|THREE-ACE ARTIE, sprawled comfortably cally at the book he held in his
hand, a copy of Hugo's _Claude Gueux_ in French, tossed it to the foot
of the bunk, and sat up, dangling his legs over the edge.
A mood that had long been a stranger to him, a mellow mood, as he had
defined it to himself, had kept him away from MacDonald's that night. It
was the glow of self-benediction, as it were, ever since he had left the
boy's room that afternoon, though it had puzzled him to some extent
to explain its effect upon himself--that, for instance, the corollary
should take the form of a quiet evening, a pipe, and Hugo.
He shrugged his shoulders. It had been so nevertheless. His shoulders
lifted again--it was decidedly an incongruous proceeding for one known
as Three-Ace Artie!
His thoughts reverted to the Kid. No one had come to the shack since he
had returned from the hotel, but he knew the Kid had left the camp, for
he had watched from the shack window as Bixley and the boy had passed
down the street together. The Kid would not play the fool again for a
while, that was certain--whatever he did eventually.
Three-Ace Artie stared introspectively at the lamp, out at full length
upon his bunk, yawned, and looked at his watch. It was already after
midnight. He glanced a little quizzically.
Kid, of course! He had been conscious of an inward flame for a
moment--then for the third time shrugged his shoulders.
“I guess I'll turn in,” he muttered.
He bent down to untie a shoe lace--and straightened up quickly again. A
footstep sounded from without, there was a knock upon the door, the door
opened--and with the inrush of air the lamp flared up. Three-Ace Artie
reached out swiftly to the top of the chimney, protecting the flame with
the flat of his hand, and, as the door closed again, stared with cool
surprise at his visitor. The last time he had seen Sergeant Marden,
of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, had been the year before at
Two-Strike-Mountain, where each had followed a gold rush--for quite
different reasons!
“Hello, sergeant!” he drawled. “I didn't know you were in camp.”
“Just got in around supper-time,” replied the other. “I've been up on
the Creek for the last few weeks.”
Three-Ace Artie smiled facetiously.
“Any luck?” he inquired.
“I got my man,” said the sergeant quietly.
“Of course!” murmured Three-Ace Artie softly. “You've got a reputation
for doing that, sergeant.” He laughed pleasantly. “But you haven't
dropped in on _me_ officially, have you?”
Sergeant Marden, big, thick-set, with a strong, kindly face, with gray
eyes that lighted now in a gravely humorous way shook his head.
“No,” he answered. “I'm playing the 'old friend' rôle to-night.”
“Good!” exclaimed Three-Ace Artie heartily. “Peel off your duds then,
and--will you have the bunk, or the chair? Take your choice--only make
yourself at home.” He stepped over to the cupboard, and, while the
sergeant pulled off his cap and mitts, and unbuttoned and threw back his
overcoat, Three-Ace Artie procured a bottle of whisky and two glasses,
which he set upon the table. “Help yourself, sergeant,” he invited
cordially.
The sergeant shook his head again, as he drew the chair toward him and
sat down.
“I don't think I'll take anything to-night,” he said.
“No?”--Three-Ace Artie's voice expressed the polite regret of a perfect
host. “Well, fill your pipe then,” he suggested hospitably, as he
seated himself on the edge of the bunk. He began to fill his own pipe
deliberately, apparently wholly preoccupied for the moment with that
homely operation--but his mind was leaping in lightning flashes back
over the range of the four years that he had spent in the Yukon. What
_exactly_ did Sergeant Marden of the Royal North-West Mounted want with
him to-night? He had known the other for a good while, it was true--but
not in a fashion to warrant the sergeant in making a haphazard social
call at midnight after what must have been a long, hard day on the
trail.
A match, drawn with a long sweep under the table, crackled; Sergeant
Marden lighted his pipe, and flipped the match-stub stovewards.
“It looks as though Canuck John wouldn't pull through the night,” he
said gravely.
“Canuck John!” Three-Ace Artie sat up with a jerk, and glanced sharply
at the other. “What's that you say?”
Sergeant Marden removed his pipe slowly from his lips.
“Why, you know, don't you?” he asked in surprise.
“No, I don't know!” returned Three-Ace Artie quickly. “I haven't been
out of this shack since late this afternoon; but I saw him this morning,
and he was all right then. What's happened?”
“He shot himself just after supper--accident, of course--old story,
cleaning a gun,” said the sergeant tersely.
“Good God!” cried Three-Ace Artie, in a low, shocked way--and then he
was on his feet, and reaching for his cap and coat. “I'll go up there
and see him. You don't mind, sergeant, if I leave you here? I guess I
knew Canuck John better than any one else in camp did, and--” His coat
half on, he paused suddenly, his brows gathering in a frown. “After
supper, you said!” he muttered slowly. “Why, that's hours ago!” Then,
his voice rasping: “It's damned queer no one came to tell me about this!
There's something wrong here!” He struggled into his coat.
“He's been unconscious ever since they found him,” said Sergeant Marden,
his eyes fixed on the bowl of his pipe as he prodded the dottle down
with his forefinger. “The doctor's just come. You couldn't do any good
by going up there, and”--his eyes lifted and met Three-Ace Artie's
meaningly--“take it all around, I guess it would be just as well if you
didn't go. Murdock Shaw and some of the boys are there, and--well, they
seem to feel they don't want you.”
For a moment Three-Ace Artie stood motionless, regarding the other in a
half angry, half puzzled way; then, his weight on both hands, he leaned
forward over the table toward Sergeant Marden.
“In plain English, and in as few words as you can put it, what in hell
do you mean by that?” he demanded levelly.
“All right, if you want it that way, I'll tell you,” said Sergeant
Marden quietly. “I guess perhaps the short cut's best. They've given you
until to-morrow morning to get out of Ton-Nugget Camp.”
“I beg your pardon?” inquired Three-Ace Artie with ominous politeness.
Sergeant Marden produced a poke partially filled with gold dust and laid
it on the table.
“What's that?”--Three-Ace Artie's eyes were hard.
“It's the price you paid Sam MacBride for this shack and contents when
he went away. The boys say they want to play fair.”
And then Three-Ace Artie laughed--not pleasantly. Methodically he
removed his overcoat, hung it on its peg, and sat down again on the edge
of the bunk.
“Let's see the rest of your hand, sergeant”--his voice was deadly quiet.
“I don't quite get the idea.”
“I wasn't here myself this afternoon,” said Sergeant Marden; “but they
seem to feel that the sort of thing that happened kind of gives the
community a bad name, and that separating a youngster, when he's drunk,
from his last dollar is a bit too raw even for Ton-Nugget Camp. That's
about the size of the way it was put up to me.”
It seemed to Three-Act Artie that in some way he had not quite heard
aright; or that, if he had, he was being made the object of some,
unknown to its authors, stupendously ironical joke--and then, as
he glanced at the officer's grim, though not altogether unfriendly
countenance, and from Sergeant Marden to the bag of gold upon the table,
a bitter, furious anger surged upon him. His clenched fist reached out
and fell smashing upon the table.
“So that's it, is it!” he said between his teeth. “This is some of
Murdock Shaw's work--the snivelling, psalm-singing hypocrite! Well, he
can't get away with it! I've a few friends in camp myself.”
“Fairweather friends, I should say,” qualified the sergeant, busy again
with his pipe bowl. “You said yourself that no one had been near the
shack here. The camp appears to be pretty well of one mind on the
subject.”
“Including the half dozen or more who started after the Kid to begin
with!”--Three-Ace Artie's laugh was savage, full of menace. “Are they
helping to run me out of camp, too!”
“You seem to have got a little of _everybody's_ money,” suggested
Sergeant Marden pointedly. “Anyway, I haven't seen any sign of them
putting up a fight for you.”
“Quite so!” There was a sudden cold self-possession in Three-Ace Artie's
tones. “Well, I can put up quite a fight for myself, thank you. I'm not
going! It's too bad Shaw didn't have the nerve to come here and tell me
this. I----”
“I wouldn't let him,” interposed the sergeant, with a curious smile.
“That's why I came myself.”
Three-Ace Artie studied the other's face for an instant.
“Well, go on!” he jerked out. “What's the answer to that?”
“That I am going on to Dawson in the morning, and that I thought perhaps
you might be willing to come along.”
Three-Ace Artie's under jaw crept out the fraction of an inch, and his
eyes narrowed.
“I thought you said you weren't here officially!”
“I'm not--at least, not yet.”
“Well, it sounds mighty like an arrest to me!” snarled Three-Ace Artie.
He stood up abruptly, and once more leaned over the table. His dark eyes
flashed. “But that doesn't go either--not in the Yukon! You can't hold
me for anything I've done, and you ought to know better than to think
you can do any bluffing with me and get away with it! Murdock Shaw is.
evidently running this little game. I gave him a chance to call my hand
this afternoon--and he lay down like a whipped pup! That chance is still
open to him--but he can't do it by proxy! That's exactly where you and I
stand, Marden--don't try the arrest game!”
“I'm not going to--at least, not yet,” said the sergeant again. “It's
not a question of law. The day may come when the lid goes on out here,
but so far the local millennium hasn't dawned. There's no dispute there.
I told you I came in here on the 'old friend' basis, and I meant it.
I've known you off and on a bit for quite a while; and I always liked
you for the reputation you had of playing square. There's no talk of
crookedness now, though I must confess you've pulled something a little
thinner than I thought it was in you to do. However, let that go. I
don't want to butt in on this unless I have to--and that's why I'm
trying to get you to come away with me in the morning. If you don't,
there'll be trouble, and then I'll have to take a hand whether I want to
or not.”
“By God!”--the oath came fiercely, involuntarily from Three-Ace Artie's
lips. The irony of it all was upon him again. The injustice of it galled
and maddened him. And yet--tell them the truth of the matter? He would
have seen every last one of them consigned to the bottomless pit first!
The turbulent soul of the man was aflame. “Run out of camp, eh!”---it
was a devil's laugh that echoed around the shack. “That means being run
out of the Yukon! I'd have to get out, wouldn't I--out of the Yukon--ha,
ha!--my name would smell everywhere to high heaven!”
“I'm not sure but that's exactly what I would do if I were you,” said
Sergeant Marden simply. “The fact you've got to face is that you're
black-balled--and the easiest way to swallow a nasty dose is to swallow
it in a gulp, isn't it?” He got up from his chair and laid his hand
on Three-Ace Artie's shoulder. “Look here, Leroy,” he said earnestly,
“you've got a cool enough head on you not to play the fool, and you're
a big enough sport to stand for the cards whatever way they turn. I want
you to say that you'll come along with me in the morning--I'll get out
of here early before any one is about, or I'll go now if you like, if
that will help any. It's the sensible thing to do. Well?”
“I don't know, Marden--I don't know!” Three-Ace Artie flung out shortly.
“Yes, you do,” insisted the sergeant quietly. “You know a fight wouldn't
get you anywhere--if you got one or two of them, Murdock Shaw for
instance, you'd simply be hung for your pains. They mean business, and
I don't want any trouble--why make any for me when it can't do you any
good? I'm putting it to you in a friendly way; and, besides that, it's
common sense, isn't it?” His grip tightened in a kindly pressure on
Three-Ace Artie's shoulder. “I'm right, ain't I? What do you say?”
“Oh, you're right enough!”--a hard smile twisted Three-Ace Artie's lips.
“There's no argument about that. I'd have to go anyway, I know that--but
I'm not keen on going without giving them a run for their money that
they'd remember for the rest of their lives!”
“And at the same time put a crimp into your own,” said Sergeant Marden
soberly. He held out his hand. “You'll come, won't you?”
Twice Three-Ace Artie paced the length of the shack. Logically, as he
had admitted, Marden was right; but battling against logic was a sullen
fury that prompted him to throw consequences to the winds, and, with
his back to the wall, invite Ton-Nugget Camp to a showdown. And then,
abruptly, the gambler's instinct to throw down a beaten hand, when bluff
would be of no avail and holding it would only increase his loss, turned
the scales, and he halted before Sergeant Marden.
“I'll go,” he said tersely.
There was genuine relief in the officer's face.
“And I'll stick to my end of the bargain!” the sergeant exclaimed
heartily. “When do you want to start?”
“It makes damned little odds to me!” Three-Ace Artie answered gruffly.
“Suit yourself.”
“All right,” said the sergeant. “In that case I'll put in a few hours'
sleep, and we'll get away before the camp is stirring.” He buttoned up
his overcoat, put on his cap, and moved toward the door. “I've got a
team of huskies, and there's room on the sled for anything you want to
bring along. You can get it ready, and I'll call for you here.”
Three-Ace Artie nodded curtly.
Sergeant Marden reached out to open the door, and, with his hand on the
latch, hesitated.
“Don't go up there, Leroy,” he said earnestly, jerking his head in the
direction of the upper end of the camp. “Canuck John is unconscious, as
I told you--there's nothing you could do.”
But Three-Ace Artie had turned his back. To Canuck John and Sergeant
Marden he was equally oblivious for the moment. He heard the door close,
heard the sergeant's footsteps outside recede and die away. He was
staring now at the bag of gold upon the table. It seemed to mock and
jeer at him, and suddenly his hands at his sides curled into clenched
and knotted fists--and after a moment he spoke aloud in French.
“It was the first decent thing I ever did in my life”--he was smiling in
a sort of horrible mirth. “Do you appreciate that, my very dear friend
Raymond? It is exquisite! _Sacré nom de Dieu_, it is magnificent! It was
the first decent thing you ever did in your life--think of that, _mon
brave!_ And see how well you are paid for it! They are running you out
of camp!”
He turned and flung himself down on the bunk, his hands still fiercely
clenched. Black-balled, Sergeant Marden had called it! Well, it was not
the first time he had been black-balled! Here, in the Yukon, the name
of Three-Ace Artie was to be a stench to the nostrils; elsewhere, in the
city of his birth, he, last of his race, had already dragged an honoured
and patrician name in the mire.
A red flame of anger swept his cheeks. What devil's juggling with the
cards had brought that young fool across his path, and brought the
memories of the days gone by, and brought him an indulgence in weak,
mawkish sentimentality! A debt, he had told the boy!
The red flamed into his face again--and yet again. Curse the memories!
Once aroused they would not down. Even the old schooldays crowded
themselves upon him--and at that he jeered out at himself in bitter
raillery. Brilliant, clever in those days, outstripping many beyond his
years, as glib with his Latin as with his own French tongue, his father
had designed him for the Roman Catholic priesthood, and he, Raymond
Chapelle, the son of the rich seigneur, of one of the oldest families in
French Canada, instead of becoming a priest of God had become--Three-Ace
Artie, the pariah of Ton-Nugget Camp!
Would it not make all hell scream with glee! It brought unholy humour
to himself. He--a priest of God! But he had not journeyed very far along
that road--even before he had finished school he had had a fling or two!
It had been easy enough. There was no mother, and he did not know his
father very well. There had been great style and ceremony in that huge,
old, lumbering, gray-stone mansion in Montreal--but never a home! His
father had seemed concerned about him in one respect only--a sort of
austere pride in his accomplishments at school. Produce proof of that,
and money was unstinted. It had come very easily, that money--and gone
riotously even as a boy. Then he had entered college, and half way
through his course his father had died. He had travelled fast after
that--so fast that only a blur of wreckage loomed up out of those
few years. A passion for gambling, excess without restraint, a _roué_
life--and his patrimony, large as it was, was gone. Family after family
turned their backs upon him, and his clubs shut their doors in his face!
And then the Yukon--another identity--and as much excitement as he could
snatch out of his new life!
There was a snarl now on his lips. It had been a furious pace back
there in Montreal, but whose business was it save his own! He was not
whimpering about it. He could swallow his own medicine without asking
anybody else to make a wry face over it for him! Regrets? What should
he regret--save that he had lost the money that would enable him to
maintain the old pace! Regrets! He would not even be thinking of it now
if that young fool had not crossed his path, and he, the bigger fool of
the two, had not tried to play the game of the blind leading the blind!
Repay a debt! Fie had not even displayed originality--only a sort of
absurd mimicry of the boy's father! He was taunting himself now, mocking
at himself mercilessly. What good had it done! How much different would
it be with young Rogers than it had been with himself when Rogers'
father, an old and intimate friend of his own father's, had taken him
home one night just before the final crash, and had talked till dawn in
kindly earnestness, pleading with him to change his ways before it was
too late! True, it had had its effect. The effect had lasted two days!
But somehow, for all that, he had never been able to forget the old
gentleman's face, and the gray hairs, and the soft, gentle voice,
and the dull glow of the fire in the grate that constantly found a
reflection in the moist eyes fixed so anxiously upon him.
What imp of perversity had inspired him to consider that a debt, and
prompt him to repay it to the son! Why had he not left well enough
alone! What infernal trick of memory had caused him to recognise the boy
at the moment of their first meeting! He had known the other in the old
days only in the casual way that one of twenty-two would know a boy of
fifteen still in short trousers!
He started up from the bunk impulsively, walked to the stove, wrenched
the door open, flung in another stick of wood savagely, and began to
pace the shack with the sullen fury of a caged beast. The passion within
the man was rising to white heat. Run out of Ton-Nugget Camp! The
story would spread. A nasty story! It meant that he was run out of the
Yukon--his four years here, and not unprofitable years, at an end! It
was a life he had grown to like because it was untrammelled; a life
in which, at least in intervals, when the surplus cash was in hand, he
could live in Dawson for a brief space at a dizzier pace than ever!
He was Three-Ace Artie here--or Arthur Leroy--it did not matter
which--one took one's choice! And now--what was he to be next--and
where!
Tell them what he had done, crawl to them, beg them to let him
stay--never! If he answered them at all, it would be in quite a
different way, and--his eyes fixed again upon the bag of gold that
Sergeant Marden had left on the table. A bone flung to a cur as he was
kicked from the door! The finger nails bit into the palms of Three-Ace
Artie's hands.
“Damn you!” he gritted, white-lipped. “Damn every one of you!”
And this was his reward for the only decent thing that he could remember
ever having done in his life--the thought with all its jibing mockery
was back once more. It added fuel to his fury. It was he, not the Kid,
who had had his lesson! And it was a lesson he would profit by! If it
was the only decent thing he had ever done--it would be the last! They
had intended him for a priest of God in the old days! He threw back his
head and laughed until the room reverberated with his hollow mirth. He
had come too damnably near to acting the part that afternoon, it seemed!
A priest of God! Blasphemy, unbridled, unlicensed, filled his soul. He
snatched up the bottle of whisky, and poured a glass full to the brim.
“A toast!” he cried. “On your feet, Raymond! Up, Monsieur Leroy! Artie,
Three-Ace Artie--a toast! Drink deep, _mes braves!_” He lifted the glass
above his head. “To our liege lord henceforth, praying pardon for our
lapse from grace! To his Satanic Majesty--and hell!” He drained the
glass to its dregs, and bowed satirically. “I can not do honour to the
toast, sire, by snapping the goblet stem.” He held up the glass again.
“It is only a jelly tumbler, and so--” It struck with a crash against
the wall of the shack, as he hurled it from him, and smashed to
splinters.
For a moment, clawing at his throat as the raw spirit burned him,
staring at the broken glass upon the floor, he stood there; then, with a
short laugh, he pushed both table and chair closer to the stove and sat
down--and it was as though it were some strange vigil that he had set
himself to keep. Occasionally he laughed, occasionally he filled the
other glass and drank in gulps, occasionally he thought of Canuck
John, who spoke English very poorly and whose eager snatching at the
opportunity to speak French had brought about a certain intimacy between
them, and, thinking of Canuck John, there came a sort of wondering frown
as at the intrusion of some utterly extraneous thing, occasionally as
his eyes encountered the bag of gold there came a glitter into their
depths and his lips parted, hard drawn, over set teeth; but for the most
part he sat with a fixed, grim smile, his hands opening and shutting on
his knees, staring straight before him.
Once he got up, and, making the circuit of the shack, collected his
personal belongings and packed them into his kit bag--and from under a
loose plank in the corner of the room took out a half dozen large and
well-filled pokes, tucked them carefully away beneath the clothing in
the bag, strapped up the bag, replaced the loosened plank, and returned
to his chair.
Sullen, bitter, desperate, soul reckless with the knowledge that all
men's hands were against him, as his were against them, he sat there.
The hours passed unreckoned and unnoticed. There was no dawn to come,
for there was no sun to rise; but it grew a little lighter. A stillness
as of the dead hung over Ton-Nugget Camp; and then out of the stillness
a dog barked--and became a yapping chorus as others joined in.
He reached out mechanically for the bottle--it was empty. He stared at
it for a moment in bewildered surprise. It had been full, untouched
when he had placed it on the table. He stood up--steadily, firmly. He
stretched out his hand in front of him, and studied it critically--there
was not a tremor. His hand dropped to his side. One could absorb a good
deal of liquor under mental stress without resultant physical effect! He
was not drunk. Only his nerves were raw and on edge. That bag of gold
on the table! His eyes narrowed again upon it for the hundredth time.
It flaunted itself in his face. It had become symbolic of the unanimous
contempt with which Ton-Nugget Camp bade him be gone! Damn their cursed
insolence! It was an entirely inadequate reply to go away and simply
leave it lying there on the table--and yet what else was there to do?
The dogs were barking again. That would be Marden harnessing up his
huskies. The sergeant would be along now in another minute or two.
He turned from the table, picked up his overcoat, put it on, and
buttoned it to the throat. He put on his cap, jerked his kit bag up from
the floor, slung one strap over his shoulder, moved toward the door--and
paused to gaze back around the room. The lamp burned on the table, the
empty whisky bottle, the glass, the bag of gold beside it; in the
stove a knot crackled with a report like a pistol shot. Slowly his
eyes travelled around over the familiar surroundings, his home of four
months; and slowly the colour mounted in his cheeks--and suddenly, his
eyes aflame, a low, tigerish cry on his lips, he flung the kit bag from
his shoulder to the ground.
They would tell the story through the Yukon of how he had fleeced and
robbed a drunken boy of his last cent on earth--but they would never
tell the story of how he had slunk away in the darkness like a whipped
and mangy cur! He feared neither God nor devil, norman, nor beast! That
had been his lifelong boast, his creed. He feared them now no more than
he had ever feared them! He listened. There was a footstep without, but
that was Marden's. Not one of all the camp afoot to risk contamination
by bidding him goodbye! Well, it was not good-bye yet! Ton-Nugget Camp
would remember, his adieu! Passion was rocking the man to the soul, the
sense of bitter injury, smarting like a gaping wound, was maddening him
beyond all self-control. He tore loose the top button of his coat--and
turned sharply to face the door. Here was Marden now. He wanted no
quarrel with Mar-den, but----
The door opened. He felt himself mechanically push his cap back on his
forehead, felt a sort of unholy joy sweep in a wild, ungovernable surge
upon him, felt every muscle of his body stiffen and grow rigid in a
fierce and savage elation, and he heard a sound that he meant for a
laugh chortle from his lips. It was not Marden standing there--it was
Murdock Shaw.
And then he spoke.
“Come in, and shut the door, Murdock,” he said in a velvet voice. “I
thought my luck was out tonight.”
“It's not worth while,” the miner answered. “Mar-den's getting ready to
go now, and I only came to bring you a message from Canuck John.”
“I've got one for you that you'll remember longer!”--Three-Ace Artie's
smile was ghastly, as he moved back toward the table in a kind of
inimical guarantee that the floor space should be equally divided
between them. “Come in, Murdock, if you are a man--_and shut that
door_.”
The miner did not move.
“Canuck John is dead,” he said tersely.
“What's that to do with me--or you and me!”--there was a rasp in
Three-Ace Artie's voice now. “It's you who have started me on the little
journey that I'm going to take, you know, and it's only decent to use
the time that's left in bidding me good-bye.”
“I didn't come here to quarrel with you,” Shaw said shortly. “Canuck
John regained consciousness for a moment before he died. He couldn't
talk much--just a few words. We don't any of us know his real name, or
where his home is. From what he said, it seems you do. He said: 'Tell
Three-Ace Artie--give goodbye message--my mother and--' And then he
died.”
Three-Ace Artie's fingers were twisting themselves around the bag of
gold that he had picked up from the table.
“I thought so!” he snarled. “You were yellow this afternoon. I thought
you hadn't the nerve to come here, unless you figured you were safe some
way or another. And so you think you are going to hide behind a dead man
and the sanctimonious pathos of a dying message! Well, I'll see you
both damned first! Do you hear!” White to the lips with the fury that,
gathering all through the night, was breaking now, he started toward the
other, his hand clutching the bag of gold.
Involuntarily the miner stepped back still closer to the door.
“That's not the way out for you!” whispered Three-Ace Artie hoarsely.
“If you take it, I'll drop you in the snow before you're ten yards up
the street! Damn you, we'll play this hand out now for keeps! You've
started something, and we'll finish it. You've rid the camp and rid
Alaska of a tainted smell, have you? You sneaked around behind my back
with your cursed righteousness to give me a push further on the road to
hell! I know your kind--and, by God, I know your breed! Four years ago
on the White Pass you took a man's last dollar for a hunk of bread. He
could pay or starve! You sleek skunk--do you remember? Your conscience
has been troubling you perhaps, and so you went around the camp and
collected this, did you--_this!_” He held up the bag of gold above his
head. “No? You didn't recognise me again? Well, no matter--take it back!
Tell Ton-Nugget Camp I gave it back to you--to keep!” In a flash his arm
swept forward, and, with all his strength behind it, he hurled the bag
at the other's head.
It struck full on the miner's forehead--and dropped with a soft thud on
the floor. The man reeled backward, swayed, and clawed at the wall of
the shack for support--and while he swayed a red spot dyed his forehead,
and a crimson stream ran zigzag down over eye and cheek.
And Three-Ace Artie laughed, and stooped, and picked up his kit bag,
and swung one strap over one shoulder as before--Sergeant Marden,
stern-faced, was standing on the threshold of the open door.
“I guess my luck is out after all. You win, Murdock!” smiled Three-Ace
Artie grimly--and brushed past the sergeant out of the shack.
The dog-team was standing before the door. He dropped his kit bag on
the sled, and strode on down the street. Here and there lights were
beginning to show from the shack windows. Once a face was pressed
against a pane to watch him go by, but no voice spoke to him. It was
silent, and it was dark.
Only the snow was white. And it was cold--cold as death.
Presently Sergeant Marden and the dog-team caught up with him.
“He'll need a stitch or two in his head,” said the sergeant gruffly.
Raymond Chapelle, alias Arthur Leroy, alias Three-Ace Artie, made no
reply. In his soul was anarchy; in his heart a bitter mockery that
picked a quarrel with Almighty God.