There was no law in the land. The mounted police was also a thing of the future. Each man measured an offense, and meted out the punishment inasmuch as it affected himself. Rarely had combined action been necessary, and never in all the dreary history of the camp had the eighth article of the Decalogue been violated.
Big Jim Belden called an impromptu meeting. Scruff Mackenzie was placed as temporary chairman, and a messenger dispatched to solicit Father Roubeau’s good offices. Their position was paradoxical, and they knew it. By the right of might could they interfere to prevent the duel; yet such action, while in direct line with their wishes, went counter to their opinions. While their rough-hewn, obsolete ethics recognized the individual prerogative of wiping out blow with blow, they could not bear to think of two good comrades, such as Bettles and McFane, meeting in deadly battle. Deeming the man who would not fight on provocation a dastard, when brought to the test it seemed wrong that he should fight.
But a scurry of moccasins and loud cries, rounded off with a pistol-shot, interrupted the discussion. Then the storm-doors opened and Malemute Kid entered, a smoking Colt’s in his hand, and a merry light in his eye.
‘I got him.’ He replaced the empty shell, and added, ‘Your dog, Scruff.’
‘Yellow Fang?’ Mackenzie asked.
‘No; the lop-eared one.’
‘The devil! Nothing the matter with him.’
‘Come out and take a look.’
‘That’s all right after all. Buess he’s got ‘em, too. Yellow Fang came back this morning and took a chunk out of him, and came near to making a widower of me. Made a rush for Zarinska, but she whisked her skirts in his face and escaped with the loss of the same and a good roll in the snow. Then he took to the woods again. Hope he don’t come back. Lost any yourself?’
‘One-the best one of the pack-Shookum. Started amuck this morning, but didn’t get very far. Ran foul of Sitka Charley’s team, and they scattered him all over the street. And now two of them are loose, and raging mad; so you see he got his work in. The dog census will be small in the spring if we don’t do something.’
‘And the man census, too.’
‘How’s that? Who’s in trouble now?’
‘Oh, Bettles and Lon McFane had an argument, and they’ll be down by the waterhole in a few minutes to settle it.’
The incident was repeated for his benefit, and Malemute Kid, accustomed to an obedience which his fellow men never failed to render, took charge of the affair. His quickly formulated plan was explained, and they promised to follow his lead implicitly.
‘So you see,’ he concluded, ‘we do not actually take away their privilege of fighting; and yet I don’t believe they’ll fight when they see the beauty of the scheme. Life’s a game and men the gamblers. They’ll stake their whole pile on the one chance in a thousand. Take away that one chance, and-they won’t play.’
He turned to the man in charge of the Post. ‘Storekeeper, weight out three fathoms of your best half-inch manila.
‘We’ll establish a precedent which will last the men of Forty-Mile to the end of time,’ he prophesied. Then he coiled the rope about his arm and led his followers out of doors, just in time to meet the principals.
‘What danged right’d he to fetch my wife in?’ thundered Bettles to the soothing overtures of a friend. ”Twa’n’t called for,’ he concluded decisively. ”Twa’n’t called for,’ he reiterated again and again, pacing up and down and waiting for Lon McFane.
And Lon McFane-his face was hot and tongue rapid as he flaunted insurrection in the face of the Church. ‘Then, father,’ he cried, ‘it’s with an aisy heart I’ll roll in me flamy blankets, the broad of me back on a bed of coals. Niver shall it be said that Lon McFane took a lie ‘twixt the teeth without iver liftin’ a hand! An’ I’ll not ask a blessin’. The years have been wild, but it’s the heart was in the right place.’
‘But it’s not the heart, Lon,’ interposed Father Roubeau; ‘It’s pride that bids you forth to slay your fellow man.’
‘Yer Frinch,’ Lon replied. And then, turning to leave him, ‘An’ will ye say a mass if the luck is against me?’
But the priest smiled, thrust his moccasined feet to the fore, and went out upon the white breast of the silent river. A packed trail, the width of a sixteen-inch sled, led out to the waterhole. On either side lay the deep, soft snow. The men trod in single file, without conversation; and the black-stoled priest in their midst gave to the function the solemn aspect of a funeral. It was a warm winter’s day for Forty-Mile- a day in which the sky, filled with heaviness, drew closer to the earth, and the mercury sought the unwonted level of twenty below. But there was no cheer in the warmth. There was little air in the upper strata, and the clouds hung motionless, giving sullen promise of an early snowfall. And the earth, unresponsive, made no preparation, content in its hibernation.
When the waterhole was reached, Bettles, having evidently reviewed the quarrel during the silent walk, burst out in a final ”Twa’n’t called for,’ while Lon McFane kept grim silence. Indignation so choked him that he could not speak.
Yet deep down, whenever their own wrongs were not uppermost, both men wondered at their comrades. They had expected opposition, and this tacit acquiescence hurt them. It seemed more was due them from the men they had been so close with, and they felt a vague sense of wrong, rebelling at the thought of so many of their brothers coming out, as on a gala occasion, without one word of protest, to see them shoot each other down. It appeared their worth had diminished in the eyes of the community. The proceedings puzzled them.
‘Back to back, David. An’ will it be fifty paces to the man, or double the quantity?’
‘Fifty,’ was the sanguinary reply, grunted out, yet sharply cut.
But the new manila, not prominently displayed, but casually coiled about Malemute Kid’s arm, caught the quick eye of the Irishman, and thrilled him with a suspicious fear.
‘An’ what are ye doin’ with the rope?’
‘Hurry up!’ Malemute Kid glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve a batch of bread in the cabin, and I don’t want it to fall. Besides, my feet are getting cold.’
The rest of the men manifested their impatience in various suggestive ways.
‘But the rope, Kid’ It’s bran’ new, an’ sure yer bread’s not that heavy it needs raisin’ with the like of that?’
Bettles by this time had faced around. Father Roubeau, the humor of the situation just dawning on him, hid a smile behind his mittened hand.
‘No, Lon; this rope was made for a man.’ Malemute Kid could be very impressive on occasion.
‘What man?’ Bettles was becoming aware of a personal interest.
‘The other man.’
‘An’ which is the one ye’d mane by that?’
‘Listen, Lon-and you, too, Bettles! We’ve been talking this little trouble of yours over, and we’ve come to one conclusion. We know we have no right to stop your fighting-‘
‘True for ye, me lad!’
‘And we’re not going to. But this much we can do, and shall do-make this the only duel in the history of Forty-Mile, set an example for every che-cha-qua that comes up or down the Yukon. The man who escapes killing shall be hanged to the nearest tree. Now, go ahead!’
Lon smiled dubiously, then his face lighted up. ‘Pace her off, David-fifty paces, wheel, an’ niver a cease firin’ till a lad’s down for good. ‘Tis their hearts’ll niver let them do the deed, an’ it’s well ye should know it for a true Yankee bluff.’
He started off with a pleased grin on his face, but Malemute Kid halted him.
‘Lon! It’s a long while since you first knew me?’
‘Many’s the day.’
‘And you, Bettles?’
‘Five year next June high water.’
‘And have you once, in all that time, known me to break my word’ Or heard of me breaking it?’
Both men shook their heads, striving to fathom what lay beyond.
‘Well, then, what do you think of a promise made by me?’
‘As good as your bond,’ from Bettles.
‘The thing to safely sling yer hopes of heaven by,’ promptly endorsed Lon McFane.
‘Listen! I, Malemute Kid, give you my word-and you know what that means-that the man who is not shot stretches rope within ten minutes after the shooting.’ He stepped back as Pilate might have done after washing his hands.
A pause and a silence came over the men of Forty-Mile. The sky drew still closer, sending down a crystal flight of frost-little geometric designs, perfect, evanescent as a breath, yet destined to exist till the returning sun had covered half its northern journey. Both men had led forlorn hopes in their time-led with a curse or a jest on their tongues, and in their souls an unswerving faith in the God of Chance. But that merciful deity had been shut out from the present deal. They studied the face of Malemute Kid, but they studied as one might the Sphinx. As the quiet minutes passed, a feeling that speech was incumbent on them began to grow. At last the howl of a wolf-dog cracked the silence from the direction of Forty-Mile. The weird sound swelled with all the pathos of a breaking heart, then died away in a long-drawn sob.