"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 throat timidly 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 composed principally 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."
