The Popular Magazine/Volume 58/Number 4/The Implacable Friend/Chapter 19

“Hullo, Ak Tuk!” said Waring, shaking the Eskimo in his bed of spruce boughs in the little tent. Without moving, the native opened his eyes.

“Hullough!” he greeted, his round face rounder with a smile of welcome. “You come back?”

“Yes, we're back—both of us. Say, Ak Tuk, how's the thawin'? Him freeze back again?”

“No freeze,” replied the native, sitting up. “Me throw on little more wood every day. Plenty ashes, but no freeze 'em.”

“Great!” said. Bruce. He left the tent, and rejoined Ticely, whose eyes had taken in every detail of the hidden camp. “We can clear her out and go to work, Fred. Ak Tuk's kept her thawed.”

It was broad daylight, and peeling their Mackinaws, they got to work, Waring below, Ticely on the windlass. Bucket after bucket of ashes, charred wood and heating stones were hoisted. In the midst of this grimy work, Ak Tuk called them to a late breakfast, during which they learned from the native what had happened in Midas during their five days' absence.

“Apper you go, next morning,” narrated Ak Tuk, “him men come you cabin. Every man one gun, right hand. You no there. Plenty mad. Go judge house. Chew rag. Miss Joan come out—plenty mad, too! Say you rob. Speak: 'Maybe they go red canoe. Look red canoe!' All go down boat place. Red canoe gone. Plenty men take three, four boat—go!”

“Funny,” was Ticely's comment. He looked askance at Waring, whose head was bent morosely over his plate.

At ten o'clock they got down to the gravel, and when he had sent up the first bucket, Waring-followed it out of the hole. Together they tried a pan of it.

“Darned if it don't look like that El Dorado dust of mine,” said Ticely. He panned it down rapidly to a crescent of black sand and gleaming yellow. “What's in it?”

“A good dollar, I guess, isn't there!”

“Just about,” said Ticely, studying it. “It might help—some!”

“There ought to be a foot or two of this gravel, before we hit bed rock, and it may go much better.”

Ticely flung down the pan. “There's no such luck, old man, though your idea was great—the one thing to help us out of the pickle we're in. But even suppose the bottom dirt does show up big. What then?”

“I've figured it out, Fred. We've been here right along. That's understood already. More than that, I've staked the whole length of the bench, and I've made out deeds to every man you sold interests to. I had the list from Joan. She didn't know what I wanted it for, of course. Wherever you had sold a quarter interest, or an eighth, on a creek claim, I made out a deed to a quarter or an eighth on the bench claim opposite to it. I gave those deeds to Joan to stamp and file away before we left, or rather, before we went into retirement to force the prospecting up here. We'll say we found the prospects last January, and have done nothing since—till the big holler they made forced us to get busy here again. You get me?”

His lips parted, Ticely stared at his junior partner in dumb amazement.

“Some head!” he finally articulated.

“It's lying,” admitted Waring, “but I guess it's in a good cause. You can do the talking!”

“Thanks,” said Ticely, grimacing, “I suppose—I am better at it than you!” They had walked back to the shaft. “Let's hope that there's dirt down there that will make those deeds something better than an ante-mortem joke!” He lowered him to his two hours' job of picking the gravel.

“Shall we test it some more?” yelled Ticely down to him, after a dozen buckets had come up.

“No!” shouted up Bruce. “Let's wait for the bed rock. It's coming pretty quick now. There's a slab of it—feels like—sticking up here in the corner.” And the work went on, with Ticely at the windlass dumping the slimy mass from the bucket and eying it with beating heart. Many times he was tempted to take a panful of it to the pool and learn his fate. But he held stubbornly on to the end of the strangest game of his whole gambler's career.

“Bed rock! A full bucket of it,” came Bruce's voice from the depths of the shaft.

“Got it,” called Ticely, landing the heavy, slab-filled tub. “Sending down the hook for you. Come up and we'll pan it.”

Waring stepped out on the dump just as Ak Tuk came panting toward them.

“Men come back,” announced the Eskimo. “No find red canoe. Plenty mad. Then little skinny white man say: 'Red canoe! Me see Joan Manners put 'em rocks in red canoe four, five days ago.' Then all white men plenty, plenty mad! Go judge house, tie 'em up, throw 'em bed, maybe kill 'em. Joan, too”

Bruce, who had risen with a pan of slimy bed rock in his hands, dropped it spatteringly on the dump.

“You pan it, Fred. I'm going!”

“Me, too,” said Ticely.

“No, you'd only aggravate them. Stay here.” He dived into the tent.

“I'm taking them both,” came out of the tent—and Waring came out swiftly after his words. “Stay up here, Ak Tuk.” Bruce sped to the bottom of the hill in long strides, and swung into the trail at a trot.

A few men, back early after their noon grub, hung about the place waiting for the rest. As Bruce approached them, he did some hard thinking. He had agreed with Ticely upon a “front”—an attitude based on falsehood for the good of all. He must begin right now, and never swerve! If Joan had spoken, all was lost. They might escape the necessity of fighting for their lives, if the bench pay improved, but hatred, contempt, and dishonor would be their portion.

Why had he not stayed for three minutes to pan that bed rock? Then he would have known that much, at least. But no power, he knew, could have held him for a minute, with Joan menaced; and he would have to “front” it out! For the better acting of his part, he strove with all the power of his youthful imagination. to convince himself that the big pay was there. It must be there! It was there! And this mob was persecuting a man and woman on an imaginary grievance!

As he came upon the loiterers, he drew his gun and they recognized him. So unexpected was this encounter with the man they thought miles away in flight that Bruce had the drop on them before they realized it.

“'Lo, Waring,” muttered a few doggedly. Some hands went up.

“What's this I hear,” growled Bruce, as he flung open the door of the judge's office—and closed and locked it instantly!

“Shush?” came from the lips of the bound commissioner, prone on his bed. Waring tiptoed to him.

“Hullo, judge,” he whispered. “Why 'shush?'”

“Bruce! Well, I'll be—shush! Collins is in there with Joan, locked up. I want to hear—if she makes the least outcry, I'll break”

“Collins—with Joan—locked up!”

Words angry, pleading, coaxing, sarcastic—too muffled by the solid partition to be intelligible—came to Waring from the little recorder's office.

“She's a prisoner like myself, only not bound.”

Waring, knife in hand, had already freed Manners' wrists when the voices rose sufficiently for Waring's ear—forest trained—to catch the words: “You loved him?” and Joan's “It's none of your infernal business if I did!”

“She doesn't deny it,” exulted Bruce. Thrusting the other gun into the judge's hand, he crossed quickly to the partition door.

“A dirty swindler like that?” came Collins' rejoinder, and Bruce brought the back of his left fist hard upon the panel.

“Who's there?” called Collins angrily.

“Bruce Waring. Open that door!”

Inside the room, Slim Jim Collins and Joan Manners stood motionless from amazement. The girl was the first to recover and to act. She leaped like light to the door and turned the key before Slim Joan could stop her.

“Bruce!” she cried, as he stepped inside and closed and locked the door again. Slim Jim's hand had gone hipward, but he was too late—he was gazing into a steel-blue muzzle. Waring looked at Joan hungrily. She drew away, her eyes averse, but when he offered her his gun she took it eagerly.

“Just see he don't pull his, Joan.” So perfect was his trust in her—after the one cry that spoke her heart—he was content to rest his safety in her hands.

“Now, Collins, I'll take 'dirty swindler' from no man, least of all from a hound like you!”

With her weapon pointed at him, Joan felt that Collins was at a disadvantage, which Bruce himself had not foreseen. Instantly she leaped between them, narrowly escaping a blow which Bruce had aimed at Collins' jaw.

“Bruce!—Mr. Waring. Not now—not here.”

“But you! Joan, did he offer you one word of”

“No, no! He was horrid, detestable; but he was respectable in his manner—or tried to be.” Disdain almost routed indignation. “He doesn't know he is infamous. He acted very well—for him!”

“What did he dare to say to you?”

She looked at Waring with what hauteur she could summon. “You have no right to ask.” Her lip quivered then. “But I thank you for coming—Mr. Waring!”

There was pounding on the outside door and cries and oaths.

“All right, Joan,” said Bruce humbly. Then he turned fiercely to the Fairbanks miner.

“You'll eat those words, when I get time for you, Collins.”

“Not unless they wasn't true, I won't!”

Bruce took his gun from Joan. “Hands up, Collins, and out of here when Miss Manners opens the door!” Slim Jim surlily obeyed.

One eye on Collins, the other on the work he was doing with his knife, Waring had Manners on his feet in a moment: and together they marched Collins to the door.

“In your room, Joan,” said Bruce briefly; “in case they shoot. Now, open the door, Collins.”

When Slim Jim obeyed, Manners and Waring looked upon a doorway crowded with the astonished faces of Tholmes, Colwell, Othmer, Rosslyn, and Baker—faces keenly interested in the two guns pointed at them. Their own had been lowered at the appearance of Collins in the doorway, and an excellent discretion now kept them lowered!

“Back again, are you?” Tholmes managed a tone almost of idle curiosity.

“Back again!” echoed Waring disgustedly. “There's another one. Where do you get that stuff? Back again! Can't my partner and I go about our own affairs for a few days without you fellows running amuck like Chinamen? And how dare you commit this outrage on Judge Manners and his daughter! Who owns nine-tenths of this creek, and its benches, anyhow? For two old mukluks I'd shoot the whole bunch of you!”

“If you're not back again,” said Tholmes bewilderedly, “well, then—where have you been?”

“Well, if you've got to pry into other people's business, we've been upon our bench claims, where the real gold is.”

“Real gold is!” It came a multiple, muttered echo.

“Sure. I only came down when I heard you were making trouble for my friends here. What for, beats me!”

Collins had slipped out of doors with the rest, and Joan stood by her father's side, her brow unsmooth, her eyes, luminous with mystification, never leaving Waring's face. There was a whispered conference of the leaders, who had drawn back from the wide doorway.

Then Collins said: “We've had enough bull from you guys”

“I say, Tholmes,” interrupted Waring. “If you fellows have any defense to make for this outrage, better you or Rosslyn or somebody else do the talking. Your present spokesman doesn't arbitrate with me till he pulls a little apology I've got coming from him. I don't like his vocabulary.”

Some one laughed, and it broke the ice.

“All right,” agreed Tholmes. “What we want to know is whether we've been bunkoed or not. Don't know whether you like my vocabulary any better, but I guess you get me, all right.”

“I sure do,” said Bruce amiably. “Fact is, you went at Ticely and me the wrong foot first. He's the business man for Ticely & Waring: see him. I've got to go back to the claim. We're taking out a thawing. Just let the Manners family alone, you fellows, or there'll be some six-foot shafts to be thawed down around here.” To Joan he whispered: “Bring that package of deeds.”

Pocketing his gun, he boldly made his way through the crowd; which parted for him to right and left—mouths were open, eyes were staring and abashed.

“We're comin', too,” said several.

“Suit yourselves,” was the indifferent reply Waring flung back at them.

“Right after him, boys,” said Tholmes excitedly.

“Pronto!” rasped One-word Watkins.