章节正文
the whining of dogs in harness, and the grind and churn of sled-
runners. Somebody near the door peeped out.
"It's Sam an' his pardner an' a dog-team hell-bent down the trail
for Stewart River," the man reported.
Nobody spoke for a long half-minute, but men glanced significantly
at one another, and a general restlessness pervaded the packed room.
Out of the corner of his eye, Smoke caught a glimpse of Breck, Lucy,
and her husband whispering together.
"Come on, you," Shunk Wilson said gruffly to Smoke. "Cut this
questionin' short. We know what you're tryin' to prove--that the
other bank wasn't searched. The witness admits it. We admit it.
It wasn't necessary. No tracks led to that bank. The snow wasn't
broke."
"There was a man on the other bank just the same," Smoke insisted.
"That's too thin for skatin', young man. There ain't many of us on
the McQuestion, an' we got every man accounted for."
"Who was the man you hiked out of camp two weeks ago?" Smoke asked.
"Alonzo Miramar. He was a Mexican. What's that grub-thief got to
do with it?"
"Nothing, except that you haven't accounted for HIM, Mr Judge."
"He went down the river, not up."
"How do you know where he went?"
"Saw him start."
"And that's all you know of what became of him?"
"No, it ain't, young man. I know, we all know, he had four day's
grub an' no gun to shoot meat with. If he didn't make the
settlement on the Yukon he'd croaked long before this."
"I suppose you've got all the guns in this part of the country
accounted for, too," Smoke observed pointedly.
Shunk Wilson was angry.
"You'd think I was the prisoner the way you slam questions into me.
Come on with the next witness. Where's French Louis?"
While French Louis was shoving forward, Lucy opened the door.
"Where you goin'?" Shunk Wilson shouted.
"I reckon I don't have to stay," she answered defiantly. "I ain't
got no vote, an' besides my cabin's so jammed up I can't breathe."
In a few minutes her husband followed. The closing of the door was
the first warning the judge received of it.
"Who was that?" he interrupted Pierre's narrative to ask.
"Bill Peabody," somebody spoke up. "Said he wanted to ask his wife
something and was coming right back."
Instead of Bill, it was Lucy who re-entered, took off her furs, and
resumed her place by the stove.
"I reckon we don't need to hear the rest of the witnesses," was
Shunk Wilson's decision, when Pierre had finished. "We know they
only can testify to the same facts we've already heard. Say,
Sorensen, you go an' bring Bill Peabody back. We'll be votin' a
verdict pretty short. Now, Stranger, you can get up an' say your
say concernin' what happened. In the meantime we'll just be savin'
delay by passin' around the two rifles, the ammunition, an' the
bullets that done the killin'."
Midway in his story of how he had arrived in that part of the
country, and at the point in his narrative where he described his
own ambush and how he had fled to the bank, Smoke was interrupted by
the indignant Shunk Wilson.
"Young man, what sense is there in you testifyin' that way? You're
just takin' up valuable time. Of course you got the right to lie to
save your neck, but we ain't goin' to stand for such foolishness.
The rifle, the ammunition, the bullet that killed Joe Kinade is
against you--What's that? Open the door, somebody!"
The frost rushed in, taking form and substance in the heat of the
room, while through the open door came the whining of dogs that
decreased rapidly with distance.
"It's Sorensen an' Peabody," some one cried, "a-throwin' the whip
into the dawgs an' headin' down river!"
"Now, what the hell--!" Shunk Wilson paused, with dropped jaw, and
glared at Lucy. "I reckon you can explain, Mrs Peabody."
She tossed her head and compressed her lips, and Shunk Wilson's
wrathful and suspicious gaze passed on and rested on Breck.
"An' I reckon that new-comer you've ben chinning with could explain
if HE had a mind to."
Breck, now very uncomfortable, found all eyes centred on him.
"Sam was chewing the rag with him, too, before he hit out," some one
said.
"Look here, Mr Breck," Shunk Wilson continued. "You've ben
interruptin' proceedings, and you got to explain the meanin' of it.
What was you chinnin' about?"
Breck cleared his throattimidly and replied. "I was just trying to
buy some grub."
"What with?"
"Dust, of course."
"Where'd you get it?"
Breck did not answer.
"He's ben snoopin' around up the Stewart," a man volunteered. "I
run across his camp a week ago when I was huntin'. An' I want to
tell you he was almighty secretious about it."
"The dust didn't come from there," Breck said. "That's only a low-
grade hydraulic proposition."
"Bring your poke here an' let's see your dust," Wilson commanded.
"I tell you it didn't come from there."
"Let's see it just the same."
Breck made as if to refuse, but all about him were menacing faces.
Reluctantly, he fumbled in his coat pocket. In the act of drawing
forth a pepper can, it rattled against what was evidently a hard
object.
"Fetch it all out!" Shunk Wilson thundered.
And out came the big nugget, first-size, yellow as no gold any
onlooker had ever seen. Shunk Wilson gasped. Half a dozen,
catching one glimpse, made a break for the door. They reached it at
the same moment, and, with cursing and scuffling, jammed and pivoted
through. The judge emptied the contents of the pepper can on the
table, and the sight of the rough lump-gold sent half a dozen more
toward the door.
"Where are you goin'?" Eli Harding asked, as Shunk started to
follow.
"For my dogs, of course."
"Ain't you goin' to hang him?"
"It'd take too much time right now. He'll keep till we get back, so
I reckon this court is adjourned. This ain't no place for
lingerin'."
Harding hesitated. He glanced savagely at Smoke, saw Pierre
beckoning to Louis from the doorway, took one last look at the lump-
gold on the table, and decided.
"No use you tryin' to get away," he flung back over his shoulder.
"Besides, I'm goin' to borrow your dogs."
"What is it--another one of them blamed stampedes?" the old blind
trapper asked in a queer and petulant falsetto, as the cries of men
and dogs and the grind of the sleds swept the silence of the room.
"It sure is," Lucy answered. "An' I never seen gold like it. Feel
that, old man."
She put the big nugget in his hand. He was but slightly interested.
"It was a good fur-country," he complained, "before them danged
miners come in an' scared back the game."
The door opened, and Breck entered.
"Well," he said, "we four are all that are left in camp. It's forty
miles to the Stewart by the cut-off I broke, and the fastest of them
can't make the round trip in less than five or six days. But it's
time you pulled out, Smoke, just the same."
Breck drew his hunting knife across the other's bonds, and glanced
at the woman.
"I hope you don't object?" he said, with significant politeness.
"If there's goin' to be any shootin'," the blind man broke out, "I
wish somebody'd take me to another cabin first."
"Go on, an' don't mind me," Lucy answered. "If I ain't good enough
to hang a man, I ain't good enough to hold him."
Smoke stood up, rubbing his wrists where the thongs had impeded the
circulation.
"I've got a pack all ready for you," Breck said. "Ten days' grub,
blankets, matches, tobacco, an axe, and a rifle."
"Go to it," Lucy encouraged. "Hit the high places, Stranger. Beat
it as fast as God'll let you."
"I'm going to have a square meal before I start," Smoke said. "And
when I start it will be up the McQuestion, not down. I want you to
go along with me, Breck. We're going to search that other bank for
the man that really did the killing."
"If you'll listen to me, you'll head down for the Stewart and the
Yukon," Breck objected. "When this gang gets back from my low-grade
hydraulic proposition, it will be seeing red."
Smoke laughed and shook his head.
"I can't jump this country, Breck. I've got interests here. I've
got to stay and make good. I don't care whether you believe me or
not, but I've found Surprise Lake. That's where that gold came
from. Besides, they took my dogs, and I've got to wait to get them
back. Also, I know what I'm about. There was a man hidden on that
bank. He came pretty close to emptying his magazine at me."
Half an hour afterward, with a big plate of moose-steak before him
and a big mug of coffee at his lips, Smoke half-started up from his
seat. He had heard the sounds first. Lucy threw open the door.
"Hello, Spike; hello, Methody," she greeted the two frost-rimed men
who were bending over the burden on their sled.
"We just come down from Upper Camp," one said, as the pair staggered
into the room with a fur-wrapped object which they handled with
exceeding gentleness. "An' this is what we found by the way. He's
all in, I guess."
"Put him in the near bunk there," Lucy said. She bent over and
pulled back the furs, disclosing a face composedprincipally of
large, staring, black eyes, and of skin, dark and scabbed by
repeated frost-bite, tightly stretched across the bones.
"If it ain't Alonzo!" she cried. "You pore, starved devil!"
"That's the man on the other bank," Smoke said in an undertone to
Breck.
"We found it raidin' a cache that Harding must a-made," one of the
men was explaining. "He was eatin' raw flour an' frozen bacon, an'
when we got 'm he was cryin' an' squealin' like a hawk. Look at
him! He's all starved, an' most of him frozen. He'll kick at any
moment."
. . . . .
Half an hour later, when the furs had been drawn over the face of
the still form in the bunk, Smoke turned to Lucy.
"If you don't mind, Mrs Peabody, I'll have another whack at that
steak. Make it thick and not so well done."
THE RACE FOR NUMBER ONE.
I.
"Huh! Get on to the glad rags!"
Shorty surveyed his partner with simulated disapproval, and Smoke,
vainly attempting to rub the wrinkles out of the pair of trousers he
had just put on, was irritated.
"They sure fit you close for a second-hand buy," Shorty went on.
"What was the tax?"
"One hundred and fifty for the suit," Smoke answered. "The man was
nearly my own size. I thought it was remarkablereasonable. What
are you kicking about?"
"Who? Me? Oh, nothin'. I was just thinkin' it was goin' some for
a meat-eater that hit Dawson in an ice-jam, with no grub, one suit
of underclothes, a pair of mangy moccasins, an' overalls that looked
like they'd ben through the wreck of the Hesperus. Pretty gay
front, pardner. Pretty gay front. Say--?"
"What do you want now?" Smoke demanded testily.
"What's her name?"
"There isn't any her, my friend. I'm to have dinner at Colonel
Bowie's, if you want to know. The trouble with you, Shorty, is
runners. Somebody near the door peeped out.
"It's Sam an' his pardner an' a dog-team hell-bent down the trail
for Stewart River," the man reported.
Nobody spoke for a long half-minute, but men glanced significantly
at one another, and a general restlessness pervaded the packed room.
Out of the corner of his eye, Smoke caught a glimpse of Breck, Lucy,
and her husband whispering together.
"Come on, you," Shunk Wilson said gruffly to Smoke. "Cut this
questionin' short. We know what you're tryin' to prove--that the
other bank wasn't searched. The witness admits it. We admit it.
It wasn't necessary. No tracks led to that bank. The snow wasn't
broke."
"There was a man on the other bank just the same," Smoke insisted.
"That's too thin for skatin', young man. There ain't many of us on
the McQuestion, an' we got every man accounted for."
"Who was the man you hiked out of camp two weeks ago?" Smoke asked.
"Alonzo Miramar. He was a Mexican. What's that grub-thief got to
do with it?"
"Nothing, except that you haven't accounted for HIM, Mr Judge."
"He went down the river, not up."
"How do you know where he went?"
"Saw him start."
"And that's all you know of what became of him?"
"No, it ain't, young man. I know, we all know, he had four day's
grub an' no gun to shoot meat with. If he didn't make the
settlement on the Yukon he'd croaked long before this."
"I suppose you've got all the guns in this part of the country
accounted for, too," Smoke observed pointedly.
Shunk Wilson was angry.
"You'd think I was the prisoner the way you slam questions into me.
Come on with the next witness. Where's French Louis?"
While French Louis was shoving forward, Lucy opened the door.
"Where you goin'?" Shunk Wilson shouted.
"I reckon I don't have to stay," she answered defiantly. "I ain't
got no vote, an' besides my cabin's so jammed up I can't breathe."
In a few minutes her husband followed. The closing of the door was
the first warning the judge received of it.
"Who was that?" he interrupted Pierre's narrative to ask.
"Bill Peabody," somebody spoke up. "Said he wanted to ask his wife
something and was coming right back."
Instead of Bill, it was Lucy who re-entered, took off her furs, and
resumed her place by the stove.
"I reckon we don't need to hear the rest of the witnesses," was
Shunk Wilson's decision, when Pierre had finished. "We know they
only can testify to the same facts we've already heard. Say,
Sorensen, you go an' bring Bill Peabody back. We'll be votin' a
verdict pretty short. Now, Stranger, you can get up an' say your
say concernin' what happened. In the meantime we'll just be savin'
delay by passin' around the two rifles, the ammunition, an' the
bullets that done the killin'."
Midway in his story of how he had arrived in that part of the
country, and at the point in his narrative where he described his
own ambush and how he had fled to the bank, Smoke was interrupted by
the indignant Shunk Wilson.
"Young man, what sense is there in you testifyin' that way? You're
just takin' up valuable time. Of course you got the right to lie to
save your neck, but we ain't goin' to stand for such foolishness.
The rifle, the ammunition, the bullet that killed Joe Kinade is
against you--What's that? Open the door, somebody!"
The frost rushed in, taking form and substance in the heat of the
room, while through the open door came the whining of dogs that
decreased rapidly with distance.
"It's Sorensen an' Peabody," some one cried, "a-throwin' the whip
into the dawgs an' headin' down river!"
"Now, what the hell--!" Shunk Wilson paused, with dropped jaw, and
glared at Lucy. "I reckon you can explain, Mrs Peabody."
She tossed her head and compressed her lips, and Shunk Wilson's
wrathful and suspicious gaze passed on and rested on Breck.
"An' I reckon that new-comer you've ben chinning with could explain
if HE had a mind to."
Breck, now very uncomfortable, found all eyes centred on him.
"Sam was chewing the rag with him, too, before he hit out," some one
said.
"Look here, Mr Breck," Shunk Wilson continued. "You've ben
interruptin' proceedings, and you got to explain the meanin' of it.
What was you chinnin' about?"
Breck cleared his throattimidly and replied. "I was just trying to
buy some grub."
"What with?"
"Dust, of course."
"Where'd you get it?"
Breck did not answer.
"He's ben snoopin' around up the Stewart," a man volunteered. "I
run across his camp a week ago when I was huntin'. An' I want to
tell you he was almighty secretious about it."
"The dust didn't come from there," Breck said. "That's only a low-
grade hydraulic proposition."
"Bring your poke here an' let's see your dust," Wilson commanded.
"I tell you it didn't come from there."
"Let's see it just the same."
Breck made as if to refuse, but all about him were menacing faces.
Reluctantly, he fumbled in his coat pocket. In the act of drawing
forth a pepper can, it rattled against what was evidently a hard
object.
"Fetch it all out!" Shunk Wilson thundered.
And out came the big nugget, first-size, yellow as no gold any
onlooker had ever seen. Shunk Wilson gasped. Half a dozen,
catching one glimpse, made a break for the door. They reached it at
the same moment, and, with cursing and scuffling, jammed and pivoted
through. The judge emptied the contents of the pepper can on the
table, and the sight of the rough lump-gold sent half a dozen more
toward the door.
"Where are you goin'?" Eli Harding asked, as Shunk started to
follow.
"For my dogs, of course."
"Ain't you goin' to hang him?"
"It'd take too much time right now. He'll keep till we get back, so
I reckon this court is adjourned. This ain't no place for
lingerin'."
Harding hesitated. He glanced savagely at Smoke, saw Pierre
beckoning to Louis from the doorway, took one last look at the lump-
gold on the table, and decided.
"No use you tryin' to get away," he flung back over his shoulder.
"Besides, I'm goin' to borrow your dogs."
"What is it--another one of them blamed stampedes?" the old blind
trapper asked in a queer and petulant falsetto, as the cries of men
and dogs and the grind of the sleds swept the silence of the room.
"It sure is," Lucy answered. "An' I never seen gold like it. Feel
that, old man."
She put the big nugget in his hand. He was but slightly interested.
"It was a good fur-country," he complained, "before them danged
miners come in an' scared back the game."
The door opened, and Breck entered.
"Well," he said, "we four are all that are left in camp. It's forty
miles to the Stewart by the cut-off I broke, and the fastest of them
can't make the round trip in less than five or six days. But it's
time you pulled out, Smoke, just the same."
Breck drew his hunting knife across the other's bonds, and glanced
at the woman.
"I hope you don't object?" he said, with significant politeness.
"If there's goin' to be any shootin'," the blind man broke out, "I
wish somebody'd take me to another cabin first."
"Go on, an' don't mind me," Lucy answered. "If I ain't good enough
to hang a man, I ain't good enough to hold him."
Smoke stood up, rubbing his wrists where the thongs had impeded the
circulation.
"I've got a pack all ready for you," Breck said. "Ten days' grub,
blankets, matches, tobacco, an axe, and a rifle."
"Go to it," Lucy encouraged. "Hit the high places, Stranger. Beat
it as fast as God'll let you."
"I'm going to have a square meal before I start," Smoke said. "And
when I start it will be up the McQuestion, not down. I want you to
go along with me, Breck. We're going to search that other bank for
the man that really did the killing."
"If you'll listen to me, you'll head down for the Stewart and the
Yukon," Breck objected. "When this gang gets back from my low-grade
hydraulic proposition, it will be seeing red."
Smoke laughed and shook his head.
"I can't jump this country, Breck. I've got interests here. I've
got to stay and make good. I don't care whether you believe me or
not, but I've found Surprise Lake. That's where that gold came
from. Besides, they took my dogs, and I've got to wait to get them
back. Also, I know what I'm about. There was a man hidden on that
bank. He came pretty close to emptying his magazine at me."
Half an hour afterward, with a big plate of moose-steak before him
and a big mug of coffee at his lips, Smoke half-started up from his
seat. He had heard the sounds first. Lucy threw open the door.
"Hello, Spike; hello, Methody," she greeted the two frost-rimed men
who were bending over the burden on their sled.
"We just come down from Upper Camp," one said, as the pair staggered
into the room with a fur-wrapped object which they handled with
exceeding gentleness. "An' this is what we found by the way. He's
all in, I guess."
"Put him in the near bunk there," Lucy said. She bent over and
pulled back the furs, disclosing a face composedprincipally of
large, staring, black eyes, and of skin, dark and scabbed by
repeated frost-bite, tightly stretched across the bones.
"If it ain't Alonzo!" she cried. "You pore, starved devil!"
"That's the man on the other bank," Smoke said in an undertone to
Breck.
"We found it raidin' a cache that Harding must a-made," one of the
men was explaining. "He was eatin' raw flour an' frozen bacon, an'
when we got 'm he was cryin' an' squealin' like a hawk. Look at
him! He's all starved, an' most of him frozen. He'll kick at any
moment."
. . . . .
Half an hour later, when the furs had been drawn over the face of
the still form in the bunk, Smoke turned to Lucy.
"If you don't mind, Mrs Peabody, I'll have another whack at that
steak. Make it thick and not so well done."
THE RACE FOR NUMBER ONE.
I.
"Huh! Get on to the glad rags!"
Shorty surveyed his partner with simulated disapproval, and Smoke,
vainly attempting to rub the wrinkles out of the pair of trousers he
had just put on, was irritated.
"They sure fit you close for a second-hand buy," Shorty went on.
"What was the tax?"
"One hundred and fifty for the suit," Smoke answered. "The man was
nearly my own size. I thought it was remarkablereasonable. What
are you kicking about?"
"Who? Me? Oh, nothin'. I was just thinkin' it was goin' some for
a meat-eater that hit Dawson in an ice-jam, with no grub, one suit
of underclothes, a pair of mangy moccasins, an' overalls that looked
like they'd ben through the wreck of the Hesperus. Pretty gay
front, pardner. Pretty gay front. Say--?"
"What do you want now?" Smoke demanded testily.
"What's her name?"
"There isn't any her, my friend. I'm to have dinner at Colonel
Bowie's, if you want to know. The trouble with you, Shorty, is
- harness [´hɑ:nis]
vt.上马具 n.马具 (初中英语单词) - glimpse [glimps] n.&v.瞥见 (初中英语单词)
- witness [´witnis] n.见证人 vt.目击 (初中英语单词)
- mexican [´meksikən] n.&a.墨西哥人(语)的 (初中英语单词)
- reckon [´rekən] v.计算；认为；估计 (初中英语单词)
- meantime [´mi:ntaim] n.&ad.其间；同时 (初中英语单词)
- valuable [´væljuəbəl, -jubəl] a.有价值的，贵重的 (初中英语单词)
- bullet [´bulit] n.子弹 (初中英语单词)
- throat [θrəut] n.咽喉；嗓子；出入口 (初中英语单词)
- pepper [´pepə] n.胡椒 vt.加胡椒 (初中英语单词)
- evidently [´evidəntli] ad.明显地 (初中英语单词)
- contents [´kɔ:ntents] n.容纳物；要旨 (初中英语单词)
- doorway [´dɔ:wei] n.门口 (初中英语单词)
- slightly [´slaitli] ad.轻微地；细长的 (初中英语单词)
- tobacco [tə´bækəu] n.烟草(叶)；卷烟 (初中英语单词)
- hidden [´hid(ə)n] hide 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- frozen [´frəuzn] freeze 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- partner [´pɑ:tnə] n.伙伴 v.同....合作 (初中英语单词)
- trousers [´trauzəz] n.裤子，长裤 (初中英语单词)
- second-hand [,sekənd´hænd] a.用过的；间接的 (初中英语单词)
- remarkable [ri´mɑ:kəbl] a.值得注意的；显著的 (初中英语单词)
- reasonable [´rizənəbəl] a.合理的；有理智的 (初中英语单词)
- narrative [´nærətiv] a.叙述的 n.记事 (高中英语单词)
- testify [´testifai] v.证明；证实；表明 (高中英语单词)
- suspicious [sə´spiʃəs] a.可疑的，多疑的 (高中英语单词)
- uncomfortable [ʌn´kʌmftəbəl] a.不舒服的，不自在的 (高中英语单词)
- significant [sig´nifikənt] a.重要的；意义重大的 (高中英语单词)
- proposition [,prɔpə´ziʃən] n.提议；主张；陈述 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- principally [´prinsəpli] ad.主要地；大体上 (高中英语单词)
- tightly [´taitli] ad.紧，紧密地 (高中英语单词)
- warning [´wɔ:niŋ] n.警告；前兆 a.预告的 (英语四级单词)
- ammunition [,æmju´niʃən] n.军火，弹药 (英语四级单词)
- ambush [´æmbuʃ] n.埋伏(地点)；伏兵 (英语四级单词)
- indignant [in´dignənt] a.义愤的，愤慨的 (英语四级单词)
- trying [´traiiŋ] a.难堪的；费劲的 (英语四级单词)
- almighty [ɔ:l´maiti] a.万能的；全能的 (英语四级单词)
- savagely [´sævidʒli] ad.野蛮地；原始地 (英语四级单词)
- gentleness [´dʒentlnis] n.温和，温柔 (英语四级单词)
- composed [kəm´pəuzd] a.镇静自若的 (英语四级单词)
- overalls [´əuvərɔ:lz] n.工装裤；工作裤 (英语四级单词)
- gruffly [´grʌmfli] ad.粗暴地 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
- compressed [kəm´prest] a.压缩的 (英语六级单词)
- timidly [´timidli] ad.胆怯地 (英语六级单词)
- hunting [´hʌntiŋ] n.打猎 (英语六级单词)
- disapproval [,disə´pru:vəl] n.不赞成；非难 (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
章节正文
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