CHAPTER XXI PARDNERS

CHAPTER XXI

PARDNERS

"He saw, and first of brotherhood had sight...."

It was morning, and the night-shift might go to bed; but in the absent Englishmen's tent there was little sleep and less talk that day. The Boy, in an agony, with a foot on fire, heard the Colonel turning, tossing, growling incoherently about "the light."

It seemed unreasonable, for a frame had been built round his bed, and on it thick gray army blankets were nailed--a rectangular tent. Had he cursed the heat now? But no: "light," "God! the light, the light!" just as if he were lying as the Boy was, in the strong white glare of the tent. But hour after hour within the stifling fortress the giant tossed and muttered at the swords of sunshine that pierced his semi-dusk through little spark-burnt hole or nail-tear, torturing sensitive eyes.

Near three hours before he needed, the Colonel got up and splashed his way through a toilet at the tin basin. The Boy made breakfast without waiting for the usual hour. They had nearly finished when it occurred to the Colonel that neither had spoken since they went to bed. He glanced across at the absorbed face of his friend.

"You'll come down to the sluice to-night, won't you?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"No reason on earth, only I was afraid you were broodin' over what you said to Austin."

"Austin? Oh, I'm not thinkin' about Austin."

"What, then? What makes you so quiet?"

"Well, I'm thinkin' I'd be better satisfied to stay here a little longer if----"

"If what?"

"If there was truth between us two."

"I thought there was."

"No. What's the reason you want me to stay here?"

"Reason? Why"--he laughed in his old way--"I don't defend my taste, but I kind o' like to have you round."

His companion's grave face showed no lightening. "Why do you want me round more than someone else?"

"Haven't got anyone else."

"Oh, yes, you have! Every man on Bonanza's a friend o' yours, or would be."

"It isn't just that; we understand each other."

"No, we don't."

"What's wrong?"

No answer. The Boy looked through the door across Bonanza to the hills.

"I thought we understood each other if two men ever did. Haven't we travelled the Long Trail together and seen the ice go out?"

"That's just it, Colonel. We know such a lot more than men do who haven't travelled the Trail, and some of the knowledge isn't oversweet."

A shadow crossed the kind face opposite.

"You're thinkin' about the times I pegged out--didn't do my share."

"Lord, no!" The tears sprang up in the young eyes. "I'm thinkin' o' the times--I--" He laid his head down on the rude table, and sat so for an instant with hidden face; then he straightened up. "Seems as if it's only lately there's been time to think it out. And before, as long as I could work I could get on with myself.... Seemed as if I stood a chance to ... a little to make up."

"Make up?"

"But it's always just as it was that day on the Oklahoma, when the captain swore he wouldn't take on another pound. I was awfully happy thinkin' if I made him bring you it might kind o' make up, but it didn't."

"Made a big difference to me," the Colonel said, still not able to see the drift, but patiently brushing now and then at the dazzling mist and waiting for enlightenment.

"It's always the same," the other went on. "Whenever I've come up against something I'd hoped was goin' to make up, it's turned out to be a thing I'd have to do anyway, and there was no make up about it. For all that, I shouldn't mind stayin' on awhile since you want me to----"

The Colonel interrupted him, "That's right!"

"Only if I do, you've got to know--what I'd never have guessed myself, but for the Trail. After I've told you, if you can bear to see me round----" He hesitated and suddenly stood up, his eyes still wet, but his head so high an onlooker who did not understand English would have called the governing impulse pride, defiance even. "It seems I'm the kind of man, Colonel--the kind of man who could leave his pardner to die like a dog in the snow."

"If any other fella said so, I'd knock him down."

"That night before we got to Snow Camp, when you wouldn't--couldn't go any farther, I meant to go and leave you--take the sled, and take--I guess I meant to take everything and leave you to starve."

They looked into each other's faces, and years seemed to go by. The Colonel was the first to drop his eyes; but the other, pitilessly, like a judge arraigning a felon, his steady scrutiny never flinching: "Do you want that kind of a man round, Colonel?"

The Kentuckian turned quickly as if to avoid the stab of the other's eye, and sat hunched together, elbows on knees, head in hands.

"I knew you didn't." The Boy answered his own question. He limped over to his side of the tent, picked up some clothes, his blanket and few belongings, and made a pack. Not a word, not a sound, but some birds twittering outside in the sun and a locust making that frying sound in the fire-weed. The pack was slung on the Boy's back, and he was throwing the diamond hitch to fasten it when the Colonel at last looked round.

"Lord, what you doin'?"

"Guess I'm goin' on."

"Where?"

"I'll write you when I know; maybe I'll even send you what I owe you, but I don't feel like boastin' at the moment. Nig!"

"You can't walk."

"Did you never happen to notice that one-legged fella pluggin' about Dawson?"

He had gone down on his hands and knees to see if Nig was asleep under the camp-bed. The Colonel got up, went to the door, and let down the flap. When he turned, the traveller and the dog were at his elbow. He squared his big frame at the entrance, looking down at the two, tried to speak, but the Boy broke in: "Don't let's get sentimental, Colonel; just stand aside."

Never stirring, he found a voice to say, "I'm not askin' you to stay"--the other turned and whistled, for Nig had retired again to the seclusion of the gray blanket screen--"I only want to tell you something before you go."

The Boy frowned a little, but rested his pack against the table in that way in which the Klondyker learns to make a chair-back of his burden.

"You seem to think you've been tellin' me news," said the Colonel. "When you said that about goin' on, the night before we got to Snow Camp, I knew you simply meant you still intended to come out alive. I had thrown up my hands--at least, I thought I had. The only difference between us--I had given in and you hadn't."

The other shook his head. "There was a lot more in it than that."

"You meant to take the only means there were--to carry off the sled that I couldn't pull any farther----" The Boy looked up quickly. Something stern and truth-compelling in the dark face forced the Colonel to add: "And along with the sled you meant to carry off--the--the things that meant life to us."

"Just that----" The Boy knotted his brown fingers in Nig's hair as if to keep tight hold of one friend in the wreck.

"We couldn't divide," the Colonel hurried on. "It was a case of crawlin' on together, and, maybe, come out alive, or part and one die sure."

The Boy nodded, tightening his lips.

"I knew well enough you'd fight for the off-chance. But"--the Colonel came away from the door and stood in front of his companion--"so would I. I hadn't really given up the struggle."

"You were past strugglin', and I would have left you sick----"

"You wouldn't have left me--if I'd had my gun."

The Boy remembered that he had more than suspected that at the time, but the impression had by-and-by waxed dim. It was too utterly unlike the Colonel--a thing dreamed. He had grown as ashamed of the dream as of the thing he knew was true. The egotism of memory absorbed itself in the part he himself had played--that other, an evil fancy born of an evil time. And here was the Colonel saying it was true. The Boy dropped his eyes. It had all happened in the night. There was something in the naked truth too ghastly for the day. But the Colonel went on in a harsh whisper:

"I looked round for my gun; if I'd found it I'd have left you behind."

And the Boy kept looking down at Nig, and the birds sang, and the locust whirred, and the hot sun filled the tent as high-tide flushes a sea-cave.

"You've been a little hard on me, Boy, bringin' it up like this--remindin' me--I wouldn't have gone on myself, and makin' me admit----"

"No, no, Colonel."

"Makin' me admit that before I would have let you go on I'd have shot you!"

"Colonel!" He loosed his hold of Nig.

"I rather reckon I owe you my life--and something else besides"--the Colonel laid one hand on the thin shoulder where the pack-strap pressed, and closed the other hand tight over his pardner's right--"and I hadn't meant even to thank you neither."

"Don't, for the Lord's sake, don't!" said the younger, and neither dared look at the other.

A scratching on the canvas, the Northern knock at the door.

"You fellers sound awake?"

A woman's voice. Under his breath, "Who the devil's that?" inquired the Colonel, brushing his hand over his eyes. Before he got across the tent Maudie had pushed the flap aside and put in her head.

"Hello!"

"Hell-o! How d'e do?"

He shook hands, and the younger man nodded, "Hello."

"When did you come to town?" asked the Colonel mendaciously.

"Why, nearly three weeks ago, on the Weare. Heard you had skipped out to Sulphur with MacCann. I had some business out that way, so that's where I been."

"Have some breakfast, won't you--dinner, I mean?"

"I put that job through at the Road House. Got to rustle around now and get my tent up. Where's a good place?"

"Well, I--I hardly know. Goin' to stay some time?"

"Depends."

The Boy slipped off his pack.

"They've got rooms at the Gold Belt," he said.

"You mean that Dance Hall up at the Forks?"

"Oh, it ain't so far. I remember you can walk."

"I can do one or two other things. Take care you don't hurt yourself worryin' about me."

"Hurt myself?"

"Yes. Bein' so hospittable. The way you're pressin' me to settle right down here, near's possible--why, it's real touchin'."

He laughed, and went to the entrance to tic back the door-flap, which was whipping and snapping in the breeze. Heaven be praised! the night was cooler. Nig had been perplexed when he saw the pack pushed under the table. He followed his master to the door, and stood looking at the flap-tying, ears very pointed, critical eye cocked, asking as plain as could be, "You wake me up and drag me out here into the heat and mosquitoes just to watch you doin' that? Well, I've my opinion of you."

"Colonel gone down?" inquired the Silesian, passing by.

"Not yet."

"Anything I can do?" the gentleman inside was saying with a sound of effort in his voice. The lady was not even at the pains to notice the perfunctory civility.

"Well, Colonel, now you're here, what do you think o' the Klondyke?"

"Think? Well, there's no doubt they've taken a lot o' gold out o' here."

"Reg'lar old Has Been, hey?"

"Oh, I don't say it hasn't got a future."

"What! Don't you know the boom's busted?"

"Well, no."

"Has. Tax begun it. Too many cheechalkos are finishing it. Klondyke?" She laughed. "The Klondyke's goin' to hell down-grade in a hand-car."

Scowl Austin was up, ready, as usual, to relieve Seymour of half the superintending, but never letting him off duty till he had seen the new shift at work. As the Boy limped by with the German, Austin turned his scowl significantly towards the Colonel's tent.

"Good-mornin'--good-night, I mean," laughed the lame man, just as if his tongue had not run away with him the last time the two had met. It was not often that anyone spoke so pleasantly to the owner of No. 0. Perhaps the circumstance weighed with him; at all events, he stopped short. When the German had gone on, "Foot's better," Austin asserted.

"Perhaps it is a little," though the lame man had no reason to think so.

"Lucky you heal quick. Most people don't up here--livin' on the stale stuff we get in this----country. Seymour said anything to you about a job?"

"No."

"Well, since you're on time, you better come on the night shift, instead o' that lazy friend o' yours."

"Oh, he ain't lazy--been up hours. An old acquaintance dropped in; he'll be down in a minute."

"'Tisn't only his bein' late. You better come on the shift."

"Don't think I could do that. What's the matter?"

"Don't say there's anything very much the matter yet. But he's sick, ain't he?"

"Sick? No, except as we all are--sick o' the eternal glare."

The Colonel was coming slowly down the hill. Of course, a man doesn't look his best if he hasn't slept. The Boy limped a little way back to meet him.

"Anything the matter with you, Colonel?"

"Well, my Bonanza headache ain't improved."

"I suppose you wouldn' like me to take over the job for two or three days?"

"You? Crippled! Look here--" The Colonel flushed suddenly. "Austin been sayin' anything?"

"Oh, I was just thinkin' about the sun."

"Well, when I want to go in out of the sun, I'll say so." And, walking more quickly than he had done for long, he left his companion, marched down to the creek, and took his place near the puddling-box.

By the time the Boy got to the little patch of shade, offered by the staging, Austin had turned his back on the gang, and was going to speak to the gateman at the locks. He had evidently left the Colonel very much enraged at some curt comment.

"He meant it for us all," the Dublin gentleman was saying soothingly. By-and-by, as they worked undisturbed, serenity returned. Oh, the Colonel was all right--even more chipper than usual. What a good-looking fella he was, with that clear skin and splendid colour!

A couple of hours later the Colonel set his long shovel against the nearest of the poles steadying the sluice, and went over to the staging for a drink. He lifted the can of weak tea to his lips and took a long draught, handed the can back to the Boy, and leant against the staging. They talked a minute or two in undertones.

A curt voice behind said: "Looks like you've got a deal to attend to to-day, beside your work."

They looked round, and there was Austin. As the Colonel saw who it was had spoken, the clear colour in the tan deepened; he threw back his shoulders, hesitated, and then, without a word, went and took up his shovel.

Austin walked on. The Boy kept looking at his friend. What was the matter with the Colonel? It was not only that his eyes were queer--most of the men complained of their eyes, unless they slept in cabins. But whether through sun-blindness or shaken by anger, the Colonel was handling his shovel uncertainly, fumbling at the gravel, content with half a shovelful, and sometimes gauging the distance to the box so badly that some of the pay fell down again in the creek. As Austin came back on the other side of the line, he stopped opposite to where the Colonel worked, and suddenly called: "Seymour!"

Like so many on Bonanza, the Superintendent could not always sleep when the time came. He was walking about "showing things" to a stranger, "a newspaper woman," it was whispered--at all events, a lady who, armed with letters from the highest British officials, had come to "write up the Klondyke."

Seymour had left her at his employer's call. The lady, thin, neat, alert, with crisply curling iron-gray hair, and pleasant but unmistakably dignified expression, stood waiting for him a moment on the heap of tailings, then innocently followed her guide.

Although Austin lowered his voice, she drew nearer, prepared to take an intelligent interest in the "new riffles up on Skookum."

When Austin had first called Seymour, the Colonel started, looked up, and watched the little scene with suspicion and growing anger. Seeing Seymour's eyes turn his way, the Kentuckian stopped shovelling, and, on a sudden impulse, called out:

"See here, Austin: if you've any complaints to make, sah, you'd better make them to my face, sah."

The conversation about riffles thus further interrupted, a little silence fell. The Superintendent stood in evident fear of his employer, but he hastened to speak conciliatory words.

"No complaint at all--one of the best hands."

"May be so when he ain't sick," said Austin contemptuously.

"Sick!" the Boy called out. "Why, you're dreamin'. He's our strong man--able to knock spots out of anyone on the creek, ain't he?" appealing to the gang.

"I shall be able to spare him from my part of the creek after to-night."

"Do I understand you are dismissing me?"

"Oh, go to hell!"

The Colonel dropped his shovel and clenched his hands.

"Get the woman out o' the way," said the owner; "there's goin' to be trouble with this fire-eating Southerner."

The woman turned quickly. The Colonel, diving under the sluice-box for a plunge at Austin, came up face to face with her.

"The lady," said the Colonel, catching his breath, shaking with rage, but pulling off his hat--"the lady is quite safe, but I'm not so sure about you." He swerved as if to get by.

"Safe? I should think so!" she said steadily, comprehending all at once, and not unwilling to create a diversion.

"This is no place for a woman, not if she's got twenty letters from the Gold Commissioner."

Misunderstanding Austin's jibe at the official, the lady stood her ground, smiling into the face of the excited Kentuckian.

"Several people have asked me if I was not afraid to be alone here, and I've said no. It's quite true. I've travelled so much that I came to know years ago, it's not among men like you a woman has anything to fear."

It was funny and pathetic to see the infuriate Colonel clutching at his grand manner, bowing one instant to the lady, shooting death and damnation the next out of heavy eyes at Austin. But the wiry little woman had the floor, and meant, for peace sake, to keep it a few moments.

"At home, in the streets of London, I have been rudely spoken to; I have been greatly annoyed in Paris; in New York I have been subject to humorous impertinence; but in the great North-West every man has seemed to be my friend. In fact, wherever our English tongue is spoken," she wound up calmly, putting the great Austin in his place, "a woman may go alone."

Austin seemed absorbed in filling his pipe. The lady tripped on to the next claim with a sedate "Good-night" to the men on No. 0. She thought the momentary trouble past, and never turned to see how the Kentuckian, waiting till she should be out of earshot, came round in front of Austin with a low question.

The gang watched the Boy dodge under the sluice and hobble hurriedly over the chaos of stones towards the owner. Before he reached him he called breathless, but trying to laugh:

"You think the Colonel's played out, but, take my word for it, he ain't a man to fool with."

The gang knew from Austin's sneering look as he turned to strike a match on a boulder--they knew as well as if they'd been within a yard of him that Scowl had said something "pretty mean." They saw the Colonel make a plunge, and they saw him reel and fall among the stones.

The owner stood there smoking while the night gang knocked off work under his nose and helped the Boy to get the Colonel on his feet. It was no use. Either he had struck his head or he was dazed--unable, at all events, to stand. They lifted him up and started for the big tent.

Three Indians accosted the cripple leading the procession. He started, and raised his eyes. "Nicholas! Muckluck!" They shook hands, and all went on together, the Boy saying the Colonel had a little sunstroke.

* * * * *

The next day Scowl Austin was found lying face down among the cotton-woods above the benches on Skookum, a bullet-wound in his back. He had fainted from loss of blood, when he was picked up by the two Vermonters, the men who had twice gone by No. 0 the night before the quarrel, and who had enraged Austin by stopping an instant during the clean-up to look at his gold. They carried him back to Bonanza.

The Superintendent and several of the day gang got the wounded man into bed. He revived sufficiently to say he had not seen the man that shot him, but he guessed he knew him all the same. Then he turned on his side, swore feebly at the lawlessness of the South, and gave up the ghost.

Not a man on the creek but understood who Scowl Austin meant.

"Them hot-headed Kentuckians, y' know, they'd dowse a feller's glim for less 'n that."

"Little doubt the Colonel done it all right. Why, his own pardner says to Austin's face, says he, 'The Colonel's a bad man to fool with,' and just then the big chap plunged at Austin like a mad bull."

But they were sorry to a man, and said among themselves that they'd see he was defended proper even if he hadn't nothin' but a little dust in a jam-pot.

The Grand Forks constable had put a watch on the big tent, despatched a man to inform the Dawson Chief of Police, and set himself to learn the details of the quarrel. Meanwhile the utter absence of life in the guarded tent roused suspicion. It was recalled now that since the Indians had left a little while after the Colonel was carried home, sixteen hours ago, no one had seen either of the Southerners. The constable, taking alarm at this, left the crowd at Scowl Austin's, and went hurriedly across the meadow to the new centre of interest. Just as he reached the tent the flap was turned back, and Maudie put her head out.

"Hah!" said the constable, with some relief, "they both in there?"

"The Colonel is."

Now, it was the Colonel he had wanted till he heard he was there. As the woman came out he looked in to make certain. Yes, there he was, calmly sleeping, with the gray blanket of the screen thrown up for air. It didn't look much like----

"Where's the other feller?"

"Gone to Dawson."

"With that lame leg?"

"Went on horseback."

It had as grand a sound as it would have in the States to say a man had departed in a glass coach drawn by six cream-coloured horses. But he had been "in a hell of a hurry," evidently. Men were exchanging glances.

"Funny nobody saw him."

"When'd he light out?"

"About five this morning."

Oh, that explained it. The people who were up at five were abed now. And the group round the tent whispered that Austin had done the unheard of--had gone off and left the night gang at three o'clock in the morning. They had said so as the day shift turned out.

"But how'd the young feller get such a thing as a horse?"

"Hired it off a stranger out from Dawson yesterday," Maudie answered shortly.

"Oh, that Frenchman--Count--a--Whirligig?"

But Maudie was tired of giving information and getting none. The answer came from one in the group.

"Yes, that French feller came in with a couple o' fusst-class horses. He's camped away over there beyond Muskeeter." He pointed down Bonanza.

"P'raps you won't mind just mentionin'," said Maudie with growing irritation, "why you're makin' yourself so busy about my friends?" (Only strong resentment could have induced the plural.)

When she heard what had happened and what was suspected she uttered a contemptuous "Tschah!" and made for the tent. The constable followed. She wheeled fiercely round.

"The man in there hasn't been out o' this tent since he was carried up from the creek last night. I can swear to it."

"Can you swear the other was here all the time?"

No answer.

"Did he say what he went to Dawson for?"

"The doctor."

One or two laughed. "Who's sick enough to send for a Dawson doctor?"

"So you think he's gone for a----"

"I know he is."

"And do you know what it costs to have a doctor come all the way out here?"

"Yes, beasts! won't budge till you've handed over five hundred dollars. Skunks!"

"Did your friend mention how he meant to raise the dust?"

"He's got it," she said curtly.

"Why, he was livin' off his pardner. Hadn't a red cent."

"She's shieldin' him," the men about the door agreed.

"Lord! he done it well--got away with five hundred and a horse!"

"He had words with Austin, himself, the night o' the clean-up. Sassed Scowl Austin! Right quiet, but, oh my! Told him to his face his gold was dirty, and washed it off his hands with a look----Gawd! you could see Austin was mad clear through, from his shirt-buttons to his spine. You bet Scowl said something back that got the young feller's monkey up."

They all agreed that the only wonder was that Austin had lived as long--"On the other side o' the line--Gee!"

* * * * *

That evening the Boy, riding hard, came into camp with a doctor, followed discreetly in the rear by an N. W. M. P., really mounted this time. It had occurred to the Boy that people looked at him hard, and when he saw the groups gathered about the tent his heart contracted sharply. Had the Colonel died? He flung himself off the horse, winced as his foot cried out, told Joey Bludsoe to look after both beasts a minute, and led the Dawson doctor towards the tent.

The constable followed.

Maudie, at the door, looked at her old enemy queerly, and just as, without greeting, he pushed by, "S'pose you've heard Scowl Austin's dead?" she said in a low voice.

"No! Dead, eh? Well, there's one rattlesnake less in the woods."

The constable stopped him with a touch on the shoulder: "We have a warrant for you."

The Colonel lifted his head and stared about, in a dazed way, as the Boy stopped short and stammered, "Warr--what for?"

"For the murder of Scoville----"

"Look here," he whispered: "I--I don't know what you mean, but I'll go along with you, of course, only don't talk before this man. He's sick----" He beckoned the doctor. "This is the man I brought you to see." Then he turned his back on the wide, horrified eyes of his friend, saying, "Back in a minute, Kentucky." Outside: "Give me a second, boys, will you?" he said to the N. W. M. P.'s, "just till I hear what that doctor fella says about my pardner."

He stood there with the Buckeyes, the police, and the various day gangs that were too excited to go to bed. And he asked them where Austin was found, and other details of the murder, wearily conscious that the friendliest there felt sure that the man who questioned could best fill in the gaps in the story. When the doctor came out, Maudie at his heels firing off quick questions, the Boy hobbled forward.

"Well?"

"Temperature a hundred and four," said the Dawson doctor.

"Oh, is--is that much or little?"

"Well, it's more than most of us go in for."

"Can you tell what's the matter with him?"

"Oh, typhoid, of course."

The Boy pulled his hat over his eyes.

"Guess you won't mind my stayin' now?" said Maudie at his elbow, speaking low.

He looked up. "You goin' to take care of him? Good care?" he asked harshly.

But Maudie seemed not to mind. The tears went down her cheeks, as, with never a word, she nodded, and turned towards the tent.

"Say," he hobbled after her, "that doctor's all right--only wanted fifty." He laid four hundred-dollar bills in her hand. She seemed about to speak, when he interrupted hoarsely, "And look here: pull the Colonel through, Maudie--pull him through!"

"I'll do my darnedest."

He held out his hand. He had never given it to her before, and he forgot that few people would care now to take it. But she gave him hers with no grudging. Then, on a sudden, impulse, "You ain't takin' him to Dawson to-night?" she said to the constable.

He nodded.

"Why, he's done the trip twice already."

"I can do it again well enough."

"Then you got to wait a minute." She spoke to the constable as if she had been Captain Constantine himself. "Better just go in and see the Colonel," she said to the Boy. "He's been askin' for you."

"N-no, Maudie; I can go to Dawson all right, but I don't feel up to goin' in there again."

"You'll be sorry if you don't." And then he knew what a temperature at a hundred and four foreboded.

He went back into the tent, dreading to face the Colonel more than he had ever dreaded anything in his life.

But the sick man lay, looking out drowsily, peacefully, through half-shut eyes, not greatly concerned, one would say, about anything. The Boy went over and stood under the gray blanket canopy, looking down with a choking sensation that delayed his question: "How you feelin' now, Kentucky?"

"All right."

"Why, that's good news. Then you--you won't mind my goin' off to--to do a little prospectin'?"

The sick man frowned: "You stay right where you are. There's plenty in that jampot."

"Yes, yes! jampot's fillin' up fine."

"Besides," the low voice wavered on, "didn't we agree we'd learned the lesson o' the North?"

"The lesson o' the North?" repeated the other with filling eyes.

"Yes, sah. A man alone's a man lost. We got to stick together, Boy." The eyelids fell heavily.

"Yes, yes, Colonel." He pressed the big hand. His mouth made the motion, not the sound, "Good-bye, pardner."

“One work. Many languages. One reading experience.”