I’ll blow your head off!”
“Vast heavin’!” Cardegee roared, as the rope tightened.
Kent eased away a moment, and the sailor, wriggling his neck as
though from the pressure, managed to loosen the noose a bit and
work it up so the point of contact was just under the chin.
“Well?” Kent questioned, expecting the disclosure.
But Cardegee grinned. “Go ahead with your ‘angin’, you bloomin’
old pot-wolloper!”
Then, as the sailor had anticipated, the tragedy became a farce.
Cardegee being the heavier of the two, Kent, throwing his body
backward and down, could not lift him clear of the ground. Strain
and strive to the uttermost, the sailor’s feet still stuck to the
floor and sustained a part of his weight. The remaining portion
was supported by the point of contact just under his chin.
Failing to swing him clear, Kent clung on, resolved to slowly
throttle him or force him to tell what he had done with the hoard.
But the Man with the Gash would not throttle. Five, ten, fifteen
minutes passed, and at the end of that time, in despair, Kent let
his prisoner down.
“Well,” he remarked, wiping away the sweat, “if you won’t hang
you’ll shoot. Some men wasn’t born to be hanged, anyway.”
“An’ it’s a pretty mess as you’ll make o’ this ‘ere cabin floor.”
Cardegee was fighting for time. “Now, look ‘ere, I’ll tell you
wot we do; we’ll lay our ‘eads ‘longside an’ reason together.
You’ve lost some dust. You say as ‘ow I know, an’ I say as ‘ow I
Tales of the Klondyke
51
don’t. Let’s get a hobservation an’ shape a course–”
“Vast heavin’!” Kent dashed in, maliciously imitating the other’s
enunciation. “I’m going to shape all the courses of this shebang,
and you observe; and if you do anything more, I’ll bore you as
sure as Moses!”
“For the sake of my mother–”
“Whom God have mercy upon if she loves you. Ah! Would you?” He
frustrated a hostile move on the part of the other by pressing the
cold muzzle against his forehead. “Lay quiet, now! If you lift
as much as a hair, you’ll get it.”
It was rather an awkward task, with the trigger of the gun always
within pulling distance of the finger; but Kent was a weaver, and
in a few minutes had the sailor tied hand and foot. Then he
dragged him without and laid him by the side of the cabin, where
he could overlook the river and watch the sun climb to the
meridian.
“Now I’ll give you till noon, and then–”
“Wot?”
“You’ll be hitting the brimstone trail. But if you speak up, I’ll
keep you till the next bunch of mounted police come by.”
“Well, Gawd blime me, if this ain’t a go! ‘Ere I be, innercent as
a lamb, an’ ‘ere you be, lost all o’ your top ‘amper an’ out o’
your reckonin’, run me foul an’ goin’ to rake me into ‘ell-fire.
You bloomin’ old pirut! You–”
Jim Cardegee loosed the strings of his profanity and fairly outdid
himself. Jacob Kent brought out a stool that he might enjoy it in
comfort. Having exhausted all the possible combinations of his
vocabulary, the sailor quieted down to hard thinking, his eyes
constantly gauging the progress of the sun, which tore up the
eastern slope of the heavens with unseemly haste. His dogs,
surprised that they had not long since been put to harness,
crowded around him. His helplessness appealed to the brutes.
They felt that something was wrong, though they knew not what, and
they crowded about, howling their mournful sympathy.
“Chook! Mush-on! you Siwashes!” he cried, attempting, in a
vermicular way, to kick at them, and discovering himself to be
tottering on the edge of a declivity. As soon as the animals had
scattered, he devoted himself to the significance of that
declivity which he felt to be there but could not see. Nor was he
long in arriving at a correct conclusion. In the nature of
things, he figured, man is lazy. He does no more than he has to.
When he builds a cabin he must put dirt on the roof. From these
premises it was logical that he should carry that dirt no further
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52
than was absolutely necessary. Therefore, he lay upon the edge of
the hole from which the dirt had been taken to roof Jacob Kent’s
cabin. This knowledge, properly utilized, might prolong things,
he thought; and he then turned his attention to the moose-hide
thongs which bound him. His hands were tied behind him, and
pressing against the snow, they were wet with the contact. This
moistening of the raw-hide he knew would tend to make it stretch,
and, without apparent effort, he endeavored to stretch it more and
more.
He watched the trail hungrily, and when in the direction of Sixty
Mile a dark speck appeared for a moment against the white
background of an ice-jam, he cast an anxious eye at the sun. It
had climbed nearly to the zenith. Now and again he caught the
black speck clearing the hills of ice and sinking into the
intervening hollows; but he dared not permit himself more than the
most cursory glances for fear of rousing his enemy’s suspicion.
Once, when Jacob Kent rose to his feet and searched the trail with
care, Cardegee was frightened, but the dog-sled had struck a piece
of trail running parallel with a jam, and remained out of sight
till the danger was past.
“I’ll see you ‘ung for this,” Cardegee threatened, attempting to
draw the other’s attention. “An’ you’ll rot in ‘ell, jes’ you see
if you don’t.
“I say,” he cried, after another pause; “d’ye b’lieve in ghosts?”
Kent’s sudden start made him sure of his ground, and he went on:
“Now a ghost ‘as the right to ‘aunt a man wot don’t do wot he
says; and you can’t shuffle me off till eight bells–wot I mean is
twelve o’clock–can you? ‘Cos if you do, it’ll ‘appen as ‘ow I’ll
‘aunt you. D’ye ‘ear? A minute, a second too quick, an’ I’ll
‘aunt you, so ‘elp me, I will!”
Jacob Kent looked dubious, but declined to talk.
“‘Ow’s your chronometer? Wot’s your longitude? ‘Ow do you know
as your time’s correct?” Cardegee persisted, vainly hoping to beat
his executioner out of a few minutes. “Is it Barrack’s time you
‘ave, or is it the Company time? ‘Cos if you do it before the
stroke o’ the bell, I’ll not rest. I give you fair warnin’. I’ll
come back. An’ if you ‘aven’t the time, ‘ow will you know?
That’s wot I want–‘ow will you tell?”
“I’ll send you off all right,” Kent replied. “Got a sun-dial
here.”
“No good. Thirty-two degrees variation o’ the needle.”
“Stakes are all set.”
“‘Ow did you set ’em? Compass?”
Tales of the Klondyke
53
“No; lined them up with the North Star.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
Cardegee groaned, then stole a glance at the trail. The sled was
just clearing a rise, barely a mile away, and the dogs were in
full lope, running lightly.
“‘Ow close is the shadows to the line?”
Kent walked to the primitive timepiece and studied it. “Three
inches,” he announced, after a careful survey.
“Say, jes’ sing out ‘eight bells’ afore you pull the gun, will
you?”
Kent agreed, and they lapsed into silence. The thongs about
Cardegee’s wrists were slowly stretching, and he had begun to work
them over his hands.
“Say, ‘ow close is the shadows?”
“One inch.”
The sailor wriggled slightly to assure himself that he would
topple over at the right moment, and slipped the first turn over
his hands.
“‘Ow close?”
“Half an inch.” Just then Kent heard the jarring churn of the
runners and turned his eyes to the trail. The driver was lying
flat on the sled and the dogs swinging down the straight stretch
to the cabin. Kent whirled back, bringing his rifle to shoulder.
“It ain’t eight bells yet!” Cardegee expostulated. “I’ll ‘aunt
you, sure!”
Jacob Kent faltered. He was standing by the sun-dial, perhaps ten
paces from his victim. The man on the sled must have seen that
something unusual was taking place, for he had risen to his knees,
his whip singing viciously among the dogs.
The shadows swept into line. Kent looked along the sights.
“Make ready!” he commanded solemnly. “Eight b- ”
But just a fraction of a second too soon, Cardegee rolled backward
into the hole. Kent held his fire and ran to the edge. Bang!
The gun exploded full in the sailor’s face as he rose to his feet.
But no smoke came from the muzzle; instead, a sheet of flame burst
Tales of the Klondyke
54
from the side of the barrel near its butt, and Jacob Kent went
down. The dogs dashed up the bank, dragging the sled over his
body, and the driver sprang off as Jim Cardegee freed his hands