Smoke Bellew. Джек Лондон

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and Stine arrived in the midst of this pleasant occupation.

      “What’s the delay?” Sprague complained. “Aren’t we ever going to get started?”

      Shorty dipped in turn, and passed the spoon to Kit. Nor did either speak till the pot was empty and the bottom scraped.

      “Of course we ain’t been doin’ nothing,” Shorty said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “We ain’t been doin’ nothing at all. And of course you ain’t had nothing to eat. It was sure careless of me.”

      “Yes, yes,” Stine said quickly. “We ate at one of the tents – friends of ours.”

      “Thought so,” Shorty grunted.

      “But now that you’re finished, let us get started,” Sprague urged.

      “There’s the boat,” said Shorty. “She’s sure loaded. Now, just how might you be goin’ about to get started?”

      “By climbing aboard and shoving off. Come on.”

      They waded out, and the employers got on board, while Kit and Shorty shoved clear. When the waves lapped the tops of their boots they clambered in. The other two men were not prepared with the oars, and the boat swept back and grounded. Half a dozen times, with a great expenditure of energy, this was repeated.

      Shorty sat down disconsolately on the gunwale, took a chew of tobacco, and questioned the universe, while Kit baled the boat and the other two exchanged unkind remarks.

      “If you’ll take my orders, I’ll get her off,” Sprague finally said.

      The attempt was well intended, but before he could clamber on board he was wet to the waist.

      “We’ve got to camp and build a fire,” he said, as the boat grounded again. “I’m freezing.”

      “Don’t be afraid of a wetting,” Stine sneered. “Other men have gone off to-day wetter than you. Now I’m going to take her out.”

      This time it was he who got the wetting and who announced with chattering teeth the need of a fire.

      “A little splash like that!” Sprague chattered spitefully. “We’ll go on.”

      “Shorty, dig out my clothes-bag and make a fire,” the other commanded.

      “You’ll do nothing of the sort,” Sprague cried.

      Shorty looked from one to the other, expectorated, but did not move.

      “He’s working for me, and I guess he obeys my orders,” Stine retorted. “Shorty, take that bag ashore.”

      Shorty obeyed, and Sprague shivered in the boat. Kit, having received no orders, remained inactive, glad of the rest.

      “A boat divided against itself won’t float,” he soliloquized.

      “What’s that?” Sprague snarled at him.

      “Talking to myself – habit of mine,” he answered.

      His employer favoured him with a hard look, and sulked several minutes longer. Then he surrendered.

      “Get out my bag, Smoke,” he ordered, “and lend a hand with that fire. We won’t get off till morning now.”

      Next day the gale still blew. Lake Linderman was no more than a narrow mountain gorge filled with water. Sweeping down from the mountains through this funnel, the wind was irregular, blowing great guns at times and at other times dwindling to a strong breeze.

      “If you give me a shot at it, I think I can get her off,” Kit said, when all was ready for the start.

      “What do you know about it?” Stine snapped at him.

      “Search me,” Kit answered, and subsided.

      It was the first time he had worked for wages in his life, but he was learning the discipline of it fast. Obediently and cheerfully he joined in various vain efforts to get clear of the beach.

      “How would you go about it?” Sprague finally half panted, half whined at him.

      “Sit down and get a good rest till a lull comes in the wind, and then buck in for all we’re worth.”

      Simple as the idea was, he had been the first to evolve it; the first time it was applied it worked, and they hoisted a blanket to the mast and sped down the lake. Stine and Sprague immediately became cheerful. Shorty, despite his chronic pessimism, was always cheerful, and Kit was too interested to be otherwise. Sprague struggled with the steering-sweep for a quarter of an hour, and then looked appealingly at Kit, who relieved him.

      “My arms are fairly broken with the strain of it,” Sprague muttered apologetically.

      “You never ate bear-meat, did you?” Kit asked sympathetically.

      “What the devil do you mean?”

      “Oh, nothing; I was just wondering.”

      But behind his employer’s back Kit caught the approving grin of Shorty, who had already caught the whim of his metaphor.

      Kit steered the length of Linderman, displaying an aptitude that caused both young men of money and disinclination for work to name him boat-steerer. Shorty was no less pleased, and volunteered to continue cooking and leave the boat work to the other.

      Between Linderman and Lake Bennett was a portage. The boat, lightly loaded, was lined down the small but violent connecting stream, and here Kit learned a vast deal more about boats and water. But when it came to packing the outfit, Stine and Sprague disappeared, and their men spent two days of back-breaking toil in getting the outfit across. And this was the history of many miserable days of the trip – Kit and Shorty working to exhaustion, while their masters toiled not and demanded to be waited upon.

      But the iron-bound arctic winter continued to close down, and they were held back by numerous and unavoidable delays. At Windy Arm, Stine arbitrarily dispossessed Kit of the steering-sweep and within the hour wrecked the boat on a wave-beaten lee shore. Two days were lost here in making repairs, and the morning of the fresh start, as they came down to embark, on stern and bow, in large letters, was charcoaled “The Chechako.”

      Kit grinned at the appropriateness of the invidious word.

      “Huh!” said Shorty, when accused by Stine. “I can sure read and spell, an’ I know that chechako means tenderfoot, but my education never went high enough to learn me to spell a jaw-breaker like that.”

      Both employers looked daggers at Kit, for the insult rankled; nor did he mention that the night before, Shorty had besought him for the spelling of that particular word.

      “That’s ‘most as bad as your bear-meat slam at ‘em,” Shorty confided later.

      Kit chuckled. Along with the continuous discovery of his own powers had come an ever-increasing disapproval of the two masters. It was not so much irritation, which was always present, as disgust. He had got his taste of the meat, and liked it; but they were teaching him how not to eat it. Privily, he thanked God that he was not made as they. He came to dislike them to a degree that bordered on hatred. Their malingering bothered him СКАЧАТЬ