The Magnetic North. Elizabeth Robins
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Magnetic North - Elizabeth Robins страница 15
Название: The Magnetic North
Автор: Elizabeth Robins
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4057664631138
isbn:
"Shut it up?"
"Yes; let's get it down and—" The Colonel swung it off the shelf. It was nearly empty, and only the Boy's and the Colonel's single bottles stood unbroached. Even so, Mac's prolonged spree was something of a mystery to the Kentuckian. It must be that a very little was too much for Mac. The Colonel handed the demijohn to his companion, and lit the solitary candle standing on its little block of wood, held in place between three half-driven nails.
"What's that for?"
"Don't you want to seal it up?"
"I haven't got any wax."
"I have an inch or so." The Colonel produced out of his pocket the only piece in camp.
Mac picked up a billet of wood, and drove the cork in flush with the neck. Then, placing upright on the cork the helve of the hammer, he drove the cork down a quarter of an inch farther.
"Give me your wax. What's for a seal?" They looked about. Mac's eye fell on a metal button that hung by a thread from the old militia jacket he was wearing. He put his hand up to it, paused, glanced hurriedly at the Colonel, and let his fingers fall.
"Yes, yes," said the Kentuckian, "that'll make a capital seal."
"No; something of yours, I think, Colonel. The top of that tony pencil-case, hey?"
The Colonel produced his gold pencil, watched Mac heat the wax, drop it into the neck of the demijohn, and apply the initialled end of the Colonel's property. While Mac, without any further waste of words, was swinging the wicker-bound temptation up on the shelf again, they heard voices.
"They're coming back," says the Kentuckian hurriedly. "But we've settled our little account, haven't we, old man?"
Mac jerked his head in that automatic fashion that with him meant genial and whole-hearted agreement.
"And if Potts or O'Flynn want to break that seal—"
"I'll call 'em down," says Mac. And the Colonel knew the seal was safe.
"By-the-by, Colonel," said the Boy, just as he was turning in that night, "I—a—I've asked that Jesuit chap to the House-Warming."
"Oh, you did, did you?"
"Yes."
"Well, you'd just better have a talk with Mac about it."
"Yes. I've been tryin' to think how I'd square Mac. Of course, I know I'll have to go easy on the raw."
"I reckon you just will."
"If Monkey-wrench screws down hard on me, you'll come to the rescue, won't you, Colonel?"
"No I'll side with Mac on that subject. Whatever he says, goes!"
"Humph! that Jesuit's all right."
Not a word out of the Colonel.
CHAPTER III
TWO NEW SPISSIMENS
Medwjedew (zu Luka). Tag' mal—wer bist du? Ich kenne dich nicht.
Luka. Kennst du denn sonst alle Leute?
Medwjedew. In meinem Revier muß ich jeden kennen und dich kenn'ich nicht. …
Luka. Das kommt wohl daher Onkelchen, daß dein Revier nicht die ganze Erde umfasst … 's ist da noch ein Endchen draußen geblieben. …
One of the curious results of what is called wild life, is a blessed release from many of the timidities that assail the easy liver in the centres of civilisation. Potts was the only one in the white camp who had doubts about the wisdom of having to do with the natives.
However, the agreeable necessity of going to Pymeut to invite Nicholas to the Blow-out was not forced upon the Boy. They were still hard at it, four days after the Jesuit had gone his way, surrounding the Big Cabin with a false wall, that final and effectual barrier against Boreas—finishing touch warranted to convert a cabin, so cold that it drove its inmates to drink, into a dwelling where practical people, without cracking a dreary joke, might fitly celebrate a House-Warming.
In spite of the shortness of the days, Father Wills's suggestion was being carried out with a gratifying success. Already manifest were the advantages of the stockade, running at a foot's distance round the cabin to the height of the eaves, made of spruce saplings not even lopped of their short bushy branches, but planted close together, after burning the ground cleared of snow. A second visitation of mild weather, and a further two days' thaw, made the Colonel determine to fill in the space between the spruce stockade and the cabin with "burnt-out" soil closely packed down and well tramped in. It was generally conceded, as the winter wore on, that to this contrivance of the "earthwork" belonged a good half of the credit of the Big Cabin, and its renown as being the warmest spot on the lower river that terrible memorable year of the Klondyke Rush.
The evergreen wall with the big stone chimney shouldering itself up to look out upon the frozen highway, became a conspicuous feature in the landscape, welcome as the weeks went on to many an eye wearied with long looking for shelter, and blinded by the snow-whitened waste.
An exception to what became a rule was, of all men, Nicholas. When the stockade was half done, the Prince and an equerry appeared on the horizon, with the second team the camp had seen, the driver much concerned to steer clear of the softened snow and keep to that part of the river ice windswept and firm, if roughest of all. Nicholas regarded the stockade with a cold and beady eye.
No, he hadn't time to look at it. He had promised to "mush." He wasn't even hungry.
It did little credit to his heart, but he seemed more in haste to leave his new friends than the least friendly of them would have expected.
"Oh, wait a sec.," urged the deeply disappointed Boy. "I wanted awf'ly to see how your sled is made. It's better 'n Father Wills'."
"Humph!" grunted Nicholas scornfully; "him no got Innuit sled."
"Mac and I are goin' to try soon's the stockade's done—"
"Goo'-bye," interrupted Nicholas.
But the Boy paid no attention to the word of farewell. He knelt down in the snow and examined the sled carefully.
"Spruce runners," he called out to Mac, "and—jee! they're shod with ivory! Jee! fastened with sinew and wooden pegs. Hey?"—looking up incredulously at Nicholas—"not a nail in the whole shebang, eh?"
"Nail?" says Nicholas. "Huh, no nail!" as contemptuously as though the Boy had said "bread-crumbs."
"Well, she's a daisy! When you comin' back?"
"Comin' pretty quick; goin' pretty quick. Goo'-bye! Mush!" shouted Nicholas to his companion, and the dogs got up off their СКАЧАТЬ