"Yup," answered Zinn, as he hurried toward the outskirts of the town, "He'll be there by now."

Along the dark streets, and through a darker lumber yard, hurried Zinn, with Brent close at his heels urging him to greater speed. At length they pa.s.sed around behind the sawmill and Brent saw that a light showed dimly in the window of a disreputable log shack that stood upon the edge of a deep ravine. The next moment he had pushed through the door, and found himself in the presence of four as evil looking specimens as ever broke the commandments. One of them he recognized as "Stumpy" Cooley, a man who, two years before had escaped the noose only by prompt action of the Mounted, after he had been duly convicted by a meeting of outraged miners of robbing a _cache_.

"Where's Camillo Bill?" demanded Brent, his eyes sweeping the room.

"Tuk him to the hospital jest now," informed Stumpy.

"Hospital!" cried Brent.

"Yes--built one sence you was here. But, you don't need to be in no hurry, 'cause he's out of his head, now." The man produced a bottle and pulling the cork, offered it to Brent: "Might's well have a little drink, an' we'll be goin'."

"To h.e.l.l with your drinks!" cried Brent, "Where is this hospital?"

Suddenly he sensed that something was wrong. And whirling saw that two of the men had slipped between himself and the door. He turned to Stumpy to see an evil grin upon the man's face.

"When I ask anyone to drink with me, he most generally does it," he sneered, "Or I know the reason why."

"There's the reason!" roared Brent, and quick as a flash his right fist smashed into the man's face, the blow knocking him clean across the room. The next instant a man sprang onto Brent's back and another dived for his legs, while a third struck at him with a short piece of scantling. Brent fought like a tiger, weaving this way and that, and stumbling about the room in a vain effort to rid himself of the two men who clung to him like leeches. Stumpy staggered toward him, and Brent making a frenzied effort to release one of his pinioned arms, saw him raise the heavy quart whiskey bottle. The next instant it descended with a full arm swing. Brent saw a blinding flash of light, a stab of pain seemed to pierce his very brain, his knees buckled suddenly and he was falling, down, down, down, into a bottomless pit of intense blackness.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE FIGHT AT CUTER MALONE'S

The porter at Cuter Malone's Klondike Palace was lighting the huge oil lamps as the girl called Kitty sauntered to the bar with her dancing partner who loudly demanded wine. Cuter Malone himself, standing behind the bar in earnest conversation with Johnnie Claw, set out the drinks and as the girl raised her gla.s.s, a man brushed past her. She recognized Zinn, one of Malone's despicable lieutenants, and was quick to note that something unusual was in the air. A swift meaning glance pa.s.sed between Claw and Malone, and as Zinn stepped around the bar to deposit his rifle, he whispered earnestly to the two who stepped close to listen.

Unperceived, Kitty managed to edge near, and the next instant she was all attention. For from the detached words that came to her ears, she made out, "Ace-In-The-Hole," and "the girl," and then Malone, whose voice carried above the others issued an order, "The shack behind the saw mill. Git him soused. Knock him out if you have to--but don't kill him. Once we git the girl here me an' Claw--" the rest of the sentence was lost as it blended with an added order of Claw's. "Ace-In-The-Hole!"

thought Kitty, "What did it mean? And who is 'The girl?' Ace-In-The-Hole is dead. And, yet--" she glanced toward Claw whose beady eyes were glittering with excitement. "He just came back from somewhere--maybe he knows--something."

She saw Zinn cross the room and speak in a whisper to four men who were playing solo at a table near the huge stove. She knew those men, Stumpy Cooley, and his three companions. The men nodded, and went on with their game, and Zinn returned and resumed his conversation with Malone and Claw. But the girl could hear nothing more. The "professor" was loudly banging out the notes of the next dance upon the piano, and her partner was pulling at her arm.

For two hours Kitty danced, and between dances she drank wine at the bar, and always her eyes were upon the four men at the solo table, and upon Zinn, who loafed close by, and upon Malone and Claw, who she noted, were drinking more than usual, as they hob-n.o.bbed behind the bar.

The evening crowd foregathered. The music became faster, the talk louder, the laughter wilder. At the conclusion of a dance, Kitty saw Malone speak to Zinn, who immediately slipped out the door. The four men at the table, threw down their cards, and sauntered casually from the room and declining the next dance, the girl dashed up the stairway to her room where she kicked off her high heeled slippers, pulled a pair of heavy woolen stockings over her silk ones, and hurriedly laced her moccasins. She jammed a cap over her ears and slipping into a heavy fur coat, stepped out into the hall and came face to face with Johnnie Claw.

"Where do you think you're goin'?" asked the man with a sneer.

"It's none of your business!" snapped the girl, "I don't have to ask you when I want to go anywhere--and I don't have to tell you where I'm goin', either! You haven't got any strings on me!"

"Well--fergit it, 'cause you ain't goin' nowhere's--not right now."

"Get out of my way! d.a.m.n you!" cried the girl, "If I had a gun here, I'd blow your rotten heart out!"

"But, you ain't got none--an' I have--so it's the other way around. Only I ain't goin' to kill you, if you do like I say.

"Listen here, I seen you easin' over and tryin' to hear what me an'

Malone, an' Zinn was talkin' about. I don't know how much you heard, but you heard enough, so you kep' pretty clost cases on all of us. G'wan back in yer room, 'fore I put you there! What the h.e.l.l do you care anyhow? All we want is the girl. Onct we git her up in the strong room, you kin have Ace-In-The-Hole. An' as long as she's around you ain't nowhere with him. Why don't you use yer head?"

"You fool!" screamed the girl, in a sudden fury, and as she tried to spring past him, Claw's fist caught her squarely in the chin and without a sound she crashed backward across the door sill. Swiftly the man reached down and dragged her into the room, removed the key from the lock on the inside, closed and locked the door, and thrusting the key into his pocket, turned and walked down stairs.

How long she lay there, Kitty did not know. Consciousness returned slowly. She was aware of a dull ache in her head, and after what seemed like a long time she struggled to her knees and drew herself onto the bed where she lay trying to think what had happened. Faintly, from below drifted the sound of the piano. So, they were still dancing, down there?

Then, suddenly the whole train of events flashed through her brain. She leaped to her feet and staggered groggily to the door. It was locked. In vain she screamed and beat upon the panels. She rushed to the window but its double sash of heavily frosted panes nailed tight for the winter was immovable. In a sudden frenzy of rage she seized a chair and smashed the gla.s.s. The inrush of cold air felt good to her throbbing temples, and wrenching a leg from the chair she beat away the jagged fragments until only the frame remained. Leaning far out, she looked down. Her room was at the side of the building, near the rear, and she saw that a huge snowdrift had formed where the wind eddied around the corner. Only a moment she hesitated, then standing upright on the sill, she leaped far out and landed squarely in the centre of the huge drift. Struggling to her feet she wallowed to the street, and ran swiftly through the darkness in the direction of the sawmill. And, at that very moment, Zinn was knocking upon the door of the Reeves home.

When the door had closed behind Brent, Mrs. Reeves had insisted upon Snowdrift's taking a much needed rest upon the lounge in the living room, and despatching Reeves upon an errand to a neighbor's, busied herself in the kitchen. The girl lay back among the pillows wondering when her lover would return when the sound of the knock sent her flying to the door. She drew back startled when, instead of Brent she was confronted by the man they had pa.s.sed on the river.

"Is they a lady here name of Snowdrift?" asked the man.

A sudden premonition of evil shot through the girl's heart. She paled to the lips. Where was Brent? Had something happened? "Yes, yes!" she answered quickly, "I am Snowdrift. What has happened? Why do you want me?"

"It's him--yer man--Ace-In-The-Hole," he answered.

"Oh, what is it?" cried the girl, in a frenzy of impatience, "has he been hurt?"

"Well--not jest hurt, you might say. He's loadin' up on hooch. Some of us friends of hisn tried to make him go easy--but it ain't no use. I seen you an' him comin' in on the river, an' I figgered mebbe you could handle him. We're afraid someone'll rob him when he gits good an'

drunk."

And not more than an hour ago he had given his promise--on the word of a Brent--a promise that Mrs. Reeves had just finished telling her would never be broken. A low sob that ended in a moan trembled upon the girl's lips: "Wait!" she commanded, and slipping into the room, caught up her cap and parka, and stepping out into the darkness, closed the door noiselessly behind her.

"Take me to him--quickly!" she said, "Surely he will listen to me."

"That's what I figgered," answered the man, and turning led the way down the dark street.

Presently the subdued light that filtered through the frosted windows of the Klondike Palace came into view, and as they reached the place Zinn led the way to the rear, and pushed open a door. Snowdrift found herself in a dimly lighted hallway. Cuter Malone stepped forward with a smile:

"Jest a minute, lady. Better put this here veil over yer face. He's up stairs, an' we got to go in through the bar. They's a lot of folks in there, an' they ain't no use of you bein' gopped at. With this on, they won't notice but what it's one of the women that lives here."

Snowdrift fastened the heavy veil over her face, and taking her arm, Malone piloted her through the bar-room and up the stairs. Through the mesh of the veil, Snowdrift caught a confused vision of many men standing before a long bar, of other men, and women in gay colors dancing upon a smooth stretch of floor, and her ears rang with the loud crashing of the piano. Bewildered, confused, she tightened her grasp upon Malone's arm. At the head of the stairs, the man paused and opened a door. "You kin take off the veil, now," he said, as he locked the door behind them, "They ain't no one up here."

A sudden terror possessed the girl, and she glanced swiftly into the man's face. "But--where is he?"

"Oh, he's on up," he a.s.sured her, "This way." He led the way across the room known as the small dance hall, and through a pa.s.sage from which doors opened on either side, to a flight of stairs in the rear. At the head of the stairs the girl could see a light burning. He motioned her to proceed, and as she gained the top, a man stepped out from the shadow and seized her arms.

One look into his face and the girl gave a wild shriek of terror.

The man was Johnnie Claw.

The next moment she found herself thrust into a room lighted only by a single candle. It was a bare, forbidding looking room, windowless and with a door of thick planking, secured by a hasp and padlock upon the outside. Its single article of furniture was a bed.

"So," leered Claw, "You thought you could git away from me did you?

Thought you was playin' h.e.l.l when you an' Ace-In-The-Hole hit fer Dawson, did you? Well, you played h.e.l.l, all right--but not like you figgered. Yer mine, now." Trembling so that her limbs refused to support her, Snowdrift sank down upon the bed.

"Oh where is he?" she moaned.

Claw laughed: "Oh, he's all right," he mocked, "He's soused to the guards by this time, an' after I an' some friends of mine git him to sign a deed to a couple of claims he owns, we'll feed him to the fish."

The girl tried to rise, but her muscles refused to obey the dictates of her brain, and she sank back upon the bed.

"You'll be all right here when you git used to it. The girls all have a lot of fun. I'm goin' below now. You stay here an' think it over. Tain't no use to holler--this room's built a purpose to tame the likes of you in. Some of 'em that's be'n in here has walked out, an' some of 'em has be'n carried out--but none of 'em has ever _got_ out. An' jest so you don't take no fool notion to burn the house down, I'll take this candle along. I got a horror of burnin'." Again he laughed harshly, and the next moment Snowdrift found herself in darkness, and heard the padlock rattle in the hasp.