Part 8 (2/2)

”Woman, am I,” she says, musical as a b.u.m 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, G.o.d 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 f.a.ggots. ”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 h.e.l.l'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.

n.o.body ever seemed to do any favours for Annie Black.

”She'll be seein' things next,” says Joe, winking. ”What'd I tell you? For G.o.d'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, slas.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d 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?”

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