were missions. This last, however, was merely rumor; the men of Red
Cow had never been there. They had entered the lone land by way of
Chilcoot and the head-waters of the Yukon.
The men of Red Cow ignored all minor offences. To be drunk and
disorderly and to use vulgar language were looked upon as natural and
inalienable rights. The men of Red Cow were individualists, and
recognized as sacred but two things, property and life. There were no
women present to complicate their simple morality. There were only three
log-cabins in Red Cow–the majority of the population of forty men living
in tents or brush shacks; and there was no jail in which to confine malefactors,
while the inhabitants were too busy digging gold or seeking gold
to take a day off and build a jail. Besides, the paramount question of grub
negatived such a procedure. Wherefore, when a man violated the rights of
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property or life, he was thrown into an open boat and started down the
Yukon. The quantity of grub he received was proportioned to the gravity
of the offence. Thus, a common thief might get as much as two weeks’
grub; an uncommon thief might get no more, than half of that. A murderer
got no grub at all. A man found guilty of manslaughter would receive grub
for from three days to a week. And Marcus O’Brien had been elected
judge, and it was he who apportioned the grub. A man who broke the law
took his chances. The Yukon swept him away, and he might or might not
win to Bering Sea. A few days’ grub gave him a fighting chance. No grub
meant practically capital punishment, though there was a slim chance, all
depending on the season of the year.
Having disposed of Arizona Jack and watched him out of sight, the
population turned from the bank and went to work on its claims–all except
Curly Jim, who ran the one faro layout in all the Northland and who
speculated in prospect-holes on the side. Two things happened that day
that were momentous. In the late morning Marcus O’Brien struck’ it. He
washed out a dollar, a dollar and half, and two dollars, from three,
successive pans. He had found the streak. Curly Jim looked into the hole,
washed a few pans himself, and offered O’Brien ten thousand dollars for
all rights–five thousand in dust, and, in lieu of the other five thousand, a
half interest in his faro layout. O’Brien refused the offer. He was there to
make money out of the earth, he declared with heat, and not out of his
fellow-men. And anyway, he didn’t like faro. Besides, he appraised his
strike at a whole lot more than ten thousand.
The second event of moment occurred in the afternoon, when Siskiyou
Pearly ran his boat into the bank and tied up. He was fresh from the
Outside, and had in his possession a four-months-old newspaper.
Furthermore, he had half a dozen barrels of whiskey, all consigned to:
Curly Jim. The men of Red Cow quit work. They sampled the whiskey–at
a dollar a drink, weighed out on Curly’s scales; and they discussed the
news. And all would have been well, had not Curly Jim conceive a
nefarious scheme, which was, namely, first to get Marcus O’Brien drunk,
and next, to buy his mine from him.
The first half of the scheme worked beautifully. It began in the early
evening, and by nine o’clock O’Brien had reached the singing stage. He
clung with one arm around Curly Jim’s neck, and even essayed the late
lamented Ferguson’s song about the little birds. He considered he was
quite safe in this, what of the fact that the only man in camp with artistic
feelings was even then speeding down the Yukon on the breast of a fivemile
current.
But the second half of the scheme failed to connect. No matter how much
whiskey was poured down his neck, O’Brien could not be brought to
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realize that it was his bounder and friendly duty to sell his claim. He
hesitated, it is true, and trembled now and again on the verge of giving in.
Inside his muddled head, however, he was chuckling to himself. He was
up to Curly Jim’s game, and liked the hands that were being dealt him. The
whiskey was good. It came out of one special barrel, and was about a
dozen times better than that in the other five barrels.
Siskiyou Pearly was dispensing drinks in the bar-room to the remainder of
the population of Red Cow, while O’Brien and Curly had out their
business orgy in the kitchen. But there was nothing small about O’Brien.
He went into the bar-room and returned with Mucluc Charley and Percy
Leclaire.
“Business ‘sociates of mine, business ‘sociates,” he announced, with a
broad wink to them and a guileless grin to Curly. “Always trust their
judgment, always trust ’em. They’re all right. Give ’em some fire-water,
Curly, an’ le’s talk it over.”
This was ringing in; but Curly Jim, making a swift revaluation of the
claim, and remembering that the last pan he washed had turned out seven
dollars, decided that it was worth the extra whiskey, even if it was selling
in the other room at a dollar a drink.
“I’m not likely to consider,” O’Brien was hiccoughing to his two friends in
the course of explaining to them the question at issue. “Who? Me?–sell
for ten thousand dollars! No, indeed. I’ll dig the gold myself, an’ then I’m
goin’ down to God’s country,–Southern California,– that’s the place for
me to end my declinin’ days–an’ then I’ll start . . . as I said before, then I’ll
start . . . what did I say I was goin’ to start?’
“Ostrich farm,” Mucluc Charley volunteered.
“Sure, just what I’m goin’ to start.” O’Brien abruptly steadied himself and
looked with awe at Mucluc Charley “How did you know? Never said so.
Jes’ thought I said so. You’re a min’ reader, Charley. Le’s have another.”
Curly Jim filled the glasses and had the pleasure of seeing four dollars’
worth of whiskey disappear, one dollar’s worth of which he punished
himself–O’Brien insisted that he drink as frequently as his guests.
“Better take the money now,” Leclaire argued. “Take you two years to dig
it out the hole, en’ all that time you might be hatchin’ teeny little baby
ostriches an’ pulling feathers out the big ones.”
O’Brien considered the proposition and nodded approval. Curly Jim
looked gratefully at Leclaire and refilled the glasses.
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“Hold on there!” spluttered Mucluc Charley, whose tongue was beginning
to wag loosely and trip over itself. “As your father confessor–there I go–
as your brother–O hell!” He paused and collected himself for another
start. “As your frien’–business frien’, I should say, I would suggest, rather-
-I would take the liberty, as it was, to mention–I mean, suggest, that there
may be more ostriches . . . O hell!” He downed another glass, and went on
more carefully. “What I’m drivin’ at is . . . what am I drivin’ at?” He smote
the side of his head sharply half a dozen times with the heel of his palm to
shake up his ideas. “I got it!” he cried jubilantly. “Supposen there’s
slathers more’n ten thousand dollars in that hole!”
O’Brien, who apparently was all ready to close the bargain, switched
about.
“Great!” he cried. “Splen’d idea. Never thought of it all by myself.” He
took Mucluc Charley warmly by the hand. “Good frien’! Good ‘s’ciate!”
He turned belligerently on Curly Jim. “Maybe hundred thousand dollars in
that hole. You wouldn’t rob your old frien’, would you, Curly? Course you
wouldn’t. I know you . . . better’n yourself, better’n yourself. Le’s have
another. We’re good frien’s, all of us, I say, all of us.”
And so it went, and so went the whiskey, and so went Curly Jim’s hopes
up and down. Now Leclaire argued in favor of immediate sale, and almost
won the reluctant O’Brien over, only to lose him to the more brilliant
counter-argument of Mucluc Charley. And again, it was Mucluc Charley
who presented convincing reasons for the sale and Percy Leclaire who
held stubbornly back. A little later it was O’Brien himself who insisted on
selling, while both friends, with tears and curses, strove to dissuade him
The more whiskey they downed, the more fertile of imagination they
became. For one sober pro or con they found a score of drunken ones; and
they convinced one another so readily that they were perpetually changing
sides in the argument.
The time came when both Mucluc Charley and Leclaire were firmly set
upon the sale, and they gleefully obliterated O’Brien’s objections as fast as
he entered them. O’Brien grew desperate. He exhausted his last argument
and sat speechless. He looked pleadingly at the friends who had deserted
him. He kicked Mucluc Charley’s shins under the table, but that graceless