"Nothing doing," answered Brent, shortly. "I'm off of stud."

"Off of stud!" exclaimed the other, "How in h.e.l.l d'you ever expect to git even? Stud owes you more dust than you kin pile on a sled!"

Brent drank a gla.s.s of rum: "The game can keep what it owes me. And besides I left my dust in camp--except a couple of ounces, or so."

"Yer finger bet goes with me," a.s.sured Claw, "Everybody's wouldn't, by a d.a.m.n sight--but yourn does. What d'you say?"

"My word is good in a game, is it?" asked Brent.

"Good as the dust--in one, or out of one," promptly a.s.sured Claw.

"Well, then listen to this: I gave my word in the presence of the man who staked me for this trip, that I would never gamble again. So I reckon you know how much stud I'll play from now on."

"Gawd A'mighty!" breathed Claw, incredulously, "An' the game owin' you millions. Well, have a drink on it, anyway."

Claw refilled Brent's gla.s.s, and thrust it into his hand, with a wink at the captain, for he had been quick to note that the liquor and the hot fetid air of the room was making Brent drowsy. His eyes had become dull and heavy lidded, and his chin rested heavily upon the throat of his parka. "Ain't happened to run onto a little bunch of Injuns, up the river, have you?" asked the man, as Brent gagged at the liquor.

"No," answered Brent, drowsily, "No Injuns in Copper Mountains--nothing in the mountains--nothing but snow." Gradually his eyes closed, and his head rolled heavily to one side. The drunken klooch rose to her knees, and with a maudlin giggle, seized Brent's half empty gla.s.s and drained it.

With a curse, the captain kicked her into her corner, and turned to Claw with a suggestive motion: "Slit his gullet, an' we'll slip him down a seal hole with some sc.r.a.p iron on his legs. He's prob'bly lyin' 'bout leavin' the dust in camp."

Claw shook his head: "Not him," he opined, "Search him first."

The Captain and the mate subjected the unconscious man to a thorough search, at the conclusion of which Scroggs tossed a small lean gold sack upon the table. "Prob'ly all he's got left, anyhow," he growled in disgust. "Le's jest weight him an' slip him through the ice the way he is. 'Tain't so messy."

"Not by a d.a.m.n sight!" objected Claw. "It's jest like I told you, when we was watchin' him through the gla.s.s. He's got anyways clost to a hundred ounces. I seen it, when he paid me fer the hooch, like I was tellin' you."

"Well, we kin back-track him to his camp, an' if we can't find it we kin put the hot irons to the Injun's feet till he squeals."

"The Injun don't know where it's at," argued Claw contemptuously, "He's too d.a.m.n smart to trust a Siwash. An' you bet he's got it _cached_ where we couldn't find it. He wouldn't leave it round where the first bunch of Huskies that come along could lift it, would he?"

"Well," growled the Captain, "Yer so d.a.m.n smart, what's yer big idee?"

"We got to let him go. Put back his little two ounces, so he won't suspicion nothin'. Then, when he wakes up, I'll slip him a bottle of hooch fer a present, an' he'll hit fer camp and start in on it. It won't last long, an' then you an' me an' Scroggs will happen along with more hooch to sell him. When he digs up the dust to pay fer it, I'll tend to him. You two git the Injun--but _he's_ mine. I've got a long score to settle with him--an' I know'd if I waited long enough, my time would come."

CHAPTER XVIII

LOST

Brent was conscious of a drone of voices. They came from a great distance--from so great a distance that he could not distinguish the words. He half-realized that somewhere, men were talking.

Befuddled, groping, his brain was struggling against the stupor that had held him unconscious for an hour. Two months before, half the amount of liquor he had taken into his system would have drugged him into a whole night's unconsciousness, but the life in the open, and the hard work in the gravel and on the trail, had so strengthened him physically that the rum, even in the poisonous air of the cabin could not deaden him for long. Gradually, out of the drone of voices a word was sensed by his groping brain. Then a group of words. Where was he? Who were these men?

And why did they persist in talking when he wanted to sleep? His head ached, and he was conscious of a dull pain in his cramped neck. He was about to shift into an easier position, when suddenly he realized where he was. He was drunk--in the filthy cabin of the _Belva Lou_--and the voices were the voices of Claw, and the mate, and the Captain, who were still at their liquor. A wave of sickening remorse swept him. He, Carter Brent, couldn't keep away from the hooch. Even in the vile cabin of the _Belva Lou_, he had fallen for it. It was no use. He would kill himself--would blow his worthless brains out and be done with it, rather than face--A sudden savage rage obsessed him. Kill himself, he would, but first--he would rid the North of these vultures.

He was upon the point of leaping to his feet, and with his fists, his chair--anything that came to hand, annihilating the brutish occupants of the cabin, when the gruff voice of the Captain cut in upon Claw's droning monotone.

"An' when we git him an' his Injun planted, me an' Asa'll take his dogs an' hit back here, an' you kin strike east along the coast till you pick up another woman. It's a d.a.m.n outrage--that's what it is! Chargin' me fifty dollars apiece fer greasy old pelters like them, that ain't worth the grub they eat! What I want is a young one--good lookin' an' young."

"You had yer pick out of the eight," growled Claw.

"An' a h.e.l.l of a pick it was! Why, I've went out an' rustled 'em myself, an' fer a sack of flour, an' a half a dozen fish-hooks, an' mebbe a file er two, I've got the pick of a hull village."

Brent's brain cleared gradually as he listened to the villainous dialogue. Vaguely he sensed that it was himself and Joe Pete that the Captain spoke of "planting." So they intended to murder him, did they?

And, when that detail had been attended to, they would go on with their traffic in "winter wives." But, they did not intend to kill him here on board the vessel. The Captain had spoken of coming back, after the deed was done. Where would they take him? Brent suddenly found himself possessed by curiosity. He decided to wait and see. And, when the time came, he would give as good an account of himself as he could--and then--what difference did it make? They were not fit to live. He would kill them if he could--or maybe they would kill him. But he was not fit to live either. He had sat at table with them--had fraternized with them--drank liquor in the stinking cabin with the sc.u.m of the earth. He was no better than they--he was one of them. The bottle sc.r.a.ped along the table, and he could hear the audible gulping of liquor, the tap of the returned gla.s.ses, and the harsh rasping of throats as they were cleared of the fiery bite.

Then the voice of Claw: "You ain't had no pick of a village since the Mounted begun patrolin' the coast."

"d.a.m.n the Mounted!"

"Yeh, that's what I say. But d.a.m.nin' 'em don't git red of 'em. Facts is, they're here, an' every year it's harder an' harder fer a man to make a livin'. But listen, Cap, I've got one bet up my sleeve. But it'll cost you more'n any fifty dollars--er a hundred, either. She ain't no Husky--she's an Injun breed--an' d.a.m.n near white. Her name's Snowdrift--an' she's the purtiest thing in the North. I've had my eyes on her fer a couple of years. She was in the mission over on the Mackenzie. But she ain't there no more. She's way up the Coppermine, with a band of about twenty Dog Ribs." Claw paused to pour a gla.s.s of liquor, and Brent felt the blood pounding his eardrums in great surging throbs. He felt the sweat break out on his forehead and the palms of his hands, and it was only by a superhuman effort that he continued to feign sleep. Surely, they would notice the flush on his face, the sweat glistening on his forehead and the dryness of his lips--but, no--Claw was speaking again:

"I tried to buy her once--last year it was, offen her mother--offered her a thousan' dollars, cash money--an' 'fore I know'd what happened, the d.a.m.ned old squaw had me about half killed. She's a h.e.l.l cat. She done it barehanded--clawed my eyes, an' clawed out a hull handful of whiskers--you kin see that patch on my throat where they never grow'd back. It was over near Good Hope, an' I didn't dast to make no holler, nor kill her neither, on account of the Mounted--but I'll get her yet.

An' when I do, I'll learn her to pull folks whiskers out by the ruts when they're tryin' to do the right thing by her!"

"You won't git no thousan' dollars from me!" exploded the Captain, "They ain't no woman, white, red, brown, yaller, or black that's worth no thousan' dollars o' my money!"

"Oh, ain't they?" sneered Claw, "Well you don't git her then. Fact is I never figgered on sellin' her to you, nohow. I kin take her over to Dawson an' make ten thousan' offen her in six months' time. They got the dust over there, an' they ain't afraid to spend it--an' they know a good lookin' woman when they see one. I'm a tellin' you they ain't no woman ever hit the Yukon that kin anyways touch her fer looks--an' I've saw 'em all. The only reason I'm offerin' her to you is because I kin run her up here a d.a.m.n sight easier than I kin take her clean over to Dawson--an' with a d.a.m.n sight less risk, too."

"How old is she?" growled the Captain.

"Ain't a day over twenty. She's dirt cheap at a thousan'. You could have her all winter, an' next summer you could slip into one of them coast towns, Juneau, or Skagway, or even the ones farther north, an' make five or ten times what you paid fer her."

"But s'pose she got s.p.u.n.ky, an' I'd kill her, or knock out her teeth, er an eye--then where'd my profits be? Women's h.e.l.l to handle if they take a notion."

"That's your lookout. It's your money that's invested, an' if you ain't got sense enough to look after it, it's your funeral--not mine."

"How you goin' to git her here? How you goin' to git her away from the Injuns? An' how do you know where she's at?"

"It's like this. Last summer she leaves the mission an' her an' the old squaw talks the Dog Ribs into hittin' over onto the Coppermine to prospect. They gits over there an' builds 'em a camp, an' starts in trappin' an' prospectin'. But a couple of the bucks has got a thirst fer hooch, an' they can't git none so they pulls out an' hits back fer the Mackenzie. I run onto one of 'em an' he give me the dope--he's the one that's here with me, an' he's goin' to guide me down to the village when I git ready to go. That's why I asked Ace-In-The-Hole if he'd saw 'em. I didn't want him b.u.t.tin' in on the deal--the old squaw's bad enough, but Gawd! I seen him kill three men in about a second in a saloon in Dawson over a stud game--bare handed. They ain't no woman ever got her hooks into him--not even The Queen of the Yukon--an' she done her d.a.m.ndest--really loved him, an' all that sort of bunk. I know all about women, an' she'd of run straight as h.e.l.l if he'd of married her--some says she's run straight ever sense she got caked in on him--even after she seen it wasn't no use. He kind of sticks up fer 'em all. Anyways, he knocked h.e.l.l out of me one night when I was lacin' it to a gal I'd brung into the country with a dog whip. He won't stand fer no rough stuff when they's women mixed up in it, an' I'd ruther be in h.e.l.l with my legs cut off than have him find out what we was up to. I don't want none of his meat--me!"

"Better go easy with yer jaw then," advised the Captain, "Mebbe he ain't so d.a.m.n dead to the world as he's lettin' on."

Claw laughed: "I've got him gauged. I've studied him 'cause I aimed to git him sometime. He's a hooch-hound right. Half what he's drunk today will put him dead fer hours. You could pull all his teeth an' he'd never feel it. No, we ain't got to bother about him. He'll be out of the way before I hit fer the Injun camp, anyhow. We'll wake him up after while, an' I'll give him the bottle of hooch, like I said, so he'll stay soused an' not move his camp, then we'll hit over there with more hooch, an'

when he uncovers his dust we'll git him an' the Injun both. Your share of his dust will be half enough to pay fer the breed. But, before we start out you fork over half the price--balance payable on delivery, an'

me an' the Injun'll hit on up the river an' fetch back the girl. It'll cost you a keg of rum besides the thousan', 'cause the only way to git her away from them Siwashes'll be to git 'em all tanked up. They'll be right fer it, bein' off the hooch as long as they have. But, at that, I better take along a man or two of the crew, to help me handle 'em."

"We won't bother none of the crew," rasped the Captain, harshly. "I'll jest go 'long myself. With five hundred dollars of my dust in yer jeans fer a starter after ye'd got her, ye might git to thinkin' o' them ten thousan' you could make off her in Dawson--not that I wouldn't trust you, you understand, but jest to save myself some worry while you was gone, then, if she's as good lookin' as you say, I'd ruther be along myself than let you an' some of the crew have her till you get here."

Brent's first sensation when he heard the name of Snowdrift upon Claw's lips had been one of blind, unreasoning fury, but his brain cleared rapidly as the man proceeded, and as he listened to the unspeakable horror of the conversation, the blind fury gave place to a cold, deadly rage. He realized that if he were to save the woman he loved from a fate more horrible than he had ever conceived of, he must exert the utmost care to make no false move. His heart chilled at the thought of what would have happened to her had he yielded to the first blind impulse to launch himself at the throats of the men there in the little cabin where all the odds were against him. A pistol shot, a blow from behind, and Snowdrift would have been left absolutely in the power of these fiends.

Cold sober, now, his one thought was to get out of the cabin, yet he dared not move. Should he show signs of returning consciousness he knew that suspicion would immediately fasten upon him, and that his life would not be worth a penny. He must wait until they roused him, and even then, he must not be easily roused. Claw had a.s.sured the Captain that half the amount of liquor would deaden him for hours, therefore he must play his part. But could he? Was it humanly possible to endure the physical torture of his cramped position. Every muscle of his body ached horribly. His head ached, he was consumed with torturing thirst, and his mouth was coated with a bitter slime. Added to this was the brain torture of suspense when his every instinct called for action. Suppose they should change their minds. He dared not risk opening his eyes to the merest slit, because he knew that Claw or the Captain might be holding a knife to his ribs, or a pistol at his head. Any moment might be his last--and then--Snowdrift--he dared not even shudder at the thought. There was another danger, suppose he should over-play his part, when they undertook to awaken him, or should under-play it? He knew to a certainty that one false move would mean death without a chance to defend himself, unarmed as he was and with the odds of three to one against him.

An interminable period, during which the men talked and wrangled among themselves, was interrupted by a loud knock upon the door.

"Who's there?" roared the Captain, "An' what d'ye want?"