Part 5 (1/2)

After supper they harnessed the dogs and the boy turned to bid his friend good-bye. The man extended a buckskin pouch.

”Here's a poke with a couple hundred in it. Take it along. Ye mightn't need it, an' then agin ye might, an' if ye do need it, ye'll need it bad.” The boy made a motion of protest.

”G'wan, it's yourn. I got it all chalked up agin ye, an' I'd have to change the figgers, an' if they's anything on earth I hate, it's to bookkeep. So long! When ye see Waseche Bill, tell him Black Jack Demaree says ye can't never tell by the size of a frog how fer he c'n jump.”

CHAPTER VI

THE MEN OF EAGLE

Waseche Bill jogged along the main street of Eagle, past log cabins, board shacks, and the deceiving two-story fronts of one-story stores.

Now and then an acquaintance hailed him from the wooden sidewalk, and he recognized others he knew, among the small knots of men who stood about idly discussing the meagre news of the camp. At the Royal Palm Hotel, a long, low, log building with a false front of boards, he swung in and, pa.s.sing around to the rear, turned his dogs into the stockade.

In the office, seated about the stove, were a dozen or more men, most of whom Waseche knew. They greeted him loudly as he entered, and plied him with a volley of questions.

”Where ye headed?”

”Thought ye'd struck it rich on Ten Bow?”

”D'ye hear about Camaron Creek?”

The newcomer removed his heavy _parka_ and joined the group, answering a question here, and asking one there.

”How's Sam Morgan's boy comin' on? We heard how you an' him was pardners an' had a big thing over on Ten Bow,” inquired a tall man whose doleful length of sallow countenance had earned him the nickname of Fiddle Face.

As he talked, this man gnawed the end of his prodigiously long mustache.

Waseche's eyes lighted at the mention of the boy.

”He's the finest kid eveh was, I reckon. Sma't as a steel trap, an' they ain't nawthin' he won't tackle. C'n cook a meal o' vittles that'd make yo' mouth wateh, an' jest nach'lly handles dogs like an ol' _tillic.u.m_.”

”How come ye ain't workin' yer claim?” asked someone.

”It's this-a-way,” answered Waseche, addressing the group. ”Mine's Discovery, an' his'n's One Below, an' we th'ow'd in togetheh. 'Bout ten foot down, mine sloped off into his'n--run plumb out. An' I come away so's the kid'll have the claim cleah.” A silence followed Waseche's simple statement--a silence punctuated by nods of approval and low-voiced mutterings of ”Hard luck,” and ”Too bad.” Fiddle Face was first to speak.

”That's what I call a _man_!” he exclaimed, bringing his hand down on Waseche's shoulder with a resounding whack.

”Won't ye step acrost to Hank's place an' have a drink?” invited a large man, removing his feet from the fender of the big stove, and settling the fur cap more firmly upon his head.

”No thanks, Joe. Fact is, I ain't took a drink fo' quite a spell. Kind o' got out o' the notion, somehow.”

”Well, sure seems funny to hear you refusin' a drink! Remember Iditarod?” The man smiled.

”Oh, sure, I recollect. An' I recollect that it ain't neveh got me nawthin' but misery an' an empty poke. But, it ain't so much that.

It's--well, it's like this: Sam Mo'gan, he ain't heah no mo' to look afteh the kid, an'--yo' see, the li'l scamp, he's kind o' got it in his head that they ain't no one jest like me--kind o' thinks I really 'mount to somethin', an' what I say an' do is 'bout right. It don't stand to reason I c'n make him b'lieve 'taint no good to drink licker, an' then go ahead an' drink it myself--does it, now?”

”Sure don't!” agreed the other heartily. ”An' that's what _I_ call a man!” And the whack that descended upon Waseche's shoulder out-sounded by half the whack of Fiddle Face.

After supper the men drifted out by twos and threes for their nightly rounds of the camp's tawdry places of amus.e.m.e.nt. Waseche Bill, declining their invitations, sat alone by the stove, thinking. The man was lonely.