"All that was on your bronch is there, Bulldog. I don't rob no man's
cache. And all I got's here," he held up in one hand a slab of bacon,
about four pounds in weight, and in the other a drill bag, in its bottom
a round bulge of flour the size of a cocoa-nut "That's got to get me to
Bailey's Ferry," he added as he dropped them back at the head of his
blankets.
A subconscious presentment of trouble caused Carney, through force of
habit, to caress the place where his gun should have been--the pigskin
pocket was empty.
The other man bared his teeth; it was like the quiver of a wolf's lip.
"Your Gatt must've kicked out back there in the snow; I see it was
gone."
Bulldog knew this was a lie; he knew the cave man had taken his gun.
He ran his eye over his host's physical exhibit--when the time came
he would get his gun back or appropriate the one so in evidence in the
other's belt. He went back to his dunnage, a thought of the buckskin
in his mind; to his joy he found the horse's oats safe in the bag. This
fastened the idea he had that the other had stolen his food, for his
bacon and bannock had been in the same bag, they could hardly have
worked out and the oats remain.
He sat down again, and mentally arranged the situation. He could hear
outside the blizzard still raging; he could see in the opening the
swirling snow that indeed had gradually raised a barrier, a white gate
to their chamber. This kept the intense cold out, a cold that was at
least fifty below zero. The snow would lie in the valleys through which
the trail wound twenty feet deep in places. They had no snowshoes; he
had no food; and Goldbug Dave's store was only sufficient for a week
with two men eating it.
He knew that there was something in Dave's mind; either a bargain, or a
fight for the food. They might be imprisoned for a month; a chinook wind
might come up the next day, or the day following that would melt the
snow with its soft warm kiss like rain washes a street.
Carney was not hungry; the strain had left him fagged--he was hungry
only for rest; and the buckskin, he knew, felt the same desire.
He lay down, and had slept two hours when he was wakened by the sweet
perfume of frying pork.
Casually he noticed that but one slice of bacon lay in the pan. He
watched the cook turn it over and over with the point of his hunting
knife, cooking it slowly, economically, hoarding every drop of its vital
fat. When the bacon was cooked the chef lifted it out on the point of
his knife and stirred some flour into the gravy, adding water, preparing
that well-known delicacy of the trail known as slumgullion.
Dave withdrew the pan and let it rest on the stone floor just beside
the fire; then he looked across af Carney, and, catching the gray of
his opened eyes, worded the foreboding thought that had been in Carney's
mind before he fell asleep.
"I ain't got no call to give you a show-down on this, Bulldog, but I'm
goin' to. When I snaked you in here that didn't cost me nothin'; anyways
you was down and out for the count. Now you've come back it ain't up to
me to throw my chanct away by de-clarin' you in on this grub; I'd be a
damn fool to do it--I'd be just playin' agin myself."
Then he spat in the fire and held the pan over its blaze to warm the
slimy mixture.
Carney remained silent, and his host, as if making out a case for
himself continued: "We may be bottled up here for a week, or a month.
Two men ain't got no chanct on that grub-pile, no chanct."
"Why don't you eat it then?" and Carney sat up. "I could, 'cause it's
mine; but I got a proposition to make--you can take it or leave it."
"Spit it out."
"It's just this"--the fox eyes shifted uneasily to the little buckskin,
and then back to Carney's face--"I'll share this grub if, when it's
gone, you cut in with the bronch."
Carney shivered at this, inwardly; facially he didn't twitch an eye; his
features were as immobile as though he had just filled a royal flush.
The proposition sounded as cold-blooded as if the other man had asked
him to slit the throat of a brother for a cannibalistic orgy.
"It's only ord'nary hawse sense," Dave added when Carney did not speak;
"kept in the snow that meat'd last us a month. Feelin's don't count when
a man's playin' fer his life, and that's what we're doin'."
"I don't dispute the sense of your proposition, my kind friend," Carney
said in a well-mastered voice: "I'm not hungry just now, and I'll think
it over. I've got a sneaking regard for the little buckskin, but, of
course, if I don't get out he'd starve to death anyway."
"Take your time," and the owner of the pan pulled it between his legs,
ate the slice of bacon, and with a tin spoon lapped up the glutinous
mess.
Carney watched this performance, smothering the anger and hunger that
were now battling in him. It was a one-sided argument; the other man
had a gun, and Carney knew that he would use it the minute his store of
provisions were gone--perhaps before that. And Carney was determined
to make the discussion more equitable. Once he could put a hand on the
dictator, the lop-sided argument would true itself up. As to killing the
little buckskin that had saved his life--bah! the very idea of it made
his fingers twitch for a grasp of the other's windpipe.
For a long time Carney sat moodily turning over in his mind something;
and the other man, having lighted his pipe, sat back against the wall of
the cave smoking.