Part 27 (1/2)
”Nothing doing,” answered Brent, shortly. ”I'm off of stud.”
”Off of stud!” exclaimed the other, ”How in h.e.l.l d'you ever expect to git even? Stud owes you more dust than you kin pile on a sled!”
Brent drank a gla.s.s of rum: ”The game can keep what it owes me. And besides I left my dust in camp--except a couple of ounces, or so.”
”Yer finger bet goes with me,” a.s.sured Claw, ”Everybody's wouldn't, by a d.a.m.n sight--but yourn does. What d'you say?”
”My word is good in a game, is it?” asked Brent.
”Good as the dust--in one, or out of one,” promptly a.s.sured Claw.
”Well, then listen to this: I gave my word in the presence of the man who staked me for this trip, that I would never gamble again. So I reckon you know how much stud I'll play from now on.”
”Gawd A'mighty!” breathed Claw, incredulously, ”An' the game owin' you millions. Well, have a drink on it, anyway.”
Claw refilled Brent's gla.s.s, and thrust it into his hand, with a wink at the captain, for he had been quick to note that the liquor and the hot fetid air of the room was making Brent drowsy. His eyes had become dull and heavy lidded, and his chin rested heavily upon the throat of his parka. ”Ain't happened to run onto a little bunch of Injuns, up the river, have you?” asked the man, as Brent gagged at the liquor.
”No,” answered Brent, drowsily, ”No Injuns in Copper Mountains--nothing in the mountains--nothing but snow.” Gradually his eyes closed, and his head rolled heavily to one side. The drunken klooch rose to her knees, and with a maudlin giggle, seized Brent's half empty gla.s.s and drained it.
With a curse, the captain kicked her into her corner, and turned to Claw with a suggestive motion: ”Slit his gullet, an' we'll slip him down a seal hole with some sc.r.a.p iron on his legs. He's prob'bly lyin' 'bout leavin' the dust in camp.”
Claw shook his head: ”Not him,” he opined, ”Search him first.”
The Captain and the mate subjected the unconscious man to a thorough search, at the conclusion of which Scroggs tossed a small lean gold sack upon the table. ”Prob'ly all he's got left, anyhow,” he growled in disgust. ”Le's jest weight him an' slip him through the ice the way he is. 'Tain't so messy.”
”Not by a d.a.m.n sight!” objected Claw. ”It's jest like I told you, when we was watchin' him through the gla.s.s. He's got anyways clost to a hundred ounces. I seen it, when he paid me fer the hooch, like I was tellin' you.”
”Well, we kin back-track him to his camp, an' if we can't find it we kin put the hot irons to the Injun's feet till he squeals.”
”The Injun don't know where it's at,” argued Claw contemptuously, ”He's too d.a.m.n smart to trust a Siwash. An' you bet he's got it _cached_ where we couldn't find it. He wouldn't leave it round where the first bunch of Huskies that come along could lift it, would he?”
”Well,” growled the Captain, ”Yer so d.a.m.n smart, what's yer big idee?”
”We got to let him go. Put back his little two ounces, so he won't suspicion nothin'. Then, when he wakes up, I'll slip him a bottle of hooch fer a present, an' he'll hit fer camp and start in on it. It won't last long, an' then you an' me an' Scroggs will happen along with more hooch to sell him. When he digs up the dust to pay fer it, I'll tend to him. You two git the Injun--but _he's_ mine. I've got a long score to settle with him--an' I know'd if I waited long enough, my time would come.”
CHAPTER XVIII
LOST
Brent was conscious of a drone of voices. They came from a great distance--from so great a distance that he could not distinguish the words. He half-realized that somewhere, men were talking.
Befuddled, groping, his brain was struggling against the stupor that had held him unconscious for an hour. Two months before, half the amount of liquor he had taken into his system would have drugged him into a whole night's unconsciousness, but the life in the open, and the hard work in the gravel and on the trail, had so strengthened him physically that the rum, even in the poisonous air of the cabin could not deaden him for long. Gradually, out of the drone of voices a word was sensed by his groping brain. Then a group of words. Where was he? Who were these men?
And why did they persist in talking when he wanted to sleep? His head ached, and he was conscious of a dull pain in his cramped neck. He was about to s.h.i.+ft into an easier position, when suddenly he realized where he was. He was drunk--in the filthy cabin of the _Belva Lou_--and the voices were the voices of Claw, and the mate, and the Captain, who were still at their liquor. A wave of sickening remorse swept him. He, Carter Brent, couldn't keep away from the hooch. Even in the vile cabin of the _Belva Lou_, he had fallen for it. It was no use. He would kill himself--would blow his worthless brains out and be done with it, rather than face--A sudden savage rage obsessed him. Kill himself, he would, but first--he would rid the North of these vultures.
He was upon the point of leaping to his feet, and with his fists, his chair--anything that came to hand, annihilating the brutish occupants of the cabin, when the gruff voice of the Captain cut in upon Claw's droning monotone.
”An' when we git him an' his Injun planted, me an' Asa'll take his dogs an' hit back here, an' you kin strike east along the coast till you pick up another woman. It's a d.a.m.n outrage--that's what it is! Chargin' me fifty dollars apiece fer greasy old pelters like them, that ain't worth the grub they eat! What I want is a young one--good lookin' an' young.”
”You had yer pick out of the eight,” growled Claw.