Part 96 (2/2)

They had forced b.u.t.ts out across the threshold, the crowd packed close behind. The only men who had not pressed forward were Keith, the Colonel, and the Boy, and No-Thumb-Jack, still standing by the oil-tank.

”What are they going to do with him?” The Colonel turned to Keith with horror in his face.

Keith's eyes were on the Boy, who had stooped and picked up the block of wood that had fitted over the treasure-hole. He was staring at it with dilated eyes. Sharply he turned his head in the direction where No-Thumb-Jack had stood. Jack was just making for the door on the heels of the last of those pressing to get out.

The Boy's low cry was drowned in the din. He lunged forward, but the Colonel gripped him. Looking up, he saw that Kentucky understood, and meant somehow to manage the business quietly.

Jack was trying, now right, now left, to force his way through the congestion at the door, like a harried rabbit at a wattled fence. A touch on the shoulder simultaneously with the click of a trigger at his ear brought his face round over his shoulder. He made the instinctive pioneer motion to his hip, looked into the bore of the Colonel's pistol, and under Keith's grip dropped his ”gun-hand” with a smothered oath.

Or was it that other weapon in the Colonel's left that bleached the ruddy face? Simply the block of wood. On the under side, dried in, like a faint stain, four muddy finger-prints, index joint lacking. Without a word the Colonel turned the upper side out. A smudge?--no--the grain of human skin clean printed--a distorted palm without a thumb. Only one man in Minook could make that sign manual!

The last of the crowd were over the threshold now, and still no word was spoken by those who stayed behind, till the Colonel said to the Boy:

”Go with 'em, and look after b.u.t.ts. Give us five minutes; more if you can!”

He laid the block on a cracker-box, and, keeping pistol and eye still on the thief, took his watch in his left hand, as the Boy shot through the door.

b.u.t.ts was making a good fight for his life, but he was becoming exhausted. The leading spirits were running him down the bank to where a crooked cotton-wood leaned cautiously over the Never-Know-What, as if to spy out the river's secret.

But after arriving there, they were a little delayed for lack of what they called tackle. They sent a man off for it, and then sent another to hurry up the man. The Boy stood at the edge of the crowd, a little above them, watching Maudie's door, and with feverish anxiety turning every few seconds to see how it was with b.u.t.ts.

Up in the cabin No-Thumb-Jack had pulled out of the usual capacious pockets of the miner's brown-duck-pockets that fasten with a patent snap--a tattered pocket-book, fat with bills. He plunged deeper and brought up Pacific Coast eagles and five-dollar pieces, Canadian and American gold that went rolling out of his maimed and nervous hand across the tablet to the scales and set the bra.s.s pans sawing up and down.

Keith, his revolver still at full c.o.c.k, had picked up a trampled bit of paper near the stove. Corey's list. Left-handedly he piled up the money, counting, comparing.

”Quick! the dust!” ordered the Colonel. Out of a left hip-pocket a long, tight-packed buckskin bag. Another from a side-pocket, half the size and a quarter as full.

”That's mine,” said Jack, and made a motion to recover.

”Let it alone. Turn out everything. Nuggets!”

A miner's chamois belt unbuckled and flung heavily down. The scales jingled and rocked; every pocket in the belt was stuffed.

”Where's the rest?”

”There ain't any rest. That's every d.a.m.ned pennyweight.”

”Maybe we ought to weigh it, and see if he's lying?”

”'Fore G.o.d it's all! Let me go!” He had kept looking through the crack of the door.

”Reckon it's about right,” said Keith.

”'Tain't right! There's more there'n I took. My stuff's there too. For Christ's sake, let me go!”

”Look here, Jack, is the little bag yours?”

Jack wet his dry lips and nodded ”Yes.”

<script>