Part 3 (1/2)
”Sos can't stand the exposure She can't travel till the teive her up”
Messner heetically, and said, ”I need some money”
Contempt showed instantly in Womble's face At last, beneath hiot a fat sack of dust,” Messner went on ”I saw you unload it from the sled”
”How much do you want?” Womble demanded, with a contempt in his voice equal to that in his face
”I hed about twenty pounds What do you say we call it four thousand?”
”But it's all I've got, ot her,” the other said soothingly ”Sheup Surely it is a reasonable price”
”All right” Woold-sack ”Can't put this deal through too quick for me, you - you little wor rejoinder ”As a ives a bribe as bad as the man who takes a bribe? The receiver is as bad as the thief, you know; and you needn't console yourself with any fictitiousthis little deal”
”To hell with your ethics!” the other burst out ”Coht cheat you”
And the wo and iets in the scales erected on the grub-box The scales were ss, and Messner with precise care verified each weighing
”There's too old-sack ”I don't think it will run quite sixteen to the ounce You got a trifle the better of ly, and with due appreciation of its preciousness carried it out to his sled
Returning, he gathered his pots and pans together, packed his grub- box, and rolled up his bed When the sled was lashed and the cos harnessed, he returned into the cabin for hisat the open door
She turned on hi for speech but too frantic to word the passion that burned in her
”Good-by, Tess,” he repeated gently
”Beast!” she ed to articulate
She turned and tottered to the bunk, flinging herself face down upon it, sobbing: ”You beasts! You beasts!”
John Messner closed the door softly behind his, looked back at the cabin with a great relief in his face At the bottom of the bank, beside the water-hole, he halted the sled He worked the sack of gold out between the lashi+ngs and carried it to the water-hole Already a new skin of ice had for the knotted mouth with his teeth, he emptied the contents of the sack into the water The river was shallow at that point, and two feet beneath the surface he could see the bottoht of it, he spat into the hole
He started the dogs along the Yukon trail Whining spiritlessly, they were reluctant to work Clinging to the gee-pole with his right band and with his left rubbing cheeks and nose, he stu on a bend
”Mush-on, you poor, sore-footed brutes!” he cried ”That's it, mush-on!”
THE WHITE MAN'S WAY
”TO cook by your fire and to sleep under your roof for the night,” I had announced on entering old Ebbits's cabin; and he had looked at me blear-eyed and vacuous, while Zilla had favored runt Zilla was his wife, and no ued, implacable old squaelt on the Yukon Nor would I have stopped there had e been inhabited But this cabin alone had I found occupied, and in this cabin, perforce, I took led wits together, and hints and sparkles of intelligence ca the preparation of my supper he even essayed hospitable inquiries about s, and the distance I had travelled that day And each tirunted more contemptuously
Yet I confess that there was no particular call for cheerfulness on their part There they crouched by the fire, the pair of them, at the end of their days, old and withered and helpless, racked by rheu-odors of my abundance of meat They rocked back and forth in a slow and hopeless way, and regularly, once every five roan of pain, as of pain-weariness He was oppressed by the weight and the tor called life, and still more was he oppressed by the fear of death His was that eternal tragedy of the aged, hom the joy of life has departed and the instinct for death has not co-pan, I noticed old Ebbits's nostrils twitch and distend as he caught the food- scent He ceased rocking for a space and forgot to groan, while a look of intelligence seemed to come into his face
Zilla, on the other hand, rocked more rapidly, and for the first time, in sharp little yelps, voiced her pain It cas, and in the fitness of things I should not have been astonished had Zilla suddenly developed a tail and thuish fashi+on Ebbits drooled a little and stopped his rocking very frequently to lean forward and thrust his treustatory excitement
When I passed the loudintakes of the breath, acco After that, when I gave the tea, the noises ceased Easement and content cah to sigh her satisfaction Neither rocked any more, and they seemed to have fallen into placid meditation Then a dampness came into Ebbits's eyes, and I knew that the sorrow of self-pity was his The search required to find their pipes told plainly that they had been without tobacco a long tierness for the narcotic rendered hiht his pipe for hie?” I asked ”Is everybody dead? Has there been a great sickness? Are you alone left of the living?”
Old Ebbits shook his head, saying: ”Nay, there has been no great sickness The village has gone away to hunt , nor can our backs carry the burdens of camp and trail
Wherefore we remen do return with meat?” Zilla demanded harshly
”They may return with much meat,” he quavered hopefully
”Even so, with much meat,” she continued, more harshly than before ”But of orth to you and e But the back-fat, the kidneys, and the tongues - these shall go into other mouths than thine and mine, old man”
Ebbits nodded his head and wept silently
”There be no one to huntfiercely upon ed uilty of the unknown crime imputed to me
”Know, O White Man, that it is because of thy kind, because of all white e and sit without tobacco in the cold”
”Nay,” Ebbits said gravely, with a stricter sense of justice ”Wrong has been done us, it be true; but the white ”
”Where be Moklan?” she de son, Moklan, and the fish he was ever willing to bring that you ht eat?”
The old man shook his head
”And where be Bidarshi+k, thy strong son? Ever was he a ood back-fat and the sweet dried tongues of the moose and the caribou I see no back-fat and no sweet dried tongues Your stoh the days, and it is for a ive you to eat”
”Nay,” old Ebbits interposed in kindliness, ”the whitepeople
The white man speaks true Always does the whiteabout him for words ith to temper the severity of what he was about to say ”But the white man speaks true in different ways To-day he speaks true one way, to-morrow he speaks true another way, and there is no understanding him nor his way”
”To-day speak true one way, to-morrow speak true another hich is to lie,” was Zilla's dictu the white edly
The ht hihter hold of the idea behind his age-bleared eyes He straightened up so note, and becanity, and addressed me as equal addresses equal