasn't it?  Say!  Mebbe you
+can make it after all, Kid."  His features brightened hopefully.
+"What d' ye say, Klusky?"
+
+The one addressed answered nervously, almost with excitement.
+
+"It can't be done!  It ain't possible, and I ain't strong enough to
+pull the sled.  V'y don't you and George go together.  I'll stay--"
+
+Captain laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.
+
+"That'll do.  What are you talking about?  George wouldn't last two
+days, and you know it.  Now listen.  You don't have to go, you
+infernal greasy dog, there are others in camp, and one of them will
+go if I walk him at the muzzle of a gun.  I gave you first chance,
+because we've been good to you.  Now get out."
+
+He snatched him from his seat and hurled him at the door, where he
+fell in a heap.
+
+Klusky arose, and, although his eyes snapped wildly and he trembled,
+he spoke insidiously, with oily modulation.
+
+"Vait a meenute, Meestaire Captain, vait a meenute.  I didn't say I
+vouldn't go.  Oi!  Oi!  Vat a man!  Shoor I'll go.  Coitenly!  You
+have been good to me and they have been devils.  I hope they die."
+He shook a bony fist in the direction of the camp, while his voice
+took on its fanatical shrillness.  "They shall be in h---- before I
+help them, the pigs, but you--ah, you have been my friends, yes ?"
+
+"All right; be here at daylight," said Captain gruffly.  Anger came
+slowly to him, and its trace was even slower in its leaving.
+
+"I don't like him," said George, when he had slunk out.  "He ain't on
+the level.  Watch him close, boy, he's up to some devilment."
+
+
+"Keep up your courage, old man.  I'll be back in twelve days."
+Captain said it with decision, though his heart sank as he felt the
+uncertainties before him.
+
+George looked squarely into his eyes.
+
+"God bless ye, boy," he said.  "I've cabined with many a man, but
+never one like you.  I'm a hard old nut, an' I ain't worth what
+you're goin' to suffer, but mebbe you can save these other idiots.
+That's what we're put here for, to help them as is too ornery to help
+theirselves." He smiled at Captain, and the young man left him
+blindly.  He seldom smiled, and to see it now made his partner's
+breast heave achingly.
+
+"Good old George!" he murmured as they pulled out upon the river.
+"Good old George!" As they passed from the settlement an Indian came
+to the door of the last hovel.
+
+"Hello.  There's a Siwash in your cabin," said Captain.  "What is he
+doing there ?"
+
+"That's all right," rejoined Klusky.  "I told him to stay and vatch
+t'ings."
+
+"Rather strange," thought the other.  "I wonder what there is to
+watch.  There's never been any stealing around here."
+
+To the unversed, a march by sled would seem simplicity.  In reality
+there is no more discouraging test than to hit the trail, dogless and
+by strength of back.  The human biped cannot drag across the snow for
+any distance more than its own weight; hence equipment is of the
+simplest.  At that, the sledge rope galls one's neck with a
+continual, endless, yielding drag, resulting in back pains peculiar
+to itself.  It is this eternal maddening pull, with the pitiful
+crawling gait that tells; horse's labour and a snail's pace.  The
+toil begets a perspiration which the cold solidifies midway through
+the garments.  At every pause the clammy clothes grow chill, forcing
+one forward, onward, with sweating body and freezing face.  In
+extreme cold, snow pulverizes dryly till steel runners drag as though
+slid through sand.  Occasional overflows bar the stream from bank to
+bank, resulting in wet feet and quick changes by hasty fires to save
+numb toes.  Now the air is dead under a smother of falling flakes
+that fluff up ankle deep, knee deep, till the sled plunges along
+behind, half buried, while the men wallow and invent ingenious oaths.
+Again the wind whirls it by in grotesque goblin shapes; wonderful
+storm beings, writhing, whipping, biting as they pass; erasing bank
+and mountain.  Yet always there is that aching, steady tug of the
+shoulder-rope, stopping circulation till the arms depend numbly; and
+always the weary effort of trail breaking.
+
+Captain felt that he had never worked with a more unsatisfying team
+mate.  Not that Klusky did not pull, he evidently did his best, but
+he never spoke, while the other grew ever conscious of the beady,
+glittering eyes boring into his back.  At camp, the Jew watched him
+furtively, sullenly, till he grew to feel oppressed, as with a sense
+of treachery, or some fell design hidden far back.  Every morning he
+secured the ropes next the sled, thus forcing Captain to walk ahead.
+He did not object to the added task of breaking trail, for he had
+expected the brunt of the work, but the feeling of suspicion
+increased till it was only by conscious effort that he drove himself
+to turn his back upon the other and take up the journey.
+
+It was this oppression that warned him on the third day.  Leaning as
+he did against the sled ropes he became aware of an added burden, as
+though the man behind had eased to shift his harness.  When it did
+not cease he glanced over his shoulder.  Keyed up as he was this
+nervous agility saved him.
+
+Klusky held a revolver close up to his back, and, though he had
+unconsciously failed to pull, he mechanically stepped in the other's
+tracks.  The courage to shoot had failed him momentarily, but as
+Captain turned, it came, and he pulled the trigger.
+
+Frozen gun oil has caused grave errors in calculation.  The hammer
+curled back wickedly and stuck.  Waiting his chance he had carried
+the weapon in an outer pocket where the frost had stiffened the
+grease.  Had it been warmed next his body, the fatal check would not
+have occurred.  Even so, he pulled again and it exploded sharp and
+deafening in the rarefied morning air.  In that instant's pause,
+however, Captain had whirled so that the bullet tore through the
+loose fur beneath his arm.  He struck, simultaneously with the
+report, and the gun flew outward, disappearing in the snow.
+
+They grappled and fell, rolling in a tangle of rope, Klusky fighting
+with rat-like fury, whining odd, broken curses.  The larger man
+crushed him in silence, beating him into the snow, bent on killing
+him with his hands.
+
+[Illustration:  They grappled and fell, rolling in a tangle of rope.]
+
+As the other's struggles diminished, he came to himself, however, and
+desisted.
+
+"I can't kill him," he thought in panic.  "I can't go on alone."
+
+"Get up!"  He kicked the bleeding figure till it arose lamely.  "Why
+did you do that?"  His desire to strangle the life from him was
+over-powering.
+
+The man gave no answer, muttering only unintelligible jargon, his
+eyes ablaze with hatred.
+
+"Tell me."  He shook him by the throat but received no reply.  Nor
+could he, try as he pleased; only a stubborn silence.  At last,
+disgusted and baffled, he bade him resume the rope.  It was necessary
+to use force for this, but eventually they took up the journey,
+differing now only in their order of precedence.
+
+"If you make a move I'll knife you," he cautioned grimly.  "That goes
+for the whole trip, too."
+
+At evening he searched the grub kit, breaking knives and forks, and
+those articles which might be used as means of offence, throwing the
+pieces into the snow.
+
+"Don't stir during the night, or I might kill you.  I wake easy, and
+hereafter we'll sleep together."  Placing the weapons within his
+shirt, he bound the other's wrists and rolled up beside him.
+
+Along the coast, their going became difficult from the rough ice and
+soft snow, and with despair Captain felt the days going by.  Klusky
+maintained his muteness and, moreover, to the anger of his captor,
+began to shirk.  It became necessary to beat him.  This Captain did
+relentlessly, deriving a certain satisfaction from it, yet marvelling
+the while at his own cruelty.  The Jew feigned weariness, and began
+to limp as though foot-sore.
+
+Captain halted him at last.
+
+"Don't try that game," he said.  "It don't go.  I spared your life
+for a purpose.  The minute you stop pulling, that minute I'll sink
+this into your ribs."  He prodded him with his sheath knife.  "Get
+along now, or I'll make you haul it alone."  He kicked him into
+resentful motion again, for he had come to look upon him as an
+animal, and was heedless of his signs of torture--so thus they
+marched; master and slave.  "He's putting it on," he thought, but
+abuse as he might, the other's efforts became weaker, and his agony
+more marked as the days passed.
+
+The morning came when he refused to arise.
+
+"Get up!"
+
+Klusky shook his head.
+
+"Get up, I say!" Captain spoke fiercely, and snatched him to foot,
+but with a groan the man sank back.  Then, at last, he talked.
+
+"I can't do it.  I can't do it.  My legs make like they von't vork.
+You can kill me, but I can't valk."
+
+As he ceased, Captain leaned down and pushed back his lips.  The
+teeth were loose and the gums livid.
+
+"Great Heavens, what have I done!  _What have I done_!" he muttered.
+
+Klusky had watched his face closely.
+
+"Vat's the mattaire?  Vy do you make like that, eh?  Tell me."  His
+voice was sharp.
+
+"You've got it."
+
+"I've got it?  Oi!  Oi!  I've got it!  Vat have I got?"  He knew
+before the answer came, but raved and cursed in frenzied denial.  His
+tongue started, language flowed from him freely.
+
+"It ain't that.  No!  No!  It is the rheumatissen.  Yes, it shall be
+so.  It makes like that from the hard vork always.  It is the
+cold--the cold makes it like."
+
+With despair Captain realized that he could neither go on, dragging
+the sick man and outfit, nor could he stay here in idleness to
+sacrifice the precious days that remained to his partner.  Each one
+he lost might mean life or death.
+
+Klusky broke in upon him.
+
+"You von't leave me, Mistaire Captain?  Please you von't go avay?"
+
+Such frightened entreaty lay in his request that before thinking the
+other replied.
+
+"No, I won't.  I made you come and I'll do all I can for you.  Maybe
+somebody will pass."  He said it only to cheer, for no one travelled
+this miserable stretch save scattering, half-starved Indians, but the
+patient caught at it eagerly, hugging the hope to his breast during
+the ensuing days.
+
+That vigil beside the dying creature lived long in Captain's memory.
+The bleak, timberless shores of the bay; their tiny tent, crouched
+fearfully among the willow tops; the silent nights, when in the
+clear, cold air the stars stared at him close and big, like eyes of
+wolves beyond a camp fire; the days of endless gabblings from the
+sinking man, and the all pervading cold.
+
+At last, knowledge dawned upon the invalid, and he called his
+companion to his side.  Shivering there beneath the thin tent,
+Captain heard a story, rambling at first, filled with hatred and
+bitterness toward the men who had scoffed at him, yet at the last he
+listened eagerly, amazedly, and upon its conclusion rose suddenly,
+gazing at the dying man in horror.
+
+"My God, Klusky!  Hell isn't black enough for you.  It can't be true,
+it can't be.  You're raving!  Do you mean to say that you let those
+poor devils die like rats while you had potatoes in your cabin, fresh
+ones?  Man!  Man!  The juice of every potato was worth a life.
+You're lying, Klusky."
+
+"I ain't.  No, I ain't.  I hate them!  I said they should crawl on
+their bellies to me.  Yes, and I should wring the money out.  A
+hundred dollars for von potato.  I stole them all.  Ha!  ha!  and I
+kept them varm.  Oh, yes!  Alvays varm by the fire, so they shall be
+good and fine for the day."
+
+"That's why you left the Indian there when we came away, eh?  To keep
+a fire."
+
+"Shoor! and I thought I shall kill you and go back alone so nobody
+shall make for the rescue.  Then I should have the great laugh."
+
+Captain bared his head to the cold outside the tent.  He was dazed by
+the thought of it.  The man was crazed by abuse.  The camp had paid
+for its folly!
+
+Then a hope sprang up in him.  It was too late to go on and return
+with the deer; that is, too late for George, and he thought only of
+him; of the big, brave man sitting alone in the cabin, shunned by the
+others, waiting quietly for his coming, tracing the relentless daily
+march of the disease.  Why didn't the Jew die so he could flee back?
+He had promised not to desert him, and he could not break his word to
+a dying man, even though the wretch deserved damnation.  But why
+couldn't he die?  What made him hang on so?  In his idle hours he
+arranged a pack for the start, assembling his rations.  He could not
+be hampered by the sled.  This was to be a race--he must travel long
+and fast.  The sick man saw the preparations, and cried weakly, the
+tears freezing on his cheeks, and still he lingered, lingered
+maddeningly, till at last, when Captain had lost count of the days,
+he passed without a twitch and, before the body had cooled, the
+northward bluffs hid the plodding, snow-shoed figure hurrying along
+the back trail.
+
+He scarcely stopped for sleep or food, but gnawed raw bacon and
+frozen bread, swinging from shoe to shoe, devouring distance with the
+steady, rhythmic pace of a machine.  He made no fires.  As darkness
+settled, rendering progress a peril, he unrolled his robe, and
+burrowed into some overhanging drift, and the earliest hint of dawn
+found him miles onward.
+
+Though the weather was clear, he grew numbed and careless under the
+strain of his fatigue, so that the frost bit hungrily at his
+features.  He grew gaunt, and his feet swelled from the snow-shoe
+thongs till they puffed out his loose, sealskin boots, and every step
+in the morning hours brought forth a groan.
+
+He was tortured by the thought that perhaps the Indian had carelessly
+let go the fire in Klusky's cabin.  If so, the precious potatoes
+would freeze in a night.  Then, if the native rebuilt it, he would
+arrive only to find a mushy, putrifying mass, worse than useless.
+The uncertainty sickened him, and at last, as he sighted the little
+hamlet, he paused, bracing his legs apart weakly.
+
+He searched fearfully for traces of smoke above Klusky's cabin.
+There were none.  Somehow the lone shack seemed to stare malignantly
+at him, as he staggered up the trail, and he heard himself muttering.
+There were no locks in this land, so he entered unbidden.  The place
+was empty, though warm from recent habitation.  With his remaining
+strength he scrambled up a rude ladder to the loft where he fumbled
+in the dark while his heart stopped.  Then he cried hoarsely and,
+ripping open the box, stuffed them gloatingly into pockets and shirt
+front.  He dropped from the platform and fled out through the open
+door, capless and mittenless; out and on toward the village.
+
+His pace slackened suddenly, for he noted with a shock that, like
+Klusky's cabin, no smoke drifted over the house toward which he ran,
+and, drawing near, he saw that snow lay before the door; clean,
+white, and untrodden.  He was too dazed to recall the light fall of
+the night previous, but glared blankly at the idle pipe; at the cold
+and desolate front.
+
+"Too late!" he murmured brokenly.  "Too late!" and stumbled to the
+snow-cushioned chopping block.
+
+He dared not go in.  Evidently the camp had let George die; had never
+come near to lift a hand.  He was afraid of what lay within, afraid
+to face it alone.  Yet a dreadful need to know pulled him forward.
+Three times he approached the door, retreating each time in panic.
+At last he laid soft hands upon the latch and entered, averting his
+eyes.  Even so, and despite the darkness inside, he was conscious of
+it; saw from his eye corners the big, still bulk that sat wrapped and
+propped in the chair by the table.  He sensed it dazedly,
+inductively, and turned to flee, then paused.
+
+"Ye made it, boy!  It's the twelfth to-day." George's voice came
+weakly, and with a great cry Captain sprang to him.
+
+"Bout all in," the other continued.  "Ain't been on my feet for two
+days.  I knowed you'd come to-day, though; it's the twelfth."
+
+Captain made no reply, for he had knelt, his face buried in the big
+man's lap, his shoulders heaving, while he cried like a little boy.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13135 ***
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #13135 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13135)
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Pardners, by Rex Beach
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Pardners
+
+Author: Rex Beach
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2004  [eBook #13135]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PARDNERS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Al Haines
+
+
+
+PARDNERS
+
+by
+
+REX E. BEACH
+
+Author of "The Barrier," "The Spoilers"
+
+Illustrated
+
+1904
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+PARDNERS
+THE MULE DRIVER, AND THE GARRULOUS MUTE
+THE COLONEL AND THE HORSE-THIEF
+THE THAW AT SLISCO'S
+BITTER ROOT BILLINGS, ARBITER
+THE SHYNESS OF SHORTY
+THE TEST
+NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE
+WHERE NORTHERN LIGHTS COME DOWN O' NIGHTS
+THE SCOURGE
+
+
+
+
+PARDNERS
+
+"Most all the old quotations need fixing," said Joyce in tones
+forbidding dispute.  "For instance, the guy that alluded to marriages
+germinating in heaven certainly got off on the wrong foot.  He meant
+pardnerships.  The same works ain't got capacity for both, no more'n
+you can build a split-second stop-watch in a stone quarry.  No, sir!
+A true pardnership is the sanctifiedest relation that grows, is, and
+has its beans, while any two folks of opposite sect can marry and peg
+the game out some way.  Of course, all pardnerships ain't divine.  To
+every one that's heaven borned there's a thousand made in ----.
+There goes them cussed dogs again!"
+
+He dove abruptly at the tent flap, disappearing like a palmed coin,
+while our canvas structure reeled drunkenly at his impact.  The
+sounds of strife without rose shrilly into blended agony, and the
+yelps of Keno melted away down the gulch in a rapid and rabid
+diminuendo.
+
+Inasmuch as I had just packed out from camp in a loose pair of rubber
+boots, and was nursing two gall blisters, I did not feel called upon
+to emulate this energy of arbitration, particularly in bare feet.
+
+"That black malamoot is a walking delegate for strife," he remarked,
+returning.  "Sometime I'll lose my temper--and that's the kind of
+pardners me and Justus Morrow was."
+
+Never more do I interrupt the allegory of my mate, no matter how
+startling its structure.  He adventures orally when and in the manner
+the spirit calls, without rote, form, or tone production.  Therefore
+I kicked my blistered heels in the air and grunted aimless
+encouragement.
+
+"I was prospectin' a claim on Caribou Creek, and had her punched as
+full of holes as a sponge cake, when the necessity of a change
+appealed to me.  I was out of everything more nourishing than hope
+and one slab of pay-streaked bacon, when two tenderfeet 'mushed' up
+the gulch, and invited themselves into my cabin to watch me pan.
+It's the simplest thing known to science to salt a tenderfoot, so I
+didn't have no trouble in selling out for three thousand dollars.
+
+"You see, they couldn't kick, 'cause some of us 'old timers' was
+bound to get their money anyhow--just a question of time; and their
+inexperience was cheap at the price.  Also, they was real nice boys,
+and I hated to see 'em fall amongst them crooks at Dawson.  It was a
+short-horned triumph, though.  Like the Dead Sea biscuits of
+Scripture, it turned to ashes in my mouth.  It wasn't three days
+later that they struck it; right in my last shaft, within a foot of
+where I quit diggin'.  They rocked out fifty ounces first day.  When
+the news filtered to me, of course, I never made no holler.  I
+couldn't--that is, honestly--but I bought a six hundred dollar grub
+stake, loaded it aboard a dory, and--having instructed the trader
+regarding the disposition of my mortal, drunken remains, I fanned
+through that camp like a prairie fire shot in the sirloin with a hot
+wind.
+
+"Of course, it wasn't such a big spree; nothing gaudy or Swedelike;
+but them that should know, claimed it was a model of refinement.
+Yes, I have got many encomiums on its general proportions and
+artistic finish.  One hundred dollars an hour for twenty-four hours,
+all in red licker, confined to and in me and my choicest
+sympathizers.  I reckon all our booze combined would have made a fair
+sluice-head.  Anyhow, I woke up considerable farther down the dim
+vistas of time and about the same distance down the Yukon, in the
+bottom of my dory, seekin' new fields at six miles an hour.  The
+trader had follered my last will and testament scrupulous, even to
+coverin' up my legs.
+
+"That's how I drifted into Rampart City, and Justus Morrow.
+
+"This here town was the same as any new camp; a mile long and
+eighteen inches wide, consisting of saloons, dance-halls, saloons,
+trading-posts, saloons, places to get licker, and saloons.  Might not
+have been so many dancehalls and trading-posts as I've mentioned, and
+a few more saloons.
+
+"I dropped into a joint called The Reception, and who'd I see playing
+'bank' but 'Single Out' Wilmer, the worst gambler on the river.
+Mounted police had him on the woodpile in Dawson, then tied a can on
+him.  At the same table was a nice, tender Philadelphia squab, 'bout
+fryin' size, and while I was watching, Wilmer pulls down a bet
+belonging to it.  That's an old game.
+
+"'Pardon me,' says the broiler; 'you have my checks.'
+
+"'What?' growls 'Single Out;' 'I knowed this game before you quit
+nursin', Bright Eyes.  I can protect my own bets.'
+
+"'That's right,' chimes the dealer, who I seen was 'Curly' Budd,
+Wilmer's pardner.
+
+"'Lord!' thinks I, 'there's a pair to draw to.'
+
+"'Do you really think you had ought to play this?  It's a man's
+game,' says Wilmer nasty.
+
+"I expected to see the youngster dog it.  Nothin' of the kind.
+
+"'That's my bet!' he says again, and I noticed something dry in his
+voice, like the rustle of silk.
+
+"Single Out just looks black and snarls at the dealer.
+
+"'Turn the cards!'
+
+"'Oh, very well,' says the chechako, talking like a little girl.
+
+"Somebody snickered and, thinks I 'there's sprightly doin's
+hereabouts.  I'll tarry a while and see 'em singe the fowl.  I like
+the smell of burning pin feathers; it clears my head.'
+
+"Over in the far corner was another animal in knee panties, riggin'
+up one of these flash-light, snappy-shot, photograft layouts.  I
+found afterwards that he done it for a living; didn't work none, just
+strayed around as co-respondent for an English newspaper syndicate,
+taking pictures and writing story things.  I didn't pay much
+attention to him hiding under his black cloth, 'cause the faro-table
+was full of bets, and it's hard to follow the play.  Well,
+bye-and-bye Wilmer shifted another stack belonging to the Easterner.
+
+"The lad never begged his pardon nor nothin'.  His fist just shot out
+and landed on the nigh corner of Wilmer's jaw, clean and fair, and
+'Single Out' done as pretty a headspin as I ever see--considering
+that it was executed in a cuspidore.  'Twas my first insight into the
+amenities of football.  I'd like to see a whole game of it.  They say
+it lasts an hour and a half.  Of all the cordial, why-how-do-you-do
+mule kicks handed down in rhyme and story, that wallop was the
+adopted daddy.
+
+"When he struck, I took the end of the bar like a steeplechaser, for
+I seen 'Curly' grab at the drawer, and I have aversions to witnessing
+gun plays from the front end.  The tenderfoot riz up in his chair,
+and snatchin' a stack of reds in his off mit, dashed 'em into
+'Curly's' face just as he pulled trigger.  It spoiled his aim, and
+the boy was on to him like a mountain lion, follerin' over the table,
+along the line of least resistance.
+
+"It was like takin' a candy sucker from a baby.  'Curly' let go of
+that 'six' like he was plumb tired of it, and the kid welted him over
+the ear just oncet.  Then he turned on the room; and right there my
+heart went out to him.  He took in the line up at a sweep of his
+lamps:
+
+"'Any of you gentlemen got ideas on the subject?' he says, and his
+eyes danced like waves in the sunshine.
+
+"It was all that finished and genteel that I speaks up without
+thinkin', 'You for me pardner!'
+
+"Just as I said it, there come a swish and flash as if a kag of black
+powder had changed its state of bein'.  I s'pose everybody yelled and
+dodged except the picture man.  He says, 'Thank you, gents; very
+pretty tableau.'
+
+"It was the first flash-light I ever see, and all I recall now is a
+panorama of starin' eyeballs and gaping mouths.  When it seen it
+wasn't torpedoed, the population begin crawlin' out from under chairs
+and tables.  Men hopped out like toads in a rain.
+
+"I crossed the boy's trail later that evening; found him watchin' a
+dance at the Gold Belt.  The photografter was there, too, and when
+he'd got his dog-house fixed, he says:
+
+"'Everybody take pardners, and whoop her up.  I want this picture for
+the _Weekly_.  Get busy, you, there!"  We all joined in to help
+things; the orchestra hit the rough spots, and we went highfalutin'
+down the centre, to show the English race how our joy pained us, and
+that life in the Klondyke had the Newport whirl, looking like society
+in a Siwash village.  He got another good picture.
+
+"Inside of a week, Morrow and I had joined up.  We leased a claim and
+had our cabin done, waiting for snow to fall so's to sled our grub
+out to the creek.  He took to me like I did to him, and he was an
+educated lad, too.  Somehow, though, it hadn't gone to his head,
+leaving his hands useless, like knowledge usually does.
+
+"One day, just before the last boat pulled down river, Mr. Struthers,
+the picture man, come to us--R. Alonzo Struthers, of London and
+'Frisco, he was--and showin' us a picture, he says:
+
+"'Ain't that great?  Sunday supplements!  Full page!  Big display!
+eh?'
+
+"It sure was.  'Bout 9x9, and showing every detail of the Reception
+saloon.  There was 'Single Out' analyzing the cuspidore and 'Curly'
+dozin', as contorted and well-done as a pretzel.  There was the crowd
+hiding in the corners, and behind the faro-table stood the kid, one
+hand among the scattered chips and cards, the other dominating the
+layout with 'Curley's' 'six.'  It couldn't have looked more natural
+if we'd posed for it.  It was a bully likeness, I thought, too, till
+I seen myself glaring over the bar.  All that showed of William P.
+Joyce, bachelor of some arts and plenty of science, late of Dawson,
+was the white of his eyes.  And talkin' of white--say, I looked like
+I had washing hung out.  Seemed like the draught had riz my hair up,
+too.
+
+"'Nothing like it ever seen,' continues Struthers.  'I'll call it
+'The Winning Card,' or 'At Bay,' or something like that.  Feature it
+as a typical Klondyke card game.  I'll give you a two-page write-up.
+Why, it's the greatest thing I ever did!'
+
+"'I'm sorry,' says Morrow, thoughtful, 'but you musn't run it.'
+
+"'What! says he, and I thinks, 'Oh, Lord!  There goes my only show to
+get perpetufied in ink.'
+
+"'I can't let you use it.  My wife might see it.'
+
+"'Your wife!' says I.  'Are you married, pardner?'
+
+"'Yes, I'm married,' and his voice sounded queer.  'I've got a
+boy--too, see.'
+
+"He took a locket from his flannel shirt and opened it.  A
+curly-headed, dimpled little youngster laughed out at me.
+
+"'Well, I'm d----!' and then I took off my hat, for in the other side
+was a woman--and, gentlemen, she _was_ a woman!  When I seen her it
+made me feel blushy and ashamed.  Gee!  She was a stunner.  I just
+stared at her till Struthers looked over my shoulder, and says,
+excited:
+
+"'Why, it's Olive Troop, the singer!'
+
+"'Not any more,' says Morrow, smiling.
+
+"'Oh!  So you're the fellow she gave up her art for?  I knew her on
+the stage.'
+
+"Something way deep down in the man grated on me, but the kid was
+lookin' at the picture and never noticed, while hunger peered from
+his face.
+
+"'You can't blame me,' he says finally.  'She'd worry to death if she
+saw that picture.  The likeness is too good.  You might substitute
+another face on my shoulders; that can be done, can't it?'
+
+"'Why, sure; dead easy, but I'll not run it at all if you feel that
+way,' says the artist.
+
+"Then, Morrow resumes, 'You'll be in Denver this fall, Struthers, eh?
+Well, I want you to take a letter to her.  She'll be glad to see an
+old friend like you, and to hear from me.  Tell her I'm well and
+happy, and that I'll make a fortune, sure.  Tell her, too, that there
+won't be any mail out of here till spring.'
+
+"Now, I don't claim no second sight in the matter of female features:
+I ain't had no coachin'; not even as much as the ordinary, being
+raised on a bottle, but I've studied the ornery imprints of men's
+thoughts, over green tables and gun bar'ls, till I can about guess
+whether they've drawed four aces or an invite to a funeral.  I got
+another flash from that man I didn't like, though his words were
+hearty.  He left, soon after, on the last boat.
+
+"Soon as ever the ground froze we began to sink.  In those days steam
+thawers wasn't dreamed of, so we slid wood down from the hills, and
+burned the ground with fires.  It's slow work, and we didn't catch
+bed-rock till December, but when we did we struck it right.  Four
+feet of ten-cent dirt was what she averaged.  Big?  Well, I wonder!
+It near drove Morrow crazy.
+
+"'Billy, old boy, this means I'll see her next summer!'
+
+"Whenever he mentioned her name, he spoke like a man in church or out
+of breath.  Somehow it made me feel like takin' off my cap--forty
+below at that, and my ears freeze terrible willing since that winter
+on the Porcupine.
+
+"That evening, when I wasn't looking, he sneaked the locket out of
+his shirt and stared at it, famished.  Then he kissed it, if you
+might rehabilitate such a scandalous, hold-fast-for-the-corner
+performance by that name.
+
+"'I must let her know right away,' says he.  'How can I do it?'
+
+"'We can hire a messenger, and send him to Dawson,' says I.
+'Everybody in camp will pay five dollars a letter, and he can bring
+back the outside mail.  They have monthly service from there to the
+coast.  He'll make the trip in ninety days, so you'll get news from
+home by the first of March.  Windy Jim will go.  He'd leave a good
+job and a warm camp any time to hit the trail.  Just hitch up the
+dogs, crack a whip, and yell 'Mush on!' and he'll get the snow-shoe
+itch, and water at the mouth for hardship.'
+
+"Not being house-broke and tame myself, I ain't authority on the joys
+of getting mail from home, but, next to it, I judge, comes writing to
+your family.  Anyhow, the boy shined up like new money, and there was
+from one to four million pages in his hurried note.  I don't mean to
+say that he was grouchy at any time.  No, sir!  He was the
+nickel-plated sunbeam of the whole creek.  Why, I've knowed him to do
+the cooking for two weeks at a stretch, and never kick--and _wash the
+dishes, too_,--which last, as anybody knows, is crucifyin'er than
+that smelter test of the three Jews in the Scripture.  Underneath all
+of his sunshine, though, I saw hints of an awful, aching, devilish,
+starvation.  It made me near hate the woman that caused it.
+
+"He was a wise one, too.  I've seen him stirring dog-feed with one
+hand and spouting 'Gray's Elegy' with the other.  I picked up a heap
+of knowledge from him, for he had American history pat.  One story I
+liked particular was concerning the origin of placer mining in this
+country, about a Greaser, Jason Somebody, who got the gold fever and
+grub-staked a mob he called the Augerknots--carpenters, I judge, from
+the mess they made of it.  They chartered a schooner and prospected
+along Asy Miner, wherever that is.  I never seen any boys from there,
+but the formation was wrong, like Texas, probably, 'cause they sort
+of drifted into the sheep business.  Of course, that was a long ways
+back, before the '49 rush, but the way he told it was great.
+
+"Well, two weeks after Windy left we worked out of that rich spot and
+drifted into barren ground.  Instead of a fortune, we'd sunk onto the
+only yellow spot in the whole claim.  We cross-cut in three places,
+and never raised a colour, but we kept gophering around till March,
+in hopes.
+
+"'Why did I write that letter?' he asked one day.  'I'd give anything
+to stop it before it gets out.  Think of her disappointment when she
+hears I'm broke!'
+
+"'Nobody can't look into the ground,' says I.  'I don't mind losin'
+out myself, for I've done it for twenty years and I sort of like it
+now, but I'm sorry for the girl.'
+
+"'It means another whole season,' he says.  'I wanted to see them
+this summer, or bring them in next fall.'
+
+"'Sufferin' sluice-boxes!  Are you plumb daffy?  Bring a woman into
+the Yukon--and a little baby.'
+
+"'She'd follow me anywhere.  She's awful proud; proud as a Kentucky
+girl can be, and those people would make your uncle Lucifer look like
+a cringing cripple, but she'd live in an Indian hut with me.'
+
+"'Sure!  And follerin' out the simile, nobody but a Siwash would let
+her.  If she don't like some other feller better while you're gone,
+what're you scared about?'
+
+"He never answered; just looked at me pityfyin', as much as to say,
+'Well, you poor, drivelin, old polyp!'
+
+"One day Denny, the squaw-man, drove up the creek:
+
+"'Windy Jim is back with the mail,' says he, and we hit for camp on
+the run.  Only fifteen mile, she is, but I was all in when we got
+there, keepin' up with Justus.  His eyes outshone the snow-glitter
+and he sang--all the time he wasn't roasting me for being so
+slow--claimed I was active as a toad-stool.  A man ain't got no
+license to excite hisself unless he's struck pay dirt--or got a
+divorce.
+
+"'Gi'me my mail, quick!' he says to Windy, who had tinkered up a
+one-night stand post-office and dealt out letters, at five dollars
+per let.'
+
+"'Nothing doing,' says Windy.
+
+"'Oh, yes there is,' he replies, still smiling; 'she writes me every
+week.'
+
+"'I got all there was at Dawson,' Windy give back, 'and there ain't a
+thing for you!'
+
+"I consider the tragedy of this north country lies in its mail
+service.  Uncle Sam institutes rural deliveries, so the bolomen can
+register poisoned arrowheads to the Igorrotes in exchange for recipes
+to make roulade of naval officer, but his American miners in Alaska
+go shy on home news for eight months every year.
+
+"That was the last mail we had till June.
+
+"When the river broke we cleaned up one hundred and eighty-seven
+dollars' worth of lovely, yellow dust, and seven hundred and
+thirty-five dollars in beautiful yellow bills from the post.
+
+"The first boat down from Dawson brought mail, and I stood beside him
+when he got his.  He shook so he held on to the purser's window.
+Instead of a stack of squares overrun with female chiropody, there
+was only one for him--a long, hungry sport, with indications of a law
+firm in the northwest corner.  It charmed him like a rattler.  He
+seemed scared to open it.  Two or three times he tried and stopped.
+
+"'They're dead,' thinks I; and, sure enough, when he'd looked, I knew
+it was so, and felt for his hand.  Sympathy don't travel by word of
+mouth between pardners.  It's the grip of the hand or the look of the
+eye.
+
+"'What cause?' says I.
+
+"He turned, and s'help me, I never want to see the like again.  His
+face was plumb grey and dead, like wet ashes, while his eyes scorched
+through, all dry and hot.  Lines was sinkin' into it as I looked.
+
+"'It's worse,' says he, 'unless it's a joke.' He handed me the dope:
+'In re Olive Troop Morrow _vs_. Justus Morrow,' and a letter stating
+that out of regard for her feelings, and bein' a gentleman, he wasn't
+expected to cause a scandal, but to let her get the divorce by
+default.  No explanation; no word from her; nothing.
+
+"God knows what that boy suffered the next few weeks, but he fought
+it out alone.  She was proud, but he was prouder.  Her silence hurt
+him the worst, of course; but what could he do?  Go to her?  Fine!
+Both of us broke and in debt.  Also, there's such a thing as diggin'
+deep enough to scrape the varnish off of a man's self-respect,
+leavin' it raw and shrinking.  No!  He done like you or me--let her
+have her way.  He took off the locket and hid it, and I never heard
+her name mentioned for a year.
+
+"I'd been up creek for a whip-saw one day, and as I came back I heard
+voices in the cabin.  'Some musher out from town,' thinks I, till
+something in their tones made me stop in my tracks.
+
+"I could hear the boy's voice, hoarse and throbbing, as though he
+dragged words out bleeding, then I heard the other one laugh--a
+nasty, sneering laugh that ended in a choking rattle, like a noose
+had tightened on his throat.
+
+"I jumped for the door, and rounding the corner, something near took
+me off my feet; something that shot through the air, all pretty and
+knickerbockery, with a two-faced cap, and nice brown leggin's.  Also,
+a little camera was harnessed to it by tugs.  It arose, displaying
+the face of R. Alonzo Struthers, black and swollen, with chips
+stickin' in it where he'd hit the woodpile.  He glared at Morrow, and
+his lips foamed like a crab out of water.
+
+"'I hope I'm not intrudin', I ventures.
+
+"When the kid seen me, he says, soft and weak, like something ailed
+his palate:
+
+"'Don't let me kill him, Billy.'"
+
+[Illustration:  "Don't let me kill him, Billy."]
+
+"Struthers spit, and picked splinters forth from his complexion.
+
+"'I told you for your own good.  It's common gossip,' says he.
+'Everybody is laughing at you, an--'
+
+"Then I done a leap for life for the kid, 'cause the murder light
+blazed up white in his face, and he moved at the man like he had
+something serious in view.
+
+"'Run, you idiot!' I yells to Struthers as I jammed the youngster
+back into the cabin.  All of a sudden the gas went out of him and he
+broke, hanging to me like a baby.
+
+"'It can't be,' he whispers.  'It can't be.'  He throwed hisself on
+to a goods' box, and buried his face in his hands.  It gripes me to
+hear a man cry, so I went to the creek for a pail of water.
+
+"I never heard what Struthers said, but it don't take no Nick Carter
+to guess.
+
+"That was the fall of the Fryin' Pan strike--do you mind it?
+Shakespeare George put us on, so me and the kid got in ahead of the
+stampede.  We located one and two above discovery, and by Christmas
+we had a streak uncovered that was all gold.  She was coarse, and we
+averaged six ounces a day in pick-ups.  Man, that _was_ ground!  I've
+flashed my candle along the drift face, where it looked like gold had
+been shot in with a scatter-gun.
+
+"We was cleaned up and had our 'pokes' at the post when the first
+boat from Dawson smoked 'round the bend.
+
+"Now, in them days, a man's averdupoise was his abstract of title.
+There was nothing said about records and patentees as long as you
+worked your ground; but, likewise, when you didn't work it, somebody
+else usually did.  We had a thousand feet of as good dirt as ever
+laid out in the rain; but there was men around drulin' to snipe it,
+and I knowed it was risky to leave.  However, I saw what was gnawin'
+at the boy, and if ever a man needed a friend and criminal lawyer,
+that was the time.  According to the zodiac, certain persons, to the
+complainant unknown, had a mess of trouble comin' up and I wanted to
+have the bail money handy.
+
+"We jumped camp together.  I made oration to the general gnat-bitten
+populace, from the gang-plank, to the effect that one William P.
+Joyce, trap, crap, and snap shooter was due to happen back casual
+most any time, and any lady or gent desirous of witnessing at first
+hand, a shutzenfest with live targets, could be gratified by
+infestin' in person or by proxy, the lands, tenements, and
+hereditaments of me and the kid.
+
+"'Well, we hit the Seattle docks at a canter, him headed for the
+postal telegraph, me for a fruit-stand.  I bought a dollar's worth of
+everything, from cracker-jack to cantaloupe, reserving the local
+option of eatin' it there in whole or in part, and returning for
+more.  First fresh fruit in three years.  I reckon my proudest hour
+come when I found, beyond peradventure, that I hadn't forgot the
+'Georgy Grind.'  What?  'Georgy Grind' consists of feeding
+rough-hewed slabs of watermelon into your sou' sou'east corner, and
+squirting a stream of seeds out from the other cardinal points,
+without stopping or strangling.
+
+"I et and et, and then wallered up to the hotel, sweatin' a different
+kind of fruit juice from every pore.  Not wishing to play any
+favourites, I'd picked up a basket of tomatoes, a gunny-sack of
+pineapples, and a peck of green plums on the way.  Them plums done
+the business.  I'd orter let bad enough alone.  They was non-union,
+and I begin having trouble with my inside help.  Morrow turned in a
+hurry-up call for the Red Cross, two medical colleges, and the
+Society of Psycolic Research.  Between 'em they diagnosed me as
+containing everything from 'housemaid's knee' to homesickness of the
+vital organs, but I _know_.  I swallered a plum pit, and it sprouted.
+
+"Next day, when I come out of it, Justus had heard from Denver.  His
+wife had been gone a year, destination unknown.  Somebody thought she
+went to California, so, two days later, we registered at the Palace,
+and the 'Frisco police begin dreaming of five thousand dollar rewards.
+
+"It was no use, though.  One day I met Struthers on Market Street,
+and he was scared stiff to hear that Morrow was in town.  It seems he
+was night editor of one of the big dailies.
+
+"'Do you know where the girl is?' says I.
+
+"'Yes, she's in New York,' he answers, looking queer, so I hurried
+back to the hotel.
+
+"As I was explaining to Morrow, a woman passed us in the hall with a
+little boy.  In the dimness, the lad mistook Justus.
+
+"'Oh, papa, papa!" he yells, and grabs him by the knees, laughing and
+kicking.
+
+"'Ah-h!' my pardner sighs, hoarse as a raven, and quicker'n light he
+snatched the little shaver to him, then seeing his mistake, dropped
+him rough.  His face went grey again, and he got wabbly at the
+hinges, so I helped him into the parlour.  He had that hungry, Yukon
+look, and breathed like he was wounded.
+
+"'You come with me,' says I, 'and get your mind off of things.  The
+eastern limited don't leave till midnight.  Us to the theatre!'
+
+"It was a swell tepee, all right.  Variety house, with moving
+pictures, and actorbats, and two-ton soubrettes, with Barrios
+diamonds and hand-painted socks.
+
+"First good show I'd seen in three years, and naturally humour broke
+out all over me.  When joy spreads its wings in my vitals, I sound
+like a boy with a stick running past a picket-fence.  Not so Morrow.
+He slopped over the sides of his seat, like he'd been spilled into
+the house.
+
+"Right after the sea-lions, the orchestra spieled some teetery music,
+and out floats a woman, slim and graceful as an antelope.  She had a
+big pay-dump of brown hair, piled up on her hurricane deck, with eyes
+that snapped and crinkled at the corners.  She single-footed in like
+a derby colt, and the somnambulists in the front row begin to show
+cause.  Something about her startled me, so I nudged the kid, but he
+was chin-deep in the plush, with his eyes closed.  I marked how
+drawed and haggard he looked; and then, of a sudden he raised half on
+to his feet.  The girl had begun to sing.  Her voice was rich and
+low, and full of deep, still places, like a mountain stream.  But
+Morrow!  He sunk his fingers into me, and leaned for'rad, starin' as
+though Paradise had opened for him, while the sweat on his face shone
+like diamond chips.
+
+"It was the girl of the locket, all right, on the stage again--in
+vaudeville.
+
+"Her song bubbled along, rippling over sandy, sunlit gravel bars, and
+slidin' out through shadowy trout pools beneath the cool, alder
+thickets, and all the time my pardner sat burning his soul in his
+eyes, his breath achin' out through his throat.  Incidental, his
+digits was knuckle-deep into the muscular tissue of William P., the
+gent to the right.
+
+"When she quit, I had to jam him back.
+
+"For an encore she sang a reg'lar American song, with music to it.
+When she reached the chorus she stopped.  Then away up in the balcony
+sounded the tiny treble of a boy's soprano, sweet as the ring of
+silver.  The audience turned, to a man, and we seen, perched among
+the newsboys, the littlest, golden-haired youngster, 'bout the size
+of your thumb, his eyes glued to the face of his mother on the stage
+below, pourin' out his lark song, serious and frightened.  Twice he
+done it, while by main stren'th I held his father to the enjoyments
+of a two-dollar orchestra chair.
+
+"'Let us in,' we says, three minutes later, to the stranger at the
+stage door, but he looked upon us with unwelcome, like the
+seven-headed hydrant of Holy Writ.
+
+"'It's agin' the rules,' says he.  'You kin wait in the alley with
+the other Johnnies.'
+
+"I ain't acclimated to the cold disfavour of a stage door, never
+having soubretted along the bird and bottle route.  I was for the
+layin' on of hands.  Moreover, I didn't like the company we was in,
+'Johnnies,' by designations of the Irish terrier at the wicket.  They
+smoked ready-made cigarettes, and some of 'em must have measured full
+eight inches acrost the chest.
+
+"'Let us stroll gently but firmly into, over, and past the remains of
+this party, to the missus,' says I, but Morrow got seized with the
+shakes, of a sudden.
+
+"'No, no.  We'll wait here.'
+
+"At last she come out, steppin' high.  When she moved she rustled and
+rattled like she wore sandpaper at the ankles.
+
+"Say, she was royal!  She carried the youngster in her arms, sound
+asleep, and it wasn't till she stepped under the gaslight that she
+seen us.
+
+"'Oh!' she cried, and went white as the lace of her cloak.  Then she
+hugged the kiddie clost to her, standing straight and queenly, her
+eyes ablaze, her lips moist, and red, and scornful.
+
+"God, she was grand--but him?  He looked like a barnacle.
+
+"'Olive!' says he, bull-froggy, and that's all.  Just quit like a dog
+and ate her up by long-distance eyesight.  Lord!  Nobody would have
+knowed him for the same man that called the crookedest gamblers on
+the Yukon, and bolted newspaper men raw.  He had ingrowing language.
+It oozed out through his pores till he dreened like a harvest hand.
+I'd have had her in my arms in two winks, so that all hell and a
+policeman couldn't have busted my holt till she'd said she loved me.
+
+"She shrivelled him with a look, the likes of which ain't strayed
+over the Mason-Dixon line since Lee surrendered, and swept by us,
+invitin' an' horspitable as an iceberg in a cross sea.  Her cab door
+slammed, and I yanked Morrow out of there, more dead than alive.
+
+"'Let me go home,' says he wearily.
+
+"'You bet!' I snorts.  'It's time you was tucked in.  The dew is
+fallin' and some rude person might accost you.  You big slob!
+There's a man's work to do to-night, and as I don't seem to have no
+competition in holding the title, I s'pose it's my lead.'  I throwed
+him into a carriage.  'You'd best put on your nighty, and have the
+maid turn down your light.  Sweet dreams, Gussie!'  I was plumb sore
+on him.  History don't record no divorce suits in the Stone Age, when
+a domestic inclined man allus toted a white-oak billy, studded with
+wire nails, according to the pictures, and didn't scruple to use it,
+both at home and abroad.  Women was hairy, them days, and harder to
+make love, honour and obey; but principles is undyin'.
+
+"I boarded another cab:
+
+"'Drive me to number ----,' giving him the address I'd heard her use.
+
+"'Who is it,' came her voice when I rang the bell.
+
+"'Messenger boy,' I replies, perjuring my vocal cords.
+
+"When she opened the door, I pushed through and closed it behind me.
+
+"'What does this mean?' she cried.  'Help!'
+
+"'Shut up!  It means you're killing the best boy in the world, and I
+want to know why.'
+
+"'Who are you?'
+
+"'I'm Bill Joyce, your husband's pardner.  Old Tarantula Bill, that
+don't fear no man, woman, or child that roams the forest.  I'm here
+to find what ails you--'
+
+"'Leave this house, sir!'
+
+"'Well, not to any extent.  You're a good girl; I knowed it when I
+first seen your picture.  Now, I want you to tell me--'
+
+"'Insolent!  Shall I call the police?'  Her voice was icy, and she
+stood as solid as stone.
+
+"'Madam, I'm as gentle as a jellyfish, and peaceful to a fault, but
+if you raise a row before I finish my talk I'll claim no
+responsibility over what occurs to the first eight or ten people that
+intrudes,' and I drawed my skinnin' knife, layin' it on the planner.
+'Philanthropy is raging through my innards, and two loving hearts
+need joining!'
+
+"'I don't love him,' she quotes, like a phonograft, ignoring my
+cutlery.
+
+"'I'll take exception to that ruling,' and I picks up a picture of
+Justus she'd dropped as I broke in.  She never batted an eye.
+
+"'I nursed that lad through brain fever, when all he could utter was
+your name.'
+
+"'Has he been sick?'  The first sign of spring lit up her peaks.
+
+"'Most dead.  Notice of the divorce done it.  He's in bad shape yet.'
+Morrow never had a sick day in his life, but I stomped both feet on
+the soft pedal, and pulled out the tremulo stop.
+
+"'Oh! Oh!'  Her voice was soft, though she still stood like a birch.
+
+"'Little girl,' I laid a hand on her shoulder.  'We both love that
+boy.  Come, now, what is the matter?'
+
+"She flashed up like powder.
+
+"'Matter?  I thought he was a gentleman, even though he didn't love
+me; that he had a shred of honour, at least.  But no!  He went to
+Alaska and made a fortune.  Then he squandered it, drinking,
+fighting, gambling, and frittering it away on women.  Bah!  Lewd
+creatures of the dance-halls, too.'
+
+"'Hold up!  Your dope sheet is way to the bad.  There's something
+wrong with your libretto.  Who told you all that?'
+
+"'Never mind.  I have proof.  Look at these, and you dare to ask me
+why I left him?'
+
+"She dragged out some pictures and throwed 'em at me.
+
+"'Ah!  Why didn't I let the kid kill him?' says I, through my teeth.
+
+"The first was the gambling-room of the Reception.  There stood
+Morrow with the men under foot; there was the bottles and glasses;
+the chips and cards, and also the distressful spectacle of Tarantula
+Bill Joyce, a number twelve man, all gleaming teeth, and rolling
+eyeballs, inserting hisself into a number nine opening, and doing
+surprising well at it.
+
+"'Look at them.  Look at them well,' she gibed.
+
+"The second was the Gold-Belt dance-hall, with the kid cavorting
+through a drunken orgy of painted ladies, like a bull in a pansy
+patch.  But the other--it took my breath away till I felt I was on
+smooth ice, with cracks showing.  It was the inside of a cabin, after
+a big 'pot-latch,' displaying a table littered up with fizz bottles
+and dishes galore.  Diamond Tooth Lou stood on a chair, waving kisses
+and spilling booze from a mug.  In the centre stood Morrow with
+another girl, nestling agin his boosum most horrible lovin'.  Gee!
+It was a home splitter and it left me sparring for wind.  The whole
+thing exhaled an air of debauchery that would make a wooden Indian
+blush.  No one thing in particular; just the general local colour of
+a thousand-dollar bender.
+
+"'Charming, isn't it?' she sneered.
+
+"'I don't savvy the burro.  There's something phony about it.  I can
+explain the other two, but this one--.'  Then it come to me in a
+flash.  The man's face was perfect, but he wore knickerbockers!  Now,
+to my personal knowledge, the only being that ever invaded Rampart
+City in them things was R. Alonzo Struthers.
+
+"'There's secrets of the dark-room that I ain't wise to,' says I,
+'but I feel that this is going to be a bad night for the newspaper
+enterprise of 'Frisco if it don't explain.  I'll fetch the man that
+busted your Larrys and Peanuts.'
+
+"'Our what?' says she.
+
+"'Larrys and Peanuts--that's Roman.  The kid told me all about 'em.
+They're sort of little cheap gods!'
+
+"'Will you ever go?' she snapped.  'I don't need your help.  Tell him
+I hate him!'  She stamped her foot, and the iron come into her again
+till the pride of all Kentucky blazed in her eyes.
+
+"She couldn't understand my explanations no more than I could, so I
+ducked.  As I backed out the door, though, I seen her crumple up and
+settle all of a heap on the floor.  She certainly did hate that man
+scandalous.
+
+"I'm glad some editors work nights.  Struthers wasn't overjoyed at my
+call, particular, as I strayed in with two janitors dangling from me.
+They said he was busy and couldn't be interrupted, and they seemed to
+insist on it.'
+
+"'It's a bully night,' says I, by way of epigram, unhooking the pair
+of bouncers.  "'You wouldn't like me to take you ridin' perhaps?'
+
+"'Are you drunk, or crazy?' says he.  'What do you mean by breaking
+into my office?  I can't talk to you; we're just going to press.'
+
+"'I'd like to stay and watch it,' says I, 'but I've got a news item
+for you.'  At the same time I draws my skinner and lays it on the
+back of his neck, tempting.  Steel, in the lamp-light, is
+discouraging to some temperaments.  One of the body-guards was took
+with urgent business, and left a streamer of funny noises behind him,
+while the other gave autumn-leaf imitations in the corner.  Struthers
+looked like a dose of seasickness on a sour stomach.
+
+"Get your hat.  Quick!' I jobbed him, gentle and encouraging.
+
+"Age allus commands respect.  Therefore the sight of a six-foot,
+grizzled Klondiker in a wide hat, benevolently prodding the night
+editor in the short ribs and apple sauce, with eight bright and
+chilly inches, engendered a certain respect in the reportorial staff.
+
+"'You're going to tell Mrs. Morrow all about the pretty pictures,' I
+says, like a father.
+
+"'Let me go, damn you!' he frothed, but I wedged him into a corner of
+the cab and took off his collar--in strips.  It interfered with his
+breathing, as I couldn't get a holt low enough to regulate his
+respiration.  He kicked out two cab windows, but I bumped his head
+agin the woodwork, by way of repartee.  It was a real pleasure, not
+to say recreation, experimenting with the noises he made.  Seldom I
+get a neck I give a cuss to squeeze.  His was number fifteen at
+first, by the feel; but I reduced it a quarter size at a time.
+
+"When we got there I helped him out, one hand under his chin, the
+other back of his ears.  I done it as much from regard of the
+neighbours as animosities to him, for it was the still, medium small
+hours.  I tiptoed in with my treatise on the infamies of photography
+gurgling under my hand, but at the door I stopped.  It was ajar; and
+there, under the light, I spied Morrow.  In his arms I got glimpses
+of black lace and wavy, brown hair, and a white cheek that he was
+accomplishing wonders with.  They wouldn't have heard a man-hole
+explosion.
+
+"'He's still fitting to be my pardner,' I thinks, and then I heard
+Struthers's teeth chatter and grind.  I looked at him, and the secret
+of the whole play came to me.
+
+"Never having known the divine passion, it ain't for me to judge, but
+I tightened on his voice-box and whispered:
+
+"'You've outlived your period of usefulness, Struthers, and it's time
+to go.  Let us part friends, however.'  So I bade him Godspeed from
+the top step.
+
+"Looking back on the evening now, that adieu was my only mistake.  I
+limped for a week--he had a bottle in his hip pocket."
+
+
+
+
+THE MULE DRIVER AND THE GARRULOUS MUTE
+
+Bill had finished panning the concentrates from our last clean-up,
+and now the silver ball of amalgam sizzled and fried on the shovel
+over the little chip-fire, while we smoked in the sun before the
+cabin.  Removed from the salivating fumes of the quicksilver, we
+watched the yellow tint grow and brighten in the heat.
+
+"There's two diseases which the doctors ain't got any license to
+monkey with," began Bill, chewing out blue smoke from his lungs with
+each word, "and they're both fevers.  After they butt into your
+system they stick crossways, like a swallered toothpick; there ain't
+any patent medicine that can bust their holt."
+
+I settled against the door-jamb and nodded.
+
+"I've had them both, acute and continuous, since I was old enough
+to know my own mind and the taste of tobacco; I hold them mainly
+responsible for my present condition."  He mournfully viewed his
+fever-ridden frame which sprawled a pitiful six-feet-two from the
+heels of his gum-boots to the grizzled hair beneath his white Stetson.
+
+"The first and most rabid," he continued, "is horse-racing--and
+t'other is the mining fever, which last is a heap insidiouser in its
+action and more lingering in its effect.
+
+"It wasn't long after that deal in the Territory that I felt the
+symptoms coming on agin, and this time they pinted most emphatic
+toward prospecting, so me and 'Kink' Martin loaded our kit onto the
+burros and hit West.
+
+"Kink was a terrible good prospector, though all-fired unlucky and
+peculiar.  Most people called him crazy, 'cause he had fits of goin'
+for days without a peep.
+
+"Hosstyle and ornery to the whole world; sort of bulging out and
+exploding with silence, as it were.
+
+"We'd been out in the hills for a week on our first trip before he
+got one of them death-watch faces on him, and boycotted the English
+langwidge.  I stood for it three days, trying to jolly a grin on to
+him or rattle a word loose, but he just wouldn't jolt.
+
+"One night we packed into camp tired, hungry, and dying for a good
+feed.
+
+"I hustled around and produced a supper fit for old Mr. Eppycure.
+Knowing that Kink had a weakness for strong coffee that was simply a
+hinge in him, I pounded up about a quart of coffee beans in the
+corner of a blanket and boiled out a South American liquid that was
+nothing but the real Arbuckle mud.
+
+"This wasn't no chafing-dish party either, because the wood was wet
+and the smoke chased me round the fire.  Then it blazed up in spurts
+and fired the bacon-grease, so that when I grabbed the skillet the
+handle sizzled the life all out of my callouses.  I kicked the fire
+down to a nice bed of coals and then the coffee-pot upset and put it
+out.  Ashes got into the bacon, and--Oh! you know how joyful it is to
+cook on a green fire when you're dead tired and your hoodoo's on
+vicious.
+
+"When the 'scoffings' were finally ready, I wasn't in what you might
+exactly call a mollyfying and tactful mood nor exuding genialness and
+enthusiasms anyways noticeable."
+
+"I herded the best in camp towards him, watching for a benevolent
+symptom, but he just dogged it in silence and never changed a hair.
+That was the limit, so I inquired sort of ominous and gentle, 'Is
+that coffee strong enough for ye, Mr. Martin?'
+
+"He give a little impecunious grunt, implying, 'Oh! it'll do,' and
+with that I seen little green specks begin to buck and wing in front
+of my eyes; reaching back of me, I grabbed the Winchester and throwed
+it down on him.
+
+"'Now, you laugh, darn you,' I says, 'in a hurry.  Just turn it out
+gleeful and infractious.'
+
+"He stared into the nozzle of that Krupp for a minute, then swallered
+twice to tune up his reeds, and says, friendly and perlite, but
+serious and wheezy:
+
+"'Why, what in hell ails you, William?'
+
+"'Laugh, you old dong-beater,' I yells, rising gradually to the
+occasion, 'or I'll bust your cupola like a blue-rock.'
+
+"'I've got to have merriment,' I says.  'I pine for warmth and genial
+smiles, and you're due to furnish the sunshine.  You emit a few
+shreds of mirth with expedition or the upper end of your spinal-cord
+is going to catch cold.'
+
+"Say! his jaws squeaked like a screen door when he loosened, but he
+belched up a beauty, sort of stagy and artificial it was, but a great
+help.  After that we got to know each other a heap better.  Yes, sir;
+soon after that we got real intimate.  He knocked the gun out of my
+hands, and we began to arbitrate.  We plumb ruined that spot for a
+camping place; rooted it up in furrows, and tramped each other's
+stummicks out of shape.  We finally reached an amicable settlement by
+me getting him agin a log where I could brand him with the coffee-pot.
+
+"Right there we drawed up a protoplasm, by the terms of which he was
+to laugh anyways twice at meal-times.
+
+"He told me that he reckoned he was locoed, and always had been since
+a youngster, when the Injuns run in on them down at Frisbee, the time
+of the big 'killing.'  Kink saw his mother and father both murdered,
+and other things, too, which was impressive, but not agreeable for a
+growing child.  He had formed a sort of antipathy for Injuns at that
+time, which he confessed he hadn't rightly been able to overcome.
+
+"Now, he allus found himself planning how to hand Mr. Lo the double
+cross and avoid complications.
+
+"We worked down into South Western Arizony to a spot about
+thirty-five miles back of Fort Walker and struck a prospect.  Sort of
+a teaser it was, but worth working on.  We'd just got nicely started
+when Kink comes into camp one day after taking a passiar around the
+butte for game, and says:
+
+"'The queerest thing happened to me just now, Kid.'
+
+"'Well, scream it at me,' I says, sort of smelling trouble in the air.
+
+"'Oh!  It wasn't much,' says he.  'I was just working down the big
+canyon over there after a deer when I seen two feather-dusters coming
+up the trail.  I hid behind a rock, watching 'em go past, and I'm
+durned if my gun didn't go off accidental and plumb ruin one of 'em.
+Then I looks carefuller and seen it wasn't no feather-duster at
+all--nothing but an Injun.'
+
+"'What about the other one?'
+
+"'That's the strangest part,' says Kink.  'Pretty soon the other one
+turns and hits the back-trail like he'd forgot something; then I seen
+him drop off his horse, too, sudden and all togetherish.  I'm awful
+careless with this here gun,' he says.  I hate to see a man laugh
+from his tonsils forrard, the way he did.  It ain't humorous.
+
+"'See here,' I says, 'I ain't the kind that finds fault with my
+pardner, nor saying this to be captious and critical of your play;
+but don't you know them Cochises ain't on the warpath?  Them Injuns
+has been on their reservation for five years, peaceable,
+domesticated, and eating from the hand.  This means trouble."
+
+"'My old man didn't have no war paint on him one day back at
+Frisbee,' whispers Kink, and his voice sounded puckered up and dried,
+'and my mother wasn't so darned quarrelsome, either.'
+
+"Then I says, 'Well! them bodies has got to be hid, or we'll have the
+tribe and the bluebellies from the fort a scouring these hills till a
+red-bug couldn't hide.'
+
+"'To hell with 'em,' says Kink.  'I've done all I'm going to for 'em.
+Let the coyotes finish the job.'
+
+"'No, siree,' I replies.  'I don't blame you for having a prejudice
+agin savages, but _my_ parents is still robust and husky, and I have
+an idea that they'd rather see me back on the ranch than glaring
+through the bars for life.  I'm going over to bury the meat.'
+
+"Off I went, but when I slid down the gulch, I only found one body.
+T'other had disappeared.  You can guess how much time I lost getting
+back to camp.
+
+"'Kink,' I says, 'we're a straddle of the raggedest proposition in
+this country.  One of your dusters at this moment is jamming his
+cayuse through the horizon between here and the post.  Pretty soon
+things is going to bust loose.  'Bout to-morrer evening we'll be
+eating hog-bosom on Uncle Sam.'
+
+"'Well!  Well!' says Kink, 'ain't that a pity.  Next time I'll
+conquer my natural shyness and hold a post-mortem with a rock.'
+
+"'There won't be no next time, I reckon,' I says, ''cause we can't
+make it over into Mexico without being caught up.  They'll nail us
+sure, seeing as we're the only white men for twenty-five miles
+around.'
+
+"'I'd rather put up a good run than a bad stand, anyhow,' says he,
+'and I allows, furthermore, there's going to be some hard trails to
+foller and a tolable disagreeable fight before I pleads 'not guilty'
+to the Colonel.  We'll both duck over into the Santa--'
+
+"'Now, don't tell me what route you're going,' I interrupts,' 'cause
+I believe I'll stay and bluff it through, rather than sneak for it,
+though neither proposition don't appeal to me.  I may get raised out
+before the draw, but the percentage is just as strong agin your game
+as mine.'
+
+"'Boy, if I was backing your system,' says Kink, 'I'd shore copper
+this move and play her to lose.  You come on with me, and we'll make
+it through--mebbe.'
+
+"'No,' I says; 'here I sticks.'
+
+"I made up a pack-strap out of my extry overhalls while he got grub
+together, to start south through one hundred miles of the ruggedest
+and barrenest country that was ever left unfinished.
+
+"Next noon I was parching some coffee-beans in the frying-pan, when I
+heard hoofs down the gully back of me.  I never looked up when they
+come into the open nor when I heard a feller say 'Halt!'
+
+"'Hello there!' somebody yells.  'You there at the fire.'  I kept on
+shaking the skillet over the camp-fire.
+
+"'What's the matter with him?' somebody said.  A man got off and
+walked up behind me.
+
+"'See here, brother,' he says, tapping me on the shoulder; 'this
+don't go.'
+
+"I jumped clean over the fire, dropped the pan, and let out a deaf
+and dumb holler, 'Ee! Ah!'
+
+"The men began to laugh; it seemed to rile the little leftenant.
+
+"'Cut this out,' says he.  'You can talk as well as I can, and you're
+a going to tell us about this Injun killin'.  Don't try any fake
+business, or I'll roast your little heels over that fire like yams.'
+
+"I just acted the dummy, wiggled my fingers, and handed him the
+joyful gaze, heliographing with my teeth as though I was glad to see
+visitors.  However, I wondered if that runt would really give my
+chilblains a treat.  He looked like a West Pointer, and I didn't know
+but he'd try to haze me.
+
+"Well!  they 'klow-towed' around there for an hour looking for clues,
+but I'd hid all the signs of Kink, so finally they strapped me onto a
+horse and we hit back for the fort.
+
+"The little man tried all kinds of tricks to make me loosen on the
+way down, but I just acted wounded innocence and 'Ee'd' and 'Ah'd' at
+him till he let me alone.
+
+"When we rode up to the post he says to the Colonel:
+
+"'We've got the only man there is in the mountains back there, sir,
+but he's playing dumb.  I don't know what his game is.'
+
+"'Dumb, eh?' says the old man, looking me over pretty keen.  'Well! I
+guess we'll find his voice if he's got one.'
+
+"He took me inside, and speaking of examinations, probably I didn't
+get one.  He kept looking at me like he wanted to place me, but I
+give him the 'Ee! Ah!' till everybody began to laugh.  They tried me
+with a pencil and paper, but I balked, laid my ears back, and
+buck-jumped.  That made the old man sore, and he says: 'Lock him up!
+Lock him up; I'll make him talk if I have to skin him.'  So I was
+dragged to the 'skookum-house,' where I spent the night figuring out
+my finish.
+
+"I could feel it coming just as plain, and I begun to see that when I
+did open up and prattle after Kink was safe, nobody wouldn't believe
+my little story.  I had sized the Colonel up as a dead stringy old
+proposition, too.  He was one of these big-chopped fellers with a
+mouth set more'n half way up from his chin and little thin lips like
+the edge of a knife blade, and just as full of blood--face, big and
+rustic-finished.
+
+"I says to myself, 'Bud, it looks like you wouldn't be forced to
+prospect for a living any more this season.  If that old sport turns
+himself loose you're going to get 'life' three times and a holdover.'
+
+"Next morning they tried every way to make me talk.  Once in a while
+the old man looked at me puzzled and searching, but I didn't know him
+from a sweat-pad, and just paid strict attention to being dumb.
+
+"It was mighty hard, too.  I got so nervous my mouth simply ached to
+let out a cayoodle.  The words kept trying to crawl through my
+sesophagus, and when I backed 'em up, they slid down and stood around
+in groups, hanging onto the straps, gradually filling me with witful
+gems of thought.
+
+"The Colonel talked to me serious and quiet, like I had good ears,
+and says, 'My man, you can understand every word I say, I'm sure, and
+what your object is in maintaining this ridiculous silence, I don't
+know.  You're accused of a crime, and it looks serious for you."
+
+"Then he gazes at me queer and intent, and says, 'If you only knew
+how bad you are making your case you'd make a clean breast of it.
+Come now, let's get at the truth.'
+
+"Them thought jewels and wads of repartee was piling up in me fast,
+like tailings from a ground-sluice, till I could feel myself getting
+bloated and pussy with langwidge, but I thought, 'No! to-morrow Kink
+'ll be safe, and then I'll throw a jolt into this man's camp that'll
+go down in history.  They'll think some Chinaman's been thawing out a
+box of giant powder when I let out my roar.'
+
+"I goes to the guard-house again, with a soldier at my back.
+Everything would have been all right if we hadn't run into a mule
+team.
+
+"They had been freighting from the railroad, and as we left the
+barracks we ran afoul of four outfits, three span to the wagon, with
+the loads piled on till the teams was all lather and the wheels
+complainin' to the gods, trying to pass the corner of the barracks
+where there was a narrow opening between the buildings.
+
+"Now a good mule-driver is the littlest, orneriest speck in the human
+line that's known to the microscope, but when you get a poor one,
+he'd spoil one of them cholera germs you read about just by contact.
+The leader of this bunch was worse than the worst; strong on
+whip-arm, but surprising weak on judgment.  He tried to make the
+turn, run plump into the corner of the building, stopped, backed,
+swung, and proceeded to get into grief.
+
+"The mules being hot and nervous, he sent them all to the loco patch
+instanter.  They began to plunge and turn and back and snarl.  Before
+you could say 'Craps! you lose,' them shave-tails was giving the
+grandest exhibition of animal idiocy in the Territory, barring the
+teamster.  He follered their trail to the madhouse, yanking the
+mouths out of them, cruel and vicious.
+
+"Now, one mule can cause a heap of tribulation, and six mules can
+break a man's heart, but there wasn't no excuse for that driver to
+stand up on his hind legs, close his eyes, and throw thirty foot of
+lash into that plunging buckin', white-eyed mess.  When he did it,
+all the little words inside of me began to foam and fizzle like
+sedlitz; out they came, biting, in mouthfuls, and streams, and
+squirts, backwards, sideways, and through my nose.
+
+"'Here! you infernal half-spiled, dog-robbing walloper,' I says; 'you
+don't know enough to drive puddle ducks to a pond.  You quit heaving
+that quirt or I'll harm you past healing.'
+
+"He turned his head and grit out something through his teeth that
+stimulated my circulation.  I skipped over the wheels and put my left
+onto his neck, fingering the keys on his blow-pipe like a flute.
+Then I give him a toss and gathered up the lines.  Say! it was like
+the smell of grease-paint to an actor man for me to feel the ribbons
+again, and them mules knew they had a chairman who savvied 'em too,
+and had mule talk pat, from soda to hock.
+
+"I just intimated things over them with that whip, and talked to them
+like they was my own flesh and blood.  I starts at the worst words
+the English langwidge and the range had produced, to date, and got
+steadily and rapidly worse as long as I talked.
+
+"Arizony may be slow in the matter of standing collars and rag-time,
+but she leads the world in profanity.  Without being swelled on
+myself, I'll say, too, that I once had more'n a local reputation in
+that line, having originated some quaint and feeling conceits which
+has won modest attention, and this day I was certainly trained to the
+minute.
+
+"I addressed them brutes fast and earnest for five minutes steady,
+and never crossed my trail or repeated a thought.
+
+"It must have been sacred and beautiful.  Anyhow, it was strong
+enough to soak into their pores so that they strung out straight as a
+chalk-line.  Then I lifted them into the collars, and we rumbled past
+the building, swung in front of the commissary door, cramped and
+stopped.  With the wheelers on their haunches, I backed up to the
+door square as a die.
+
+"I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and looked up into the grinning
+face of about fifty swatties, realizing I was a mute--and a prisoner.
+
+"I heard a voice say, 'Bring me that man.'  There stood the Colonel
+oozing out wrath at every pore.
+
+"I parted from that wagon hesitating and reluctant, but two soldiers
+to each leg will bust any man's grip, I lost some clothes, too, after
+we hit the ground, but I needed the exercise.
+
+"The old man was alone in his office when they dragged me in, and he
+sent my guards out.
+
+"'So you found your voice, did you?' he says.
+
+"'Yes, sir," I answers.  'It came back unexpected, regular miracle.'
+
+"'He drummed on the table for a long time, and then says, sort of
+immaterial and irreverent, 'You're a pretty good mule puncher, eh?'
+
+"'It ain't for me to say I'm the best in the Territory,' I says; 'but
+I'm curious to meet the feller that claims the title.'
+
+"He continues, 'It reminds me of an exhibition I saw once, back in
+New Mexico, long time ago, at the little Flatwater Canyon.'
+
+"'Maybe you've heard tell of the fight there when the Apaches were
+up?  Yes?  Well, I happened to be in that scrimmage.'
+
+"'I was detailed with ten men to convoy a wagon train through to Fort
+Lewis.  We had no trouble till we came to the end of that canyon,
+just where she breaks out onto the flats.  There we got it.  They
+were hidden up on the ridges; we lost two men and one wagon before we
+could get out onto the prairie.
+
+"'I got touched up in the neck, first clatter, and was bleeding
+pretty badly; still I hung to my horse, and we stood 'em off till the
+teams made it out of the gulch; but just as we came out my horse fell
+and threw me--broke his leg.  I yelled to the boys:
+
+"'"Go on!  For God's sake go on!"  Any delay there meant loss of the
+whole outfit.  Besides, the boys had more than they could manage,
+Injuns on three sides.
+
+"'We had a young Texan driving the last wagon.  When I went down he
+swung those six mules of his and came back up that trail into the
+gut, where the bullets snapped like grasshoppers.
+
+"'It was the prettiest bit of driving I ever saw, not to mention
+nerve.  He whirled the outfit between me and the bluff on two wheels,
+yelling, "Climb on!  Climb on!  We ain't going to stay long!"  I was
+just able to make it onto the seat.  In the turn they dropped one of
+his wheelers.  He ran out on the tongue and cut the brute loose.  We
+went rattling down the gulch behind five mules.  All the time there
+came out of that man's lungs the fiercest stream of profanity my ears
+ever burned under.  I was pretty sick for a few weeks, so I never got
+a chance to thank that teamster.  He certainly knew the mind of an
+army mule, though.  His name was--let me see--Wiggins--yes, Wiggins.
+
+"'Oh, no it wasn't,' I breaks in, foolish; 'it was Joyce.'
+
+"Then I stopped and felt like a kid, for the Colonel comes up and
+shuts the circulation out of both my hands.
+
+"'I wasn't sure of you, Bill,' he says, 'till I saw you preside over
+those mules out there and heard your speech--then I recognized the
+gift.'  He laughed like a boy, still making free with my hands.  'I'm
+darn glad to see you, Bill Joyce.  Now then,' he says, 'tell me all
+about this killing up in the hills,' and I done so.
+
+"After I finished he never said anything for a long time, just
+drummed the desk again and looked thoughtful.
+
+"'It's too bad you didn't speak out, Bill, when you first came in.
+Now, you've showed everybody that you can talk--just a little,
+anyhow,' and he smiles, 'and they all think you're the man caused the
+trouble.  I don't see but that you've got to stand trial.  I wish I
+could help you, Bill.'
+
+"'But see here, Colonel,' I says; 'I couldn't squeal on Kink.  We're
+_pardners_.  I just _had_ to give him a chance to cut.  I played dumb
+'cause I knew if I talked at all, being simple and guileless, you all
+would twist me up and have the whole thing in a jiffy.  That man give
+me the last drop of water in his canteen on the Mojave, and him with
+his own tongue swelled clean out of his mouth, too.  When we was
+snowed in, up in the Bitter Roots, with me snow-blind and starving,
+he crawled from Sheeps-Horn clean to Miller's--snow twelve foot deep,
+too, and nary a snow-shoe in miles, but he brought the outfit in to
+where I was lyin' 'bout gone in.  He lost some fingers and more toes
+wallering through them mountain drifts that day, but he never laid
+down till he brought the boys back.
+
+"'Colonel! we've slept on the same blanket, we've et the same grub,
+we've made and lost together, and I had to give him a show, that's
+all.  I'm into this here trouble now.  Tell me how I'm going to get
+out.  What would you do?'
+
+"He turns to the open window and says: 'Partners are partners!
+That's my horse out there at that post.  If I were you I'd run like
+hell.'
+
+"That was the willingest horse I ever rode, and I hated to sell him,
+but he was tolable used up when I got across the line."
+
+THE COLONEL AND THE HORSE-THIEF
+
+Those marks on my arm?  Oh!  I got 'em playin' horse-thief.  Yes,
+playin'.  I wasn't a real one, you know--Well, I s'pose it was sort
+of a queer game.  Came near bein' my last too, and if Black Hawk
+hadn't been the best horse in Texas the old Colonel would've killed
+me sure.  He chased me six miles as it was--me with one arm full of
+his buckshot and anxious to explain, and him strainin' to get in
+range again and not wishin' any further particulars.
+
+That was way back in the sixties, when I was as wild a lad as ever
+straddled a pony.
+
+You see five of us had gone over into the Crow Nation to race horses
+with the Indians, and it was on the way back that the old man and the
+bullet holes figger in the story.
+
+At the beginnin' it was Jim Barrett's plan, and it had jest enough
+risk and devilment in it to suit a harum-scarum young feller like me;
+so we got five of the boys who had good horses, lumped together all
+of our money, and rode out to invade the reservation.
+
+You know how an Indian loves to run horses?  Well, the Crows had a
+good deal of money then, and our scheme was to go over there, get up
+a big race, back our horses with all we had, and take down the wealth.
+
+Takin' chances?  Don't you believe it.  That's where the beauty of
+Jim's plan commenced to sort of shine through.
+
+You see, as soon as the money was up and the horses started, every
+Indian would be watchin' the race and yellin' at the nags, then, in
+the confusion, our boys was to grab the whole pot, Indian's money and
+ours too, and we'd make our get away across the river back into Texas.
+
+We figured that we could get a few minutes start of 'em, and, with
+the horses we had under us, there wasn't much danger of their gettin'
+in range before we crossed back to where they couldn't follow us.
+
+Well, sir!  I never see anything work out like that scheme did.  Them
+Crows was dead anxious to run their ponies and seemed skeered that we
+wouldn't let 'em get all their money up.
+
+As we was eatin' supper the night before the race, Donnelly says:
+"Boys, I'm sore that we didn't have more coin.  If we'd worked 'em
+right they'd 'a' give us odds.  We could 'a' got five to three
+anyhow, and maybe more."
+
+"They shore have got a heap of confidence in them skates of their'n,"
+says Kink Martin.  "I never see anybody so anxious to play a race in
+my life.  If it wasn't all planned out the way it is, I'd like to
+stick and see which hoss is the best.  I'd back Black Hawk agin any
+hunk of meat in the Territory, with the Kid here in the saddle."
+
+They'd ribbed it up for me to ride Martin's mare, Black Hawk, while a
+little feller named Hollis rode his own horse.
+
+Donnelly's part was to stay in the saddle and keep the other horses
+close to Barrett and Martin.  They was to stick next to the money,
+and one of 'em do the bearin' off of the booty while the other made
+the protection play.
+
+We hoped in the excitement to get off without harmin' any of Uncle
+Sam's pets, but all three of the boys had been with the Rangers and I
+knew if it came to a show down, they wouldn't hesitate to "pot" one
+or two in gittin' away.
+
+We rode out from camp the next mornin' to where we'd staked out a
+mile track on the prairie and it seemed as if the whole Crow Nation
+was there, and nary a white but us five.
+
+They'd entered two pretty good-lookin' horses and had their jockeys
+stripped down to breech-clouts, while Hollis and me wore our whole
+outfits on our backs, as we didn't exactly figger on dressin' after
+the race, leastways, not on that side of the river.
+
+Just before we lined up, Jim says: "Now you ---- all ride like ----,
+and when you git to the far turn we'll let the guns loose and
+stampede the crowd.  Then jest leave the track and make a break fer
+the river, everybody fer himself.  We'll all meet at them cottonwoods
+on the other side, so we can stand 'em off if they try to swim across
+after us."
+
+That would have been a sure enough hot race if we had run it out, for
+we all four got as pretty a start as I ever see and went down the
+line all together with a-bangin' of hoofs and Indian yells ringin' in
+our ears.
+
+I had begun to work Black Hawk out of the bunch to get a clear start
+across the prairie at the turn, when I heard the guns begin snappin'
+like pop-corn.
+
+"They've started already," yelled Hollis, and we turned the rearin'
+horses toward the river, three miles away, leavin' them two savages
+tearin' down the track like mad.
+
+I glanced back as I turned, but, instead of seein' the boys in the
+midst of a decent retreat, the crowd was swarmin' after 'em like a
+nest of angry hornets, while Donnelly, with his reins between his
+teeth, was blazin' away at three reds who were right at Barrett's
+heels as he ran for his horse.  Martin was lashin' his jumpin' cayuse
+away from the mob which sputtered and spit angry shots after him.
+Bucks were runnin' here and there and hastily mountin' their
+ponies--while an angry roar came to me, punctuated by the poppin' of
+the guns.
+
+Hollis and I reached the river and swam it half a mile ahead of the
+others and their yellin' bunch of trailers, so we were able to
+protect 'em in their crossin'.
+
+I could see from their actions that Bennett and Martin was both hurt
+and I judged the deal hadn't panned out exactly accordin' to
+specifications.
+
+The Crows didn't attempt to cross in the teeth of our fire, however,
+being satisfied with what they'd done, and the horses safely brought
+our three comrades drippin' up the bank to where we lay takin'
+pot-shots at every bunch of feathers that approached the opposite
+bank.
+
+We got Barrett's arm into a sling, and, as Martin's hurt wasn't
+serious, we lost no time in gettin' away.
+
+"They simply beat us to it," complained Barrett, as we rode south.
+"You all had jest started when young Long Hair grabs the sack and
+ducks through the crowd, and the whole bunch turns loose on us at
+once.  We wasn't expectin' anything so early in the game, and they
+winged me the first clatter.  I thought sure it was oft with me when
+I got this bullet in the shoulder, but I used the gun in my left hand
+and broke for the nearest pony."
+
+"They got me, too, before I saw what was up," added Martin; "but I
+tore out of there like a jack-rabbit.  It was all done so cussed
+quick that the first thing I knew I'd straddled my horse and was
+makin' tracks.  Who'd a thought them durned Indians was dishonest
+enough fer a trick like that?"
+
+Then Donnelly spoke up and says: "Boys, as fur as the coin goes,
+we're out an' injured; we jest made a 'Mexican stand-off'--lost our
+money, but saved our lives--and mighty lucky at that, from
+appearances.  What I want to know now is, how we're all goin' to get
+home, clean across the State of Texas, without a dollar in the
+outfit, and no assets but our guns and the nags."
+
+That was a sure tough proposition, and we had left it teetotally out
+of calculations.  We'd bet every bean on that race, not seein' how we
+could lose.  In them days there wasn't a railroad in that section,
+ranches were scatterin', and people weren't givin' pink teas to every
+stranger that rode up--especially when they were as hard-lookin' as
+we were.
+
+"We've got to eat, and so's the horses," says Hollis, "but no rancher
+is goin' to welcome with open arms as disreputable an outfit as we
+are.  Two men shot up, and the rest of us without beddin', grub,
+money, or explanations.  Them's what we need--explanations.  I don't
+exactly see how we're goin' to explain our fix to the honest
+hay-diggers, either.  Everybody'll think some sheriff is after us,
+and two to one they'll put some officer on our trail, and we'll have
+more trouble.  I believe I've had all I want for awhile."
+
+"I'll tell you how we'll work it," I says.  "One of us'll be the
+sheriff of Guadalupe County, back home, with three deputies, bringin'
+back a prisoner that we've chased across the State.  We'll ride up to
+a ranch an' demand lodgin' for ourselves and prisoner in the name of
+the State of Texas and say that we'll pay with vouchers on the county
+in the morning."
+
+"No, sir! not fer me," says Martin.  "I'm not goin' in fer forgery.
+It's all right to practice a little mild deception on our red
+brothers, as we figgered on doing, but I'm not goin' to try to
+flimflam the State of Texas.  Our troubles 'd only be startin' if we
+began that game."
+
+"Your plan's all right, Kid," says Bennett to me.  "You be the
+terrible desperado that I'm bringin' home after a bloody fight, where
+you wounded Martin and me, and 'most escaped.  You'll have ev'ry
+rancher's wife givin' you flowers and weepin' over your youth and
+kissin' you good-bye.  In the mornin', when we're ready to go and I'm
+about to fix up the vouchers for our host, you break away and ride
+like the devil.  We'll all tear off a few shots and foller in a
+hurry, leavin' the farmer hopin' that the villain is recaptured and
+the girls tearfully prayin' that the gallunt and misguided youth
+escapes."
+
+It seemed to be about our only resort, as the country was full of bad
+men, and we were liable to get turned down cold if we didn't have
+some story, so we decided to try it on.
+
+We rode up to a ranch 'bout dark, that night, me between the others,
+with my hands tied behind me, and Jim called the owner out.
+
+"I want a night's lodgin' fer my deputies and our prisoner," he says.
+"I'm the sheriff of Guadalupe County, and I'll fix up the bill in the
+mornin'."
+
+"Come in!  Come in!" the feller says, callin' a man for the horses.
+"Glad to accommodate you.  Who's your prisoner?"
+
+"That's Texas Charlie that robbed the Bank of Euclid single-handed,"
+answers Jim.  "He give us a long run clean across the State, but we
+got him jest as he was settin' over into the Indian Territory.
+Fought like a tiger."
+
+It worked fine.  The feller, whose name was Morgan, give us a good
+layout for the night and a bully breakfast next morning.
+
+That desperado game was simply great.  The other fellers attended to
+the horses, and I jest sat around lookin' vicious, and had my grub
+brought to me, while the women acted sorrowful and fed me pie and
+watermelon pickles.
+
+When we was ready to leave next morning, Jim says: "Now, Mr. Morgan,
+I'll fix up them vouchers with you," and givin' me the wink, I let
+out a yell, and jabbin' the spurs into Black Hawk, we cleared the
+fence and was off like a puff of dust, with the rest of 'em shootin'
+and screamin' after me like mad.
+
+Say!  It was lovely--and when the boys overtook me, out of sight of
+the house, Morgan would have been astonished to see the sheriff, his
+posse, and the terrible desperado doubled up in their saddles
+laughin' fit to bust.
+
+Well, sir! we never had a hitch in the proceedings for five days, and
+I was gettin' to feel a sort of pride in my record as a bank-robber,
+forger, horse-thief, and murderer, accordin' to the way Bennett
+presented it.  He certainly was the boss liar of the range.
+
+He had a story framed up that painted me as the bloodiest young tough
+the Lone Star had ever produced, and it never failed to get me all
+the attention there was in the house.
+
+One night we came to the best lookin' place we'd seen, and, in answer
+to Jim's summons, out walked an old man, followed by two of the
+prettiest girls I ever saw, who joined their father in invitin' us in.
+
+"Glad to be of assistance to you, Mr. Sheriff," he said.  "My name is
+Purdy, sir!  Colonel Purdy, as you may have heard.  In the Mexican
+War, special mention three times for distinguished conduct.  These
+are my daughters, sir!  Annabel and Marie."  As we went in, he
+continued: "You say you had a hard time gettin' your prisoner?  He
+looks young for a criminal.  What's he wanted for?"
+
+Somehow, when I saw those girls blushin' and bowin' behind their
+father, I didn't care to have my crimes made out any blacker'n
+necessary and I tried to give Jim the high-sign to let me off
+easy--just make it forgery or arson--but he was lookin' at the
+ladies, and evidently believin' in the strength of a good impression,
+he said: "Well, yes!  He's young but they never was a old man with
+half his crimes.  He's wanted for a good many things in different
+places, but I went after him for horse-stealin' and murder.  Killed a
+rancher and his little daughter, then set fire to the house and ran
+off a bunch o' stock."
+
+"Oh!  Oh!  How dreadful!" shuddered the girls, backin' off with
+horrified glances at me.
+
+I tried to get near Jim to step on his foot, but the old man was
+glarin' at me somethin' awful.
+
+"Come to observe him closely, he has a depraved face," says he.  "He
+looks the thorough criminal in every feature, dead to every decent
+impulse, I s'pose."
+
+I could have showed him a live impulse that would have surprised him
+about then.
+
+In those days I was considered a pretty handsome feller too, and I
+knew I had Jim beat before the draw on looks, but he continues makin'
+matters worse.
+
+"Yes, and he's desperate too.  One of the worst I ever see.  We had
+an awful fight with him up here on the line of the Territory.  He
+shot Martin and me before we got him.  Ye see, I wanted to take him
+alive, and so I took chances on gettin' hurt.
+
+"Thank ye, Miss; my arm does ache considerable; of course, if you'd
+jest as soon dress it--Oh, no!  I'm no braver'n anybody else, I
+guess.  Nice of ye to say so, anyhow," and he went grinnin' out into
+the kitchen with the girls to fix up his arm.
+
+The old man insisted on havin' my feet bound together and me fastened
+to a chair, and said: "Yes, yes, I know you can watch him, but you're
+in my house now, and I feel a share of the responsibility upon me.
+I've had experience with desperate characters and I'm goin' to be
+sure that this young reprobate don't escape his just punishment.  Are
+you sure you don't need more help gettin' him home?  I'll go with you
+if--"
+
+"Thank ye," interrupted Hollis.  "We've chased the scoundrel four
+hundred miles, and I reckon, now we've got him, we can keep him."
+
+At supper, Jim with his arm in a new sling, sat between the two girls
+who cooed over him and took turns feedin' him till it made me sick.
+
+The old man had a nigger move my chair up to the foot of the table
+and bring me a plate of coarse grub after they all finished eatin'.
+
+He had tied my ankles to the lower rung of the chair himself, and
+when I says to the nigger, "Those cords have plum stopped my
+circulation, just ease 'em up a little," he went straight up.
+
+"Don't you touch them knots, Sam!" he roared.  "I know how to secure
+a man, and don't you try any of your games in my house, either, you
+young fiend.  I'd never forgive myself if you escaped."
+
+I ate everything I could reach, which wasn't much, and when I asked
+for the butter he glared at me and said: "Butter's too good for
+horse-thieves; eat what's before you."
+
+Every time I'd catch the eye of one of the girls and kind of grin and
+look enticing, she'd shiver and tell Jim that the marks of my
+depravity stood out on my face like warts on a toad.
+
+Jim and the boys would all grin like idiots and invent a new crime
+for me.  On the square, if I'd worked nights from the age of three I
+couldn't have done half they blamed me for.
+
+They put it to the old man so strong that when he turned in he
+chained me to Sam, the cross-eyed nigger that stood behind me at
+supper, and made us sleep on the floor.
+
+I told Sam that I cut a man's throat once because he snored, and that
+nigger never closed an eye all night.  I was tryin' to get even with
+somebody.
+
+After breakfast, when it came time to leave, Donnelly untied my feet
+and led me out into the yard, where the girls were hangin' around the
+Colonel and Jim, who was preparin' to settle up.
+
+As we rode up the evening before, I had noticed that we turned in
+from the road through a lane, and that the fence was too high to
+jump, so, when I threw my leg over Black Hawk, I hit Donnelly a swat
+in the neck, and, as he did a stage-fall, I swept through the gate
+and down the lane.
+
+The old man cut the halter off one of his Mexican war-whoops, and
+broke through the house on the run, appearin' at the front door with
+his shot-gun just as I checked up to make the turn onto the main road.
+
+As I swung around, doubled over the horse's neck, he let drive with
+his old blunderbuss, and I caught two buckshot in my right arm where
+you see them marks.
+
+I had sense enough to hang on and ride for my life, because I knew
+the old fire-eater would reckon it a pleasure to put an end to such a
+wretch as me, if he got half a chance.
+
+I heard him howl, "Come on boys!  We'll get him yet," and, over my
+shoulder, I saw him jump one of his loose horses standin' in the yard
+and come tearin' down the lane, ahead of the befuddled sheriff and
+posse, his white hair streamin' and the shot-gun wavin' aloft, as
+though chargin' an army of greasers at the head of his regiment.
+
+From the way he drew away from the boys, I wouldn't have placed any
+money that he was wrong either.
+
+I've always wondered how the old man ever got through that war with
+only three recommendations to the government.
+
+He certainly kept good horses too, for in five minutes we'd left the
+posse behind, and I saw him madly urgin' his horse into range,
+reloadin' as he came.
+
+As I threw the quirt into the mare with my good arm, I allowed I'd
+had about all the horse-stealin' I wanted for a while.
+
+The old devil finally saw he was losin' ground in spite of his best
+efforts, and let me have both barrels.  I heard the shot patter on
+the hard road behind me, and hoped he'd quit and go home, but I'm
+blamed if he didn't chase me five miles further before turnin' back,
+in hopes I'd cast a shoe or something would happen to me.
+
+I believe I was on the only horse in Texas that could have outrun the
+Colonel and his that mornin'.
+
+About noon I stopped at a blacksmith's shop, half dead with pain, and
+had my arm dressed and a big jolt of whiskey.
+
+As the posse rode up to me, sittin' in the sun by the lathered flanks
+of my horse and nursin' my arm, Jim yells out: "Here he is!  Surround
+him, boys!  You're our prisoner!"
+
+"No!  I'm blamed if I am," I says.  "You'll have to get another
+desperado.  After this, I'm the sheriff!"
+
+
+
+
+THE THAW AT SLISCO'S
+
+The storm broke at Salmon Lake, and we ran for Slisco's road-house.
+It whipped out from the mountains, all tore into strips coming
+through the saw-teeth, lashing us off the glare ice and driving us up
+against the river banks among the willows.  Cold?  Well, some!  My
+bottle of painkiller froze slushy, like lemon punch.
+
+There's nothing like a warm shack, with a cache full of grub, when
+the peaks smoke and the black snow-clouds roar down the gulch.
+
+Other "mushers" were ahead of us at the road-house, freighters from
+Kougarok, an outfit from Teller going after booze, the mail-carrier,
+and, who do you reckon?--Annie Black.  First time I had seen her
+since she was run out of Dawson for claim jumping.
+
+Her and me hadn't been essential to one another since I won that suit
+over a water right on Eldorado.
+
+"Hello, Annie," says I, clawing the ice out of my whiskers; "finding
+plenty of claims down here to relocate?"
+
+"Shut up, you perjured pup," says she, full of disappointing
+affabilities; "I don't want any dealings with a lying, thieving
+hypocrite like you, Billy Joyce."
+
+Annie lacks the sporting instinct; she ain't got the disposition for
+cup-racing.  Never knew her to win a case, and yet she's the
+instigatress of more emotional activities than all the marked cards
+and home distilled liquor in Alaska.
+
+"See here," says I, "a prairie dog and a rattler can hole up
+together, but humans has got to be congenial, so, seein' as we're all
+stuck to live in the same room till this blizzard blizzes out, let's
+forget our troubles.  I'm as game a Hibernian as the next, but I
+don't hibernate till there's a blaze of mutual respect going."
+
+"Blaze away," says she, "though I leave it to the crowd if you don't
+look and act like a liar and a grave robber."  Her speech is sure
+full of artless hostilities.
+
+Ain't ever seen her?  Lord!  I thought everybody knew Annie Black.
+She drifted into camp one day, tall, slab-sided, ornery to the view,
+and raising fifty or upwards; disposition uncertain as frozen
+dynamite.  Her ground plans and elevations looked like she was laid
+out for a man, but the specifications hadn't been follered.  We ain't
+consumed by curiosity regarding the etymology of every stranger that
+drifts in, and as long as he totes his own pack, does his
+assessments, and writes his location notices proper, it goes.
+Leastways, it went till she hit town.  In a month she had the
+brotherly love of that camp gritting its teeth and throwing back
+twisters.  'Twas all legitimate, too, and there never was a
+pennyweight of scandal connected with her name.  No, sir!  Far's
+conduct goes, she's always been the shinin' female example of this
+country; but them qualities let her out.
+
+First move was to jump Bat Ruggles's town lot.  He had four courses
+of logs laid for a cabin when "Scotty" Bell came in from the hills
+with $1800 in coarse gold that he'd rocked out of a prospect shaft on
+Bat's Moose's Creek claim.
+
+Naturally Bat made general proclamation of thirst, and our town
+kinder dozed violently into a joyful three days' reverie, during
+which period of coma the recording time on Bat's lot ran out.
+
+He returns from his "hootch-hunt" to complete the shack, and finds
+Annie overseeing some "Siwashes" put a pole roof on it.  Of course he
+promotes a race-war immediate, playing the white "open" and the red
+to lose, so to speak, when she up an' spanks his face, addressing
+expurgated, motherly cuss-words at him like he'd been a bad boy and
+swallered his spoon, or dug an eye out of the kitten.  Bat realizes
+he's against a strange system and draws out of the game.
+
+A week later she jumps No. 3, Gold Bottom, because Donnelly stuck a
+pick in his foot and couldn't stay to finish the assessment.
+
+"I can't throw her off, or shoot her up," says he, "or even cuss at
+her like I want to, 'cause she's a lady."  And it appeared like
+that'd been her graft ever since--presumin' on her sex to make
+disturbances.  In six months we hated her like pizen.
+
+There wasn't a stampede in a hundred miles where her bloomers wasn't
+leading, for she had the endurance of a moose; and between
+excitements she prospected for trouble in the manner of relocations.
+
+I've heard of fellers speakin' disrespectful to her and then
+wandering around dazed and loco after she'd got through painting word
+pictures of 'em.  It goes without saying she was generally popular
+and petted, and when the Commissioner invited her to duck out down
+the river, the community sighed, turned over, and had a peaceful
+rest--first one since she'd come in.
+
+I hadn't seen her from that time till I blowed into Slisco's on the
+bosom of this forty mile, forty below blizzard.
+
+Setting around the fire that night I found that she'd just lost
+another of her famous lawsuits--claimed she owned a fraction
+'longside of No. 20, Buster Creek, and that the Lund boys had changed
+their stakes so as to take in her ground.  During the winter they'd
+opened up a hundred and fifty feet of awful rich pay right next to
+her line, and she'd raised the devil.  Injunctions, hearings and
+appeals, and now she was coming back, swearing she'd been "jobbed,"
+the judge had been bought, and the jury corrupted.
+
+"It's the richest strike in the district," says she.  "They've rocked
+out $11,000 since snow flew, and there's 30,000 buckets of dirt on
+the dump.  They can bribe and bulldoze a decision through this court,
+but I'll have that fraction yet, the robbers."
+
+"Robbers be cussed," speaks up the mail man.  "You're the cause of
+the trouble yourself.  If you don't get a square deal, it's your own
+fault--always looking for technicalities in the mining laws.  It's
+been your game from the start to take advantage of your skirts, what
+there is of 'em, and jump, jump, jump.  Nobody believes half you say.
+You're a natural disturber, and if you was a man you'd have been hung
+long ago."
+
+I've heard her oral formations, and I looked for his epidermis to
+shrivel when she got her replications focused.  She just soared up
+and busted.
+
+"Look out for the stick," thinks I.
+
+"Woman, am I," she says, musical as a bum gramophone under the slow
+bell.  "I take advantage of my skirts, do I?  Who are you, you mangy
+'malamoot,' to criticise a lady?  I'm more of a man than you, you
+tin-horn; I want no favours; I do a man's work; I live a man's life;
+I am a man, and I'm proud of it, but you--; Nome's full of your kind;
+you need a woman to support you; you're a protoplasm, a polyp.  Those
+Swedes changed their stakes to cover my fraction.  I know it, they
+know it, and if it wasn't Alaska, God would know it, but He won't be
+in again till spring, and then the season's only three months long.
+I've worked like a man, suffered like a man--"
+
+"Why don't ye' lose like a man?" says he.
+
+"I will, and I'll fight like one, too," says she, while her eyes
+burned like faggots.  "They've torn away the reward of years of work
+and agony, and they forget I can hate like a man."
+
+She was stretched up to high C, where her voice drowned the howl of
+the storm, and her seamed old face was a sight.  I've seen mild,
+shrinky, mouse-shy women 'roused to hell's own fury, and I felt that
+night that here was a bad enemy for the Swedes of Buster Creek.
+
+She stopped, listening.
+
+"What's that? There's some one at the door."
+
+"Nonsense," says one of the freighters.  "You do so much knocking you
+can hear the echo."
+
+"There's some one at that door," says she.
+
+"If there was, they'd come in," says Joe.
+
+"Couldn't be, this late in this storm," I adds.
+
+She came from behind the stove, and we let her go to the door alone.
+Nobody ever seemed to do any favours for Annie Black.
+
+"She'll be seein' things next," says Joe, winking.  "What'd I tell
+you?  For God's sake close it--you'll freeze us."
+
+Annie opened the door, and was hid to the waist in a cloud of steam
+that rolled in out of the blackness.  She peered out for a minute,
+stooped, and tugged at something in the dark.  I was at her side in a
+jump, and we dragged him in, snow-covered and senseless.
+
+"Quick--brandy," says she, slashing at his stiff "mukluks."  "Joe,
+bring in a tub of snow."  Her voice was steel sharp.
+
+"Well, I'm danged," says the mail man.  "It's only an Injun.  You
+needn't go crazy like he was a white."
+
+"Oh, you _fool_" says Annie.  "Can't you see?  Esquimaux don't travel
+alone.  There's white men behind, and God help them if we don't bring
+him to."
+
+She knew more about rescustications than us, and we did what she
+said, till at last he came out of it, groaning--just plumb wore out
+and numb.
+
+"Talk to him, Joe; you savvy their noise," says I.
+
+The poor devil showed his excitement, dead as he was.
+
+"There's two men on the big 'Cut-off,'" Joe translates.  "Lost on the
+portage.  There was only one robe between 'em, so they rolled up in
+it, and the boy came on in the dark.  Says they can't last till
+morning."
+
+"That lets them out," says the mail carrier.  "Too bad we can't reach
+them to-night."
+
+"What!" snaps Annie.  "Reach 'em?  Huh!  I said you were a jellyfish.
+Hurry up and get your things on, boys."
+
+"Have a little sense," says Joe.  "You surely ain't a darn fool.  Out
+in this storm, dark as the inside of a cow; blowin' forty mile, and
+the 'quick' froze.  Can't be done.  I wonder who they are?"
+
+He "kowtowed" some more, and at the answer of the chattering savage
+we looked at Annie.
+
+"Him called Lund," shivered the Siwash.
+
+I never see anybody harder hit than her.  I love a scrap, but I
+thinks "Billy, she's having a stiffer fight than you ever associated
+with."
+
+Finally she says, kind of slow and quiet: "Who knows where the
+'Cut-off' starts?"
+
+Nobody answers, and up speaks the U. S. man again.
+
+"You've got your nerve, to ask a man out on such a night."
+
+"If there was one here, I wouldn't have to ask him.  There's people
+freezing within five miles of here, and you hug the stove, saying:
+'It's stormy, and we'll get cold.'  Of course it is.  If it wasn't
+stormy they'd be here too, and it's so cold, you'll probably freeze.
+What's that got to do with it?  Ever have your mother talk to you
+about duty?  Thank Heaven I travelled that portage once, and I can
+find it again if somebody will go with me."
+
+'Twas a blush raising talk, but nobody upset any furniture getting
+dressed.
+
+She continues:
+
+"So I'm the woman of this crowd and I hide behind my skirts.  Mr.
+Mail Man, show what a glorious creature you are.  Throw yourself--get
+up and stretch and roar.  Oh, you barn-yard bantam!  Has it had its
+pap to-night?  I've a grand commercial enterprise; I'll take all of
+your bust measurements and send out to the States for a line of
+corsets.  Ain't there half a man among you?"
+
+She continued in this vein, pollutin' the air, and, having no means
+of defence, we found ourselves follerin' her out into a yelling storm
+that beat and roared over us like waves of flame.
+
+Swede luck had guided their shaft onto the richest pay-streak in
+seven districts, and Swede luck now led us to the Lund boys, curled
+up in the drifted snow beside their dogs; but it was the level head
+and cool judgment of a woman that steered us home in the grey whirl
+of the dawn.
+
+During the deathly weariness of that night I saw past the calloused
+hide of that woman and sighted the splendid courage cached away
+beneath her bitter oratory and hosstyle syllogisms.  "There's a story
+there," thinks I, "an' maybe a man moved in it--though I can't
+imagine her softened by much affection."  It pleased some guy to
+state that woman's the cause of all our troubles, but I figger
+they're like whisky--all good, though some a heap better'n others, of
+course, and when a frail, little, ninety pound woman gets to bucking
+and acting bad, there's generally a two hundred pound man hid out in
+the brush that put the burr under the saddle.
+
+During the next three days she dressed the wounds of them
+Scow-weegians and nursed them as tender as a mother.
+
+The wind hadn't died away till along came the "Flying Dutchman" from
+Dugan's, twenty miles up, floatin' on the skirts of the blizzard.
+
+"Hello, fellers.  Howdy, Annie.  What's the matter here?" says he.
+"We had a woman at Dugan's too--purty as a picture; different from
+the Nome bunch--real sort of a lady."
+
+"Who is she?" says I, "an' what's she doin' out here on the trail?"
+
+"Dunno, but she's all right; come clean from Dawson with a dog team;
+says she's looking for her mother."
+
+I heard a pan clatter on the floor where Annie was washing dishes,
+and her face went a sickly grey.  She leaned across, gripping the
+table and straining to ask something, but the words wouldn't come,
+while "Dutch" continues:
+
+"Somethin' strange about it, I think.  She says her ma's over in the
+Golden Gate district, workin' a rich mine.  Of course we all laughed
+at her, and said there wasn't a woman in the whole layout, 'ceptin'
+_some_ folks might misconstrue Annie here into a kind of a female.
+She stuck to it though, much as to say we was liars.  She's comin'
+on--what's the matter, Annie--you ain't sore at me effeminatin' you
+by the gentle name of female, are you?"
+
+She had come to him, and gripped his shoulder, till her long, bony
+fingers buried themselves in his mackinaw.  Her mouth was twitching,
+and she hadn't got shed of that "first-aid-to-the-injured" look.
+
+"What name?  What name, Dutch?  What name?"  She shook him like a rat.
+
+"Bradshaw--but you needn't run your nails through and clinch 'em.
+Ow!  Le'go my white meat.  You act like she was your long lost baby.
+What d'ye think of that idea, fellers?  Ain't that a pleasin'
+conceit?  Annie Black, and a baby.  Ha!  Ha! that's a hit.  Annie and
+a daughter.  A cow-thief and a calla-lily."
+
+"Dutch," says I, "you ain't a-goin' to make it through to Lane's
+Landing if you don't pull your freight," and I drags the darn fool
+out and starts him off.
+
+When I came in she was huddled onto a goods box, shaking and sobbing
+like any woman, while the boys sat around and champed their bits and
+stomped.
+
+"Take me away, Billy," she says.  "For God's sake take me away before
+she sees me." She slid down to the floor and cried something awful.
+Gents, that was sure the real distress, nothing soft and sloppy, but
+hard, wrenchy, deep ones, like you hear at a melodrayma.  'Twas only
+back in '99 that I seen an awful crying match, though both of the
+ladies had been drinking, so I felt like I was useder to emotion than
+the balance of the boys, and it was up to me to take a holt.
+
+"Madam," says I, and somehow the word didn't seem out of place any
+more--"Madam, why do you want to avoid this party?"
+
+"Take me away," she says.  "It's my daughter.  She's going to find me
+this way, all rough and immodest and made fun of.  But that's the
+worst you can say, isn't it?  I'm a square woman--you know I am,
+don't you, boys?" and she looked at us fierce and pleadin'.
+
+"Sure," says Joe.  "We'll boost you with the girl all right."
+
+"She thinks her father's dead, but he isn't--he ran away with a show
+woman--a year after we were married.  I never told her about it, and
+I've tried to make a little lady of her."
+
+We found out afterwards that she had put the girl in a
+boarding-school, but couldn't seem to make enough for both of them,
+and when the Klondyke was struck thought she saw a chance.  She came
+north, insulted by deck hands and laughed at by the officers.  At
+Skagway she nursed a man through typhoid, and when he could walk he
+robbed her.  The mounted police took everything else she had and
+mocked at her.  "Your kind always has money," they said.
+
+That's how it had been everywhere, and that's why she was so hard and
+bitter.  She'd worked and fought like a man, but she'd suffered like
+a woman.
+
+"I've lied and starved and stolen for her," said Annie, "to make her
+think I was doing well.  She said she was coming in to me, but I knew
+winter would catch her at Dawson, and I thought I could head her off
+by spring."
+
+"Now, she's here; but, men, as your mothers loved you, save me from
+my little girl."
+
+She buried her face, and when I looked at the boys, tears stood in
+Joe Slisco's eyes and the others breathed hard.  Ole Lund, him that
+was froze worst about the hands, spoke up:
+
+"Someboady tak de corner dat blanket an' blow may nose."
+
+Then we heard voices outside.
+
+"Hello, in there."
+
+Annie stood up, clutching at her throat, and stepped behind the
+corner of the bunks as the door opened, framing the prettiest picture
+this old range rider ever saw.
+
+'Twas a girl, glowing pink and red where the cold had kissed her
+cheeks, with yellow curlicues of hair wandering out under her yarn
+cap.  Her little fox-trimmed parka quit at the knees, showing the
+daintiest pair of--I can't say it.  Anyhow, they wasn't, they just
+looked like 'em, only nicer.
+
+She stood blinking at us, coming from the bright light outside, as
+cute as a new faro box--then:
+
+"Can you tell me where Mrs. Bradshaw lives?  She's somewhere in this
+district.  I'm her daughter--come all the way from the States to see
+her."
+
+When she smiled I could hear the heart-strings of those ragged,
+whiskered, frost-bit "mushers" bustin' like banjo strings.
+
+"You know her, don't you?" she says, turning to me.
+
+"Know her, Miss?  Well, I should snort!  There ain't a prospector on
+the range that ain't proud and honoured to call her a friend.
+Leastways, if there is I'll bust his block," and I cast the bad eye
+on the boys to wise 'em up.
+
+"Ain't I right, Joe?"
+
+"Betcher dam life," says Joe, sort of over-stepping the conventions.
+
+"Then tell me where her claim is.  It's quite rich, and you must know
+it," says she, appealing to him.
+
+Up against it?  Say!  I seen the whites of his eyes show like he was
+drownding, and he grinned joyful as a man kicked in the stummick.
+
+"Er--er--I just bought in here, and ain't acquainted much," says he.
+"Have a drink," and, in his confusions, he sets out the bottle of
+alkalies that he dignifies by the alias of booze.  Then he continues
+with reg'lar human intelligence.
+
+"Bill, here, he can tell you where the ground is," and the whelp
+indicates me.
+
+Lord knows my finish, but for Ole Lund.  He sits up in his bunk,
+swaddled in Annie Black's bandages, and through slits between his
+frost bites, he moults the follering rhetoric:
+
+"Aye tole you vere de claim iss.  She own de Nomber Twenty fraction
+on Buster Creek, 'longside may and may broder.  She's dam good
+fraction, too."
+
+I consider that a blamed white stunt for Swedes; paying for their
+lives with the mine they swindled her out of.
+
+Anyhow, it knocked us galley-west.
+
+I'd formulated a swell climax, involving the discovery of the mother,
+when the mail man spoke up, him that had been her particular
+abomination, a queer kind of a break in his voice:
+
+"Come out of that."
+
+Mrs. Bradshaw moved out into the light, and, if I'm any judge, the
+joy that showed in her face rubbed away the bitterness of the past
+years.  With an aching little cry the girl ran to her, and hid in her
+arms like a quail.
+
+We men-folks got accumulated up into a dark corner where we shook
+hands and swore soft and insincere, and let our throats hurt, for all
+the world like it was Christmas or we'd got mail from home.
+
+
+
+
+BITTER ROOT BILLINGS, ARBITER
+
+Billings rode in from the Junction about dusk, and ate his supper in
+silence.  He'd been East for sixty days, and, although there lurked
+about him the hint of unwonted ventures, etiquette forbade its
+mention.  You see, in our country, that which a man gives voluntarily
+is ofttimes later dissected in smoky bunk-houses, or roughly handled
+round flickering camp fires, but the privacies he guards are
+inviolate.  Curiosity isn't exactly a lost art, but its practice
+isn't popular nor hygenic.
+
+Later, I found him meditatively whittling out on the porch, and, as
+the moment seemed propitious, I inquired adroitly:--"Did you have a
+good time in Chicago, 'Bitter Root'?"
+
+"Bully," said he, relapsing into weighty absorption.
+
+"What'd you do?" I inquired with almost the certainty of appearing
+insistent.
+
+"Don't you never read the papers?" he inquired, with such evident
+compassion that Kink Martin and the other boys snickered.  This from
+"Bitter Root," who scorns literature outside of the "Arkansas
+Printing," as he terms the illustrations!
+
+"Guess I'll have to show you my press notices," and from a hip pocket
+he produced a fat bundle of clippings in a rubber band.  These he
+displayed jealously, and I stared agape, for they were front pages of
+great metropolitan dailies, marred with red and black scare heads, in
+which I glimpsed the words, "Billings, of Montana," "'Bitter Root' on
+Arbitration," "A Lochinvar Out of the West," and other things as
+puzzling.
+
+"Press Notices!" echoed Kink scornfully.  "Wouldn't that rope ye?  He
+talks like Big Ike that went with the Wild West Show.  When a puncher
+gets so lazy he can't earn a livin' by the sweat of his pony, he
+grows his hair, goes on the stage bustin' glass balls with shot
+ca'tridges and talks about 'press notices.'  Let's see 'em, Billings.
+You pinch 'em as close to your stummick as though you held cards in a
+strange poker game."
+
+"Well, I _have_ set in a strange game, amongst aliens," said
+Billings, disregarding the request, "and I've held the high cards,
+also I've drawed out with honours.  I've sailed the medium high seas
+with mutiny in the stoke-hold; I've changed the laws of labour,
+politics and municipal economies.  I went out of God's country right
+into the heart of the decayin' East, and by the application of a
+runnin' noose in a hemp rope I strangled oppression and put eight
+thousand men to work." He paused ponderously.  "I'm an Arbitrator!"
+
+"The deuce you are," indignantly cried "Reddy" the cook.  "Who says
+so?"
+
+"Reddy" isn't up in syntax, and his unreasoning loyalty to Billings
+is an established fact of such standing that his remarks afford no
+conjecture.
+
+"Yes, I've cut into the 'Nation's Peril' and the 'Cryin' Evil' good
+and strong--walkin' out from the stinks of the Union Stock Yards, of
+Chicago, into the limelight of publicity, via the 'drunk and
+disorderly' route.
+
+"You see I got those ten carloads of steers into the city all right,
+but I was so blame busy splatterin' through the tracked-up wastes of
+the cow pens, an' inhalin' the sewer gas of the west side that I
+never got to see a newspaper.  If I'd 'a' read one, here's what I'd
+'a' found, namely: The greatest, stubbornest, riotin'est strike ever
+known, which means a heap for Chicago, she being the wet-nurse of
+labour trouble.
+
+"The whole river front was tied up.  Nary a steamer had whistled
+inside the six-mile crib for two weeks, and eight thousand men was
+out.  There was hold-ups and blood-sheddin' and picketin', which last
+is an alias for assault with intents, and altogether it was a prime
+place for a cowman, on a quiet vacation--just homelike and natural.
+
+"It was at this point that I enters, bustin' out of the smoke of the
+Stock Yards, all sweet and beautiful, like the gentle heeroine in the
+play as she walks through the curtains at the back of the stage.
+
+"Now you know there's a heap of difference between the Stock Yards
+and Chicago--it's just like coming from Arkansas over into the United
+States.
+
+"Well, soon as I sold the stock I hit for the lake front and began to
+ground sluice the coal dust off of my palate.
+
+"I was busy working my booze hydraulic when I see an arid appearin'
+pilgrim 'longside lookin' thirsty as an alkali flat.
+
+"'Get in,' says I, and the way he obeyed orders looked like he'd had
+military training.  I felt sort of drawed to him from the way he
+handled his licker; took it straight and runnin' over; then sopped
+his hands on the bar and smelled of his fingers.  He seemed to just
+soak it up both ways--reg'lar human blotter.
+
+"'You lap it up like a man,' says I, 'like a cowman--full
+growed--ever been West?'
+
+"'Nope,' says he, 'born here.'
+
+"'Well I'm a stranger,' says I, 'out absorbin' such beauties of
+architecture and free lunch as offers along the line.  If I ain't
+keepin' you up, I'd be glad of your company.'
+
+"'I'm your assistant lunch buster,' says he, and in the course of
+things he further explained that he was a tugboat fireman, out on a
+strike, givin' me the follerin' information about the tie-up:--
+
+"It all come up over a dose of dyspepsia--"
+
+"Back up," interrupted Kink squirming, "are you plumb bug?  Get
+together!  You're certainly the Raving Kid.  Ye must have stone
+bruised your heel and got concession of the brain."
+
+"Yes sir!  Indigestion," Billings continued.  "Old man Badrich, of
+the Badrich Transportation Company has it terrible.  It lands on his
+solar every morning about nine o'clock, gettin' worse steady, and
+reaches perihelion along about eleven.  He can tell the time of day
+by taste.  One morning when his mouth felt like about ten-forty-five
+in comes a committee from Firemen & Engineers Local No. 21, with a
+demand for more wages, proddin' him with the intimations that if he
+didn't ante they'd tie up all his boats."
+
+"I 'spose a teaspoonful of bakin' soda, assimilated internally around
+the environments of his appendix would have spared the strike and
+cheated me out of bein' a hero.  As the poet might have said--'Upon
+such slender pegs is this, our greatness hung.'"
+
+"Oh, Gawd!" exclaimed Mulling, piously.
+
+"Anyhow, the bitterness in the old man's inner tubes showed in the
+bile of his answer, and he told 'em if they wanted more money he'd
+give 'em a chance to earn it--they could work nights as well as days.
+He intimated further that they'd ought to be satisfied with their
+wages as they'd undoubtedly foller the same line of business in the
+next world, and wouldn't get a cent for feedin' the fires neither.
+
+"Next mornin' the strike was called, and the guy that breathed
+treachery and walk-outs was one 'Oily' Heegan, further submerged
+under the titles of President of the Federation of Fresh Water
+Firemen; also Chairman of the United Water-front Workmen, which last
+takes in everything doin' business along the river except the
+wharf-rats and typhoid germs, and it's with the disreputableness of
+this party that I infected myself to the detriment of labour and the
+triumph of the law.
+
+"D. O'Hara Heegan is an able man, and inside of a week he'd spread
+the strike 'till it was the cleanest, dirtiest tie-up ever known.
+The hospitals and morgues was full of non-union men, but the river
+was empty all right.  Yes, he had a persuadin' method of arbitration
+quite convincing to the most calloused, involving the layin' on of
+the lead pipe.
+
+"Things got to be pretty fierce bye-and-bye, for they had the police
+buffaloed, and disturbances got plentyer than the casualties at a
+butchers' picnic.  The strikers got hungry, too, finally, because the
+principles of unionism is like a rash on your mechanic, skin
+deep--inside, his gastrics works three shifts a day even if his
+outsides is idle and steaming with Socialism.
+
+"Oily fed 'em dray loads of eloquence, but it didn't seem to be real
+fillin'.  They'd leave the lectures and rob a bakery.
+
+"He was a wonder though; just sat in his office, and kept the ship
+owners waitin' in line, swearin' bitter and refined cuss-words about
+'ignorant fiend' and 'cussed pedagogue,' which last, for Kink's
+enlightenment, means a kind of Hebrew meetin'-house.
+
+"These here details my new friend give me, ending with a eulogy on
+Oily Heegan, the Idol of the Idle.
+
+"'If he says starve, we starve,' says he, 'and if he says work, we
+work.  See!  Oh he's the goods, he is!  Let's go down by the
+river--mebbe we'll see him.'  So me and Murdock hiked down Water
+Street, where they keep mosquito netting over the bar fixtures and
+spit at the stove.
+
+"We found him, a big mouthed, shifty, kind of man, 'bout as cynical
+lookin' in the face as a black bass, and full of wind as a toad fish.
+I exchanged drinks for principles of socialism, and doin' so happened
+to display my roll.  Murdock slipped away and made talk with a
+friend, then, when Heegan had left, he steers me out the back way
+into an alley.  'Short cut,' says he 'to another and a better place.'
+
+"I follers through a back room; then as I steps out the door I'm
+grabbed by this new friend, while Murdock bathes my head with a
+gas-pipe billy, one of the regulation, strike promotin' kind, like
+they use for decoyin' members into the glorious ranks of Labour.
+
+"I saw a 'Burning of Rome' that was a dream, and whole cloudbursts of
+shootin' stars, but I yanked Mr. Enthusiastic Stranger away from my
+surcingle and throwed him agin the wall.  In the shuffle Murdock
+shifts my ballasts though, and steams up the alley with my
+greenbacks, convoyed by his friend.
+
+"'Wow-ow,' says I, givin' the distress signal so that the windows
+rattled, and reachin' for my holster.  I'd 'a' got them both, only
+the gun caught in my suspender.  You see, not anticipatin' any live
+bird shoot I'd put it inside my pants-band, under my vest, for
+appearances.  A forty-five is like fresh air to a drownding
+man--generally has to be drawed in haste--and neither one shouldn't
+be mislaid.  I got her out at last and blazed away, just a second
+after they dodged around the comer.  Then I hit the trail after 'em,
+lettin' go a few sky-shots and gettin' a ghost-dance holler off my
+stummick that had been troubling me.  The wallop on the head made me
+dizzy though, and I zigzagged awful, tackin' out of the alley right
+into a policeman.
+
+"'Whee!' says I in joy, for he had Murdock safe by the bits, buckin'
+considerable.
+
+"'Stan' aside and le'mme 'lectrocute 'im,' says I.  I throwed the gun
+on him and the crowd dogged it into all the doorways and windows
+convenient, but I was so weak-minded in the knees I stumbled over the
+curb and fell down.
+
+"Next thing I knew we was all bouncin' over the cobble-stones in a
+patrol wagon.
+
+"Well, in the morning I told my story to the Judge, plain and
+unvarnished.  Then Murdock takes the stand and busts into song,
+claiming that he was comin' through the alley toward Clark Street
+when I staggered out back of a saloon and commenced to shoot at him.
+He saw I was drunk, and fanned out, me shootin' at him with every
+jump.  He had proof, he said, and he called for the president of his
+Union, Mr. Heegan.  At the name all the loafers and stew-bums in the
+court-room stomped and said, 'Hear, hear,' while up steps this
+Napoleon of the Hoboes.
+
+"Sure, he knew Mr. Murdock--had known him for years, and he was
+perfectly reliable and honest.  As to his robbing me, it was
+preposterous, because he himself was at the other end of the alley
+and saw the whole thing, just as Mr. Murdock related it.
+
+"I jumps up.  'You're a liar, Heegan.  I was buyin' booze for the two
+of you;' but a policeman nailed me, chokin' off my rhetorics.  Mr.
+Heegan leans over and whispers to the Judge, while I got chilblains
+along my spine.
+
+"'Look here, kind Judge,' says I real winning and genteel, 'this man
+is so good at explainin' things away, ask him to talk off this bump
+over my ear.  I surely didn't get a buggy spoke and laminate myself
+on the nut.
+
+"'That'll do,' says the Judge.  'Mr. Clerk, ten dollars and
+costs--charge, drunk and disorderly.  Next!'
+
+"'Hold on there,' says I, ignorant of the involutions of justice, 'I
+guess I've got the bulge on you this time.  They beat you to me,
+Judge.  I ain't got a cent.  You can go through me and be welcome to
+half you find.  I'll mail you ten when I get home though, honest.'
+
+"At that the audience giggled, and the Judge says:--
+
+"'Your humour doesn't appeal to me, Billings.  Of course, you have
+the privilege of working it out.' Oh, Glory, the 'Privilege!'
+
+"Heegan nodded at this, and I realized what I was against.
+
+"'Your honour,' says I with sarcastic refinements, 'science tells us
+that a perfect vacuum ain't possible, but after watching you I know
+better, and for you, Mr. Workingman's Friend,--us to the floor,' and
+I run at Heegan.
+
+"Pshaw!  I never got started, nor I didn't rightfully come to till I
+rested in the workhouse, which last figger of speech is a pure and
+beautiful paradox.
+
+"I ain't dwellin' with glee on the next twenty-six days--ten dollars
+and costs, at four bits a day, but I left there saturated with such
+hatreds for Heegan that my breath smelted of 'em.
+
+"I wanders down the river front, hoping the fortunes of war would
+deliver him to me dead or alive, when the thought hit me that I'd
+need money.  It was bound to take another ten and costs shortly after
+we met, and probably more, if I paid for what I got, for I figgered
+on distendin' myself with satisfaction and his features with
+uppercuts.  Then I see a sign, 'Non-Union men wanted--Big wages.'  In
+I goes, and strains my langwidge through a wire net at the cashier.
+
+"'I want them big wages,' says I.
+
+"'What can you do?'
+
+"'Anything to get the money,' says I.  'What does it take to
+liquidate an assault on a labour leader?'
+
+"There was a white-haired man in the cage who began to sit up and
+take notice.
+
+"'What's your trouble?' says he, and I told him.
+
+"'If we had a few more like you, we'd bust the strike,' says he, kind
+of sizin' me up.  'I've got a notion to try it anyhow,' and he smites
+the desk.  'Collins what d'ye say if we tow the "Detroit" out?  Her
+crew has stayed with us so far, and they'll stick now if we'll say
+the word.  The unions are hungry and scrapping among themselves, and
+the men want to go back to work.  It's just that devil of a Heegan
+that holds 'em.  If they see we've got a tug crew that'll go, they'll
+arbitrate, and we'll kill the strike.'
+
+"'Yes, sir!' says Collins, 'but where's the tug crew, Mr. Badrich?'
+
+"'Right here!  We three, and Murphy, the bookkeeper.  Blast this
+idleness!  I want to fight.'
+
+"'I'll take the same,' says I, 'when I get the price.'
+
+"'That's all right.  You've put the spirit into me, and I'll see you
+through.  Can you run an engine?  Good!  I'll take the wheel, and the
+others'll fire.  It's going to be risky work, though.  You won't back
+out, eh?'"
+
+Reddy interrupted Billings here loudly, with a snort of disgust,
+while "Bitter Root" ran his fingers through his hair before
+continuing.  Martin was listening intently.
+
+"The old man arranged to have a squad of cops on all the bridges, and
+I begin anticipatin' hilarities for next day.
+
+"The news got out of course, through the secrecies of police
+headquarters, and when we ran up the river for our tow, it looked
+like every striker west of Pittsburg had his family on the docks to
+see the barbecue, accompanied by enough cobble-stones and scrap iron
+to ballast a battleship.  All we got goin' up was repartee, but I
+figgered we'd need armour gettin' back.
+
+"We passed a hawser to the 'Detroit,' and I turned the gas into the
+tug, blowin' for the Wells Street Bridge.  Then war began.  I leans
+out the door just in time to see the mob charge the bridge.  The cops
+clubbed 'em back, while a roar went up from the docks and roof tops
+that was like a bad dream.  I couldn't see her move none though, and
+old man Badrich blowed again expurgatin' himself of as nobby a line
+of cuss words as you'll muster outside the cattle belt.
+
+"'Soak 'em,' I yells, 'give 'em all the arbitration you've got handy.
+If she don't open; we'll jump her,' and I lets out another notch, so
+that we went plowin' and boilin' towards the draw.
+
+"It looked like we'd have to hurdle it sure enough, but the police
+beat the crowd back just in time.  She wasn't clear open though, and
+our barge caromed off the spiles.  It was like a nigger buttin' a
+persimmon tree--we rattled off a shower of missiles like an abnormal
+hail storm.  Talk about your coast defence; they heaved everything at
+us from bad names to railroad iron, and we lost all our window glass
+the first clatter, while the smoke stack looked like a pretzel with
+cramps.
+
+"When we scraped through I looked back with pity at the 'Detroit's'
+crew.  She hadn't any wheel house, and the helmsman was due to get
+all the attention that was comin' to him.  They'd built up a
+barricade of potato sacks, chicken coops and bic-a-brac around the
+wheel that protected 'em somewhat, but even while I watched, some
+Polack filtered a brick through and laid out the quartermaster cold,
+and he was drug off.  Oh! it was refined and esthetic.
+
+"Well, we run the gauntlet, presented every block with stuff rangin'
+in tensile strength from insults to asphalt pavements, and
+noise!--say, all the racket in the world was a whisper.  I caught a
+glimpse of the old man leanin' out of the pilot house, where a window
+had been, his white hair bristly, and his nostrils h'isted,
+embellishin' the air with surprisin' flights of gleeful profanity.
+
+"'Hooray!  this is livin' he yells, spyin' me shovelin' the deck out
+from under the junk.  'Best scrap I've had in years,' and just then
+some baseball player throwed in from centre field, catching him in
+the neck with a tomato.  Gee!  that man's an honour to the faculty of
+speech.
+
+"I was doin' bully till a cobble-stone bounced into the engine room,
+makin' a billiard with my off knee, then I got kind of peevish.
+
+"Rush Street Bridge is the last one, and they'd massed there on both
+sides, like fleas on a razorback.  Thinks I, 'If we make it through
+here, we've busted the strike,' and I glances back at the 'Detroit'
+just in time to see her crew pullin' their captain into the deck
+house, limp and bleedin'.  The barricade was all knocked to pieces
+and they'd flunked absolute.  Don't blame 'em much either, as it was
+sure death to stand out in the open under the rain of stuff that come
+from the bridges.  Of course with no steerin' she commenced to swing
+off.
+
+"I jumps out the far side of the engine room and yells fit to bust my
+throat.
+
+"'Grab that wheel!  Grab it quick--we'll hit the bridge,' but it was
+like deef and dumb talk in a boiler shop, while a wilder howl went up
+from the water front as they seen what they'd done and smelled
+victory.  There's an awfulness about the voice of a blood-maddened
+club-swingin' mob; it lifts your scalp like a fright wig,
+particularly if you are the clubee.
+
+"'We've got one chance,' thinks I, 'but if she strikes we're gone.
+They'll swamp us sure, and all the police in Cook County won't save
+enough for to hold services on.'  Then I throwed a look at the
+opening ahead and the pessimisms froze in me.
+
+"I forgot all about the resiliency of brickbats and the table manners
+of riots, for there, on top of a bunch of spiles, ca'm, masterful and
+bloated with perjuries, was Oily Heegan dictatin' the disposition of
+his forces, the light of victory in his shifty, little eyes.
+
+"'Ten dollars and costs,' I shrieks, seein' red.  'Lemme crawl up
+them spiles to you.'
+
+"Then inspiration seized me.  My soul riz up and grappled with the
+crisis, for right under my mit, coiled, suggestive and pleadin', was
+one of the tug's heavin' lines, 'bout a three-eighths size.  I slips
+a runnin' knot in the end and divides the coils, crouchin' behind the
+deck-house till we come abeam of him, then I straightened, give it a
+swinging heave, and the noose sailed up and settled over him fine and
+daisy.
+
+"I jerked back, and Oily Heegan did a high dive from Rush Street that
+was a geometrical joy.  He hit kind of amateurish, doin' what we used
+to call a 'belly-buster' back home, but quite satisfyin' for a maiden
+effort, and I reeled him in astern.
+
+"Your Chicago man ain't a gamey fish.  He come up tame and squirting
+sewage like a dissolute porpoise, while I played him out where he'd
+get the thrash of the propeller.
+
+"'Help,' he yells, 'I'm a drownding.'
+
+"'Ten dollars and costs," says I, lettin' him under again.  'Do you
+know who you're drinkin' with this time, hey?'
+
+"I reckon the astonishment of the mob was equal to Heegan's; anyhow
+I'm told that we was favoured with such quietness that my voice
+sounded four blocks, simply achin' with satisfactions.  Then
+pandemonium tore loose, but I was so engrosed in sweet converse I
+never heard it or noticed that the 'Detroit' had slid through the
+draw by a hair, and we was bound for the blue and smilin' lake.
+
+"'For God's sake, lemme up,' says Heegan, splashin' along and
+look-in' strangly.  I hauls him in where he wouldn't miss any of my
+ironies, and says:--
+
+"'I just can't do it, Oily--it's wash day.  You're plumb nasty with
+boycotts and picketin's and compulsory arbitrations.  I'm goin' to
+clean you up,' and I sozzled him under like a wet shirt.
+
+"I drug him out again and continues:--
+
+"'This is Chinamen's work, Oily, but I lost my pride in the
+Bridewell, thanks to you.  It's tough on St. Louis to laundry you up
+stream this way, but maybe the worst of your heresies 'll be purified
+when they get that far.'  You know the Chicago River runs up hill out
+of Lake Michigan through the drainage canal and into the St. Louis
+waterworks.  Sure it does--most unnatural stream I ever see about
+direction and smells.
+
+"I was gettin' a good deal of enjoyment and infections out of him
+when old man Badrich ran back enamelled with blood and passe tomato
+juice, the red in his white hair makin' his top look like one of
+these fancy ice-cream drinks you get at a soda fountain.
+
+"'Here! here! you'll kill him,' says he, so I hauled him aboard,
+drippin' and clingy, wringin' him out good and thorough--by the neck.
+He made a fine mop.
+
+"These clippings," continued "Bitter Root," fishing into his pocket,
+"tell in beautiful figgers how the last seen of Oily Heegan he was
+holystoning the deck of a sooty little tugboat under the
+admonishments and feet of 'Bitter Root' Billings of Montana, and they
+state how the strikers tried to get tugs for pursuit and couldn't,
+and how, all day long, from the housetops was visible a tugboat madly
+cruisin' about inside the outer cribs, bustin' the silence with
+joyful blasts of victory, and they'll further state that about dark
+she steamed up the river, tired and draggled, with a bony-lookin'
+cowboy inhalin' cigareets on the stern-bits, holding a three-foot
+knotted rope in his lap.  When a delegation of strikers met her,
+inquirin' about one D. O'Hara Heegan, it says like this," and
+Billings read laboriously as follows:--
+
+"'Then the bronzed and lanky man arose with a smile of rare
+contentment, threw overboard his cigarette, and approaching the
+boiler-room hatch, called loudly: "Come out of that," and the
+President of the Federation of Fresh Water Firemen dragged himself
+wearily out into the flickering lights.  He was black and drenched
+and streaked with sweat; also, he shone with the grease and oils of
+the engines, while the palms of his hands were covered with painful
+blisters from unwonted, intimate contact with shovels and drawbars.
+It was seen that he winced fearfully as the cowboy twirled the rope
+end.
+
+"'"He's got the makin's of a fair fireman,'" said the stranger, "'all
+he wants is practice.'"
+
+"Then, as the delegation murmured angrily, he held up his hand and,
+in the ensuing silence, said:--
+
+"'"Boys, the strike's over.  Mr. Heegan has arbitrated."'"
+
+
+
+
+THE SHYNESS OF SHORTY
+
+Bailey smoked morosely as he scanned the dusty trail leading down
+across the "bottom" and away over the dry grey prairie toward the
+hazy mountains in the west.
+
+From his back-tilted chair on the veranda, the road was visible for
+miles, as well as the river trail from the south, sneaking up through
+the cottonwoods and leprous sycamores.
+
+He called gruffly into the silence of the house, and his speech held
+the surliness of his attitude.
+
+"Hot Joy!  Bar X outfit comin'.  Git supper."
+
+A Chinaman appeared in the door and gazed at the six-mule team
+descending the distant gully to the ford.
+
+"Jesse one man, hey?  All light," and slid quietly back to the
+kitchen.
+
+Whatever might be said, or, rather, whatever might be suspected, of
+Bailey's road-house--for people did not run to wordy conjecture in
+this country--it was known that it boasted a good cook, and this
+atoned for a catalogue of shortcomings.  So it waxed popular among
+the hands of the big cattle ranges near-bye.  Those given to idle
+talk held that Bailey acted strangely at times, and rumour painted
+occasional black doings at the hacienda, squatting vulture-like above
+the ford, but it was nobody's business, and he kept a good cook.
+
+Bailey did not recall the face that greeted him from above the three
+span as they swung in front of his corral, but the brand on their
+flanks was the Bar X, so he nodded with as near an approach to
+hospitality as he permitted.
+
+It was a large face, strong-featured and rugged, balanced on wide,
+square shoulders, yet some oddness of posture held the gaze of the
+other till the stranger clambered over the wheel to the ground.  Then
+Bailey removed his brier and heaved tempestuously in the throes of
+great and silent mirth.
+
+It was a dwarf.  The head of a Titan, the body of a whisky barrel,
+rolling ludicrously on the tiny limbs of a bug, presented so
+startling a sight that even Hot Joy, appearing around the corner,
+cackled shrilly.  His laughter rose to a shriek of dismay, however,
+as the little man made at him with the rush and roar of a cannon
+ball.  In Bailey's amazed eyes he seemed to bounce galvanically,
+landing on Joy's back with such vicious suddenness that the breath
+fled from him in a squawk of terror; then, seizing his cue, he kicked
+and belaboured the prostrate Celestial in feverish silence.  He
+desisted and rolled across the porch to Bailey.  Staring truculently
+up et the landlord, he spoke for the first time.
+
+"Was I right in supposin' that something amused you?"
+
+Bailey gasped incredulously, for the voice rumbled heavily an octave
+below his own bass.  Either the look of the stocky catapult, as he
+launched himself on the fleeing servant, or the invidious servility
+of the innkeeper, sobered the landlord, and he answered gravely:
+
+"No, sir; I reckon you're mistaken.  I ain't observed anything
+frivolous yet."
+
+"Glad of it," said the little man.  "I don't like a feller to hog a
+joke all by himself.  Some of the Bar X boys took to absorbin' humour
+out of my shape when I first went to work, but they're sort of
+educated out of it now.  I got an eye from one and a finger off of
+another; the last one donated a ear."
+
+Bailey readily conceived this man as a bad antagonist, for the heavy
+corded neck had split buttons from the blue shirt, and he glimpsed a
+chest hairy, and round as a drum, while the brown arms showed knotty
+and hardened.
+
+"Let's liquor," he said, and led the way into the big, low room,
+serving as bar, dining- and living-room.  From the rear came vicious
+clatterings and slammings of pots, mingled with Oriental
+lamentations, indicating an aching body rather than a chastened
+spirit.
+
+"Don't see you often," he continued, with a touch of implied
+curiosity, which grew as his guest, with lingering fondness, up-ended
+a glass brimful of the raw, fiery spirits.
+
+"No, the old man don't lemme get away much.  He knows that dwellin'
+close to the ground, as I do, I pine for spiritual elevation," with a
+melting glance at the bottles behind the bar, doing much to explain
+the size of his first drink.
+
+"Like it, do ye?" questioned Bailey indicating the shelf.
+
+"Well, not exactly!  Booze is like air--I need it.  It makes a new
+man out of me--and usually ends by gettin' both me and the new one
+laid off."
+
+"Didn't hear nothing of the weddin' over at Los Huecos, did ye?"
+
+"No!  Whose weddin'?"
+
+"Ross Turney, the new sheriff."
+
+"Ye don't say!  Him that's been elected on purpose to round up the
+Tremper gang, hey?  Who's his antagonist?"
+
+"Old man Miller's gal.  He's celebratin' his election by gettin'
+spliced.  I been expectin' of 'em across this way to-night, but I
+guess they took the Black Butte trail.  You heard what he said,
+didn't ye?  Claims that inside of ninety days he'll rid the county of
+the Trempers and give the reward to his wife for a bridal present.
+Five thousand dollars on 'em, you know." Bailey grinned evilly and
+continued: "Say!  Marsh Tremper'll ride up to his house some night
+and make him eat his own gun in front of his bride, see if he don't.
+Then there'll be cause for an inquest and an election."  He spoke
+with what struck the teamster as unnecessary heat.
+
+"Dunno," said the other; "Turney's a brash young feller, I hear, but
+he's game.  'Tain't any of my business, though, and I don't want none
+of his contrac'.  I'm violently addicted to peace and quiet, I am.
+Guess I'll unhitch," and he toddled out into the gathering dusk to
+his mules, while the landlord peered uneasily down the darkening
+trail.
+
+As the saddened Joy lit candles in the front room there came the
+rattle of wheels without, and a buckboard stopped in the bar of light
+from the door.  Bailey's anxiety was replaced by a mask of listless
+surprise as the voice of Ross Turney called to him.
+
+"Hello there, Bailey!  Are we in time for supper?  If not, I'll start
+an insurrection with that Boxer of yours.  He's got to turn out the
+snortingest supper of the season to-night.  It isn't every day your
+shack is honoured by a bride.  Mr. Bailey, this is my wife, since ten
+o'clock A. M."  He introduced a blushing, happy girl, evidently in
+the grasp of many emotions.  "We'll stay all night, I guess,"
+
+"Sure," said Bailey.  "I'll show ye a room," and he led them up
+beneath the low roof where an unusual cleanliness betrayed the
+industry of Joy.
+
+The two men returned and drank to the bride, Turney with the reckless
+lightness that distinguished him, Bailey sullen and watchful.
+
+"Got another outfit here, haven't you?" questioned the bridegroom.
+"Who is it?"
+
+Before answer could be made, from the kitchen arose a tortured howl
+and the smashing of dishes, mingled with stormy rumblings.  The door
+burst inward, and an agonized Joy fled, flapping out into the night,
+while behind him rolled the caricature from Bar X.
+
+"I just stopped for a drink of water," boomed the dwarf, then paused
+at the twitching face of the sheriff.
+
+He swelled ominously, like a great pigeon, purple and congested with
+rage.  Strutting to the new-comer, he glared insolently up into his
+smiling face,
+
+"What are ye laughin' at, ye shavetail?"  His hands were clenched,
+till his arms showed tense and rigid, and the cords in his neck were
+thickly swollen.
+
+"Lemme in on it, I'm strong on humour.  What in ---- ails ye?" he
+yelled, in a fury, as the tall young man gazed fixedly, and the
+glasses rattled at the bellow from the barreled-up lungs.
+
+"I'm not laughing at you," said the sheriff.
+
+"Oh, ain't ye?" mocked the man of peace.  "Well, take care that ye
+don't, ye big wart, or I'll trample them new clothes and browse
+around on some of your features.  I'll take ye apart till ye look
+like cut feed.  Guess ye don't know who I am, do ye?  I'm--"
+
+"Who is this man, Ross?" came the anxious voice of the bride,
+descending the stairs.
+
+The little man spun like a dancer, and, spying the girl, blushed to
+the colour of a prickly pear, then stammered painfully, while the
+sweat stood out under the labour of his discomfort:
+
+"Just 'Shorty,' Miss," he finally quavered.  "Plain 'Shorty' of the
+Bar X--er--a miserable, crawlin' worm for disturbin' of you."  He
+rolled his eyes helplessly at Bailey, while he sopped with his
+crumpled sombrero at the glistening perspiration.
+
+"Why didn't ye tell me?" he whispered ferociously at the host, and
+the volume of his query carried to Joy, hiding out in the night.
+
+"Mr. Shorty," said the sheriff gravely; "let me introduce my wife,
+Mrs. Turney."
+
+The bride smiled sweetly at the tremulous little man, who broke and
+fled to a high bench in the darkest corner, where he dangled his
+short legs in a silent ecstasy of bashfulness.
+
+"I reckon I'll have to rope that Chink, then blindfold and back him
+into the kitchen, if we git any supper," said Bailey, disappearing.
+
+Later the Chinaman stole in to set the table, but he worked with
+hectic and fitful energy, a fearful eye always upon the dim bulk in
+the corner, and at a fancied move he shook with an ague of
+apprehension.  Backing and sidling, he finally announced the meal,
+prepared to stampede madly at notice.
+
+During the supper Shorty ate ravenously of whatever lay to his hand,
+but asked no favours.  The agony of his shyness paralysed his huge
+vocal muscles till speech became a labour quite impossible.
+
+To a pleasant remark of the bride he responded, but no sound issued,
+then breathing heavily into his larynx, the reply roared upon them
+like a burst of thunder, seriously threatening the gravity of the
+meal.  He retired abruptly into moist and self-conscious silence,
+fearful of feasting his eyes on this disturbing loveliness.
+
+As soon as compatible with decency, he slipped back to his bunk in
+the shed behind, and lay staring into the darkness, picturing the
+amazing occurrences of the evening.  At the memory of her level
+glances he fell a-tremble and sighed ecstatically, prickling with a
+new, strange emotion.  He lay till far into the night, wakeful and
+absorbed.  He was able, to grasp the fact but dimly that all this
+dazzling perfection was for one man.  Were it not manifestly
+impossible he supposed other men in other lands knew other ladies as
+beautiful, and it furthermore grew upon him blackly, in the thick
+gloom, that in all this world of womanly sweetness and beauty, no
+modicum of it was for the misshapen dwarf of the Bar X outfit.  All
+his life he had fought furiously to uphold the empty shell of his
+dignity in the eyes of his comrades, yet always morbidly conscious of
+the difference in his body.  Whisky had been his solace, his
+sweetheart.  It changed him, raised and beatified him into the
+likeness of other men, and now, as he pondered, he was aware of a
+consuming thirst engendered by the heat of his earlier emotions.
+Undoubtedly it must be quenched.
+
+He rose and stole quietly out into the big front room.  Perhaps the
+years of free life in the open had bred a suspicion of walls, perhaps
+he felt his conduct would not brook discovery, perhaps habit,
+prompted him to take the two heavy Colts from their holsters and
+thrust them inside his trousers band.
+
+He slipped across the room, silent and cavern-like, its blackness
+broken by the window squares of starry sky, till he felt the paucity
+of glassware behind the bar.
+
+"Here's to Her,"  It burned delightfully.
+
+"Here's to the groom."  It tingled more alluringly.
+
+"I'll drink what I can, and get back to the bunk before it works," he
+thought, and the darkness veiled the measure of his potations.
+
+He started at a noise on the stairway.  His senses not yet dulled,
+detected a stealthy tread.  Not the careless step of a man unafraid,
+but the cautious rustle and halt of a marauder.  Every nerve bristled
+to keenest alertness as the faint occasional sounds approached,
+passed the open end of the bar where he crouched, leading on to the
+window.  Then a match flared, and the darkness rushed out as a candle
+wick sputtered.
+
+Shorty stretched on tiptoe, brought his eye to the level of the bar,
+and gazed upon the horrent head of Bailey.  He sighed thankfully, but
+watched with interest his strange behaviour.
+
+Bailey moved the light across the window from left to right three
+times, paused, then wigwagged some code out into the night.
+
+"He's signalling," mused Shorty.  "Hope he gets through quick.  I'm
+getting full."  The fumes of the liquor were beating at his senses,
+and he knew that soon he would move with difficulty.
+
+The man, however, showed no intention of leaving, for, his signals
+completed, he blew out the light, first listening for any sound from
+above, then his figure loomed black and immobile against the dim
+starlight of the window.
+
+"Oh, Lord!  I got to set down," and the watcher squatted upon the
+floor, bracing against the wall.  His dulling perceptions were
+sufficiently acute to detect shuffling footsteps on the porch and the
+cautious unbarring of the door.
+
+"Gettin' late for visitors," he thought, as he entered a blissful
+doze.  "When they're abed, I'll turn in."
+
+It seemed much later that a shot startled him.  To his dizzy hearing
+came the sound of curses overhead, the stamp and shift of feet, the
+crashing fall of struggling men, and, what brought him unsteadily to
+his legs, the agonized scream of a woman.  It echoed through the
+house, chilling him, and dwindled to an aching moan.
+
+Something was wrong, he knew that, but it was hard to tell just what.
+He must think.  What hard work it was to think, too; he'd never
+noticed before what a laborious process it was.  Probably that
+sheriff had got into trouble; he was a fresh guy, anyhow; and he'd
+laughed when he first saw Shorty.  That settled it.  He could get out
+of it himself.  Evidently it was nothing serious, for there was no
+more disturbance above, only confused murmurings.  Then a light
+showed in the stairs, and again the shuffling of feet came, as four
+strange men descended.  They were lighted by the sardonic Bailey, and
+they dragged a sixth between them, bound and helpless.  It was the
+sheriff.
+
+Now, what had he been doing to get into such a fix?
+
+The prisoner stood against the wall, white and defiant.  He strained
+at his bonds silently, while his captors watched his futile
+struggles.  There was something terrible and menacing in the
+quietness with which they gloated--a suggestion of some horror to
+come.  At last he desisted, and burst forth.
+
+"You've got me all right.  You did this, Bailey, you ---- traitor."
+
+"He's never been a traitor, as far as we know," sneered one of the
+four.  "In fact, I might say he's been strictly on the square with
+us."
+
+"I didn't think you made war on women, either, Marsh Tremper, but it
+seems you're everything from a dog-thief down.  Why couldn't you
+fight me alone, in the daylight, like a man?"
+
+"You don't wait till a rattler's coiled before you stamp his head
+off," said the former speaker.  "It's either you or us, and I reckon
+it's you."
+
+So these were the Tremper boys, eh?  The worst desperadoes in the
+Southwest; and Bailey was their ally.  The watcher eyed them, mildly
+curious, and it seemed to him that they were as bad a quartette as
+rumour had painted--bad, even, for this country of bad men.  The
+sheriff was a fool for getting mixed up with such people.  Shorty
+knew enough to mind his own business, anyway, if others didn't.  He
+was a peaceful man, and didn't intend to get mixed up with outlaws.
+His mellow meditations were interrupted by the hoarse speech of the
+sheriff, who had broken down into his rage again, and struggled madly
+while words ran from him.
+
+"Let me go!  ---- you, let me free.  I want to fight the coward that
+struck my wife.  You've killed her.  Who was it?  Let me get at him."
+
+Shorty stiffened as though a douche of ice-water had struck him.
+"Killed her!  Struck his wife!"  My God!  Not that sweet creature of
+his dreams who had talked and smiled at him without noting his
+deformity--
+
+An awful anger rose in him and he moved out into the light.
+
+"Han'sup!"
+
+Whatever of weakness may have dragged at his legs, none sounded in
+the great bellowing command that flooded the room.  At the compelling
+volume of the sound every man whirled and eight empty hands shot
+skyward.  Their startled eyes beheld a man's squat body weaving
+uncertainly on the limbs of an insect, while in each hand shone a
+blue-black Colt that waved and circled in maddening, erratic orbits.
+
+At the command, Marsh Tremper's mind had leaped to the fact that
+behind him was one man; one against five, and he took a gambler's
+chance.
+
+As he whirled, he drew and fired.  None but the dwarf of Bar X could
+have lived, for he was the deadliest hip shot in the territory.  His
+bullet crashed into the wall, a hand's breadth over Shorty's
+"cow-lick."  It was a clean heart shot; the practised whirl and flip
+of the finished gun fighter; but the roar of his explosion was echoed
+by another, and the elder Tremper spun unsteadily against the table
+with a broken shoulder.
+
+"Too high," moaned the big voice.  "--The liquor."
+
+He swayed drunkenly, but at the slightest shift of his quarry, the
+aimless wanderings of a black muzzle stopped on the spot and the body
+behind the guns was congested with deadly menace.
+
+"Face the wall," he cried.  "Quick!  Keep 'em up higher!"  They
+sullenly obeyed; their wounded leader reaching with his uninjured
+member.
+
+To the complacent Shorty, it seemed that things were working nicely,
+though he was disturbingly conscious of his alcoholic lack of
+balance, and tortured by the fear that he might suddenly lose the
+iron grip of his faculties.
+
+Then, for the second time that night, from the stairs came the voice
+that threw him into the dreadful confusion of his modesty.
+
+"O Ross!" it cried, "I've brought your gun," and there on the steps,
+dishevelled, pallid and quivering, was the bride, and grasped in one
+trembling hand was her husband's weapon.
+
+"Ah--h!" sighed Shorty, seraphically, as the vision beat in upon his
+misty conceptions.  "_She ain't hurt_!"
+
+In his mind there was no room for desperadoes contemporaneously with
+Her.  Then he became conscious of the lady's raiment, and his brown
+cheeks flamed brick-red, while he dropped his eyes.  In his
+shrinking, grovelling modesty, he made for his dark corner.
+
+One of those at bay, familiar with this strange abashment, seized the
+moment, but at his motion the sheriff screamed: "Look out!"
+
+The quick danger in the cry brought back with a surge the men against
+the wall and Shorty swung instantly, firing at the outstretched hand
+of Bailey as it reached for Tremper's weapon.
+
+The landlord straightened, gazing affrightedly at his finger tips.
+
+"Too low!" and Shorty's voice held aching tears.  "I'll never touch
+another drop; it's plumb ruined my aim."
+
+"Cut these strings, girlie," said the sheriff, as the little man's
+gaze again wavered, threatening to leave his prisoners.
+
+"Quick.  He's blushing again.".
+
+When they were manacled, Shorty stood in moist exudation, trembling
+and speechless, under the incoherent thanks of the bride and the
+silent admiration of her handsome husband.  She fluttered about him
+in a tremor of anxiety, lest he be wounded, caressing him here and
+there with solicitous pats till he felt his shamed and happy spirit
+would surely burst from its misshapen prison.
+
+"You've made a good thing to-night," said Turney, clapping him
+heartily on his massive back.  "You get the five thousand all right.
+We were going to Mexico City on that for a bridal trip when I rounded
+up the gang, but I'll see you get every cent of it, old man.  If it
+wasn't for you I'd have been a heap farther south than that by now."
+
+The open camaraderie and good-fellowship that rang in the man's voice
+affected Shorty strangely, accustomed as he was to the veiled
+contempt or open compassion of his fellows.  Here was one who
+recognized him as a man, an equal.
+
+He spread his lips, but the big voice squeaked dismally, then,
+inflating deeply, he spoke so that the prisoners chained in the
+corral outside heard him plainly.
+
+"I'd rather she took it anyhow," blushing violently.
+
+"No, no," they cried.  "It's yours."
+
+"Well, then, half of it"--and for once Shorty betrayed the strength
+of Gibraltar, even in the face of the lady, and so it stood.
+
+As the dawn spread over the dusty prairie, tipping the westward
+mountains with silver caps, and sucking the mist out of the
+cotton-wood bottoms, he bade them adieu.
+
+"No, I got to get back to the Bar X, or the old man'll swear I been
+drinking again, and I don't want to dissipate no wrong impressions
+around."  He winked gravely.  Then, as the sheriff and his surly
+prisoners drove off, he called:
+
+"Mr. Turney, take good care of them Trempers.  I think a heap of 'em,
+for, outside of your wife, they're the only ones in this outfit that
+didn't laugh at me."
+
+
+
+
+THE TEST
+
+Pierre "Feroce" showed disapproval in his every attitude as plainly as
+disgust peered from the seams in his dark face; it lurked in his scowl
+and in the curl of his long rawhide that bit among the sled dogs.  So
+at least thought Willard, as he clung to the swinging sledge.
+
+They were skirting the coast, keeping to the glare ice, wind-swept and
+clean, that lay outside the jumbled shore pack.  The team ran silently
+in the free gait of the grey wolf, romping in harness from pure joy of
+motion and the intoxication of perfect life, making the sled runners
+whine like the song of a cutlass.
+
+This route is dangerous, of course, from hidden cracks in the floes,
+and most travellers hug the bluffs, but he who rides with Pierre
+"Feroce" takes chances.  It was this that had won him the name of
+"Wild" Pierre--the most reckless, tireless man of the trails, a scoffer
+at peril, bolting through danger with rush and frenzy, overcoming
+sheerly by vigour those obstacles which destroy strong men in the North.
+
+The power that pulsed within him gleamed from his eyes, rang in his
+song, showed in the aggressive thrust of his sensual face.
+
+This particular morning, however, Pierre's distemper had crystallized
+into a great contempt for his companion.  Of all trials, the most
+detestable is to hit the trail with half a man, a pale, anemic weakling
+like this stranger.
+
+Though modest in the extent of his learning, Pierre gloated in a
+freedom of speech, the which no man dared deny him.  He turned to eye
+his companion cynically for a second time, and contempt was patent in
+his gaze.  Willard appeared slender and pallid in his furs, though his
+clear-cut features spoke a certain strength and much refinement.
+
+"Bah!  I t'ink you dam poor feller," he said finally.  "'Ow you 'goin'
+stan' thees trip, eh?  She's need beeg mans, not leetle runt like you."
+
+Amusement at this frankness glimmered in Willard's eyes.
+
+"You're like all ignorant people.  You think in order to stand hardship
+a man should be able to toss a sack of flour in his teeth or juggle a
+cask of salt-horse."
+
+"Sure t'ing," grinned Pierre.  "That's right.  Look at me.  Mebbe you
+hear 'bout Pierre 'Feroce' sometime, eh?"
+
+"Oh, yes; everybody knows you; knows you're a big bully.  I've seen you
+drink a quart of this wood alcohol they call whisky up here, and then
+jump the bar from a stand, but you're all animal--you haven't the
+refinement and the culture that makes real strength.  It's the mind
+that makes us stand punishment."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Canadian.  "Wat a fonny talk.  She'll take
+the heducate man for stan' the col', eh?  Mon Dieu!"  He roared again
+till the sled dogs turned fearful glances backward and bushy tails
+drooped under the weight of their fright.  Great noise came oftenest
+with great rage from Pierre, and they had too frequently felt the both
+to forget.
+
+"Yes, you haven't the mentality.  Sometime you'll use up your physical
+resources and go to pieces like a burned wick."
+
+Pierre was greatly amused.  His yellow teeth shone, and he gave vent to
+violent mirth as, following the thought, he pictured a naked mind
+wandering over the hills with the quicksilver at sixty degrees.
+
+"Did you ever see a six-day race?  Of course not; you barbarians
+haven't sunk to the level of our dissolute East, where we joy in Roman
+spectacles, but if you had you'd see it's will that wins; it's the man
+that eats his soul by inches.  The educated soldier stands the campaign
+best.  You run too much to muscle--you're not balanced."
+
+"I t'ink mebbe you'll 'ave chance for show 'im, thees stout will of
+yours.  She's goin' be long 'mush' troo the mountains, plentee snow,
+plentee cold."
+
+Although Pierre's ridicule was galling, Willard felt the charm of the
+morning too strongly to admit of anger or to argue his pet theory.
+
+The sun, brilliant and cold, lent a paradoxical cheerfulness to the
+desolation, and, though never a sign of life broke the stillness around
+them, the beauty of the scintillant, gleaming mountains, distinct as
+cameos, that guarded the bay, appealed to him with the strange
+attraction of the Arctics; that attraction that calls and calls
+insistently, till men forsake God's country for its mystery.
+
+He breathed the biting air cleaned by leagues of lifeless barrens and
+voids of crackling frost till he ached with the exhilaration of a
+perfect morning on the Circle.
+
+Also before him undulated the grandest string of dogs the Coast had
+known.  Seven there were, tall and grey, with tails like plumes, whom
+none but Pierre could lay hand upon, fierce and fearless as their
+master.  He drove with the killing cruelty of a stampeder, and they
+loved him.
+
+"You say you have grub cached at the old Indian hut on the Good Hope?"
+questioned Willard.
+
+"Sure!  Five poun' bacon, leetle flour and rice.  I cache one gum-boot
+too, ha!  Good thing for make fire queeck, eh?"
+
+"You bet; an old rubber boot comes handy when it's too cold to make
+shavings."
+
+Leaving the coast, they ascended a deep and tortuous river where the
+snow lay thick and soft.  One man on snow-shoes broke trail for the
+dogs till they reached the foothills.  It was hard work, but infinitely
+preferable to that which followed, for now they came into a dangerous
+stretch of overflows.  The stream, frozen to its bed, clogged the
+passage of the spring water beneath, forcing it up through cracks till
+it spread over the solid ice, forming pools and sheets covered with
+treacherous ice-skins.  Wet feet are fatal to man and beast, and they
+made laborious detours, wallowing trails through tangled willows waist
+deep in the snow smother, or clinging precariously to the overhanging
+bluffs.  As they reached the river's source the sky blackened suddenly,
+and great clouds of snow rushed over the bleak hills, boiling down into
+the valley with a furious draught.  They flung up their flimsy tent,
+only to have it flattened by the force of the gale that cut like
+well-honed steel.  Frozen spots leaped out white on their faces, while
+their hands stiffened ere they could fasten the guy strings.
+
+Finally, having lashed the tent bottom to the protruding willow tops,
+by grace of heavy lifting they strained their flapping shelter up
+sufficiently to crawl within.
+
+"By Gar!  She's blow hup ver' queeck," yelled Pierre, as he set the
+ten-pound sheet-iron stove, its pipe swaying drunkenly with the heaving
+tent.
+
+"Good t'ing she hit us in the brush."  He spoke as calmly as though
+danger was distant, and a moment later the little box was roaring with
+its oil-soaked kindlings.
+
+"Will this stove burn green willow tops?" cried Willard.
+
+"Sure!  She's good stove.  She'll burn hicicles eef you get 'im start
+one times.  See 'im get red?"
+
+They rubbed the stiff spots from their cheeks, then, seizing the axe,
+Willard crawled forth into the storm and dug at the base of the gnarled
+bushes.  Occasionally a shrub assumed the proportions of a man's
+wrist--but rarely.  Gathering an armful, he bore them inside, and
+twisting the tips into withes, he fed the fire.  The frozen twigs
+sizzled and snapped, threatening to fail utterly, but with much blowing
+he sustained a blaze sufficient to melt a pot of snow.  Boiling was out
+of the question, but the tea leaves became soaked and the bacon
+cauterized.
+
+Pierre freed and fed the dogs.  Each gulped its dried salmon, and,
+curling in the lee of the tent, was quickly drifted over.  Next he cut
+blocks from the solid bottom snow and built a barricade to windward.
+Then he accumulated a mow of willow tops without the tent-fly.  All the
+time the wind drew down the valley like the breath of a giant bellows.
+
+"Supper," shouted Willard, and as Pierre crawled into the candle-light
+he found him squatted, fur-bundled, over the stove, which settled
+steadily into the snow, melting its way downward toward a firmer
+foundation.
+
+The heat was insufficient to thaw the frozen sweat in his clothes; his
+eyes were bleary and wet from smoke, and his nose needed continuous
+blowing, but he spoke pleasantly, a fact which Pierre noted with
+approval.
+
+"We'll need a habeas corpus for this stove if you don't get something
+to hold her up, and I might state, if it's worthy of mention, that your
+nose is frozen again."
+
+Pierre brought an armful of stones from the creek edge, distributing
+them beneath the stove on a bed of twisted willows; then swallowing
+their scanty, half-cooked food, they crawled, shivering, into the
+deerskin sleeping-bags, that animal heat might dry their clammy
+garments.
+
+Four days the wind roared and the ice filings poured over their shelter
+while they huddled beneath.  When one travels on rations delay is
+dangerous.  Each morning, dragging themselves out into the maelstrom,
+they took sticks and poked into the drifts for dogs.  Each animal as
+found was exhumed, given a fish, and became straightway reburied in the
+whirling white that seethed down from the mountains.
+
+On the fifth, without warning, the storm died, and the air stilled to a
+perfect silence.
+
+"These dog bad froze," said Pierre, swearing earnestly as he harnessed.
+"I don' like eet much.  They goin' play hout I'm 'fraid." He knelt and
+chewed from between their toes the ice pellets that had accumulated.  A
+malamoot is hard pressed to let his feet mass, and this added to the
+men's uneasiness.
+
+As they mounted the great divide, mountains rolled away on every hand,
+barren, desolate, marble-white; always the whiteness; always the
+listening silence that oppressed like a weight.  Myriads of creek
+valleys radiated below in a bewildering maze of twisting seams.
+
+"Those are the Ass's Ears, I suppose," said Willard, gazing at two
+great fangs that bit deep into the sky-line.  "Is it true that no man
+has ever reached them?"
+
+"Yes.  The hinjun say that's w'ere hall the storm come from, biccause
+w'en the win' blow troo the Ass's Ear, look out!  Somebody goin' ketch
+'ell."
+
+Dogs' feet wear quickly after freezing, for crusted snow cuts like a
+knife.  Spots of blood showed in their tracks, growing more plentiful
+till every print was a crimson stain.  They limped pitifully on their
+raw pads, and occasionally one whined.  At every stop they sank in
+track, licking their lacerated paws, rising only at the cost of much
+whipping.
+
+On the second night, faint and starved, they reached the hut.  Digging
+away the drifts, they crawled inside to find it half full of snow--snow
+which had sifted through the crevices.  Pierre groped among the shadows
+and swore excitedly.
+
+"What's up?" said Willard.
+
+Vocal effort of the simplest is exhausting when spent with hunger, and
+these were the first words he had spoken for hours.
+
+"By Gar! she's gone.  Somebody stole my grub!"
+
+Willard felt a terrible sinking, and his stomach cried for food.
+
+"How far is it to the Crooked River Road House?"
+
+"One long day drive--forty mile."
+
+"We must make it to-morrow or go hungry, eh?  Well this isn't the first
+dog fish I ever ate." Both men gnawed a mouldy dried salmon from their
+precious store.
+
+As Willard removed his footgear he groaned.
+
+"Wat's the mattaire?"
+
+"I froze my foot two days ago--snow-shoe strap too tight."  He
+exhibited a heel, from which, in removing his inner sock, the flesh and
+skin had come away.
+
+"That's all right," grinned Pierre.  "You got the beeg will lef' yet.
+It take the heducate man for stan' the col', you know."
+
+Willard gritted his teeth.
+
+They awoke to the whine of a grey windstorm that swept the cutting snow
+in swirling clouds and made travel a madness.  The next day was worse.
+
+Two days of hunger weigh heavy when the cold weakens, and they grew
+gaunt and fell away in their features.
+
+"I'm glad we've got another feed for the dogs," remarked Willard.  "We
+can't let them run hungry, even if we do."
+
+"I t'ink she's be hall right to-mor'," ventured Pierre.  "Thees ain't
+snow--jus' win'; bimeby all blow hout.  Sacre!  I'll can eat 'nuff for
+'ole harmy."
+
+For days both men had been cold, and the sensation of complete warmth
+had come to seem strange and unreal, while their faces cracked where
+the spots had been.
+
+Willard felt himself on the verge of collapse.  He recalled his words
+about strong men, gazing the while at Pierre.  The Canadian evinced
+suffering only in the haggard droop of eye and mouth; otherwise he
+looked strong and dogged.
+
+Willard felt his own features had shrunk to a mask of loose-jawed
+suffering, and he set his mental sinews, muttering to himself.
+
+He was dizzy and faint as he stretched himself in the still morning air
+upon waking, and hobbled painfully, but as his companion emerged from
+the darkened shelter into the crystalline brightness he forgot his own
+misery at sight of him.  The big man reeled as though struck when the
+dazzle from the hills reached him, and he moaned, shielding his sight.
+Snow-blindness had found him in a night.
+
+Slowly they plodded out of the valley, for hunger gnawed acutely, and
+they left a trail of blood tracks from the dogs.  It took the combined
+efforts of both men to lash them to foot after each pause.  Thus
+progress was slow and fraught with agony.
+
+As they rose near the pass, miles of Arctic wastes bared themselves.
+All about towered bald domes, while everywhere stretched the monotonous
+white, the endless snow unbroken by tree or shrub, pallid and menacing,
+maddening to the eye.
+
+"Thank God, the worst's over," sighed Willard, flinging himself onto
+the sled.  "We'll make it to the summit next time; then she's down hill
+all the way to the road house."
+
+Pierre said nothing.
+
+Away to the northward glimmered the Ass's Ears, and as the speaker eyed
+them carelessly he noted gauzy shreds and streamers veiling their tops.
+The phenomena interested him, for he knew that here must be wind--wind,
+the terror of the bleak tundra; the hopeless, merciless master of the
+barrens!  However, the distant range beneath the twin peaks showed
+clear-cut and distinct against the sky, and he did not mention the
+occurrence to the guide, although he recalled the words of the Indians:
+"Beware of the wind through the Ass's Ears."
+
+Again they laboured up the steep slope, wallowing in the sliding snow,
+straining silently at the load; again they threw themselves, exhausted,
+upon it.  Now, as he eyed the panorama below, it seemed to have
+suffered a subtle change, indefinable and odd.  Although but a few
+minutes had elapsed, the coast mountains no longer loomed clear against
+the horizon, and his visual range appeared foreshortened, as though the
+utter distances had lengthened, bringing closer the edge of things.
+The twin peaks seemed endlessly distant and hazy, while the air had
+thickened as though congested with possibilities, lending a remoteness
+to the landscape.
+
+"If it blows up on us here, we're gone," he thought, "for it's miles to
+shelter, and we're right in the saddle of the hills."
+
+Pierre, half blinded as he was, arose uneasily and cast the air like a
+wild beast, his great head thrown back, his nostrils quivering.
+
+"I smell the win'," he cried.  "Mon Dieu!  She's goin' blow!"
+
+A volatile pennant floated out from a near-bye peak, hanging about its
+crest like faint smoke.  Then along the brow of the pass writhed a wisp
+of drifting, twisting flakelets, idling hither and yon, astatic and
+aimless, settling in a hollow.  They sensed a thrill and rustle to the
+air, though never a breath had touched them; then, as they mounted
+higher, a draught fanned them, icy as interstellar space.  The view
+from the summit was grotesquely distorted, and glancing upward they
+found the guardian peaks had gone a-smoke with clouds of snow that
+whirled confusedly, while an increasing breath sucked over the summit,
+stronger each second.  Dry snow began to rustle slothfully about their
+feet.  So swiftly were the changes wrought, that before the mind had
+grasped their import the storm was on them, roaring down from every
+side, swooping out of the boiling sky, a raging blast from the voids of
+sunless space.
+
+Pierre's shouts as he slashed at the sled lashings were snatched from
+his lips in scattered scraps.  He dragged forth the whipping tent and
+threw himself upon it with the sleeping-bags.  Having cut loose the
+dogs, Willard crawled within his sack and they drew the flapping canvas
+over them.  The air was twilight and heavy with efflorescent granules
+that hurtled past in a drone.
+
+They removed their outer garments that the fur might fold closer
+against them, and lay exposed to the full hate of the gale.  They hoped
+to be drifted over, but no snow could lodge in this hurricane, and it
+sifted past, dry and sharp, eddying out a bare place wherein they lay.
+Thus the wind drove the chill to their bones bitterly.
+
+An unnourished human body responds but weakly, so, vitiated by their
+fast and labours, their suffering smote them with tenfold cruelty.
+
+All night the north wind shouted, and, as the next day waned with its
+violence undiminished, the frost crept in upon them till they rolled
+and tossed shivering.  Twice they essayed to crawl out, but were driven
+back to cower for endless, hopeless hours.
+
+It is in such black, aimless times that thought becomes distorted.
+Willard felt his mind wandering through bleak dreams and tortured
+fancies, always to find himself harping on his early argument with
+Pierre: "It's the mind that counts."  Later he roused to the fact that
+his knees, where they pressed against the bag, were frozen; also his
+feet were numb and senseless.  In his acquired consciousness he knew
+that along the course of his previous mental vagary lay madness, and
+the need of action bore upon him imperatively.
+
+He shouted to his mate, but "Wild" Pierre seemed strangely apathetic.
+
+"We've got to run for it at daylight.  We're freezing.  Here!  Hold on!
+What are you doing?  Wait for daylight!"  Pierre had scrambled stiffly
+out of his cover and his gabblings reached Willard.  He raised a
+clenched fist into the darkness of the streaming night, cursing
+horribly with words that appalled the other.
+
+"Man! man! don't curse your God.  This is bad enough as it is.  Cover
+up.  Quick!"
+
+Although apparently unmindful of his presence, the other crawled back
+muttering.
+
+As the dim morning greyed the smother they rose and fought their way
+downward toward the valley.  Long since they had lost their griping
+hunger, and now held only an apathetic indifference to food, with a
+cringing dread of the cold and a stubborn sense of their extreme
+necessity.
+
+They fell many times, but gradually drew themselves more under control,
+the exercise suscitating them, as they staggered downward, blinded and
+buffeted, their only hope the road-house.
+
+Willard marvelled dully at the change in Pierre.  His face had
+shrivelled to blackened freezes stretched upon a bony substructure, and
+lighted by feverish, glittering, black, black eyes.  It seemed to him
+that his own lagging body had long since failed, and that his aching,
+naked soul wandered stiffly through the endless day.  As night
+approached Pierre stopped frequently, propping himself with legs far
+apart; sometimes he laughed.  Invariably this horrible sound shocked
+Willard into a keener sense of the surroundings, and it grew to
+irritate him, for the Frenchman's mental wanderings increased with the
+darkness.  What made him rouse one with his awful laughter?  These
+spells of walking insensibility were pleasanter far.  At last the big
+man fell.  To Willard's mechanical endeavours to help he spoke
+sleepily, but with the sanity of a man under great stress.
+
+"Dat no good.  I'm goin' freeze right 'ere--freeze stiff as 'ell.  Au
+revoir."
+
+"Get up!" Willard kicked him weakly, then sat upon the prostrate man as
+his own faculties went wandering.
+
+Eventually he roused, and digging into the snow buried the other, first
+covering his face with the ample parka hood.  Then he struck down the
+valley.  In one lucid spell he found he had followed a sled trail,
+which was blown clear and distinct by the wind that had now almost died
+away.
+
+Occasionally his mind grew clear, and his pains beat in upon him till
+he grew furious at the life in him which refused to end, which forced
+him ever through this gauntlet of misery.  More often he was conscious
+only of a vague and terrible extremity outside of himself that goaded
+him forever forward.  Anon he strained to recollect his destination.
+His features had set in an implacable grimace of physical torture--like
+a runner in the fury of a finish--till the frost hardened them so.  At
+times he fell heavily, face downward, and at length upon the trail,
+lying so till that omnipresent coercion that had frozen in his brain
+drove him forward.
+
+He heard his own voice maundering through lifeless lips like that of a
+stranger: "The man that can eat his soul will win, Pierre."
+
+Sometimes he cried like a child and slaver ran from his open mouth,
+freezing at his breast.  One of his hands was going dead.  He stripped
+the left mitten off and drew it laboriously over the right.  One he
+would save at least, even though he lost the other.  He looked at the
+bare member dully, and he could not tell that the cold had eased till
+the bitterness was nearly out of the air.  He laboured with the fitful
+spurts of a machine run down.
+
+Ten men and many dogs lay together in the Crooked River Road House
+through the storm.  At late bedtime of the last night came a scratching
+on the door.
+
+"Somebody's left a dog outside," said a teamster, and rose to let him
+in.  He opened the door only to retreat affrightedly.
+
+"My God!" he said.  "My God!" and the miners crowded forward.
+
+A figure tottered over the portal, swaying drunkenly.  They shuddered
+at the sight of its face as it crossed toward the fire.  It did not
+walk; it shuffled, haltingly, with flexed knees and hanging shoulders,
+the strides measuring inches only--a grisly burlesque upon senility.
+
+Pausing in the circle, it mumbled thickly, with great effort, as though
+gleaning words from infinite distance:
+
+"Wild Pierre--frozen--buried--in--snow--hurry!"  Then he straightened
+and spoke strongly, his voice flooding the room:
+
+"It's the mind, Pierre.  Ha! ha! ha!  The mind."
+
+He cackled hideously, and plunged forward into a miner's arms.
+
+
+It was many days before his delirium broke.  Gradually he felt the
+pressure of many bandages upon him, and the hunger of convalescence.
+As he lay in his bunk the past came to him hazy and horrible; then the
+hum of voices, one loud, insistent, and familiar.
+
+He turned weakly, to behold Pierre propped in a chair by the stove,
+frost-scarred and pale, but aggressive even in recuperation.  He
+gesticulated fiercely with a bandaged hand, hot in controversy with
+some big-limbed, bearded strangers.
+
+"Bah!  You fellers no good--too beeg in the ches', too leetle in the
+forehead.  She'll tak' the heducate mans for stan' the 'ardsheep--lak'
+me an' Meestaire Weelard."
+
+
+
+
+NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE
+
+Big George was drinking, and the activities of the little Arctic
+mining camp were paralysed.  Events invariably ceased their progress
+and marked time when George became excessive, and now nothing of
+public consequence stirred except the quicksilver, which was retiring
+fearfully into its bulb at the song of the wind which came racing
+over the lonesome, bitter, northward waste of tundra.
+
+He held the centre of the floor at the Northern Club, and proclaimed
+his modest virtues in a voice as pleasant as the cough of a
+bull-walrus.
+
+"Yes, me!  Little Georgie!  I did it.  I've licked 'em all from
+Herschel Island to Dutch Harbour, big uns and little uns.  When they
+didn't suit I made 'em over.  I'm the boss carpenter of the Arctic
+and I own this camp; don't I, Slim?  Hey?  Answer me!" he roared at
+the emaciated bearer of the title, whose attention seemed wandering
+from the inventory of George's startling traits toward a card game.
+
+"Sure ye do," nervously smiled Slim, frightened out of a heart-solo
+as he returned to his surroundings.
+
+"Well, then, listen to what I'm saying.  I'm the big chief of the
+village, and when I'm stimulated and happy them fellers I don't like
+hides out and lets me and Nature operate things.  Ain't that right?"
+He glared inquiringly at his friends.
+
+Red, the proprietor, explained over the bar in a whisper to Captain,
+the new man from Dawson: "That's Big George, the whaler.  He's a
+squaw-man and sort of a bully--see?  When he's sober he's on the
+level strickly, an' we all likes him fine, but when he gets to
+fightin' the pain-killer, he ain't altogether a gentleman.  Will he
+fight?  Oh!  Will he fight?  Say! he's there with chimes, he is!
+Why, Doc Miller's made a grub-stake rebuildin' fellers that's had a
+lingerin' doubt cached away about that, an' now when he gets the
+booze up his nose them patched-up guys oozes away an' hibernates till
+the gas dies out in him.  Afterwards he's sore on himself an'
+apologizes to everybody.  Don't get into no trouble with him, cause
+he's two checks past the limit.  They don't make 'em as bad as him
+any more.  He busted the mould."
+
+George turned, and spying the new-comer, approached, eyeing him with
+critical disfavour.
+
+Captain saw a bear-like figure, clad cap-a-pie in native fashion.
+Reindeer pants, with the hair inside, clothed legs like rock pillars,
+while out of the loose squirrel parka a corded neck rose, brown and
+strong, above which darkly gleamed a rugged face seamed and scarred
+by the hate of Arctic winters.  He had kicked off his deer-skin
+socks, and stood bare-footed on the cold and draughty floor, while
+the poison he had imbibed showed only in his heated face, Silently he
+extended a cracked and hardened hand, which closed like the armoured
+claw of a crustacean and tightened on the crunching fingers of the
+other.  Captain's expression remained unchanged and, gradually
+slackening his grip, the sailor roughly inquired:
+
+"Where'd you come from?"
+
+"Just got in from Dawson yesterday," politely responded the stranger.
+
+"Well! what're you goin' to do now you're here?" he demanded.
+
+"Stake some claims and go to prospecting, I guess.  You see, I wanted
+to get in early before the rush next spring."
+
+"Oh!  I 'spose you're going to jump some of our ground, hey?  Well,
+you ain't!  We don't want no claim jumpers here," disagreeably
+continued the seaman; "we won't stand for it.  This is my camp--see?
+I own it, and these is my little children."  Then, as the other
+refused to debate with him, he resumed, groping for a new ground of
+attack.
+
+"Say!  I'll bet you're one of them eddicated dudes, too, ain't you?
+You talk like a feller that had been to college," and, as the other
+assented, he scornfully called to his friends, saying "Look here,
+fellers!  Pipe the jellyfish!  I never see one of these here animals
+that was worth a cuss; they plays football an' smokes cigareets at
+school; then when they're weaned they come off up here an' jump our
+claims 'cause we can't write a location notice proper.  They ain't no
+good.  I guess I'll stop it."
+
+Captain moved toward the door, but the whaler threw his bulky frame
+against it and scowlingly blocked the way.
+
+"No, you don't.  You ain't goin' to run away till I've had the next
+dance, Mister Eddication!  Humph!  I ain't begun to tell ye yet what
+a useless little barnacle you are."
+
+Red interfered, saying: "Look 'ere, George, this guy ain't no
+playmate of yourn.  We'll all have a jolt of this disturbance
+promoter, an' call it off."  Then, as the others approached he winked
+at Captain, and jerked his head slightly toward the door.
+
+The latter, heeding the signal, started out, but George leaped after
+him and, seizing an arm, whirled him back, roaring:
+
+"Well, of all the cussed impidence I ever see!  You're too high-toned
+to drink with us, are you?  You don't get out of here now till you
+take a lickin' like a man."
+
+He reached over his head and, grasping the hood of his fur shirt,
+with one movement he stripped it from him, exposing a massive naked
+body, whose muscles swelled and knotted beneath a skin as clear as a
+maiden's, while a map of angry scars strayed across the heavy chest.
+
+As the shirt sailed through the air.  Red lightly vaulted to the bar
+and, diving at George's naked middle, tackled beautifully, crying to
+Captain: "Get out quick; we'll hold him."
+
+Others rushed forward and grasped the bulky sailor, but Captain's
+voice replied: "I sort of like this place, and I guess I'll stay a
+while.  Turn him loose."
+
+"Why, man, he'll kill ye," excitedly cried Slim.  "Get out!"
+
+The captive hurled his peacemakers from him and, shaking off the
+clinging arms, drove furiously at the insolent stranger.
+
+In the cramped limits of the corner where he stood.  Captain was
+unable to avoid the big man, who swept him with a crash against the
+plank door at his back, grasping hungrily at his throat.  As his
+shoulders struck, however, he dropped to his knees and, before the
+raging George could seize him, he avoided a blow which would have
+strained the rivets of a strength-tester and ducked under the other's
+arms, leaping to the cleared centre of the floor.
+
+Seldom had the big man's rush been avoided and, whirling, he swung a
+boom-like arm at the agile stranger.  Before it landed, Captain
+stepped in to meet his adversary and, with the weight of his body
+behind the blow, drove a clenched and bony fist crashing into the
+other's face.  The big head with its blazing shock of hair snapped
+backward and the whaler drooped to his knees at the other's feet.
+
+The drunken flush of victory swept over Captain as he stood above the
+swaying figure; then, suddenly, he felt the great bare arms close
+about his waist with a painful grip.  He struck at the bleeding face
+below him and wrenched at the circling bands which wheezed the breath
+from his lungs, but the whaler squeezed him writhing to his breast,
+and, rising, unsteadily wheeled across the floor and in a shiver of
+broken glass fell crashing against the bar and to the floor.
+
+As the struggling men writhed upon the planks the door opened at the
+hurried entrance of an excited group, which paused at the sight of
+the ruin, then, rushing forward, tore the men apart.
+
+The panting Berserker strained at the arms about his glistening body,
+while Captain, with sobbing sighs, relieved his aching lungs and
+watched his enemy, who frothed at the interference.
+
+"It was George's fault," explained Slim to the questions of the
+arrivals.  "This feller tried to make a get-away, but George had to
+have his amusement."
+
+A new-comer addressed the squaw-man in a voice as cold as the wind.
+"Cut this out, George!  This is a friend of mine.  You're making this
+camp a regular hell for strangers, and now I'm goin' to tap your
+little snap.  Cool off--see?"
+
+Jones's reputation as a bad gun-man went hand in hand with his name
+as a good gambler, and his scanty remarks invariably evoked attentive
+answers, so George explained: "I don't like him Jones, and I was jus'
+makin' him over to look like a man.  I'll do it yet, too," he flashed
+wrathfully at his quiet antagonist.
+
+"'Pears to me like he's took a hand in the remodelling himself,"
+replied the gambler, "but if you're lookin' for something to do,
+here's your chance.  Windy Jim just drove in and says Barton and Kid
+Sullivan are adrift on the ice."
+
+"What's that?" questioned eager voices, and, forgetting the recent
+trouble at the news, the crowd pressed forward anxiously.
+
+"They was crossing the bay and got carried out by the off-shore
+gale," explained Jones.  "Windy was follerin' 'em when the ice ahead
+parted and begun movin' out.  He tried to yell to 'em, but they was
+too far away to hear in the storm.  He managed to get back to the
+land and follered the shore ice around.  He's over at Hunter's cabin
+now, most dead, face and hands froze pretty bad."
+
+A torrent of questions followed and many suggestions as to the fate
+of the men.
+
+"They'll freeze before they can get ashore," said one.
+
+"The ice-pack'll break up in this wind," added another, "and if they
+don't drown, they'll freeze before the floe comes in close enough for
+them to land."
+
+From the first announcement of his friends' peril, Captain had been
+thinking rapidly.  His body, sore from his long trip and aching from
+the hug of his recent encounter, cried woefully for rest, but his
+voice rose calm and clear:
+
+"We've got to get them off," he said.  "Who will go with me?  Three
+is enough."
+
+The clamouring voices ceased, and the men wheeled at the sound,
+gazing incredulously at the speaker.  "What!"--"In this
+storm?"--"You're crazy," many voices said.
+
+He gazed appealingly at the faces before him.  Brave and adventurous
+men he knew them to be, jesting with death, and tempered to perils in
+this land where hardship rises with the dawn, but they shook their
+ragged heads hopelessly.
+
+"We _must_ save them!" resumed Captain hotly.  "Barton and I played
+as children together, and if there's not a man among you who's got
+the nerve to follow me--I'll go alone by Heavens!"
+
+In the silence of the room, he pulled the cap about his ears and,
+tying it snugly under his chin, drew on his huge fur mittens; then
+with a scornful laugh he turned toward the door.
+
+He paused as his eye caught the swollen face of Big George.  Blood
+had stiffened in the heavy creases of his face like rusted stringers
+in a ledge, while his mashed and discoloured lips protruded thickly.
+His hair gleamed red, and the sweat had dried upon his naked
+shoulders, streaked with dirt and flecked with spots of blood, yet
+the battered features shone with the unconquered, fearless light of a
+rough, strong man.
+
+Captain strode to him with outstretched hand.  "You're a man," he
+said.  "You've got the nerve, George, and you'll go with me, won't
+you?"
+
+"What!  Me?" questioned the sailor vaguely.  His wondering glance
+left Captain, and drifted round the circle of shamed and silent
+faces--then he straightened stiffly and cried: "Will I go with you?
+Certainly!  I'll go to ---- with you."
+
+Ready hands harnessed the dogs, dragged from protected nooks where
+they sought cover from the storm which moaned and whistled round the
+low houses.  Endless ragged folds of sleet whirled out of the north,
+then writhed and twisted past, vanishing into the grey veil which
+shrouded the landscape in a twilight gloom.
+
+The fierce wind sank the cold into the aching flesh like a knife and
+stiffened the face to a whitening mask, while a fusillade of frozen
+ice-particles beat against the eyeballs with blinding fury.
+
+As Captain emerged from his cabin, furred and hooded, he found a long
+train of crouching, whining animals harnessed and waiting, while
+muffled figures stocked the sled with robes and food and stimulants.
+
+Big George approached through the whirling white, a great squat
+figure with fluttering squirrel tails blowing from his parka, and at
+his heels there trailed a figure, skin-clad and dainty.
+
+"It's my wife," he explained briefly to Captain.  "She won't let me
+go alone."
+
+They gravely bade farewell to all, and the little crowd cheered
+lustily against the whine of the blizzard as, with cracking whip and
+hoarse shouts, they were wrapped in the cloudy winding sheet of snow.
+
+
+Arctic storms have an even sameness; the intense cold, the heartless
+wind which augments tenfold the chill of the temperature, the air
+thick and dark with stinging flakes rushing by in an endless cloud.
+A drifting, freezing, shifting eternity of snow, driven by a ravening
+gale which sweeps the desolate, bald wastes of the Northland.
+
+The little party toiled through the smother till they reached the
+"egloos" under the breast of the tall, coast bluffs, where coughing
+Eskimos drilled patiently at ivory tusks and gambled the furs from
+their backs at stud-horse poker.
+
+To George's inquiries they answered that their largest canoe was the
+three-holed bidarka on the cache outside.  Owing to the small
+circular openings in its deck, this was capable of holding but three
+passengers, and Captain said; "We'll have to make two trips, George."
+
+"Two trips, eh?" answered the other.  "We'll be doin' well if we last
+through one, I'm thinking."
+
+Lashing the unwieldy burden upon the sled, they fought their way
+along the coast again till George declared they were opposite the
+point where their friends went adrift.  They slid their light craft
+through the ragged wall of ice hummocks guarding the shore pack, and
+dimly saw, in the grey beyond them, a stretch of angry waters mottled
+by drifting cakes and floes.
+
+George spoke earnestly to his wife, instructing her to keep the team
+in constant motion up and down the coast a rifle-shot in either
+direction, and to listen for a signal of the return.  Then he picked
+her up as he would a babe, and she kissed his storm-beaten face.
+
+"She's been a good squaw to me," he said, as they pushed their
+dancing craft out into the breath of the gale, "and I've always done
+the square thing by her; I s'pose she'll go back to her people now,
+though."
+
+The wind hurried them out from land, while it drove the sea-water in
+freezing spray over their backs and changed their fur garments into
+scaly armour, as they worked through the ice cakes, peering with
+strained eyes for a sign of their friends.
+
+The sailor, with deft strokes, steered them, between the grinding
+bergs, raising his voice in lone signals like the weird cry of a
+siren.
+
+Twisting back and forth through the floes, they held to their quest,
+now floating with the wind, now paddling desperately in a race with
+some drifting mass which dimly towered above them and splintered
+hungrily against its neighbour close in their wake.
+
+Captain emptied his six-shooter till his numbed fingers grew rigid as
+the trigger, and always at his back swelled the deep shouts of the
+sailor, who, with practised eye and mighty strokes, forced their way
+through the closing lanes between the jaws of the ice pack.
+
+At last, beaten and tossed, they rested disheartened and hopeless.
+Then, as they drifted, a sound struggled to them against the wind--a
+faint cry, illusive and fleeting as a dream voice--and, still
+doubting, they heard it again.
+
+"Thank God!  We'll save 'em yet," cried Captain, and they drove the
+canoe boiling toward the sound.
+
+Barton and Sullivan had fought the cold and wind stoutly hour after
+hour, till they found their great floe was breaking up in the heaving
+waters.
+
+Then the horror of it had struck the Kid, till he raved and cursed up
+and down their little island, as it dwindled gradually to a small
+acre.
+
+He had finally yielded to the weight of the cold which crushed
+resistance out of him, and settled, despairing and listless, upon the
+ice.  Barton dragged him to his feet and forced him round their
+rocking prison, begging him to brace up, to fight it out like a man,
+till the other insisted on resting, and dropped to his seat again.
+
+The older man struck deliberately at the whitening face of his
+freezing companion, who recognized the well-meant insult and refused
+to be roused into activity.  Then to their ears had come the faint
+cries of George, and, in answer to their screams, through the gloom
+they beheld a long, covered, skin canoe, and the anxious faces of
+their friends.
+
+Captain rose from his cramped seat, and, ripping his crackling
+garments from the boat where they had frozen, he wriggled out of the
+hole in the deck and grasped the weeping Barton.
+
+"Come, come, old boy!  It's all right now," he said.
+
+"Oh, Charlie, Charlie!" cried the other.  "I might have known you'd
+try to save us.  You're just in time, though, for the Kid's about all
+in."  Sullivan apathetically nodded and sat down again.
+
+"Hurry up there; this ain't no G. A. R. Encampment, and you ain't got
+no time to spare," said George, who had dragged the canoe out and,
+with a paddle, broke the sheets of ice which covered it.  "It'll be
+too dark to see anything in half an hour."
+
+The night, hastened by the storm, was closing rapidly, and they
+realized another need of haste, for, even as they spoke, a crack had
+crawled through the ice-floe where they stood, and, widening as it
+went, left but a heaving cake supporting them.
+
+George spoke quietly to Captain, while Barton strove to animate the
+Kid.  "You and Barton must take him ashore and hurry him down to the
+village.  He's most gone now."
+
+"But you?" questioned the other.  "We'll have to come back for you,
+as soon as we put him ashore."
+
+"Never mind me," roughly interrupted George.  "It's too late to get
+back here.  When you get ashore it'll be dark.  Besides Sullivan's
+freezing, and you'll have to rush him through quick.  I'll stay here."
+
+"No!  No!  George!" cried the other, as the meaning of it bore in
+upon him.  "I got you into this thing, and it's my place to stay
+here.  You must go--"
+
+But the big man had hurried to Sullivan, and, seizing him in his
+great hands, shook the drowsy one like a rat, cursing and beating a
+goodly share of warmth back into him.  Then he dragged the listless
+burden to the canoe and forced him to a seat in the middle opening.
+
+"Come, come," he cried to the others; "you can't spend all night
+here.  If you want to save the Kid, you've got to hurry.  You take
+the front seat there, Barton," and, as he did so, George turned to
+the protesting Captain: "Shut up, curse you, and get in!"
+
+"I won't do it," rebelled the other.  "I can't let you lay down your
+life in this way, when I made you come."
+
+George thrust a cold face within an inch of the other's and grimly
+said: "If they hadn't stopped me, I'd beat you into dog-meat this
+morning, and if you don't quit this snivelling I'll do it yet.  Now
+get in there and paddle to beat ---- or you'll never make it back.
+Quick!"
+
+"I'll come back for you then, George, if I live to the shore,"
+Captain cried, while the other slid the burdened canoe into the icy
+waters.
+
+As they drove the boat into the storm, Captain realized the
+difficulty of working their way against the gale.  On him fell the
+added burden of holding their course into the wind and avoiding the
+churning ice cakes.  The spray whipped into his face like shot, and
+froze as it clung to his features.  He strained at his paddle till
+the sweat soaked out of him and the cold air filled his aching lungs.
+
+Unceasingly the merciless frost cut his face like a keen blade, till
+he felt the numb paralysis which told him his features were hardening
+under the touch of the cold.
+
+An arm's length ahead the shoulders of the Kid protruded from the
+deck hole where he had sunk again into the death sleep, while Barton,
+in the forward seat, leaned wearily on his ice-clogged paddle,
+moaning as he strove to shelter his face from the sting of the
+blizzard.
+
+An endless time they battled with the storm, slowly gaining, foot by
+foot, till in the darkness ahead they saw the wall of shore ice and
+swung into its partial shelter.
+
+Dragging the now unconscious Sullivan from the boat, Captain rolled
+and threshed him, while Barton, too weak and exhausted to assist,
+feebly strove to warm his stiffened limbs.
+
+In answer to their signals, the team appeared, maddened by the lash
+of the squaw.  Then they wrapped Sullivan in warm robes, and forced
+scorching brandy down his throat, till he coughed weakly and begged
+them to let him rest.
+
+"You must hurry him to the Indian village," directed Captain.  "He'll
+only lose some fingers and toes now, maybe; but you've got to hurry!"
+
+"Aren't you coming, too?" queried Barton.  "We'll hire some Eskimos
+to go after George.  I'll pay 'em anything."
+
+"No, I'm going back to him now; he'd freeze before we could send
+help, and, besides, they wouldn't come out in the storm and the dark."
+
+"But you can't work that big canoe alone.  If you get out there and
+don't find him you'll never get back.  Charlie! let me go, too," he
+said; then apologized.  "I'm afraid I won't last, though; I'm too
+weak."
+
+The squaw, who had questioned not at the absence of her lord, now
+touched Captain's arm.  "Come," she said; "I go with you." Then
+addressing Barton, "You quick go Indian house; white man die, mebbe.
+Quick!  I go Big George."
+
+"Ah, Charlie, I'm afraid you'll never make it," cried Barton, and,
+wringing his friend's hand, he staggered into the darkness behind the
+sled wherein lay the fur-bundled Sullivan.
+
+Captain felt a horror of the starving waters rise up in him and a
+panic shook him fiercely, till he saw the silent squaw waiting for
+him at the ice edge.  He shivered as the wind searched through his
+dampened parka and hardened the wet clothing next to his body, but he
+took his place and dug the paddle fiercely into the water, till the
+waves licked the hair of his gauntlets.
+
+The memory of that scudding trip through the darkness was always
+cloudy and visioned.  Periods of keen alertness alternated with
+moments when his weariness bore upon him till he stiffly bent to his
+work, wondering what it all meant.
+
+It was the woman's sharpened ear which caught the first answering
+cry, and her hands which steered the intricate course to the heaving
+berg where the sailor crouched, for, at their approach, Captain had
+yielded to the drowse of weariness and, in his relief at the finding,
+the blade floated from his listless hands.
+
+He dreamed quaint dreams, broken by the chilling lash of spray from
+the strokes of the others, as they drove the craft back against the
+wind, and he only partly awoke from his lethargy when George wrenched
+him from his seat and forced him down the rough trail toward warmth
+and safety.
+
+Soon, however, the stagnant blood tingled through his veins, and
+under the shelter of the bluffs they reached the village, where they
+found the anxious men waiting.
+
+Skilful natives had worked the frost from Sullivan's members, and the
+stimulants in the sled had put new life into Barton as well.  So, as
+the three crawled wearily through the dog-filled tunnel of the egloo,
+they were met by two wet-eyed and thankful men, who silently wrung
+their hands or uttered broken words.
+
+When they had been despoiled of their frozen furs, and the welcome
+heat of whisky and fire had met in their blood, Captain approached
+the whaler, who rested beside his mate.
+
+"George, you're the bravest man I ever knew, and your woman is worthy
+of you," he said.  He continued slowly, "I'm sorry about the fight
+this morning, too."
+
+The big man rose and, crushing the extended palm in his grasp, said:
+"We'll just let that go double, partner.  You're as game as I ever
+see."  Then he added: "It was too bad them fellers interferred jest
+when they did--but we can finish it up whenever you say," and as the
+other, smiling, shook his head, he continued:
+
+"Well, I'm glad of it, 'cause you'd sure beat me the next time."
+
+
+
+
+WHERE NORTHERN LIGHTS COME DOWN O' NIGHTS
+
+The Mission House at Togiak stands forlornly on a wind-swept Alaskan
+spit, while huddled around it a swarm of dirt-covered "igloos" grovel
+in an ecstacy of abasement.
+
+Many natives crawled out of these and stared across the bay as down a
+gully came an Arctic caravan, men and dogs, black against, the deadly
+whiteness.  Ahead swung the guide, straddling awkwardly on his five
+foot webs, while the straining pack pattered at his heels.  Big
+George, the driver, urged them with strong words, idioms of the
+Northland, and his long whip bit sharply at their legs.
+
+His companion, clinging to the sled, stumbled now and then, while his
+face, splitting from the snap of the frost, was smothered in a
+muffler.  Sometimes he fell, plunging into the snow, rising
+painfully, and groaning with the misery of "snow-blindness."
+
+"Most there now.  Cap, keep up your grit."
+
+"I'm all right," answered the afflicted man, wearily.  "Don't mind
+me."
+
+George, too, had suffered from the sheen of the unbroken whiteness,
+and, while his eyes had not wholly closed, he saw but dimly.  His
+cheeks were grease-smeared, and blackened with charred wood to break
+the snow-glare, but through his mask showed signs of suffering, while
+his blood-shot eyes dripped scalding tears and throbbed
+distressfully.  For days he had not dared to lose sight of the guide.
+Once he had caught him sneaking the dogs away, and he feared he had
+killed the man for a time.  Now Jaska broke trail ahead, his sullen,
+swollen features baleful in their injury.
+
+Down the steep bank they slid, across the humped up sea ice at the
+river mouth and into the village.
+
+At the greeting of their guide to his tribesmen, George started.
+Twelve years of coast life had taught him the dialect from Point
+Barrow south, and he glanced at Captain to find whether he, too, had
+heard the message.  As Jaska handed a talisman to the chief he strode
+to him and snatched it.
+
+"Oho!  It's Father Orloff, is it?  D---- him!"  He gazed at the
+token, a white spruce chip with strange marks and carvings.
+
+"What does it mean, George?" said the blind man.
+
+"It's a long story, Charlie, and black.  You should have known it
+before we started.  I'm a marked man in this coast country.  It's
+Orloff's work, the renegade.  'Father,' he calls himself.  Father to
+these devils he rules and robs for himself in the name of the Church.
+His hate is bitter, and he'd have my life if these watery-livered
+curs didn't dread the sound of my voice.  God help him when we meet."
+
+He shook his hairy claws at the hostile circle, then cried to the
+chief in the native tongue:--
+
+"Oh, Shaman!  We come bleeding and weary.  Hunger grips us and our
+bones are stiff with frost.  The light is gone from my brother's eyes
+and we are sick.  Open you the door to the Mission House that the
+'Minoks' may rest and grow strong."
+
+The Indians clustered before the portal, with its rude cross above,
+and stared malignantly, while the chief spoke.  At the name of his
+enemy the unsightly eyes of George gleamed, and he growled
+contemptuously, advancing among them.  They scattered at the manner
+of his coming, and he struck the padlocked door till it rattled
+stiffly.  Then spying the cross overhead he lifted up and gripped the
+wood.  It came away ripping, and with wails of rage and horror at the
+sacrilege, they closed about him.
+
+"Here, Cap!  Bust her in quick!"  He dragged Captain before the
+entrance, thrusting the weapon upon him, then ran ferociously among
+the people.  He snatched them to him, cuffing like a bear and
+trampling them into the snow.  Those who came into the reach of his
+knotty arms crumpled up and twisted under his feet.  He whirled into
+the group, roaring hoarsely, his angry, grease-blackened face hideous
+with rage.  The aborigine is not a fighting machine; for him the
+side-step and counter have no being.  They melted ahead of his
+blazing wrath, and he whisked them, fleeing, by their garments, so
+that they felt the stamp of his moccasined heels.
+
+Captain dragged the team within, and George following, blocked the
+shattered door.
+
+"We're safe as long as we stay in the Church," said he.
+
+"Right of sanctuary, eh?  Does it occur to you how we're going to get
+out?"
+
+"Never mind, we'll get out somehow," said he, and that night, as
+Charlie Captain, late University man and engineer, lay with eyes
+swathed in steaming cloths, the whaler spoke operosely and with the
+bitterness of great wrong.
+
+"It happened when we rocked the bars of Forty Mile, before ever a
+Chechako had crossed the Chilcoot.  I went over to the headwaters of
+the Tanana.  Into the big valley I went and got lost in the Flats.
+'Tis a wild country, rimmed by high mountains, full of niggerheads
+and tundra, with the river windin' clean back to the source of the
+Copper.  I run out of grub.  We always did them days, and built a
+raft to float down to the Yukon.  A race with starvation, and a dead
+heat it near proved, too, though I had a shade the best of it.  I
+drifted out into the main river, ravin' mad, my 'Mukluks' eat off and
+my moose-hide gun cover inside of me.
+
+"A girl spied me from the village, and 'twas her brought me ashore in
+her birch-bark and tended me in her wick-i-up till reason came and
+the blood ran through me again.
+
+"I mind seein' a white man stand around at times and hearin' him beg
+her to leave me to the old squaws.  She didn't though.  She gave me
+bits of moose meat and berries and dried salmon, and when I come to
+one day I saw she was little and brown and pleadin' and her clothes
+all covered with beads.  Her eyes was big and sad, Cap, and dimples
+poked into her cheeks when she laughed.
+
+"'Twas then that Orloff takes a hand--the white man.  A priest he
+called himself; breed, Russian.  Maybe he was, but a blacker hearted
+thief never wronged a child.  He wanted the girl, Metla, and so did
+I.  When I asked her old man for her he said she was promised to the
+Russian.  I laughed at him, and a chief hates to be mocked.  You know
+what sway the Church has over these Indians.  Well, Orloff is a
+strong man.  He held 'em like a rock.  He worked on 'em till one day
+the tribemen came to me in a body and said, 'Go!'
+
+"'Give me the girl, and I will,' says I.
+
+"Orloff sneered.  'She was mine for a month before ye came,' says he
+with the fiend showin' back of his eyes.  'Do ye want her now?'
+
+"For a minute I believed him.  I struck once to kill, and he went
+down.  They closed on me as fast as I shook 'em off.  'Twas a
+beautiful sight for a ruction, on the high banks over the river, but
+I was like water from the sickness.  I fought to get at their priest
+where he lay, to stamp out his grinning face before they downed me,
+but I was beat back to the bluff and I battled with my heels over the
+edge.  I broke a pole from the fish-rack and a good many went down.
+Then I heard Metla calling softly from below:--
+
+"'Jump!' she said.  'Big one, jump.'
+
+"She had loosed a canoe at the landing and now held it in the boiling
+current underneath, paddling desperately.
+
+"As they ran out of the tents with their rifles I leaped.
+
+"A long drop and cold water, but I hit feet first.  When I rose the
+little girl was alongside.
+
+"It's a ticklish thing to crawl over the stern of a canoe in the
+spatter of slugs, with the roar of muzzle-loaders above.  It's
+shakin' to the nerves, but the maid never flinched, not even when a
+bullet split the gunnel.  She ripped a piece of her dress and plugged
+a hole under the water line while I paddled out of range.
+
+"The next winter at Holy Cross she ran to me shaking one day.
+
+"'He is here!  He is here!  Oh, Big man, I am afraid!'
+
+"'Who's here?' says I.
+
+"'He is here--Father Orloff,' and her eyes was round and scared so
+that I took her up and kissed her while she clung to me--she was such
+a little girl.
+
+"'He spoke to me at the water-hole, "I have come for you."  I ran
+very fast, but he came behind.  "Where is George?"' he said.
+
+"I went out of the cabin down to the Mission, and into the house of
+Father Barnum.  He was there.
+
+"'Orloff!  What do ye want?' I says.
+
+"Father Barnum speaks up--'he's known for a good man the length of
+the river.  George,' says he, 'Father Orloff tells me you stole the
+girl Metla from her tribe.  'Tis a shameful thing for a white to take
+a red girl for his wife, but it's a crime to live as you do.'
+
+"'What?' says I.
+
+"'We can't sell you provisions nor allow you to stay in the village.'
+
+"Orloff grins.  'You must go on,' he says, 'or give her up.'
+
+"'No!  I'll do neither.'  And I shows the paper from the missionary
+at Nulato statin' that we were married.  'She's my wife,' says I,
+'and too good for me.  She's left her people and her gods, and I'll
+care for her.'  I saw how it hurt Orloff, and I laid my hand on his
+shoulder close to the neck.  'I distrust ye, and sure as Fate ye'll
+die the shocking death if ever harm comes to the little one.'
+
+"That was the winter of the famine, though every winter was the same
+then, and I went to Anvik for grub--took all the strong men and dogs
+in the village.  I was afraid when I left, too, for 'twas the time I
+should have been with her, but there was no one else to go.
+
+"'When you come back,' she said, 'there will be another--a little
+boy--and he will grow mighty and strong, like his father.'  She hung
+her arms around me, Cap, and I left with her kisses warm on my lips.
+
+"It was a terrible trip, the river wet with overflows and the
+cut-offs drifted deep, so I drove back into Holy Cross a week late
+with bleedin' dogs and frozen Indians strainin' at the sled ropes.
+
+"I heard the wail of the old women before.  I come to the cabin, and
+when Metla had sobbed the story out in her weakness, I went back into
+the dark and down to the Mission.  I remember how the Northern Lights
+flared over the hills above, and the little spruces on the summit
+looked to me like headstones, black against the moon--and I laughed
+when I saw the snow red in the night glare, for it meant blood and
+death.
+
+"It was as lusty a babe as ever crowed, but Orloff had come to the
+sick bed and sent her squaws away.  Baptism and such things he said
+he'd do.  The little fellow died that night.
+
+"They say the Mission door was locked and barred, but I pushed
+through it like paper and came into Father Barnum's house, where they
+sat.  Fifty below is bad for the naked flesh.  I broke in,
+bare-headed, mittenless, and I'd froze some on the way down.  He saw
+murder in my eyes and tried to run, but I got him as he went out of
+the room.  He tore his throat loose from my stiffened fingers and
+went into the church, but I beat down the door with my naked fists,
+mocking at his prayers inside, and may I never be closer to death
+than Orloff was that night.
+
+"Then a squaw tugged at my parka.
+
+"'She is dying, Anguk,' she said, and I ran back up the hill with the
+cold bitin' at my heart.
+
+"There was no death that night in Holy Cross, though God knows one
+naked soul was due to walk out onto the snow.  At daylight, when I
+came back for him, he had fled down the river with the fastest dogs,
+and to this day I've never seen his face, though 'tis often I've felt
+his hate.
+
+"He's grown into the strongest missionary on the coast, and he never
+lets a chance go by to harry me or the girl.
+
+"D'ye mind the time 'Skagway' Bennet died?  We was pardners up Norton
+Sound way when he was killed.  They thought he suicided, but I know.
+I found a cariboo belt in the brush near camp--the kind they make on
+the Kuskokwim, Father Orion's country.  His men took the wrong one,
+that's all.
+
+"I'm sorry I didn't tell ye this, Cap, before we started, for now
+we're into the South Country, where he owns the natives.  He knows
+we've come, as the blood-token of the guide showed.  He wants my
+life, and there's great trouble comin' up.  I'm hopin' ye'll soon get
+your sight, for by now there's a runner twenty miles into the hills
+with news that we're blind in the church at Togiak.  Three days he'll
+be goin', and on the fifth ye'll hear the jangle of Russian
+dog-bells.  He'll kill the fastest team in Nushagak in the comin',
+and God help us if we're here."
+
+George scraped a bit of frost-lace from the lone window pane.  Dark
+figures moved over the snow, circling the chapel, and he knew that
+each was armed.  Only their reverence for the church held them from
+doing the task set by Orloff, and he sighed as he changed the
+bandages on his suffering mate.
+
+They awoke the next morning to the moan of wind and the sift of snow
+clouds past their walls.  Staring through his peep-hole, George
+distinguished only a seethe of whirling flakes that greyed the view,
+blotting even the neighbouring huts, and when the early evening
+brought a rising note in the storm the trouble lifted from his face.
+
+"A three-day blizzard," he rejoiced, "and the strongest team on the
+coast can't wallow through it under a week.  These on-shore gales is
+beauts."
+
+For three days the wind tore from off the sea into the open bight at
+whose head lay Togiak, and its violence wrecked the armour of shore
+ice in the bay till it beat and roared against the spit, a threshing
+maelstrom of shattered bergs.  The waters piled into the inlet driven
+by the lash of the storm till they overflowed the river ice behind
+the village, submerging and breaking it into ragged, dangerous
+confusion.
+
+On the third day, with Arctic vagary, the wind gasped reluctantly and
+scurried over the range.  In its wake the surging ocean churned
+loudly and the back-water behind the town, held by the dam of
+freezing slush-ice at the river mouth, was skimmed by a thin
+ice-paper, pierced here and there by the up-ended piles from beneath.
+This held the night's snow, so that morning showed the village girt
+on three sides by a stream soft-carpeted and safe to the eye, but
+failing beneath the feet of a child.
+
+"You're eyes are comin' along mighty slow," worried George.  "I'm
+hopin' his reverence is up to his gills in drifts back yonder.  "We
+must leave him a sled trail for a souvenir."
+
+"How can we, with the place guarded?"
+
+"Hitch the dogs and run for it by night, He'll burn us out when he
+comes.  Fine targets we'd make on the snow by the light of a burning
+shack.  If ye can see to shoot we'll go tonight.  Hello!  What's
+that?"
+
+Outside came the howl of malamoots and the cry of men.  Leaping to
+the window, George rubbed it free and stared into the sunshine.
+
+"Too late!  Too late!" he said.  "Here he comes!  It's time I killed
+him."  He spoke gratingly, with the dull anger of years.
+
+On the bright surface of the opposite hillside a sled bearing a
+muffled figure appeared silhouetted against the glisten of the crust.
+Its team, maddened by the village scent, poured down the incline
+toward the river bank and the guide swung onto the runners behind,
+while the voice of the people rose to their priest.  In a whirl of
+soft snow they drove down onto the treachery of the ice.  The screams
+of the natives frenzied the pack and they rioted out onto the bending
+sheet, while the long sledge, borne by its momentum, shot forward
+till the splitting cry of the ice sounded over the lamentations.  It
+slackened, sagged and disappeared in a surge of congealing waters.
+The wheel dogs were dragged into the opening and their mates ahead
+jerked backward onto them.  In a fighting tangle, all settled into
+the swirl.
+
+Orloff leaped from the sinking sled, but hindered by his fur
+swaddling, crashed through and lunged heavily in his struggles to
+mount the edge of the film.  As he floundered onto the caving surface
+it let him back and the waters covered him time and again.  He
+pitched oddly about, and for the first time they saw his eyes were
+bound tightly with bandages, which he strove to loosen.
+
+"My God!  He's snow-blind!" cried George, and in a moment he appeared
+among the frantic mob fringing the shore.
+
+The guide broke his way toward a hummock of old ice forming an islet
+near by, and the priest half swam, half scrambled behind, till they
+crawled out upon this solid footing.  Here the wintry wind searched
+them and their dripping clothes stiffened quickly.  Orloff dragged
+the strips from his face, and as the sun glitter pierced his eyes he
+writhed as though seared by the naked touch of hot steel.
+
+He shouted affrightedly in his blindness, but the mocking voice of
+Big George answered him and he cowered at the malevolence in the
+words.
+
+"Here I am, Orloff.  It's help ye want, is it?  I'll shoot the man
+that tries to reach ye.  Ha, ha!  You're freezin' eh?  Georgie will
+talk to keep ye awake.  A dirty trick of the river to cheat me so.
+I've fattened for years on the hope of stampin' your life out and now
+it's robbed me.  But I'll stick till ye're safe in Hell."
+
+The man cried piteously, turning his bleared eyes toward the sound.
+
+"Shoot, why don't you, and end it?  Can't you see we're freezing?"
+He stood up in his carapace of stiffened clothes, shivering palsiedly.
+
+"The truest thing ye ever said," cried George, and he swung his colts
+into view.  "It'll favour you and I'll keep my vow."  He raised the
+gun.  The splashing of the distant dogs broke the silence.  A native
+knelt stiffly.
+
+"George!  George!"  Captain had stumbled down among them and plucked
+at his arm, peering dimly into his distorted face.  "Great God, are
+you a murderer?  They'll be dead before we can save them."
+
+"Save 'em ?" said George, while reason fought with his mania.  "Whose
+goin' to save 'em?  He needs killin'.  I'm hungry for his life."
+
+"He's a man, George.  They're both human, and they're dying in sight
+of us.  Give him a chance.  Fight like a man."
+
+As he spoke the fury fell away from the whaler and he became the
+alert, strong man of the frontier, knowing the quick danger and
+meeting it.
+
+He bellowed at the natives and they fled backward before his voice,
+storming the cache where lay the big skin canoes.  They slid one down
+and seizing paddles crushed the ice around it till it floated, then
+supported by the prow, George stamped the ice into fragments ahead,
+and they forced their way slowly along the channel he made.  Soaked
+to the armpits he smashed a trail through which they reached the
+hummock where the others lay, too listless for action.
+
+At the shore they bore the priest to their shelter while the guide
+was snatched into a near-by hut.  They hacked off his brittle clothes
+and supported him to the bed.  As he walked his feet clattered on the
+board floor like the sound of wooden shoes.  They were white and
+solid, as were his hands.
+
+"He's badly frozen," whispered Captain, "can we save him?"  They
+rubbed and thawed for hours, but the sluggish blood refused to flow
+into the extremities and Captain felt that this man would die for
+lack of amputation.
+
+Through all the Russian was silent, gazing strangely at George.
+
+"'Tis no use," finally said the big man, despairingly, "I've seen too
+many of 'em; we've done our best."
+
+He disappeared, and there sounded the jingle of harness as the dogs
+were hitched.  As he entered for the camp outfit Orloff spoke:
+
+"George Brace, I've harmed you bitterly these many years, and you're
+a good man to help me so.  It's no use.  We have both fought the Cold
+Death, and know when to quit.  I came here to kill you, but you will
+go out across the mountains free, while I rave in madness and the
+medicine men make charms over me.  When you come into Bethel Mission
+I'll be dead.  Good-bye."
+
+"Good Hell!  We're takin' ye to Bethel and a doctor in ten minutes.
+A week's travel as the trail goes, but we'll save a chunk of ye yet,
+old man."
+
+Five days later a broken team crawled over the snow to the Moravian
+Mission, urged by two men gaunt from the trail, and blistered by the
+cold.  From the sledge came shrieks and throaty mutterings, horrid
+gabblings of post-freezing madness and Dr. Forrest, lifting back the
+robe, found Orloff lashed into his couch.
+
+"Five days from Togiak.  Two hundred miles in heavy trails,"
+explained George wearily, as the cries of the maniac dimmed behind
+the log walls.
+
+Two hours later Forrest spoke gravely as they nursed their frost
+bites in his room.
+
+"We have operated.  He will recover."
+
+"It's a sad, sad day,"' mourned George.  "It just takes the taste out
+of everything for me.  He's a cripple now, eh ?"
+
+"Yes!  Helpless!  I did not know Father Orloff had many--er--friends
+hereabout," continued the doctor.  "He was thought to be hated by the
+whites.  I'm glad the report was wrong."
+
+"Friends be damned," said the other strongly.  "What's a friend?  Ye
+can get them any place, but where can ye find another enemy like that
+man?"
+
+
+
+
+THE SCOURGE
+
+Coming down coast from the Kotzebue country they stumbled onto the
+little camp in the early winter, and as there was food a plenty, of
+its kind, whereas they had subsisted for some days on puree of seal
+oil and short ribs of dog, Captain and Big George decided to winter.
+A maxim of the north teaches to cabin by a grub-pile.
+
+It was an odd village they beheld that first day.  Instead of the
+clean moss-chinked log shelters men were wont to build in this land,
+they found the community housed like marmots in holes and burrows.
+
+It seemed that the troop had landed, fresh from the States, a hundred
+and a quarter strong, hot with the lust for gold, yet shaken by the
+newspaper horrors of Alaska's rigorous hardships and forbidding
+climate.
+
+Debouching in the early fall, they had hastily prepared for an
+Associated Press-painted Arctic winter.
+
+Had they been forced to winter in the mountains of Idaho, or among
+Montana's passes, they would have prepared simply and effectively.
+Here, however, in a mystic land, surrounded by the unknown, they grew
+panic stricken and lost their wits.
+
+Thus, when the two "old timers" came upon them in the early winter
+they found them in bomb-proof hovels, sunk into the muck, banked with
+log walls, and thatched over with dirt and sod.
+
+"Where are your windows and ventilators?" they were asked, and
+collectively the camp laughed at the question.  _They_ knew how to
+keep snug and warm even if half-witted "sourdoughs" didn't.  _They_
+weren't taking any chances on freezing, not on your tin-type, no
+outdoor work and exposure for them!
+
+As the winter settled, they snuggled back, ate three meals and more
+daily of bacon, beans, and baking-powder bread; playing cribbage for
+an appetite.  They undertook no exercise more violent than seven-up,
+while the wood-cutting fell as a curse upon those unfortunates who
+lost at the game.  They giggled at Captain and the big whaler who
+daily, snow or blow, hit the trail or wielded pick and shovel.
+
+However, as the two maintained their practice, the camp grew to
+resent their industry, and, as is possible only in utterly idle
+communities, there sprung up a virulence totally out of proportion,
+and, founded without reason, most difficult to dispel.  Before they
+knew it, the two were disliked and distrusted; their presence
+ignored; their society shunned.
+
+Captain had talked to many in the camp.  "You'll get scurvy, sure,
+living in these dark houses.  They're damp and dirty, and you don't
+exercise.  Besides, there isn't a pound of fresh grub in camp."
+
+Figuratively, the camp's nose had tilted at this, and it stated
+pompously that it were better to preserve its classic purity of
+features and pro rata of toes, than to jeopardize these adjuncts
+through fear of a possible blood disease.
+
+"Blood disease, eh?"  George snorted like a sea-lion.  "Wait till
+your legs get black and you spit your teeth out like plum-pits--mebbe
+you'll listen then.  It'll come, see if it don't."
+
+He was right.  Yet when the plague did grip the camp and men died,
+one in five, they failed to rise to it.  Instead of fighting manfully
+they lapsed into a frightened, stubborn coma.
+
+There was one, and only one, who did not.  Klusky the Jew; Klusky the
+pariah.  They said he worked just to be ornery and different from the
+rest, he hated them so.  They enjoyed baiting him to witness his
+fury.  It sated that taint of Roman cruelty inherent in the man of
+ignorance.  He was all the amusement they had, for it wasn't policy
+to stir up the two others--they might slop over and clean up the
+village.  So they continued to goad him as they had done since
+leaving 'Frisco.  They gibed and jeered till he shunned them, living
+alone in the fringe of the pines, bitter and vicious, as an outcast
+from the pack will grow, whether human or lupine.  He frequented only
+the house of Captain and George, because they were exiles like
+himself.
+
+The partners did not relish this overmuch, for he was an odious
+being, avaricious, carping, and dirty.
+
+"His face reminds me of a tool," said George, once, "nose an' chin
+shuts up like calipers.  He's got the forehead of a salmon trout, an'
+his chin don't retreat, it stampedes, plumb down ag'in his apple.
+Look out for that droop of the mouth.  I've seen it before, an' his
+eyes is bad, too.  They've stirred him up an' pickled all the good he
+ever had.  Some day he'll do a murder."
+
+"I wonder what he means by always saying he'll have revenge before
+spring.  It makes me creep to hear him cackle and gloat.  I think
+he's going crazy."
+
+"Can't tell.  This bunch would bust anybody's mental tugs, an' they
+make a mistake drivin' him so.  Say!  How's my gums look tonight?"
+George stretched his lips back, showing his teeth, while Captain made
+careful examination.
+
+"All right.  How are mine?"
+
+"Red as a berry."
+
+Every day they searched thus for the symptoms, looking for
+discolouration, and anxiously watching bruises on limb or body.  Men
+live in fear when their comrades vanish silently from their midst.
+Each night upon retiring they felt legs nervously, punching here and
+there to see that the flesh retained its resiliency.
+
+So insidious is the malady's approach that it may be detected only
+thus.  A lassitude perhaps, a rheumatic laziness, or pains and
+swelling at the joints.  Mayhap one notes a putty-like softness of
+the lower limbs.  Where he presses, the finger mark remains, filling
+up sluggishly.  No mental depression at first, nor fever, only a
+drooping ambition, fatigue, enlarging parts, now gradual, now sudden.
+
+The grim humour of seeing grown men gravely poking their legs with
+rigid digits, or grinning anxiously into hand-mirrors had struck some
+of the tenderfeet at first, but the implacable progress of the
+disease; its black, merciless presence, pausing destructively here
+and there, had terrorized them into a hopeless fatalism till they
+cowered helplessly, awaiting its touch.
+
+One night Captain announced to his partner.  "I'm going over to the
+Frenchmen's, I hear Menard is down."
+
+"What's the use of buttin' in where ye ain't wanted?  As fer me, them
+frogeaters can all die like salmon; I won't go nigh 'em an' I've told
+'em so.  I give 'em good advice, an' what'd I get?  What'd that daffy
+doctor do?  Pooh-poohed at me an' physiced them.  Lord!  Physic a man
+with scurvy--might as well bleed a patient fer amputation."  George
+spoke with considerable heat.
+
+Captain pulled his parka hood well down so that the fox-tails around
+the edge protected his features, and stepped out into the evening.
+He had made several such trips in the past few months to call on men
+smitten with the sickness, but all to no effect.  Being "chechakos"
+they were supreme in their conceit, and refused to heed his advice.
+
+Returning at bed time he found his partner webbing a pair of
+snow-shoes by the light of a stinking "go-devil," consisting of a
+string suspended in a can of molten grease.  The camp had sold them
+grub, but refused the luxury of candles.  Noting his gravity, George
+questioned:
+
+"Well, how's Menard?"
+
+"Dead!"  Captain shook himself as though at the memory.  "It was
+awful.  He died while I was talking to him."
+
+"Don't say!  How's that?"
+
+"I found him propped up in a chair.  He looked bad, but said he was
+feeling fine--"
+
+"That's the way they go.  I've seen it many a time--feelin' fine
+plumb to the last."
+
+"He'd been telling me about a bet he had with Promont.  Promont was
+taken last week, too, you know, same time.  Menard bet him twenty
+dollars that he'd outlast him."
+
+"'I'm getting all right,' says he, 'but poor Promont's going to die.
+I'll get his twenty, sure!'  I turned to josh with the boy a bit, an'
+when I spoke to Menard he didn't answer.  His jaw had sagged and he'd
+settled in his chair.  Promont saw it, too, and cackled.  'H'I 'ave
+win de bet!  H'I 'ave win de bet!'  That's all.  He just slid off.
+Gee!  It was horrible."
+
+George put by his work and swore, pacing the rough pole floor.
+
+"Oh, the cussed fools!  That makes six dead from the one cabin--six
+from eighteen, an' Promont'll make seven to-morrow.  Do ye mind how
+we begged 'em to quit that dug-out an' build a white man's house, an'
+drink spruce tea, an' _work_!  They're too ---- lazy.  They lie
+around in that hole, breath bad air, an' rot."
+
+"And just to think, if we only had a crate of potatoes in camp we
+could save every man jack of 'em.  Lord!  They never even brought no
+citric acid nor lime juice--nothin'!  If we hadn't lost our grub when
+the whale-boat upset, eh?  That ten-gallon keg of booze would help
+some.  Say!  I got such a thirst I don't never expect to squench it
+proper;" he spoke plaintively.
+
+"Klusky was here again while you was gone, too.  I itch to choke that
+Jew whenever he gets to ravin' over these people.  He's sure losin'
+his paystreak.  He gritted his teeth an' foamed like a mad malamoot,
+I never see a low-downer lookin' aspect than him when he gets mad."
+
+"'I'll make 'em come to me,' says he, 'on their bellies beggin'.  It
+ain't time yet.  Oh, no!  Wait 'till half of 'em is dead, an' the
+rest is rotten with scurvy.  Then they'll crawl to me with their gums
+thick and black, an' their flesh like dough; they'll kiss my feet an'
+cry, an' I'll stamp 'em into the snow!'  You'd ought a heard him
+laugh.  Some day I'm goin' to lay a hand on that man, right in my own
+house."
+
+As they prepared for bed.  Captain remarked:
+
+"By the way, speaking of potatoes, I heard to-night that there was a
+crate in the Frenchmen's outfit somewhere, put in by mistake.
+perhaps, but when they boated their stuff up river last fall it
+couldn't be found--must have been lost."
+
+It was some days later that, returning from a gameless hunt, Captain
+staggered into camp, weary from the drag of his snow-shoes.
+
+Throwing himself into his bunk he rested while George prepared the
+meagre meal of brown beans, fried salt pork, and sour-dough bread.
+The excellence of this last, due to the whaler's years of practice,
+did much to mitigate the unpleasantness of the milkless, butterless,
+sugarless menu.
+
+Captain's fatigue prevented notice of the other's bearing.  However,
+when he had supped and the dishes were done George spoke, quietly and
+without emotion.
+
+"Well, boy, the big thing has come off."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+For reply he took the grease dip and, holding it close, bared his
+teeth.
+
+With a cry Captain leaped from his bunk, and took his face between
+his hands.
+
+"Great God!  George!"
+
+He pushed back the lips.  Livid blotches met his gaze--the gums
+swollen and discoloured.  He dropped back sick and pale, staring at
+his bulky comrade, dazed and uncomprehending.
+
+Carefully replacing the lamp, George continued:
+
+"I felt it comin' quite a while back, pains in my knees an' all
+that--thought mebbe you'd notice me hobblin' about.  I can't git
+around good--feel sort of stove up an' spavined on my feet."
+
+"Yes, yes, but we've lived clean, and exercised, and drank spruce
+tea, and--everything," cried the other.
+
+"I know, but I've had a touch before; it's in my blood I reckon.  Too
+much salt grub; too many winters on the coast.  She never took me so
+sudden an' vicious though.  Guess the stuff's off."
+
+"Don't talk that way," said Captain, sharply.  "You're not going to
+die--I won't let you."
+
+"Vat's the mattaire?" came a leering voice and, turning they beheld
+Klusky, the renegade.  He had entered silently, as usual, and now
+darted shrewd inquiring glances at them.
+
+"George has the scurvy."
+
+"Oi!  Oi!  Oi!  Vat a peety."  He seemed about to say more but
+refrained, coming forward rubbing his hands nervously.
+
+"It ain't possible that a 'sour dough' shall have the scoivy."
+
+"Well, he has it--has it bad but I'll cure him.  Yes, and I'll save
+this whole ---- camp, whether they want it or not."  Captain spoke
+strongly, his jaws set with determination.  Klusky regarded him
+narrowly through close shrunk eyes, while speculation wrinkled his
+low forehead.
+
+"Of course!  Yes!  But how shall it be, eh?  Tell me that."  His
+eagerness was pronounced.
+
+"I'll go to St. Michaels and bring back fresh grub."
+
+"You can't do it, boy," said George.  "It's too far an' there ain't a
+dog in camp.  You couldn't haul your outfit alone, an' long before
+you'd sledded grub back I'd be wearin' one of them gleamin' orioles,
+I believe that's what they call it, on my head, like the pictures of
+them little fat angelettes.  I ain't got no ear for music, so I'll
+have to cut out the harp solos."
+
+"Quit that talk, will you?" said Captain irritably.  "Of course, one
+man can't haul an outfit that far, but two can, so I'm going to take
+Klusky with me."  He spoke with finality, and the Jew started, gazing
+queerly.  "We'll go light, and drive back a herd of reindeer."
+
+"By thunder!  I'd clean forgot the reindeer.  The government was
+aimin' to start a post there last fall, wasn't it?  Say!  Mebbe you
+can make it after all, Kid."  His features brightened hopefully.
+"What d' ye say, Klusky?"
+
+The one addressed answered nervously, almost with excitement.
+
+"It can't be done!  It ain't possible, and I ain't strong enough to
+pull the sled.  V'y don't you and George go together.  I'll stay--"
+
+Captain laid a heavy hand on his shoulder.
+
+"That'll do.  What are you talking about?  George wouldn't last two
+days, and you know it.  Now listen.  You don't have to go, you
+infernal greasy dog, there are others in camp, and one of them will
+go if I walk him at the muzzle of a gun.  I gave you first chance,
+because we've been good to you.  Now get out."
+
+He snatched him from his seat and hurled him at the door, where he
+fell in a heap.
+
+Klusky arose, and, although his eyes snapped wildly and he trembled,
+he spoke insidiously, with oily modulation.
+
+"Vait a meenute, Meestaire Captain, vait a meenute.  I didn't say I
+vouldn't go.  Oi!  Oi!  Vat a man!  Shoor I'll go.  Coitenly!  You
+have been good to me and they have been devils.  I hope they die."
+He shook a bony fist in the direction of the camp, while his voice
+took on its fanatical shrillness.  "They shall be in h---- before I
+help them, the pigs, but you--ah, you have been my friends, yes ?"
+
+"All right; be here at daylight," said Captain gruffly.  Anger came
+slowly to him, and its trace was even slower in its leaving.
+
+"I don't like him," said George, when he had slunk out.  "He ain't on
+the level.  Watch him close, boy, he's up to some devilment."
+
+
+"Keep up your courage, old man.  I'll be back in twelve days."
+Captain said it with decision, though his heart sank as he felt the
+uncertainties before him.
+
+George looked squarely into his eyes.
+
+"God bless ye, boy," he said.  "I've cabined with many a man, but
+never one like you.  I'm a hard old nut, an' I ain't worth what
+you're goin' to suffer, but mebbe you can save these other idiots.
+That's what we're put here for, to help them as is too ornery to help
+theirselves." He smiled at Captain, and the young man left him
+blindly.  He seldom smiled, and to see it now made his partner's
+breast heave achingly.
+
+"Good old George!" he murmured as they pulled out upon the river.
+"Good old George!" As they passed from the settlement an Indian came
+to the door of the last hovel.
+
+"Hello.  There's a Siwash in your cabin," said Captain.  "What is he
+doing there ?"
+
+"That's all right," rejoined Klusky.  "I told him to stay and vatch
+t'ings."
+
+"Rather strange," thought the other.  "I wonder what there is to
+watch.  There's never been any stealing around here."
+
+To the unversed, a march by sled would seem simplicity.  In reality
+there is no more discouraging test than to hit the trail, dogless and
+by strength of back.  The human biped cannot drag across the snow for
+any distance more than its own weight; hence equipment is of the
+simplest.  At that, the sledge rope galls one's neck with a
+continual, endless, yielding drag, resulting in back pains peculiar
+to itself.  It is this eternal maddening pull, with the pitiful
+crawling gait that tells; horse's labour and a snail's pace.  The
+toil begets a perspiration which the cold solidifies midway through
+the garments.  At every pause the clammy clothes grow chill, forcing
+one forward, onward, with sweating body and freezing face.  In
+extreme cold, snow pulverizes dryly till steel runners drag as though
+slid through sand.  Occasional overflows bar the stream from bank to
+bank, resulting in wet feet and quick changes by hasty fires to save
+numb toes.  Now the air is dead under a smother of falling flakes
+that fluff up ankle deep, knee deep, till the sled plunges along
+behind, half buried, while the men wallow and invent ingenious oaths.
+Again the wind whirls it by in grotesque goblin shapes; wonderful
+storm beings, writhing, whipping, biting as they pass; erasing bank
+and mountain.  Yet always there is that aching, steady tug of the
+shoulder-rope, stopping circulation till the arms depend numbly; and
+always the weary effort of trail breaking.
+
+Captain felt that he had never worked with a more unsatisfying team
+mate.  Not that Klusky did not pull, he evidently did his best, but
+he never spoke, while the other grew ever conscious of the beady,
+glittering eyes boring into his back.  At camp, the Jew watched him
+furtively, sullenly, till he grew to feel oppressed, as with a sense
+of treachery, or some fell design hidden far back.  Every morning he
+secured the ropes next the sled, thus forcing Captain to walk ahead.
+He did not object to the added task of breaking trail, for he had
+expected the brunt of the work, but the feeling of suspicion
+increased till it was only by conscious effort that he drove himself
+to turn his back upon the other and take up the journey.
+
+It was this oppression that warned him on the third day.  Leaning as
+he did against the sled ropes he became aware of an added burden, as
+though the man behind had eased to shift his harness.  When it did
+not cease he glanced over his shoulder.  Keyed up as he was this
+nervous agility saved him.
+
+Klusky held a revolver close up to his back, and, though he had
+unconsciously failed to pull, he mechanically stepped in the other's
+tracks.  The courage to shoot had failed him momentarily, but as
+Captain turned, it came, and he pulled the trigger.
+
+Frozen gun oil has caused grave errors in calculation.  The hammer
+curled back wickedly and stuck.  Waiting his chance he had carried
+the weapon in an outer pocket where the frost had stiffened the
+grease.  Had it been warmed next his body, the fatal check would not
+have occurred.  Even so, he pulled again and it exploded sharp and
+deafening in the rarefied morning air.  In that instant's pause,
+however, Captain had whirled so that the bullet tore through the
+loose fur beneath his arm.  He struck, simultaneously with the
+report, and the gun flew outward, disappearing in the snow.
+
+They grappled and fell, rolling in a tangle of rope, Klusky fighting
+with rat-like fury, whining odd, broken curses.  The larger man
+crushed him in silence, beating him into the snow, bent on killing
+him with his hands.
+
+[Illustration:  They grappled and fell, rolling in a tangle of rope.]
+
+As the other's struggles diminished, he came to himself, however, and
+desisted.
+
+"I can't kill him," he thought in panic.  "I can't go on alone."
+
+"Get up!"  He kicked the bleeding figure till it arose lamely.  "Why
+did you do that?"  His desire to strangle the life from him was
+over-powering.
+
+The man gave no answer, muttering only unintelligible jargon, his
+eyes ablaze with hatred.
+
+"Tell me."  He shook him by the throat but received no reply.  Nor
+could he, try as he pleased; only a stubborn silence.  At last,
+disgusted and baffled, he bade him resume the rope.  It was necessary
+to use force for this, but eventually they took up the journey,
+differing now only in their order of precedence.
+
+"If you make a move I'll knife you," he cautioned grimly.  "That goes
+for the whole trip, too."
+
+At evening he searched the grub kit, breaking knives and forks, and
+those articles which might be used as means of offence, throwing the
+pieces into the snow.
+
+"Don't stir during the night, or I might kill you.  I wake easy, and
+hereafter we'll sleep together."  Placing the weapons within his
+shirt, he bound the other's wrists and rolled up beside him.
+
+Along the coast, their going became difficult from the rough ice and
+soft snow, and with despair Captain felt the days going by.  Klusky
+maintained his muteness and, moreover, to the anger of his captor,
+began to shirk.  It became necessary to beat him.  This Captain did
+relentlessly, deriving a certain satisfaction from it, yet marvelling
+the while at his own cruelty.  The Jew feigned weariness, and began
+to limp as though foot-sore.
+
+Captain halted him at last.
+
+"Don't try that game," he said.  "It don't go.  I spared your life
+for a purpose.  The minute you stop pulling, that minute I'll sink
+this into your ribs."  He prodded him with his sheath knife.  "Get
+along now, or I'll make you haul it alone."  He kicked him into
+resentful motion again, for he had come to look upon him as an
+animal, and was heedless of his signs of torture--so thus they
+marched; master and slave.  "He's putting it on," he thought, but
+abuse as he might, the other's efforts became weaker, and his agony
+more marked as the days passed.
+
+The morning came when he refused to arise.
+
+"Get up!"
+
+Klusky shook his head.
+
+"Get up, I say!" Captain spoke fiercely, and snatched him to foot,
+but with a groan the man sank back.  Then, at last, he talked.
+
+"I can't do it.  I can't do it.  My legs make like they von't vork.
+You can kill me, but I can't valk."
+
+As he ceased, Captain leaned down and pushed back his lips.  The
+teeth were loose and the gums livid.
+
+"Great Heavens, what have I done!  _What have I done_!" he muttered.
+
+Klusky had watched his face closely.
+
+"Vat's the mattaire?  Vy do you make like that, eh?  Tell me."  His
+voice was sharp.
+
+"You've got it."
+
+"I've got it?  Oi!  Oi!  I've got it!  Vat have I got?"  He knew
+before the answer came, but raved and cursed in frenzied denial.  His
+tongue started, language flowed from him freely.
+
+"It ain't that.  No!  No!  It is the rheumatissen.  Yes, it shall be
+so.  It makes like that from the hard vork always.  It is the
+cold--the cold makes it like."
+
+With despair Captain realized that he could neither go on, dragging
+the sick man and outfit, nor could he stay here in idleness to
+sacrifice the precious days that remained to his partner.  Each one
+he lost might mean life or death.
+
+Klusky broke in upon him.
+
+"You von't leave me, Mistaire Captain?  Please you von't go avay?"
+
+Such frightened entreaty lay in his request that before thinking the
+other replied.
+
+"No, I won't.  I made you come and I'll do all I can for you.  Maybe
+somebody will pass."  He said it only to cheer, for no one travelled
+this miserable stretch save scattering, half-starved Indians, but the
+patient caught at it eagerly, hugging the hope to his breast during
+the ensuing days.
+
+That vigil beside the dying creature lived long in Captain's memory.
+The bleak, timberless shores of the bay; their tiny tent, crouched
+fearfully among the willow tops; the silent nights, when in the
+clear, cold air the stars stared at him close and big, like eyes of
+wolves beyond a camp fire; the days of endless gabblings from the
+sinking man, and the all pervading cold.
+
+At last, knowledge dawned upon the invalid, and he called his
+companion to his side.  Shivering there beneath the thin tent,
+Captain heard a story, rambling at first, filled with hatred and
+bitterness toward the men who had scoffed at him, yet at the last he
+listened eagerly, amazedly, and upon its conclusion rose suddenly,
+gazing at the dying man in horror.
+
+"My God, Klusky!  Hell isn't black enough for you.  It can't be true,
+it can't be.  You're raving!  Do you mean to say that you let those
+poor devils die like rats while you had potatoes in your cabin, fresh
+ones?  Man!  Man!  The juice of every potato was worth a life.
+You're lying, Klusky."
+
+"I ain't.  No, I ain't.  I hate them!  I said they should crawl on
+their bellies to me.  Yes, and I should wring the money out.  A
+hundred dollars for von potato.  I stole them all.  Ha!  ha!  and I
+kept them varm.  Oh, yes!  Alvays varm by the fire, so they shall be
+good and fine for the day."
+
+"That's why you left the Indian there when we came away, eh?  To keep
+a fire."
+
+"Shoor! and I thought I shall kill you and go back alone so nobody
+shall make for the rescue.  Then I should have the great laugh."
+
+Captain bared his head to the cold outside the tent.  He was dazed by
+the thought of it.  The man was crazed by abuse.  The camp had paid
+for its folly!
+
+Then a hope sprang up in him.  It was too late to go on and return
+with the deer; that is, too late for George, and he thought only of
+him; of the big, brave man sitting alone in the cabin, shunned by the
+others, waiting quietly for his coming, tracing the relentless daily
+march of the disease.  Why didn't the Jew die so he could flee back?
+He had promised not to desert him, and he could not break his word to
+a dying man, even though the wretch deserved damnation.  But why
+couldn't he die?  What made him hang on so?  In his idle hours he
+arranged a pack for the start, assembling his rations.  He could not
+be hampered by the sled.  This was to be a race--he must travel long
+and fast.  The sick man saw the preparations, and cried weakly, the
+tears freezing on his cheeks, and still he lingered, lingered
+maddeningly, till at last, when Captain had lost count of the days,
+he passed without a twitch and, before the body had cooled, the
+northward bluffs hid the plodding, snow-shoed figure hurrying along
+the back trail.
+
+He scarcely stopped for sleep or food, but gnawed raw bacon and
+frozen bread, swinging from shoe to shoe, devouring distance with the
+steady, rhythmic pace of a machine.  He made no fires.  As darkness
+settled, rendering progress a peril, he unrolled his robe, and
+burrowed into some overhanging drift, and the earliest hint of dawn
+found him miles onward.
+
+Though the weather was clear, he grew numbed and careless under the
+strain of his fatigue, so that the frost bit hungrily at his
+features.  He grew gaunt, and his feet swelled from the snow-shoe
+thongs till they puffed out his loose, sealskin boots, and every step
+in the morning hours brought forth a groan.
+
+He was tortured by the thought that perhaps the Indian had carelessly
+let go the fire in Klusky's cabin.  If so, the precious potatoes
+would freeze in a night.  Then, if the native rebuilt it, he would
+arrive only to find a mushy, putrifying mass, worse than useless.
+The uncertainty sickened him, and at last, as he sighted the little
+hamlet, he paused, bracing his legs apart weakly.
+
+He searched fearfully for traces of smoke above Klusky's cabin.
+There were none.  Somehow the lone shack seemed to stare malignantly
+at him, as he staggered up the trail, and he heard himself muttering.
+There were no locks in this land, so he entered unbidden.  The place
+was empty, though warm from recent habitation.  With his remaining
+strength he scrambled up a rude ladder to the loft where he fumbled
+in the dark while his heart stopped.  Then he cried hoarsely and,
+ripping open the box, stuffed them gloatingly into pockets and shirt
+front.  He dropped from the platform and fled out through the open
+door, capless and mittenless; out and on toward the village.
+
+His pace slackened suddenly, for he noted with a shock that, like
+Klusky's cabin, no smoke drifted over the house toward which he ran,
+and, drawing near, he saw that snow lay before the door; clean,
+white, and untrodden.  He was too dazed to recall the light fall of
+the night previous, but glared blankly at the idle pipe; at the cold
+and desolate front.
+
+"Too late!" he murmured brokenly.  "Too late!" and stumbled to the
+snow-cushioned chopping block.
+
+He dared not go in.  Evidently the camp had let George die; had never
+come near to lift a hand.  He was afraid of what lay within, afraid
+to face it alone.  Yet a dreadful need to know pulled him forward.
+Three times he approached the door, retreating each time in panic.
+At last he laid soft hands upon the latch and entered, averting his
+eyes.  Even so, and despite the darkness inside, he was conscious of
+it; saw from his eye corners the big, still bulk that sat wrapped and
+propped in the chair by the table.  He sensed it dazedly,
+inductively, and turned to flee, then paused.
+
+"Ye made it, boy!  It's the twelfth to-day." George's voice came
+weakly, and with a great cry Captain sprang to him.
+
+"Bout all in," the other continued.  "Ain't been on my feet for two
+days.  I knowed you'd come to-day, though; it's the twelfth."
+
+Captain made no reply, for he had knelt, his face buried in the big
+man's lap, his shoulders heaving, while he cried like a little boy.
+
+
+
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