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The Trail of '98: A Northland Romance, a novel by Robert W. Service |
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Book 3. The Camp - Chapter 4 |
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_ BOOK III. THE CAMP CHAPTER IV "Long live the cold-feet tribe! Long live the soreheads!" It was the Prodigal who spoke. "This outfit buying's got gold-mining beaten to a standstill. Here I've been three weeks in the burg and got over ten thousand dollars' worth of grub cached away. Every pound of it will net me a hundred per cent. profit. I'm beginning to look on myself as a second John D. Rockefeller." "You're a confounded robber," I said. "You're working a cinch-game. What's your first name? Isaac?" He turned the bacon he was frying and smiled gayly. "Snort away all you like, old sport. So long as I get the mon you can call me any old name you please." He was very sprightly and elate, but I was in no sort of mood to share in his buoyancy. Physically I had fully recovered from my terrible manhandling, but in spirit I still writhed at the outrage of it. And the worst was I could do nothing. The law could not help me, for there were no witnesses to the assault. I could never cope with this man in bodily strength. Why was I not a stalwart? If I had been as tall and strong as Garry, for instance. True, I might shoot; but there the Police would take a hand in the game, and I would lose out badly. There seemed to be nothing for it but to wait and pray for some means of retaliation. Yet how bitterly I brooded over the business. At times there was even black murder in my heart. I planned schemes of revenge, grinding my teeth in impotent rage the while; and my feelings were complicated by that awful gnawing hunger for Berna that never left me. It was a perfect agony of heart, a panic-fear, a craving so intense that at times I felt I would go distracted with the pain of it. Perhaps I am a poor sort of being. I have often wondered. I either feel intensely, or I am quite indifferent. I am a prey to my emotions, a martyr to my moods. Apart from my great love for Berna it seemed to me as if nothing mattered. All through these stormy years it was like that--nothing else mattered. And now that I am nearing the end of my life I can see that nothing else has ever mattered. Everything that happened appealed to me in its relation to her. It seemed to me as if I saw all the world through the medium of my love for her, and that all beauty, all truth, all good was but a setting for this girl of mine. "Come on," said Jim; "let's go for a walk in the town." The "Modern Gomorrah" he called it, and he was never tired of expatiating on its iniquity. "See that man there?" he said, pointing to a grey-haired pedestrian, who was talking to an emphatic blonde. "That man's a lawyer. He's got a lovely home in Los Angeles, an' three of the sweetest girls you ever saw. A young fellow needed to have his credentials O. K.'d by the Purity Committee before he came butting round that man's home. Now he's off to buy wine for Daisy of the Deadline." The grey-haired man had turned into a saloon with his companion. "Yes, that's Dawson for you. We're so far from home. The good old moralities don't apply here. The hoary old Yukon won't tell on us. We've been a Sunday School Superintendent for ten years. For fifty more we've passed up the forbidden fruit. Every one else is helping themselves. Wonder what it tastes like? Wine is flowing like water. Money's the cheapest thing in sight. Cut loose, drink up. The orchestra's a-goin'. Get your partners for a nice juicy two-step. Come on, boys!" He was particularly bitter, and it really seemed in that general lesion of the moral fibre that civilisation was only a makeshift, a veneer of hypocrisy. "Why should we marvel," I said, "at man's brutality, when but an aeon ago we all were apes?" Just then we met the Jam-wagon. He had mushed in from the creeks that very day. Physically he looked supreme. He was berry-brown, lean, muscular and as full of suppressed energy as an unsprung bear-trap. Financially he was well ballasted. Mentally and morally he was in the state of a volcano before an eruption. You could see in the quick breathing, in the restlessness of this man, a pent-up energy that clamoured to exhaust itself in violence and debauch. His fierce blue eyes were wild and roving, his lips twitched nervously. He was an atavism; of the race of those white-bodied, ferocious sea-kings that drank deep and died in the din of battle. He must live in the white light of excitement, or sink in the gloom of despair. I could see his fine nostrils quiver like those of a charger that scents the smoke of battle, and I realised that he should have been a soldier still, a leader of forlorn hopes, a partner of desperate hazards. As we walked along, Jim did most of the talking in his favourite morality vein. The Jam-wagon puffed silently at his briar pipe, while I, very listless and downhearted, thought largely of my own troubles. Then, in the middle of the block, where most of the music-halls were situated, suddenly we met Locasto. When I saw him my heart gave a painful leap, and I think my face must have gone as white as paper. I had thought much over this meeting, and had dreaded it. There are things which no man can overlook, and, if it meant death to me, I must again try conclusions with the brute. He was accompanied by a little bald-headed Jew named Spitzstein, and we were almost abreast of them when I stepped forward and arrested them. My teeth were clenched; I was all a-quiver with passion; my heart beat violently. For a moment I stood there, confronting him in speechless excitement. He was dressed in that miner's costume in which he always looked so striking. From his big Stetson to his high boots he was typically the big, strong man of Alaska, the Conqueror of the Wild. But his mouth was grim as granite, and his black eyes hard and repellent as those of a toad. "Oh, you coward!" I cried. "You vile, filthy coward!" He was looking down on me from his imperious height, very coolly, very cynically. "Who are you?" he drawled; "I don't know you." "Liar as well as coward," I panted. "Liar to your teeth. Brute, coward, liar----" "Here, get out of my way," he snarled; "I've got to teach you a lesson." Once more before I could guard he landed on me with that terrible right-arm swing, and down I went as if a sledgehammer had struck me. But instantly I was on my feet, a thing of blind passion, of desperate fight. I made one rush to throw myself on this human tower of brawn and muscle, when some one pinioned me from behind. It was Jim. "Easy, boy," he was saying; "you can't fight this big fellow." Spitzstein was looking on curiously. With wonderful quickness a crowd had collected, all avidly eager for a fight. Above them towered the fierce, domineering figure of Locasto. There was a breathless pause, then, at the psychological moment, the Jam-wagon intervened. The smouldering fire in his eye had brightened into a fierce joy; his twitching mouth was now grim and stern as a prison door. For days he had been fighting a dim intangible foe. Here at last was something human and definite. He advanced to Locasto. "Why don't you strike some one nearer your own size?" he demanded. His voice was tense, yet ever so quiet. Locasto flashed at him a look of surprise, measuring him from head to foot. "You're a brute," went on the Jam-wagon evenly; "a cowardly brute." Black Jack's face grew dark and terrible. His eyes glinted sparks of fire. "See here, Englishman," he said, "this isn't your scrap. What are you butting in about?" "It isn't," said the Jam-wagon, and I could see the flame of fight brighten joyously in him. "It isn't, but I'll soon make it mine. There!" Quick as a flash he dealt the other a blow on the cheek, an open-handed blow that stung like a whiplash. "Now, fight me, you coward." There and then Locasto seemed about to spring on his challenger. With hands clenched and teeth bared, he half bent as if for a charge. Then, suddenly, he straightened up. "All right," he said softly; "Spitzstein, can we have the Opera House?" "Yes, I guess so. We can clear away the benches." "Then tell the crowd to come along; we'll give them a free show." * * * * * I think there must have been five hundred men around that ring. A big Australian pugilist was umpire. Some one suggested gloves, but Locasto would not hear of it. "No," he said, "I want to mark the son of a dog so his mother will never know him again." He had become frankly brutal, and prepared for the fray exultantly. Both men fought in their underclothing. Stripped down, the Jam-wagon was seen to be much the smaller man, not only in height, but in breadth and weight. Yet he was a beautiful figure of a fighter, clean, well-poised, firm-limbed, with a body that seemed to taper from the shoulders down. His fair hair glistened; his eyes were wary and cool, his lips set tightly. In the person of this living adversary he was fighting an unseen one vastly more dread and terrific. Locasto looked almost too massive. His muscles bulged out. The veins in his forearms were cord-like. His great chest seemed as broad as a door. His legs were statuesque in their size and strength. In that camp of strong men probably he was the most powerful. And nowhere in the world could a fight have been awaited with greater zest. These men, miners, gamblers, adventurers of all kinds, pushed and struggled for a place. A great joy surged through them at the thought of the approaching combat. Keen-eyed, hard-breathing, a-thrill with expectation, the crowd packed closer and closer. Outside, people were clamouring for admission. They climbed on the stage, and into the boxes. They hung over the galleries. All told, there must have been a thousand of them. As the two men stood up it was like the lithe Greek athlete compared with the brawny Roman gladiator. "Three to one on Locasto," some one shouted. Then a great hush came over the house, so that it might have been empty and deserted. Time was called. The fight began. _ |
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