Chapter II (1)

The physical comfort of his club was most agreeable after his recent ordeal, but he enjoyed it only a few days, then began to look about for a suitable place in which to end his grim comedy. He selected the spot with little delay--a sharp turn in a hillside road that wound down from the heights near Spuyten Duyvil--he had often passed it in summer and knew the danger well. If his automobile went over the edge, now that the roads were icy, who could say it was not accidental?

He did not advise Muriel of his return, fearing to trust himself either to write or to telephone, but spent much time in front of the morocco case with its three photographs, longing desperately to see her and the children.

When he felt that an auspicious time had arrived, he 'phoned his friend, Dr. Herkimer, and invited himself to dinner. Herkimer was delighted, and a few evenings later the clubman motored out toward Yonkers, where he was made welcome and spent an agreeable evening.

"Where's your chauffeur?" the doctor inquired as his guest drew on his fur coat and driving-gloves, preparatory to leaving.

"I let him go to-night. I thought I'd enjoy running the machine, for a change."

"The roads are bad; be careful you don't skid on the hills. I nearly went over to-day."

Murray promised to heed the warning, and a few moments later was gliding toward the city.

The beauty of this cold, sharp night was inspiriting; the moon was brilliant; the air was charged with life and vigor. It gave him a thrill to realize that he was sweeping to probable death; that nothing now could intervene to thwart him, and while, of course, there was the unpleasant possibility that a plunge over the declivity might do no more than maim him, he had studied the place carefully and intended to reduce that chance to a minimum by driving his car down the hill with sufficient velocity to hurl it far out over the edge. There were railroad tracks beneath; anything short of instant death would be miraculous.

As he came out upon the heights at last it occurred to him that he was behaving very well for a man about to die. His hand was steady, his heart was not greatly quickened, he was absolutely sane and healthy and full of the desire to live. A short distance from the crest he stopped his machine, then sat motionless for a few moments drinking in the beauty of the night and taking his farewell of Muriel. When he had arrived at peace with himself he fixed his wife's image in his mind, then, thrusting down the accelerator, let in the clutch. There was a jar, a jerk, a spasmodic shudder of the machinery; the motor went dead.

This unexpected interruption affected Murray oddly, until he realized that after stopping the car he had neglected to shift his gears to neutral. With an imprecation at his stupidity he clambered out and cranked the motor. When it failed to start he primed his carbureter and cranked again. It was an expensive, foreign-built machine, and one turn should have served to set it going, but, strangely enough, there was no explosion. For fifteen minutes he did everything his limited knowledge permitted, but the car remained stationary upon the crest of the hill, a stubborn, lifeless mass of metal.

Evidently that jerk had wrought havoc with some delicate adjustment, he reasoned, perhaps the wiring, but it was too dark to diagnose just where the trouble lay. It was cold, also, and his numb fingers refused to be of much assistance. He gave over his efforts finally, and stared about with a troubled look in his eyes. This was childish, utterly idiotic. He wanted to laugh, but instead he cursed, then cranked the motor viciously until the sweat stood out upon his forehead.

An hour later he was towed into town behind a rescue-car summoned by telephone from the nearest garage. As he left his machine to board a Subway train, the mechanic announced:

"Maybe it was a good thing you broke down before you hit that hill, boss. There was a bad accident at the turn, to-day; the police are going to close the street till spring."

Murray was not superstitious, but, recalling his many failures at Goldfield, he decided he would make no further attempt to do away with himself by means of his motor-car. Now that this particular road was closed to traffic, he knew of no other place so favorable to his project, and, inasmuch as the time was growing short, to be only partially successful in his attempt would mean utter ruin. With no little regret, therefore, he made up his mind to fall back upon poison, which at least was certain, even though possessed of obvious drawbacks.

His experience with DeVoe had rendered him a bit cynical regarding the value of friendship, hence it was with no fear of a checkmate that he telephoned to Dr. Herkimer and made an appointment for that afternoon. When the doctor arrived at the club, Murray laid the matter before him in a concise, cold-blooded manner, and was relieved to hear him voice exactly the words DeVoe had used.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I want you to call here for me to-morrow morning. You will find me dead in my bed. I want you to examine me and call it heart failure or whatever you think best. Your word will be sufficient; there will be no suspicion, no further examination, at least, until the poison I intend to use will have had time to disappear or change its form."

"And why should I do this?" The doctor looked his friend over oddly.

"Here is one reason which I hope is sufficient." Murray held out a promissory note for the same amount as the one he had executed for DeVoe.

Herkimer took it, then, as he read the figures, his face paled. Crushing it in his palm, he rose, and in a voice harsh with fury unloosed a stream of profanity that surprised his hearer.

"You contemptible, short-bred loafer!" he concluded. "What do you take me for? What makes you think I'd do such a rotten thing as that?"

Murray smiled. "You'll _have_ to, old man. It isn't pleasant, of course, but you won't allow Muriel and the children to lose that money. I like your spirit, but I shall kill myself just the same, and it's up to you to see that they are not ruined."

Again Herkimer became incoherent.

"Oh, swear as much as you please, I'm going to do it, nevertheless. I've made a wretched failure of everything else, but I intend to right one of my wrongs while there is time."

"Right! Wrong!" bellowed the physician. "Damn it, man! You're asking me to help you steal a million dollars. Does that occur to you?"

"The end justifies the means in this case. You're not rich. That twenty-five thousand--"

Herkimer flung the paper at the speaker.

"Well, if you won't take my money, you'll have to help me, out of friendship. At nine o'clock to-morrow morning I shall be dead. Knowing the truth and all it means, you'll _have_ to come. You--_can't--stay--away_."

"Oh, is that so?" the doctor mocked, furiously. "I'll show you whether I can or not." He jerked his watch from his pocket and consulted it. "There's a train for Boston in twenty minutes and I'm going to take it. I couldn't get back here in time even if I wanted to. Now, kill yourself and be damned to you." He seized his hat and rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

A moment later Murray heard a taxi-cab whir noisily away from the club-house door.

Manifestly, there were more difficulties in the way of this enterprise than he had counted upon. Without the co-operation of some reliable physician the clubman dared not do away with himself in New York; coroners are curious, medical attention is too prompt, he was too well known, the very existence of that tremendous amount of life insurance would lead to investigation. He decided to go hunting, and he knew just the right place to go, too, he thought.

Several years before he had joined a gunning club which owned a vast expanse of rice-fields and marsh lands in North Carolina, and, knowing the place thoroughly, he concluded that it offered perfect facilities for such an action as he contemplated. Accordingly, he packed his guns, wired for a guide, and boarded a train for the South that very night. In his pocket he carried a vial containing twenty-five grains of powdered cocaine.

The club launch met him at Boonville, the nearest station, and during the twenty-mile trip down the Sound he learned all he wished to know. The shooting was well-nigh over; there were no other members at the club-house; he would have the place all to himself.

For several days he hunted diligently, taking pains to write numerous letters to his friends, and among others to Muriel. It was his first letter since their parting, and the strain of holding his pen within formal bounds was almost too much for him. It was a pity she would never understand his motives in doing this thing, he reflected. It was a pity he had never understood his own feelings before it was too late. Manlike, he had thrown away the only precious thing of his life while searching for counterfeit joys, and, man-like, he regretted his folly now that he had lost her.

That evening he informed his guide that he intended to hunt by himself on the following morning, and in answer to the old negro's warning assured him that he knew the channels well and was amply able to handle a canoe.

He rose early, forced himself to eat a substantial breakfast, for the sake of appearances, then set out in his Peterboro. The morning was chilly and he had purposely donned a heavy sweater, shell vest, leather coat, and hip-boots. He paddled down the river for a mile or more, then let his craft drift with the current. Far away on one horizon was a dark, low-lying fringe of pines marking the mainland; two miles to seaward sounded the slow rumble of the restless Atlantic; on every hand were acres upon acres, miles upon miles of waving marsh-grass interlaced with creeks and channels; nowhere was there a sign of human life.

He took the little bottle from his pocket, reached over the side and filled it with water. He replaced the cork and shook the vial until the white powder it contained was thoroughly dissolved. There were twenty-five grains of it, eight fatal doses, and he had seen that it was fresh. This time there could be no question of failure, he reasoned. Nor was there much chance of discovery, for after that drug had remained in his body for a few hours it would be exceedingly difficult of identification, even at the hands of an expert toxicologist. But there were no experts in this country, no doctors at all, in fact, this side of Boonville, twenty miles away.

He marveled at his coolness as he flung the cork into the stream and raised the bottle to his lips. His pulse was even, his mind was untroubled. He drank the contents, filled the bottle and let it sink; then rose to his feet, and, bearing his weight upon the gunwale of his canoe, swamped it.

Burdened as he was with shells and hunting-gear he sank, but the cold water sent him fighting and gasping to the surface again. The blind instinct of self-preservation mastered him and, being a powerful swimmer, he struck out. He had planned too well, however. His boots filled, his clothing became wet and he went down for a second time. Then commenced a senseless, terrible struggle, the more terrible because the man fought against his own determination. He rose slowly to the surface, but the shore was far away, the canoe, bottom up, was out of reach. He gasped wildly for breath as his face emerged, but instead of air he inhaled water into his lungs. He choked, horrible convulsions seized him, his limbs threshed, his ears roared, his chest was bursting. He rose and sank, rose and sank, enduring the agony of suffocation, all the time fighting with a strong man's desperation. After a time he seemed to hear shouting; something tugged and hauled at him; he discovered he could breathe again. His senses wavered, left him, returned; he saw faces bending above him. A moment later he heard his name spoken, then found himself awash in the bottom of a gamekeeper's batteau.

As in a dream he heard his rescuers explain that they had been out in search of poachers and had rounded the bend below in time to behold him struggling for his life. They were hurrying him back to the club-house now as fast as arms and oars could propel them, and after he had gained sufficient strength he sat up.

He strove to answer their excited questions, but could not speak. A strange paralysis numbed his vocal cords; he could not swallow; his tongue was thick and unmanageable. This silence alarmed the wardens, but Murray knew it to be nothing more than a local anæsthesia due to the contact of the cocaine. He became conscious of feeling very wretched.

They helped him up to the club-house, and on the way he caught glimpses of horrified black faces. He saw the superintendent preparing to send to Boonville for a doctor, but, knowing that the launch had already left, calculated the time it would take for a canoe to make the trip, and was vaguely amused to realize that all this excitement was useless. He experienced a feeling of triumph at the knowledge that he had succeeded in spite of all.

A short time later he was in bed, packed in warm blankets and hot-water bags, but through it all he maintained that distressing dumbness. Despite the artificial heat his hands and feet tingled, as if asleep, then became entirely numb, and he reasoned that the cocaine had begun to affect his circulation. He noted how the chill crept upward slowly, showing that the drug was working. On the mantel opposite he saw Muriel smiling at him from the morocco case and realized that she was very beautiful. After a time her outlines became less distinct, which told him that his optic nerve was becoming affected. Next the contents of the room grew hazy. That was quite as it should be.

He was much interested to note his heart action, which by now had become very erratic. Every pulsation that ran through him sounded as plainly in his ears as a drum-beat. He noticed that they were regular for a time, then gradually increased in speed until his heart raced like a runaway motor, then ceased suddenly, began again slowly, faintly, grew slower and fainter, until with every flutter he thought, "This is the end!"

When this phenomenon had been repeated time after time the sick man endeavored to assist the poison's effect. At each feeble recovery of his heart he held his breath and strained with all his might, striving by every force of will to stop the systolic action.

As he had often heard that men live again their evil deeds in the hour of dissolution, and while he had perhaps more than the average number of sins upon his soul, he determined to die thinking only of pleasant things, if possible. He recalled his wedding-day, and pictured Muriel as she had appeared that morning. How sweet and gentle she had been, what a wonderful time it had proved for him. They had sailed for the Mediterranean on the following morning, landing at Naples, where they had spent a week. From there they had gone to Rome for three dreamlike months and then to Nice and to Cairo, all the time in a lovers' paradise. From Egypt they had turned back to Morocco. Yes, Morocco, and how she had loved it there. Thence they had journeyed--where? To Spain, of course. Murray realized that his mind was working more slowly, which meant that the circulation to his brain was becoming sluggish. In a few moments he would be unable to think at all, it would be over--Muriel would be rich again. She was still young; she might marry some good man. From Spain they had gone by rail to--Paris? No, the Riviera--It was very difficult to think. In Germany, he remembered, they had taken an old castle for the--From Germany they had gone--gone. Yes. Muriel was--gone!

* * * * *

Murray awoke to find a trained nurse at his bedside. He was still in his room at the club, and after a time reasoned that the cocaine must be working very slowly. At the first words the nurse laid a hand upon his lips, saying:

"Don't speak, please. You have been very ill." Stepping to the door, she called some one, whereupon a man came quickly. Murray recognized him instantly as the famous Dr. Stormfield. They had met here three years previous and shot from the same blind.

"Hello, Murray!" the doctor began. "I'm glad you came around finally. You've given us the devil of a fight."

"How long--have I been ill?" whispered the sick man.

"Two days; unconscious all the time. Lucky for you that I ran down for a little shooting and happened to be on the launch from Boonville the morning you upset. We picked up your messenger on his way to town, and I got here just in time. Now don't talk. You're not out of danger by any means." That evening the physician explained further: "You must have suffered a terrible shock in that cold water. I never saw a case quite like it. Your heart puzzled me; it behaved in the most extraordinary manner."

"You say I'm not out of danger?"

"Far from it. Your heart is nearly done for, and the slightest exertion might set you off. If you got up, if you raised yourself off the bed, you might--go out like that." Stormfield snapped his fingers.

"I suppose my wife has been notified?"

"Yes." The doctor looked at his patient curiously. "Would you like to have her come--"

"No, no!" A frightened look leaped into Murray's eyes. "That's not necessary, you know." After a time he said: "Leave me, please. I'm tired."

When the doctor had closed the door he lifted himself to his elbow, swung his feet out upon the floor and stood up; then, faint as he was, he began to stoop and raise himself, flexing his arms, meanwhile, as if performing a calisthenic exercise. He was possessed by the one idea, that he must succeed while there was still time.

The nurse found him face downward upon his bed and sounded a quick alarm. All that night Stormfield sat beside him, his eyes grave, his brow furrowed anxiously. At intervals a woman came to the door, then at a sign from the watcher disappeared noiselessly. Thereafter Murray was never left alone.

A day or two later he complained of this over-attention, saying that the nurse's constant presence annoyed him, but Stormfield paid no attention. After a time the physician startled him by inquiring, abruptly:

"See here, Murray, what did you take?"

"I don't understand."

"Yes, you do."

"Why--What makes you think I took anything?"

"Come, come! I'm a specialist; I have some intelligence."

There was a pause, then the sick man finally admitted, "I took twenty-five grains of cocaine."

"_Twenty-five grains!_ God! It's incredible! Eight grains is the largest dose on record. You're dreaming, or else the drug was stale."

"I was particular to see that it was fresh."

Stormfield paced the room, shaking his head and muttering. "I wouldn't dare report such a thing; I'd be called a faker, and yet--there are no hard-and-fast laws of medicine." He stopped and stared at his patient. "What the devil prompted you to do it--with such a wife?"

"That's just it," the latter cried, miserably. "Oh, you've done for her a great injury by saving me, Doctor. But I won't allow it. I--won't!"

"I see!" The doctor went to the door, where he motioned some one to enter.

A woman rose from her chair in the hall and came swiftly to the bedside. Her face showed the signs of a long and sleepless vigil, but her eyes were aflame with a hunger that held Butler Murray spellbound and amazed.

"_You!_" he said, weakly. "When did you come?"

"I have been here for days," she answered. "Did you think I could stay away?"

"My--Muriel." He held up his shaking arms, whereupon she knelt and took his tired head to her breast.

"I thought I was doing right," he confided, after he had told her everything, "but I see now that I was all wrong."

"God will name the day," she declared, simply, "and until He does no man can say 'I will.'"

"Are you quite sure you have acted wisely in showing me my folly? Remember we are poor. Even yet I might make you rich again, for there is time, and--I'm not worth this great sacrifice."

"Sacrifice? This is the day of our triumph, dear. When we had all those other riches we never knew contentment, love, or happiness. Now we can start again, with nothing but ourselves and our children. We won't have time to be unhappy. Are you willing to try with me?"

He stroked her soft hair lovingly and smiled up into her eyes. "DeVoe was right, there _is_ a Power. I shall pray God every day to spare me, sweetheart, for now I want to live."

TOLD IN THE STORM

The front room of the roadhouse was deserted save for the slumbering bartender, back-tilted in a corner, his chin upon his chest, and one other man who sat in the glare of a swing lamp playing solitaire. It was, perhaps, three hours after midnight. The last carouser had turned in. There was no sound save the scream of the black night and the cry of the salt wind. At intervals only, when the storm lulled, there came from the back room the sound of many men asleep.

I stumbled out from the rear room, heavy-eyed, half clad, and of a vicious temper, dressing in sour silence beside the stove.

"Did they wake you up?" the card-player inquired.

"Yes."

"Me, too. I'd rather bunk in with a herd of walrus in the mating season."

He was a long, slim man, with blue-black hair and a gas-bleached face of startling pallor from which glittered two wild and roving eyes that flitted in and out of my visual line toward, to, and past me with a baffling elusive glimmer like that of jet spangles. His hands were slender and bony and colorless, but while he talked they worked, each independently. They performed queer, wizard antics with the cards--one-handed cuts, rapid, fluttering shuffles and "frame-ups," after each pass leaving the pile of pasteboards as square-edged and even as before. While he observed me over his shoulder one hand wandered to some scattered poker-chips which clicked together beneath his touch into a solid-ivory column as if separately magnetized. He shuffled and dealt and cut the disks and made them do odd capers like the cards.

"I slept in a menagerie tent once," said he, "but these people have got it on the animals." He nodded toward the sleeping-quarters.

"The open life seems to make a Pan's pipe out of the human nose," said I, with disgust.

My indignation was intense and underlaid with a sullen fury at losing my rest. I seized the stranger and led him with me to the open door, saying, roughly, "Listen to that."

The room was large and low, dim-lighted and walled with tiers of canvas-bottomed "standees" three high. The floor was a litter of boots, the benches piled with garments. Every bed was full, and the place groaned with sounds of strangulation, asphyxiation, and other disagreeable demises. The bunks were peopled by tortured bodies, which seemed to cry of throttlings, garrotings, and sundry hideous punishments. My nervous system, unable to stand it, had risen a-quiver, then shrieked for mercy.

From the nearest sleeper came the most unhappy sounds. He snored at free-and-easy intervals with the voice of a whistling-buoy in a ground swell--a handsome, resonant intake that died away reluctantly, then changed to a loathsome gurgle, as if he blew his breath through a tube into a pot of thick liquid. Now and then he smacked his lips and ground his teeth until the gooseflesh arose on my neck.

"That's the fellow that drove me out," said my new acquaintance as we went back to our seats beside the stove. "I had the berth below him. I sleep light, anyhow, since I woke up one night down on the Texas Panhandle and found a Chinaman astraddle of my brisket with a butcherknife."

"That must have been nice," said I at random. "What did you do?"

"I doubled up my legs and kicked him into the camp-fire." The stranger was dealing the cards again, this time into a fanlike, intricate solitaire much affected by gamblers. "I tried the trick again to-night, but I went wrong. I wanted to stop the swan-song of the guy over my head, so I lifted up my feet and put them where the canvas sagged lowest. Then I stretched my legs like a Jap juggler, but I fetched away my own bunk and came down on the man below. I broke a snore short off in him. He'll never get it out unless he has it pulled. That was us you heard two hours ago."

I was too tired and sleepy to talk, for I had come down from the hills the previous afternoon to find the equinoxial raging, and as a result the roadhouse full from floor to ridge-pole with the motley crew that had sifted out from the interior. The coastwise craft were hugging the lee of the sandy islet, waiting for the blow to abate; telephone-wires were down, and Bering's waters had piled in from the south until they flooded the endless sloughs and tide flats behind Solomon City, destroyed the ferries, and cut us off both east and west, by land and by sea. It were better, I had thought, to wait on the coast for a day or so, watching for a chance to dodge to Nome, than to return to the mines, so I had lugged my war bag into Anderson's place and made formal demand for shelter.

The proprietor had apologized as he assigned me a bunk. "It's the best I've got," said he. "I've put you alongside of the stove, so if the boys snore too loud you can heave coal on 'em. Them big lumps is better than your boots."

I had tried both fuel and footgear fruitlessly, and when my outraged ears would not permit further slumber I had given up the attempt. Now, while the blue-haired man with insomnia dealt "Idiot's Delight" I sat vaguely fascinated by the play of his hands, half dozing under the drone of his voice.

The wind rioted without, whipping the sea spray across the sand-dunes until it rattled upon our walls like shot. Meanwhile my companion adventured aimlessly, his strange and vagrant fancies calling for no answer, his odd and morbid journeyings matching well with the whimpering night. His stories were without beginning, and they lacked any end. They commenced without reason, led through unfrequented paths, then closed for no cause. Through them ran no thread of relevancy. They were neither cogent nor cohesive. Their incidents took shape and tumbled forth irrelated and inconsequent. Wherefore I knew them for the truth, and found myself ere long wide-eyed and still, my brain as keen as ever nature made it.

The story of the dead Frenchman has seemed strained and gruesome to me since, but that night the storm made it real, and the stranger's unsmiling earnestness robbed it of offense. His words told me a tale of which he had no thought, and painted pictures quite apart from those he had in mind. His very frame of mind, his pagan superstition, his frank, irreverent philosophy, disclosed queer glimpses of this land where morals are of the fourth dimension, where life is a gamble and death a joke. Whether he really believed all he said or whether he made sport of me I do not know. It may be that the elfin voices of the storm roused in him an impulse to gratify his distorted sense of humor at my expense--or at his own. He began somewhat as follows:

"It's a good night for a dead man to walk." Then, seeing the flicker in my eyes, he ran on: "You don't think they can do it, eh? Well, I didn't believe it neither, and I'm not sure I believe it now, but I've seen queer things--queer things--and I've only got one pair to draw to. Either they happened as I saw them or I'm crazy." He leaped at his story boldly.

"I'm pretty tired and hungry when I hit Council City late one fall, for I'd upset my rowboat, lost my outfit, and 'mushed' it one hundred fifty miles. My whole digestive paraphernalia is in a state of _innocuous desuetude_, if you know what that is, because all I save from the wreck is a flour-sack full of cigarette-papers and a package of chocolate pills about the size of a match-head. Each one of these pellets is warranted to contain sufficient nourishment to last the Germany army for one month. I read it on the label. They may have had it in them; I don't know. I swallowed one every morning and then filled up on reindeer moss till I felt like the leaping-pad in a circus.

"Now, when I reach camp I find there ain't any fresh grub to speak of. But I can't get away, so I stick on until spring. See! In time we begin to have scurvy something terrible. One man out of every five cashes in. I'm living in a cabin with a lot of Frenchmen and we bury seven from this one shack--seven, that's all! It gets on my nerves finally. I don't like dead men. Now, the last two who fall sick is old man Manard and my pal, young Pete De Foe. Pete has a ten-dollar gold piece and Manard owns a dog. Inasmuch as they both knew that they can't weather it out till the break-up, Pete bets his ten dollars against the dog that he'll die before Manard. Well, this is something new in the sporting line, and we begin to string our bets pretty free. There ain't much excitement going on, so the boys visit the cabin every day, look over the entries, then go outside and make book. I open up a Paris mutuel. The old man is a seven-to-one favorite at the start because he had all the best of it on form, but the youngster puts up a grand race. For three weeks they seesaw back and forth. First one looks like a winner, then the other. It's as pretty running as I ever see. Then Pete lets out a wonderful burst of speed, 'zings' over the last quarter, noses out Manard at the wire, and brings home the money. He dies at 3 A.M. and wins by four hours. I cop eighty-four dollars, six pairs of suspenders, a keg of wire nails, and a frying-pan, which constitutes all the circulating medium of the camp. I'm the stakeholder for the late deceased also, so I find myself the administrator of Manard's dog and the ten dollars that Pete put up.

"Now, seeing that it had been a killing finish, we arrange for a double-barreled burial and a swell funeral. The ground is froze, of course, but we dig two holes through the gravel till we break a pick-point and decide to let it go at that. The 'Bare-headed' Kid is clergyman because he has a square-cut coat that buttons up the front to his chin. There ain't any Bible in camp, so he read some recipes out of a baking-powder cook-book, after which Deaf Mike tries to play 'Taps' on the cornet. But he's held the horn in his mit during the services, and, the temperature being forty degrees below freezo, when he wets his lips to play they stick to the mouthpiece and crab the hymn. As a whole, it is an enjoyable affair, however, and the best-conducted funeral of the winter. Everybody has a good time, though nothing rough.

"Now, I've been friendly to young Pete De Foe--him and I bunked together--and the next night he comes to me, saying that he can't rest. I see him as plain as I see you.

"'What's wrong?' says I. 'Are you cold?'

"'No. The ground is chilly, but it ain't that. Manard, the old hellion, won't let me sleep. He's doing a sand jig on my grave. He says I won that bet crooked and died ahead of time just to get his dog. He's sore on you, too.'

"'What's he sore on me for?' says I.

"'He says he's an old man, and he'd 'a' died first if you hadn't put in with me to double-cross him. He's laying for you,' says Pete.

"Well, I'm pretty sick myself, with a four months' diet of pea soup and oatmeal, and when I wake up I think it's a dream. But the next night Pete is back again, complaining worse than ever. It seems the ghost of old man Manard is still buck-and-winging on Pete's coffin, and he begs me to come down and call the old reprobate off so that he can get some rest. He comes back the third night, the fourth, and the fifth, and by and by Manard himself comes up to the cabin and begins to abuse me. He says he wants his dog back, but naturally I can't give it to him. It gets so that I can't sleep at all. Finally, when Pete ain't sitting on my bunk Manard is calling me names and gritting his teeth at me. I begin to fall off in weight like a jockey in a sweat bath. It gets so I have to sit up all night in a chair and make the fellers prod me in the stomach with a stick whenever I doze off. I tell you, stranger, it was worse than horrible. I don't know how I made it through till spring.

"Well, in the early summer I get a letter from the steamboat agent at Nome saying Manard's people out in the States have slipped him some coin, with instructions to send the old man out so they can give him decent burial. He offers me one-fifty to bring him down to the coast. Now, this decent-burial talk makes me sore, for I staged the obsequies myself, and they were in perfect form. It was one of the tastiest funerals I ever mixed with. However, I'm broke, so I agree to deliver what is left of Manard at the mouth of the river, and the agent says he'll have a first-class coffin shipped down to the trader at Chinik, our landing. When I deliver Manard, ready for shipment, I get my hundred and fifty.

"I give you my word I ain't tickled pink with this undertaking. I'm not strong on body-snatching, and I have a hunch that the shade of old Manard is still hanging around somewhere. However, a bird in the hand is the noblest work of God, and I need that roll, so I make ready. It takes me half a day to get drunk enough to want to do the job, and when I get drunk enough to want to do it I'm so drunk I can't. Then I have to sober up and begin all over again. The minute I get sober enough to do the trick I realize I ain't drunk enough to stand the strain. I jockey that way for quite a spell till I finally strike an average, being considerable scared and reckless to the same extent.

"I remembered that we planted the old man in the left-hand grave, but when I get to the graveyard I can't recollect whether I stood at the foot or at the head of the hole during the services--a pint of that mining-camp hootch would box the compass for any man--so I think I'll make sure.

"I have brought along three tools--a pick, a shovel, and a bottle of rye. The ground is froze, so I use all of them. Naturally I can't afford to get the wrong Frenchman, so I pry up the lid of the first box I uncover and take a good rubber. Well, sir, it is a shock! Instead of rags and bones like I'm expecting, there is old Manard in statuary quo, so to speak. Froze? Maybe so. Anyhow, he grins at me! That's what I said! He grins at me, and I take it on the lam. Understand, I have no intentions of running away--in fact, I don't know I'm doing it until I fetch up back in the saloon. It seems I just balanced my body on my legs and they did all the work.

"Well, I'm pretty well rattled, so I blot up another pint of pain-killer, and finally the bartender goes back with me and helps load Manard into my Peterboro. I'm pretty wet by this time. We get the box into the canoe all right, but it's too big to fit under the seat, so we place the foot of it on the bottom of the boat and rest the other end on a paddle laid across the gunnels. This sort of gives Manard the appearance of lounging back on an incline. You see, when I ripped up the boards to take a look I broke off a piece at a knot-hole, and that allows him a chance to look out with one eye. He seems to approve of the position, however, so I get in at the stern, facing him, and ask if he's ready. He gives me the nod, and I shove off. Just for company I take my grave-digging tools along--that is, all but the pick and the shovel. It was pretty near full when I started, but I lose the cork and drink it up for safety.

"I don't remember much about the first part of the trip except that I get awful lonesome. By and by I begin to sing:

"'Oh, the French are in the bay!' said the Shaun Van Vocht.
'The French are in the bay,' said the Shaun Van Vocht.
'The French are in the bay. They'll be here without delay.
'But their colors will decay,' said the Shaun Van Vocht."

"I've got a mean singing-voice when I'm sober, but when I'm kippered it's positively insulting. It makes my passenger sore, and he shows it. Now, I'm not saying that Manard wasn't as dead as a dried herring. He was past and gone, and he'd made his exit all right. He'd moved out, and his lease had expired. But I saw that box move. It shifted from side to side. I quit singing. My song-fountain ran dry. Says I to myself: 'I just neglected to lash you down, Mr. Manard; you didn't really turn over. It was the motion of the boat.' Then, just to make sure, I break forth into 'Johnny Crapaud,' keeping my eye on the right lens of the old man where it showed through the broken board. This time there ain't a doubt of it. He lurches, box and all, clean out of plumb and nearly capsizes me. His one lamp blazes. Yes, sir, blazes! I tries to get out of range of it, but it follers me like a searchlight. I creeps forward to cover it up with my coat, but the old frog-eater leans to starboard so far that I have to balance on the port gunnel to keep from going over. We begin to spin in the current. Manard sees he has me buffaloed, and it pleases him. He wags his head at me and grins like he did when he came to me in my sleep.

"Well, sir, that eye enthralls me. It destroys my chain of thought. I feel the chills stealing into my marrow, and that one hundred and fifty dollars looks mighty small and insignificant. By and by I begin to figure it out this way: says I, 'I've outrun him once to-day, and if I can get ashore I'll try it again.' But when I turn the canoe toward shore Manard heels over till we take water.

"'Lie still, you blame fool!' says I. 'If you feel that way about it I'll stay with the ship, of course.' I can see the corner of his mouth curl up at that, and he slides back into position. Then I know that he'll let me stick as long as I don't try to pull out and leave him flat. You really can't blame a corpse much under the circumstances. However, I can't swim, so I try to square myself. I make conversation of a polite and friendly nature, and the old boy settles back to enjoy himself.

"Well, this one-sided talkfest gets tiresome after a while. I run out of topics, so I tell him funny stories. Sometimes he likes them, and sometimes he 'most jumps out of the box. Sore? Say, when I pull a wheeze that he don't like he makes it known quick, and I sit clutching the gunnels, with my hair on end while he rocks the boat like a demon.

"When I get to the mouth of the river it's night. I find a stiff breeze blowing and the bay covered with whitecaps, so I try to convince Manard that we'd better camp. But I no more than suggest it till I have to bail for dear life. Seeing that he's dead set to keep going, I kiss myself good-by and paddle out across the bay. How we ever made it I don't know, but along about midnight we blow into Chinik, with me singing songs to my passenger and cracking 'Joe Millers' that came over in seventy-six. I'm still pretty drunk.

"The trader tells me that the coffin hasn't come from Nome yet. But the steamer is due before morning, so I ask him to cache Manard somewhere and wake me up when the boat comes. Then I go to the hay. I'm tuckered out. It seems that the coaster comes in a few hours later, but the trader is dealing a stud game and tells the purser to dump his freight on the beach. They do as ordered, then pull out. About daylight the wind shifts, the tide rises and begins to wash the merchandise away. Two 'rough-necks' get busy saving their outfit, when what comes bobbing past on the waves but a handsome zink-lined casket--the one from Nome.

"'Hey, Bill, cop that box; it'll make a swell bath-tub,' says one. So the other pulls up his rubber boots, wades out, and brings it in. The trader, hearing that his goods are in danger, adjourns the game long enough to see about it. He hurries down to the beach, looks over his stuff, then inquires:

"'Where's my coffin?'

"'You 'ain't got no more coffin than a rabbit,' says one of the miners.

"'Oh, yes, I have. That's it right there.'

"'I guess not. That's my coffin. I copped it on the high seas--flotsam and jetsam,' says the 'roughneck.' 'What's more, I'm going to use it for a cupboard or a cozy corner. If you want it bad pay me fifty dollars salvage and it's yours.' Naturally the trader belched.

"'All right. If you don't want it I'll use it myself,' says the miner. 'It's the first one I ever had, and I like it fine. There's no telling when I'll get another.'

"'Said time ain't but a minute,' observes the trader, 'unless you gimme that freight.'

"There is some further dispute till the miner, being a quick-tempered party, reaches for his Gat. After the smoke clears away it is found that he has made an error of judgment, that the storekeeper is gifted as a prophet, and that the 'roughneck' is ready for his coffin.

"Now, inasmuch as this had been a purely personal affair and the boys was anxious to reopen the stud game, they exonerated the trader from all blame complete, and he, being ever anxious to maintain a reputation for fair dealing and just to show that there ain't no animus behind his action, gives the coffin to the man who had claimed it. What's more, he helps to lay him out with his own hands. Naturally this is considered conduct handsome enough for any country. In an hour the man is buried and the poker game is open again. The trader apologizes to the boys for the delay, saying:

"'The box is mine, all right, and I'm sorry this play come up, but
the late lamented was so set on having that piece of bric-à-brac
that it seemed a shame not to give it to him.'"

At this point the narrator fell silent, much to my surprise, for throughout this weird recital I had sat spellbound, forgetful of the hour, the storm outside, and the snoring men in the bunkroom. When he had gone thus far he began with a bewildering change of topic.

"Did you ever hear how Dawson Sam cut the ears off a bank dealer?"

"Hold on!" said I. "What's the rest of this story? What became of Manard?"

"Oh, he's there yet, for all I know," said the stranger as he shuffled the cards. "His folks wouldn't send no more money, the steamboat agent at Nome had done his share, and the trader at Chinik said he wasn't responsible."

"And you? Didn't you get your one hundred and fifty dollars?"

"No. You see, it was a C. O. D. shipment. I wake up along about noon, put my head under the pump, and then look up the trader. He is still playing stud.

"'Where's my casket?' says I. 'I've got my dead man, but I don't collect on him till he's crated and f. o. b.' The trader has an ace in the hole and two kings in sight, so he says over his shoulder:

"'I'm sorry, old man, but while you was asleep a tenderfoot jumped your coffin.' Now, this Dawson Sam has a crooked bank dealer named--"

"I think I'll go back to bed," said I.

THE WEIGHT OF OBLIGATION

This is the story of a burden, the tale of a load that irked a strong man's shoulders. To those who do not know the North it may seem strange, but to those who understand the humors of men in solitude, and the extravagant vagaries that steal in upon their minds, as fog drifts with the night, it will not appear unusual. There are spirits in the wilderness, eerie forces which play pranks; some droll or whimsical, others grim.

Johnny Cantwell and Mortimer Grant were partners, trail-mates, brothers in soul if not in blood. The ebb and flood of frontier life had brought them together, its hardships had united them until they were as one. They were something of a mystery to each other, neither having surrendered all his confidence, and because of this they retained their mutual attraction. Had they known each other fully, had they thoroughly sounded each other's depths, they would have lost interest, just like husbands and wives who give themselves too freely and reserve nothing.

They had met by accident, but they remained together by desire, and so satisfactory was the union that not even the jealousy of women had come between them. There had been women, of course, just as there had been adventures of other sorts, but the love of the partners was larger and finer than anything else they had experienced. It was so true and fine and unselfish, in fact, that either would have smilingly relinquished the woman of his desires had the other wished to possess her. They were young, strong men, and the world was full of sweethearts, but where was there a partnership like theirs, they asked themselves.

The spirit of adventure bubbled merrily within them, too, and it led them into curious byways. It was this which sent them northward from the States in the dead of winter, on the heels of the Stony River strike; it was this which induced them to land at Katmai instead of Illiamna, whither their land journey should have commenced.

"There are two routes over the coast range," the captain of the _Dora_ told them, "and only two. Illiamna Pass is low and easy, but the distance is longer than by way of Katmai. I can land you at either place."

"Katmai is pretty tough, isn't it?" Grant inquired.

"We've understood it's the worst pass in Alaska." Cantwell's eyes were eager.

"It's a heller! Nobody travels it except natives, and they don't like it. Now, Illiamna--"

"We'll try Katmai. Eh, Mort?"

"Sure! They don't come hard enough for us, Cap. We'll see if it's as bad as it's painted."

So, one gray January morning they were landed on a frozen beach, their outfit was flung ashore through the surf, the life-boat pulled away, and the _Dora_ disappeared after a farewell toot of her whistle. Their last glimpse of her showed the captain waving good-by and the purser flapping a red table-cloth at them from the after-deck.

"Cheerful place, this," Grant remarked, as he noted the desolate surroundings of dune and hillside.

The beach itself was black and raw where the surf washed it, but elsewhere all was white, save for the thickets of alder and willow which protruded nakedly. The bay was little more than a hollow scooped out of the Alaskan range; along the foot-hills behind there was a belt of spruce and cottonwood and birch. It was a lonely and apparently unpeopled wilderness in which they had been set down.

"Seems good to be back in the North again, doesn't it?" said Cantwell, cheerily. "I'm tired of the booze, and the street-cars, and the dames, and all that civilized stuff. I'd rather be broke in Alaska--with you--than a banker's son, back home."

Soon a globular Russian half-breed, the Katmai trader, appeared among the dunes, and with him were some native villagers. That night the partners slept in a snug log cabin, the roof of which was chained down with old ships' cables. Petellin, the fat little trader, explained that roofs in Katmai had a way of sailing off to seaward when the wind blew. He listened to their plan of crossing the divide and nodded.

It could be done, of course, he agreed, but they were foolish to try it, when the Illiamna route was open. Still, now that they were here, he would find dogs for them, and a guide. The village hunters were out after meat, however, and until they returned the white men would need to wait in patience.

There followed several days of idleness, during which Cantwell and Grant amused themselves around the village, teasing the squaws, playing games with the boys, and flirting harmlessly with the girls, one of whom, in particular, was not unattractive. She was perhaps three-quarters Aleut, the other quarter being plain coquette, and, having been educated at the town of Kodiak, she knew the ways and the wiles of the white man.

Cantwell approached her, and she met his extravagant advances more than half-way. They were getting along nicely together when Grant, in a spirit of fun, entered the game and won her fickle smiles for himself. He joked his partner unmercifully, and Johnny accepted defeat gracefully, never giving the matter a second thought.

When the hunters returned, dogs were bought, a guide was hired, and, a week after landing, the friends were camped at timber-line awaiting a favorable moment for their dash across the range. Above them white hillsides rose in irregular leaps to the gash in the saw-toothed barrier which formed the pass; below them a short valley led down to Katmai and the sea. The day was bright, the air clear, nevertheless after the guide had stared up at the peaks for a time he shook his head, then re-entered the tent and lay down. The mountains were "smoking"; from their tops streamed a gossamer veil which the travelers knew to be drifting snow-clouds carried by the wind. It meant delay, but they were patient.

They were up and going on the following morning, however, with the Indian in the lead. There was no trail; the hills were steep; in places they were forced to unload the sled and hoist their outfit by means of ropes, and as they mounted higher the snow deepened. It lay like loose sand, only lighter; it shoved ahead of the sled in a feathery mass; the dogs wallowed in it and were unable to pull, hence the greater part of the work devolved upon the men. Once above the foot-hills and into the range proper, the going became more level, but the snow remained knee-deep.