Roy Norton

“ We drew closer to the table, as did several others, seeing that Mahoney’s bets were increasing; but his exclamations of disappointment were drowned in the babel of sound that weltered throughout the Hang-out. Jim had begun by taunting him; but now, discovering his ill temper, as merely the cool “wheelman,” twirling the little white ball, and raking in the losses, or paying out the winnings. Once he objected to something Phil said.
“What makes you play when luck’s all against you?” he demanded. “It’s not my fault if you lose all the time, is it?” ”

“ Every brook was a torrent, every snow bank the repository for the continuous, melodious chorus of tinkling water drops as they dripped and dripped, and sang their little good-by songs. The dams were built, the gates swung up and down, the shovels tore into the pay dumps, and the sluice boxes roared as we men of Little Marook strove, and cleaned up our winter’s profit, be it large or small. ”

“ But God speed the spring so that he may find other fields to conquer!”
And he backed away, down the open space in front of the bar, and out of the door, while George’s face lighted with sudden interest at the sound of the double quotation.
“That’s from the third act and the third scene,” said George delightedly, as if he had made a great discovery. And then: “It means that he’s lost his job! That’s the place where Othello talks about the dread clamorous counterfeiters. That Jim’s a scholar! That’s what he is—a scholar.” ”

“ There lay Phil Mahoney, beyond all aid, dead. I threw my handkerchief over his face before we went back to George and Jim, on tiptoe, as if the sound of our footsteps on that beaten earth would ever matter to him. We gave Jim another draft of the brandy, and he feebly waved for silence.
“Let me talk,” he said. “Not much time left. Been going out all day. I’ve never been any good. Gambler’s habit of sleeping days, awake nights. Took walk yesterday morning. Wanted to get close to birds and hear ’em sing. Mile above camp. Saw Phil Mahoney toting something toward boat. Acted queer. ”

“ As a flying wedge the Competents, accustomed for many years to fighting together, quick, sinewy, big, and powerful men all, charged to the door, jerked it open, and drew themselves together in front of it, a grim little line of determination. The moon had risen to cast shadows at the foot of the trees on the white, still snow, and shadows at the feet of our pitifully thin line ”

“ If we run over it in the night, it will be wiped out. If we wait until morning the sign will be there, some place; unless the man that robbed us had wings.”
“Right for you!” was a chorus, growled in unison.
And so we all remained in the cabin, and sat and talked, and waited for daybreak, and indulged in idle speculation, but there was no lamentation.
It was George’s wholesome, kindly hand that crept over on mine, as we sat there in the gloom, and it was his kindly voice that said: “Don’t worry, boy! It hits you harder than us, because we’ve money outside. Alaska to us was an adventure. ”

“ That George did not dislike him stood him in good stead on that night when Phil Mahoney ran amuck.
Phil had sold a claim for two thousand dollars, and Phil, ordinarily taciturn, developed into a roaring carouser of high rank. Moreover, a sporting tendency led him to accept Laughing Jim’s challenge and attempt to worst that proficient at his own game. We were loitering there when Phil, leering, trudged away from the bar to the wheel and bought chips.
“One more man’s money in the till!” shouted Jim. “Fair warning is fair warning. Play with me long enough and I take your wad!” ”

“ Phil Mahoney was standing on the rough counter haranguing the men, and his face was black with excitement and temper.
“And look what he did to me!” he shouted, just as we entered. “Skinned me out of all I had, then laughed in my face. And it only took him ten or fifteen minutes to do it. They ain’t no square game could do it. He’s a crook! That’s what this Jim is! Why, he says so himself, and laughs about it. This camp’s had too much of him. He’s busted too many men. I move we go down and get him and start him over the ice, to-night! ”

“ His face was firm, and his voice without a tremor as he spoke. He was a brave man, was that chairman, standing there, dominant, before more than half a hundred earnest men!
“Shakespeare George,” he said, “has convinced me that we are in possible danger of condemning a man who, though his business is questionable, and his character confessedly loose, may be innocent of crookedness in the cases before this meeting. I therefore cast the deciding vote against sending him out over the ice, and declare the meeting open for any further business, or a motion to adjourn.” ”

“ The air was redolent with the call of wild fowl come to the breeding ground, the chirping of migratory birds, and the noiseless hum of insects.
“Boys,” said Bill Davis on the night we cleaned up the last of our pay dirt, “I figure that she runs about fifteen thousand dollars, at eighteen an ounce. Not much, but a mighty sight better than nothing.”
As he talked, he poured the dust into one of our half-filled buckskin sacks, and dropped it into our safe deposit—an empty oil can. Then, heaving a tired sigh, he slid the can under the bunk. ”

“ Your money extracted without pain. Try the wheel! No man ever quit me winner!”
And then he would throw back his handsome young head, and that free, reckless laugh of his would roar out over the rumble of conversation, the clink of bottle on glass, the persistent clacking of chips and markers at the bank, and the clattering of dice where chuck-a-luck held forth. My partners, known to the camp as “the Competents” Westerners all, and all of the sober, taciturn type, were too wise in the ways of gamedom to patronize either his or any of the other games in the Hang-out ”

“ There, plainly imprinted in the mud, where some one had entered the trail from a moss-carpeted side, were tracks, and they were those of one who wore shoes—shoes of civilization, such as but few men wore in our outskirt of a rough world, and the shoes were pointed, delicately, foppishly, almost daintily. ”

“ Probably he came with that inrush in the late fall of ’97, when the newly discovered Klondike sent its refugees hurrying down the river to camps where they might be sure of supplies through the long winter season, and he laughed his way into a job as bartender, for want of something else to do, and then, in time, graduated to the post of running the roulette wheel at the Hang-out. He was distinguished in dress by having the only toothpick shoes in camp, which he always wore, and for the excellent care he bestowed on his hands. ”

“ Phil!” George expostulated. “What’s the matter with you—you fool! Cut it out, I tell you!”
Other voices joined the protest, and another of the competents, Bill Davis, reached up and twisted the gun from Phil’s hand. George released his hold, and for a minute they stood there, angry, excited, and gathered as if for further combat; then, slowly, Phil relaxed.
“You got a square deal, pardner, all right,” insisted Shakespeare George with his slow drawl. “I ain’t got no use at all for gamblers or them that plays; but we stood behind you when you commenced, and Jim told you he’d get your money. ”

“ We headed the boat toward them, and they caught our prow and pulled us up on the shingle before we could protest.
“Come! Quick come!” urged a withered, kindly faced old native, presumably the tyune of this little domain. “White man ’most peluck! Him soon die. ”

“ The others arrange for some one to keep an eye on our cabin up in the gulch, and buy grub for a cruise. Then it’s a case of work at the oars and make time. Let’s get a move on ourselves.”
We did, most effectually, and in just two hours’ time were shoving a crude, whipsawed skiff out into the river, and feeling the current catch us and sweep us toward the Ramparts below. We had begun the grim chase to overtake the one man who had paid his toll of gratitude by robbing the man who had twice saved his life, and it was certain that, did we overtake him, this time there would be no escape ”