The Silver Horde. Rex Beach

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СКАЧАТЬ his head violently against the logs. The fellow undertook to grapple with him, at which Emerson wrenched himself free, and, stepping back, spoke in a quivering voice which Fraser had never heard before:

      "I'm just playing with you now—I don't want to hurt you."

      "Get out of my house! Ay got orders!" cried the watchman wildly, and made for him again. It was evident that the man was not lacking in stupid courage, but Emerson, driven to it, stepped aside, and swung heavily. The squaw in the doorway screamed, and the Swede fell full length. Again Boyd was upon him, the restraint of the past long weeks now unbridled, his temper unchecked. He dragged his victim through the store-room, grinding his face into the floor at every effort to rise. He forced him to his own door-sill, jerked the door open, and kicked him out into the snow; then barred the entrance, and returned to the warmth of the logs, his face convulsed and his lips working.

      "Fingerless" Fraser gazed at him queerly, as if at some utterly strange phenomenon, then drawled, with a sly chuckle:

      "Well, well, you're bloody gentle, I must say. I didn't think it was in you."

      When the other vouchsafed no answer, he took his pipe from a pocket of his steaming mackinaw, and filled it from a tobacco-box on the window-sill; then, leaning back in his chair, he propped his feet up on the table and sighed luxuriously, as he murmured:

      "These scenes of violence just upset me something dreadful!"

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

      IN WHICH THEY BREAK BREAD WITH A LONELY WOMAN

      It was perhaps two hours later that Fraser went to the window for the twentieth time, and, breathing against the pane, cleared a peep-hole, announcing:

      "He's gone!"

      Emerson, absorbed in a book, made no answer. After his encounter with the householder he had said little, and upon finding this coverless, brown-stained volume—a tattered copy of Don Quixote—he had relapsed into utter silence.

      "I say, he's gone!" reiterated the man at the window.

      Still no reply was forthcoming, and, seating himself near the stove, Fraser spread his hands before him in the shape of a book, and began whimsically, in a dry monotone, as if reading to himself:

      "At which startling news, Mr. Emerson, with his customary vivacity, smiled engagingly, and answered back:

      "'Why do you reckon he has departed, Mr. Fraser?"

      "'Because he's lost his voice cussing us,' I replied, graciously.

      "'Oh no!' exclaimed the genial Mr. Emerson, more for the sake of conversation than argument; 'he has got cold feet!' Evidently unwilling to let the conversation lag, the garrulous Mr. Emerson continued, 'It's a dark night without, and I fear some mischief is afoot.'

      "'Yes; but what of yonder beautchous gel?' said I, at which he burst into wild laughter."

      Emerson laid down his book.

      "What are you muttering about?" he asked.

      "I merely remarked that our scandalized Scandalusian has got tired of singin' Won't You Open that Door and Let Me In? and has ducked."

      "Where has he gone?"

      "I ain't no mind-reader; maybe he's loped off to Seattle after a policeman and a writ of ne plus ultra. Maybe he has gone after a clump of his countrymen—this is herding-season for Swedes."

      Without answering, Emerson rose, and, going to the inner door, called through to the squaw:

      "Get us a cup of coffee."

      "Coffee!" interjected Fraser; "why not have a real feed? I'm hungry enough to eat anything except salt-risin' bread and Roquefort cheese."

      "No," said the other; "I don't want to cause any more trouble than necessary."

      "Well, there's a lot of grub in the cache. Let's load up the sled."

      "I'm hardly a thief."

      "Oh, but—"

      "No!"

      "Fingerless" Fraser fell back into sour silence.

      When the slatternly woman had slunk forth and was busied at the stove,

       Emerson observed, musingly:

      "I wonder what possessed that fellow to act as he did."

      "He said he had orders," Fraser offered. "If I had a warm cabin, a lot of grub—and a squaw—I'd like to see somebody give me orders."

      Their clothing was dry now, and they proceeded to dress leisurely. As Emerson roped up the sleeping-bags, Fraser suddenly suspended operations on his attire, and asked, querulously:

      "What's the matter? We ain't goin' to move, are we?"

      "Yes. We'll make for one of the other canneries," answered Emerson, without looking up.

      "But I've got sore feet," complained the adventurer.

      "What! again?" Emerson laughed skeptically. "Better walk on your hands for a while."

      "And it's getting dark, too."

      "Never mind. It can't be far. Come now."

      He urged the fellow as he had repeatedly urged him before, for Fraser seemed to have the blood of a tramp in his veins; then he tried to question the woman, but she maintained a frightened silence. When they had finished their coffee, Emerson laid two silver dollars on the table, and they left the house to search out the river-trail again.

      The early darkness, hastened by the storm, was upon them when they crept up the opposite bank an hour later, and through the gloom beheld a group of great shadowy buildings. Approaching the solitary gleam of light shining from the window of the watchman's house, they applied to him for shelter.

      "We are just off a long trip, and our dogs are played out," Emerson explained. "We'll pay well for a place to rest."

      "You can't stop here," said the fellow, gruffly.

      "Why not?"

      "I've got no room."

      "Is there a road-house near by?"

      "I don't know."

      "You'd better find out mighty quick," retorted the young man, with rising temper at the other's discourtesy.

      "Try the next place below," said the watchman, hurriedly, slamming the door in their faces and bolting it. Once secure behind his barricade, he added: "If he won't let you in, maybe the priest can take care of you at the Mission."

      "This here town of Kalvik is certainly СКАЧАТЬ