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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 10 |
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_ BOOK III. THE CAMP CHAPTER X "You'd better quit," said the Prodigal. It was the evening of my mishap, and he had arrived unexpectedly from town. "Yes, I mean to," I answered. "I wouldn't go down there again for a farm. I feel as weak as a sick baby. I couldn't stay another day." "Well, that goes," said he. "It just fits in with my plans. I'm getting Jim to come in, too. I've realised on that stuff I bought, made over three thousand clear profit, and with it I've made a dicker for a property on the bench above Bonanza, Gold Hill they call it. I've a notion it's all right. Anyway, we'll tunnel in and see. You and Jim will have a quarter share each for your work, while I'll have an extra quarter for the capital I've put in. Is it a go?" I said it was. "Thought it would be. I've had the papers made out; you can sign right now." So I signed, and next day found us all three surveying our claim. We put up a tent, but the first thing to do was to build a cabin. Right away we began to level off the ground. The work was pleasant, and conducted in such friendship that the time passed most happily. Indeed, my only worry was about Berna. She had never ceased to be at the forefront of my mind. I schooled myself into the belief that she was all right, but, thank God, every moment was bringing her nearer to me. One morning, when we were out in the woods cutting timber for the cabin, I said to Jim: "Did you ever hear anything more about that man Mosely?" He stopped chopping, and lowered the axe he had poised aloft. "No, boy; I've had no mail at all. Wait awhile." He swung his axe with viciously forceful strokes. His cheery face had become so downcast that I bitterly blamed myself for my want of tact. However, the cloud soon passed. About two days after that the Prodigal said to me: "I saw your little guttersnipe friend to-day." "Indeed, where?" I asked; for I had often thought of the Worm, thought of him with fear and loathing. "Well, sir, he was just getting the grandest dressing-down I ever saw a man get. And do you know who was handing it to him--Locasto, no less." He lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke. "I was just coming along the trail from the Forks when I suddenly heard voices in the bush. The big man was saying: "'Lookee here, Pat, you know if I just liked to say half a dozen words I could land you in the penitentiary for the rest of your days.' "Then the little man's wheedling voice: "'Well, I did me best, Jack. I know I bungled the job, but youse don't want to cast dem t'ings up to me. Dere's more dan me orter be in de pen. Dere's no good in de pot callin' de kettle black, is dere?' "Then Black Jack flew off the handle. You know he's got a system of manhandling that's near the record in these parts. Well, he just landed on the little man. He got him down and started to lambast the Judas out of him. He gave him the 'leather,' and then some. I guess he'd have done him to a finish hadn't I been Johnnie on the spot. At sight of me he gives a curse, jumps on his horse and goes off at a canter. Well, I propped the little man against a tree, and then some fellows came along, and we got him some brandy. But he was badly done up. He kept saying: 'Oh, de devil, de big devil, sure I'll give him his before I get t'rough.' Funny, wasn't it?" "Yes, it's strange;" and for some time I pondered over the remarkable strangeness of it. "That reminds me," said Jim; "has any one seen the Jam-wagon?" "Oh yes," answered the Prodigal; "poor beggar! he's down and out. After the fight he went to pieces, every one treating him, and so on. You remember Bullhammer?" "Yes." "Well, the last I saw of the Jam-wagon--he was cleaning cuspidors in Bullhammer's saloon." * * * * * We had hauled the logs for the cabin, and the foundation was laid. Now we were building up the walls, placing between every log a thick wadding of moss. Every day saw our future home nearer completion. One evening I spied the saturnine Ribwood climbing the hill to our tent. He hailed me: "Say, you're just the man I want." "What for?" I asked; "not to go down that shaft again?" "No. Say! we want a night watchman up at the claim to go on four hours a night at a dollar an hour. You see, there's been a lot of sluice-box robberies lately, and we're scared for our clean-up. We're running two ten-hour shifts now and cleaning up every three days; but there's four hours every night the place is deserted, and Hoofman proposed we should get you to keep watch." "Yes," I said; "I'll run up every evening if the others don't object." They did not; so the next night, and for about a dozen after that, I spent the darkest hours watching on the claim where previously I had worked. There was never any real darkness down there in that narrow valley, but there was dusk of a kind that made everything grey and uncertain. It was a vague, nebulous atmosphere in which objects merged into each other confusedly. Bushes came down to within a few feet of where we were working, dense-growing alder and birch that would have concealed a whole regiment of sluice-robbers. It was the dimmest and most uncertain hour of the four, and I was sitting at my post of guard. As the night was chilly I had brought along an old grey blanket, similar in colour to the mound of the pay-dirt. There had been quite a cavity dug in the dump during the day, and into this I crawled and wrapped myself in my blanket. From my position I could see the string of boxes containing the riffles. Over me brooded the vast silence of the night. By my side lay a loaded shot-gun. "If the swine comes," said Ribwood, "let him have a clean-up of lead instead of gold." Lying there, I got to thinking of the robberies. They were remarkable. All had been done by an expert. In some cases the riffles had been extracted and the gold scooped out; in others a quantity of mercury had been poured in at the upper end of the boxes, and, as it passed down, the "quick" had gathered up the dust. Each time the robbers had cleaned up from two to three thousand dollars, and all within the past month. There was some mysterious master-crook in our midst, one who operated swiftly and surely, and left absolutely no clue of his identity. It was strange, I thought. What nerve, what cunning, what skill must this midnight thief be possessed of! What desperate chances was he taking! For, in the miners' eyes, cache-stealing and sluice-box robbing were in the same category, and the punishment was--well, a rope and the nearest tree of size. Among those strong, grim men justice would be stern and swift. I was very quiet for a while, watching dreamily the dark shadows of the dusk. Hist! What was that? Surely the bushes were moving over there by the hillside. I strained my eyes. I was right: they were. I was all nerves and excitement now, my heart beating wildly, my eyes boring through the gloom. Very softly I put out my hand and grasped the shot-gun. I watched and waited. A man was parting the bushes. Stealthily, very stealthily, he peered around. He hesitated, paused, peered again, crouched on all-fours, crept forward a little. Everything was quiet as a grave. Down in the cabins the tired men slept peacefully; stillness and solitude. Cautiously the man, crawling like a snake, worked his way to the sluice-boxes. None but a keen watcher could have seen him. Again and again he paused, peered around, listened intently. Very carefully, with my eyes fixed on him, I lifted the gun. Now he had gained the shadow of the nearest sluice-box. He clung to the trestle-work, clung so closely you could scarce tell him apart from it. He was like a rat, dark, furtive, sinister. Slowly I lifted the gun to my shoulder. I had him covered. I waited. Somehow I was loath to shoot. My nerves were a-quiver. Proof, more proof, I said. I saw him working busily, lying flat alongside the boxes. How crafty, how skilful he was! He was disconnecting the boxes. He would let the water run to the ground; then, there in the exposed riffles, would be his harvest. Would I shoot ... now ... now.... Then, in the midnight hush, my gun blazed forth. With one scream the man tumbled down, carrying along with him the disconnected box. The water rushed over the ground in a deluge. I must capture him. There he lay in that pouring stream.... Now I had him. In that torrent of icy water I grappled with my man. Over and over we rolled. He tried to gouge me. He was small, but oh, how strong! He held down his face. Fiercely I wrenched it up to the light. Heavens! it was the Worm. I gave a cry of surprise, and my clutch on him must have weakened, for at that moment he gave a violent wrench, a cat-like twist, and tore himself free. Men were coming, were shouting, were running in from all directions. "Catch him!" I cried. "Yonder he goes." But the little man was shooting forward like a deer. He was in the bushes now, bursting through everything, dodging and twisting up the hill. Right and left ran his pursuers, mistaking each other for the robber in the semi-gloom, yelling frantically, mad with the excitement of a man-hunt. And in the midst of it all I lay in a pool of mud and water, with a sprained wrist and a bite on my leg. "Why didn't you hold him?" shouted Ribwood. "I couldn't," I answered. "I saved your clean-up, and he got some of the lead. Besides, I know who he is." "You don't! Who is he?" "Pat Doogan." "You don't say. Well, I'm darned. You're sure?" "Dead sure." "Swear it in Court?" "I will." "Well, that's all right. We'll get him. I'll go into town first thing in the morning and get out a warrant for him." He went, but the next evening back he returned, looking very surly and disgruntled. "Well, what about the warrant?" said Hoofman. "Didn't get it." "Didn't get----" "No, didn't get it," snapped Ribwood. "Look here, Hoofman, I met Locasto. Black Jack says Pat was cached away, dead to all the world, in the backroom of the Omega Saloon all night. There's two loafers and the barkeeper to back him up. What can we do in the face of that? Say, young feller, I guess you mistook your man." "I guess I did not," I protested stoutly. They both looked at me for a moment and shrugged their shoulders. _ |
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