Chapter 2

"Rooshians is a kind of white people, ain't they? Well, that's how she come so light-complected. You remember she said our folks had treated her bad? It's a fact, Doc. She spilled the story, and it made a mouthful. It's like this: when Nome was struck a Swede feller she had knew staked her a claim, but she couldn't hold it, her bein' a squab--under age, savvy? There's something in the law that prevents Injuns gettin' in on anything good, too; I don't rightly recollect what it is, but if it's legal you can bet it's crooked. Anyhow, Uncle Sam lets up a squawk that she's only eighteen, goin' on nineteen, and a noble redskin to boot, and says his mining claims is reserved for Laps and Yaps and Japs and Wops, and such other furrin' slantheads of legal age as declare their intention to become American citizens if their claims turn out rich enough so's it pays 'em to do so.

"Well, Ponatah's Swede friend gets himself froze, somehow, so she has to pass the buck. Naturally, she turns to her pals, the missionaries. There's a he-missionary here--head mug of the whole gang. He's a godly walloper, and he tears into Satan bare-handed every Sunday. He slams the devil around something shameful, and Ponatah thinks he's a square guy if ever they come square, so she asks him to re-locate her claim, on shares, and hold it for the joint account. Old Doctor M.E. Church agrees to split fifty-fifty, half to her and half to heaven, then he vamps to Nome and chalks his monaker over the Kid's. Now get me: the claim turns out good, and Ponatah's heavenly pilot makes a Mexican divvy--he takes the money and gives her his best wishes. He grabs everything, and says he never knew nobody by the name of Ponatah--he gets so he can't even pronounce it. He allows her face is familiar, but he can't place her, and the partnership idea allus was repugnant to him. He never was partners with nobody, understand? He blows the show; he bows out and leaves the Kid flat. He forsakes the Milky Way for the Great White one, and he's out there now, smokin' Coronas and wearin' a red vest under his black coat, with a diamond horseshoe in his tie. It looks to me like the James boys could 'a' learned something from this gospel hold-up."

"Do you believe her story?" Thomas inquired.

"She don't know enough to lie, and you can't trust a guy that wears his collar backwards."

"She should go to court."

Mr. Hyde shook his head. "I been there, often, but I never picked up a bet. Somehow or other courts is usually right next to jails, and you got to watch out you don't get in the wrong place. You can't win nothing in either one. I thought I'd tell you the story, so if you ever meet up with this shave-tail preacher and he wants a headache pill you can slip him some sugar-coated arsenic."

In the days immediately following Doctor Thomas's arrival at Nome he was a busy man, but he did not forget Ponatah. He was allowed no opportunity of doing so, for Bill frequently reminded him of her, and as a result it was not long before he found a place for his charge, in the home of a leading merchant. Arrangements made, Bill went in search of the mail-carrier.

Petersen was drinking with two friends at the bar of the Last Chance, and he pressed his late passenger to join them. But alcoholism was not one of Mr. Hyde's weaknesses. The best of Bill's bad habits was much worse than drink; he had learned from experience that liquor put a traitor's tongue in his head, and in consequence he was a teetotaler.

"I got a job for you, Pete," he announced. "I got you another sled-load for your next trip. You know Ponatah?"

"Ponatah? Sure Aye know 'im." Petersen. spoke with enthusiasm.

"Well, bring her along when you come. Me 'n' the little Doc will settle."

"Dat's good yob for me, all right. Vot mak' you tank she'll come? Aye ask her plenty tams, but she ant like me."

"You slip her this billy-ducks and she'll come."

Petersen pocketed the letter which Bill handed him; his eyes brightened; the flush in his face deepened. "You bet your gum boots Aye bring her. She's svell, ant she, Bill? She's yust some svell like white voman."

"Who's this?" queried one of Petersen's companions.

"Ponatah. She's jung sqvaw. Aye got eyes on dat chicken long tam now." The burly mail-man laughed loudly and slapped his friend on the shoulder.

Mr. Hyde appeared to share in the general good nature. Carelessly, smilingly he picked up Petersen's dog-whip, which lay coiled on the bar; thoughtfully he weighed it. The lash was long, but the handle was short and thick, and its butt was loaded with shot; it had much the balance of a black-jack--a weapon not unknown to Mr. Hyde.

"Pretty soft for you mail-men." The former speaker grinned.

"Ja! Pretty soft. Aye bet Aye have good tam dis trip. Yust vait. You don't know how purty is Ponatah. She--"

Petersen's listeners waited. They are waiting yet, for the mail-man never completed his admiring recital of the Indian girl's charms, owing to the fact that the genial Mr. Hyde without warning tapped his late friend's round head with the leather butt of the dog-whip. Had it not been for the Norseman's otter cap it is probable that a new mail-carrier would have taken the St. Michaels run.

Petersen sat down upon his heels, and rested his forehead against the cool brass foot-rail; the subsequent proceedings interested him not at all. Those proceedings were varied and sudden, for the nearest and dearest of Petersen's friends rushed upon Mr. Hyde with a roar. Him, too, Bill eliminated from consideration with the loaded whip handle. But, this done, Bill found himself hugged in the arms of the other man, as in the embrace of a bereaved she-grizzly. Now even at his best the laughing Mr. Hyde was no hand at rough-and-tumble, it being his opinion that fisticuffs was a peculiarly indecisive and exhausting way of settling a dispute. He possessed a vile temper, moreover, and once aroused half measures failed to satisfy it.

After Mr. Hyde's admirable beginning those neutrals who had seen the start of the affray were prepared to witness an ending equally quick and conclusive. They were surprised, therefore, to note that Bill put up a very weak struggle, once he had come to close quarters. He made only the feeblest resistance, before permitting himself to be borne backward to the floor, and then as he lay pinned beneath his opponent he did not even try to guard the blows that rained upon him; as a matter of fact, he continued to laugh as if the experience were highly diverting.

Seeing that the fight was one-sided, the bartender hastened from his retreat, dragged Petersen's champion to his feet, and flung him back into the arms of the onlookers, after which he stooped to aid the loser. His hands were actually upon Bill before he understood the meaning of that peculiar laughter, and saw in Mr. Hyde's shaking fingers that which caused him to drop the prostrate victim as if he were a rattlesnake.

"God'l'mighty!" exclaimed the rescuer. He retreated hurriedly whence he had come.

Bill rose and dusted himself off, then he bent over Petersen, who was stirring.

"Just give her that billy-ducks and tell her it's all right. Tell her I say you won't hurt her none." Then, still chuckling, he slipped into the crowd and out of the Last Chance. As he went he coughed and spat a mouthful of blood.

Once the mail-carrier had been apprised of the amazing incidents which had occurred during his temporary inattention, he vowed vengeance in a mighty voice, and his threats found echo in the throats of his two companions. But the bartender took them aside and spoke guardedly:

"You better lay off of that guy, or he'll fatten the graveyard with all three of you. I didn't 'make' him at first, but I got him now, all right."

"What d'you mean? Who is he?"

"His name's Hyde, 'Laughing Bill.'"

"'Laughing Bill' Hyde!" One of Petersen's friends, he who had come last into the encounter, turned yellow and leaned hard against the bar. A sudden nausea assailed him and he laid tender hands upon his abdomen. "'Laughing Bill' Hyde! That's why he went down so easy! Why, he killed a feller I knew--ribboned him up from underneath, just that way--and the jury called it self-defense." A shudder racked the speaker's frame.

"Sure! He's a cutter--a reg'lar gent's cutter and fitter. He'd 'a' had you all over the floor in another minute; if I hadn't pried you apart they'd 'a' sewed sawdust up inside of you like you was a doll. He had the old bone-handled skinner in his mit; that's why I let go of him. Laughing Bill! Take it from me, boys, you better walk around him like he was a hole in the ice."

It may have been the memory of that heavy whip handle, it may have been the moral effect of stray biographical bits garnered here and there around the gambling-table, or it may have been merely a high and natural chivalry, totally unsuspected until now, which prompted Petersen to treat Ponatah with a chill and formal courtesy when he returned from St. Michaels. At any rate, the girl arrived in Nome with nothing but praise for the mail-man. Pete Petersen, so she said, might have his faults, but he knew how to behave like a perfect gentleman.

Ponatah took up her new duties with enthusiasm, and before a month had passed she had endeared herself to her employers, who secretly assured Doctor Thomas that they had discovered a treasure and would never part with her. She was gentle, patient, sweet, industrious; the children idolized her. The Indian girl had never dreamed of a home like this; she was deliriously happy.

She took pride in discharging her obligations; she did not forget the men who had made this wonder possible. They had rented a little cabin, and, after the fashion of men, they make slipshod efforts at keeping house. Since it was Ponatah's nature to serve, she found time somehow to keep the place tidy and to see to their comfort.

Laughing Bill was a hopeless idler; he had been born to leisure and was wedded to indigence, therefore he saw a good deal of the girl on her visits. He listened to her stories of the children, he admired her new and stylish clothes, he watched her develop under the influence of her surroundings. Inasmuch as both of them were waifs, and beholden to the bounty of others, thy had ties in common--a certain mutuality--hence they came to know each other intimately.

Despite the great change in her environment, Ponatah remained in many ways quite aboriginal. For instance, she was embarrassingly direct and straightforward; she entirely lacked hypocrisy, and that which puzzled or troubled her she boldly put into words. There came a time when Bill discovered that Ponatah's eyes, when they looked at him, were more than friendly, that most of the services she performed were aimed at him.

Then one day she asked him to marry her.

There was nothing brazen or forward about the proposal; Ponatah merely gave voice to her feelings in a simple, honest way that robbed her of no dignity.

Bill laughed the proposal off. "I wouldn't marry the Queen of Sheby," said he.

"Why?"

"I ain't that kind of a bird, that's why."

"What kind of a bird are you?" Ponatah eyed him with grave curiosity. "All men marry. I'm reading a great many books, and they're all about love and marriage. I love you, and I'm pretty. Is it because I'm an Indian--?"

"Hell! That wouldn't faze me, Kiddo. You skin the white dames around this village. But you better cut out them books."

"I'd make you a good wife."

"Sure! You're aces. But I'd make a bum husband. I ain't got the breath to blow out a candle." Mr. Hyde chuckled; the idea of marriage plainly amused him. "How you know I ain't got a covey of wives?" he inquired.

"Oh, I know!" Ponatah was unsmiling. "I'm simple, but I can see through people. I can tell the good ones and the bad ones. You're a good man, Billy."

Now this praise was anything but agreeable to Mr. Hyde, for above all things he abhorred so-called "good" people. Good people were suckers, and he prided himself upon being a wise guy, with all that was meant thereby.

"You lay off of me, Kid," he warned, darkly, "and you muffle them wedding bells. You can't win nothing with that line of talk. If I was fifty inches around the chest, liked to work, and was fond of pas'ment'ries I'd prob'ly fall for you, but I ain't. I'm a good man, all right--to leave alone. I'll be a brother to you, but that's my limit." The subject was embarrassing, so he changed it. "Say! I been thinking about that claim of yours. Didn't you get no paper from that missionary?"

"No."

"Then his word's as good as yours."

"That's what the lawyer told me. I offered to give him half, but he wouldn't touch the case."

"It was a dirty deal, but you better forget it."

"I'll try," the girl promised. "But I don't forget easily."

Laughing Bill's rejection of Ponatah's offer of marriage did not in the least affect their friendly relations. She continued to visit the cabin, and not infrequently she reverted to the forbidden topic, only to meet with discouragement.

Doctor Thomas had opened an office, of course, but business was light and expenses heavy. Supplies were low in Nome and prices high; coal, for instance, was a hundred dollars a ton and, as a result, most of the idle citizens spent their evenings---but precious little else--around the saloon stoves. When April came Laughing Bill regretfully decided that it was necessary for him to go to work. The prospect was depressing, and he did not easily reconcile himself to it, for he would have infinitely preferred some less degraded and humiliating way out of the difficulty. He put up a desperate battle against the necessity, and he did not accept the inevitable until thoroughly convinced that the practice of medicine and burglary could not be carried on from the same residence without the risk of serious embarrassment to his benefactor.

However, to find employment in a community where there were two men to one job was not easy, but happily--or unhappily--Bill had a smattering of many trades, and eventually there came an opening as handy-man at a mine. It was a lowly position, and Bill had little pride in it, for he was put to helping the cook, waiting on table, washing dishes, sweeping cabins, making beds, and the like. He had been assured that the work was light, and so it was, but it was also continuous. He could summon not the slightest interest in it until he discovered that this was the very claim which rightfully belonged to Ponatah. Then, indeed, he pricked up his ears.

The Aurora Borealis, as the mine was now called, had been working all winter, and gigantic dumps of red pay-dirt stood as monuments to the industry of its workmen. Rumor had it that the "streak" was rich, and that Doctor Slayforth, the owner, would be in on the first boat to personally oversee the clean-ups. The ex-missionary, Bill discovered, had the reputation of being a tight man, and meanly suspicious in money matters. He reposed no confidence in his superintendent, a surly, saturnine fellow known as Black Jack Berg, nor in Denny Slevin, his foreman. So much Laughing Bill gathered from camp gossip.

It soon became evident that Black Jack was a hard driver, for sluicing began with the first trickle of snow water--even while the ditches were still ice-bound--and it continued with double shifts thereafter. A representative of Doctor Slayforth came out from Nome to watch the first clean-up, and Bill, in his capacity as chambermaid, set up a cot for him in the cabin shared by Black Jack and Denny. While so engaged the latter discovered him, and gruffly ordered him to remove the cot to the bunk-house.

"Put him in with the men," growled Slevin. "Serves the dam' spy right."

"Spy? Is he a gum-shoe?" Mr. Hyde paused, a pillow slip between his teeth.

"That's what! Me and Jack was honest enough to run things all winter, but we ain't honest enough to clean up. That's like old Slayforth--always lookin' to get the worst of it. I'm square, and so's Jack. Makes me sick, this spyin' on honest folks. Everybody knows we wouldn't turn a trick."

Now it was Laughing Bill's experience that honesty needs no boosting, and that he who most loudly vaunts his rectitude is he who is least certain of it.

"The boss must be a good man, him being a sort of psalm-singer," Bill ventured, guilelessly.

Denny snorted: "Oh, sure! He's good, all right. He's 'most too good--to be true. Billy, my boy, when you've seen as many crooks as I have you'll know 'em, no matter how they come dressed."

As he folded the cot Mr. Hyde opined that worldly experience must indeed be a fine thing to possess.

"You go gamble on it!" Slevin agreed. "Now then, just tell that Hawkshaw we don't want no dam' spies in our house. We're square guys, and we can't stomach 'em."

That evening Black Jack called upon the handy-man to help with the clean-up, and put him to tend the water while he and Denny, under the watchful eye of the owner's representative, lifted the riffles, worked down the concentrates, and removed them from the boxes.

Bill was an experienced placer miner, so it was not many days before he was asked to help in the actual cleaning of the sluices. He was glad of the promotion, for, as he told himself, no man can squeeze a lemon without getting juice on his fingers. It will be seen, alas! that Mr. Hyde's moral sense remained blunted in spite of the refining influence of his association with Doctor Thomas. But Aurora dust was fine, and the handy-man's profits were scarcely worth the risks involved in taking them.

One morning while Bill was cleaning up the superintendent's cabin he noticed a tiny yellow flake of gold upon the floor in front of Slevin's bed. Careful examination showed him several "colors" of the same sort, so he swept the boards carefully and took up the dust in a "blower." He breathed upon the pile, blowing the lighter particles away. A considerable residue of heavy yellow grains remained. With a grin Bill folded them in a cigarette paper and placed them in his pocket. But it puzzled him to explain how there came to be gold on the cabin floor. His surprise deepened when, a few days later, he found another "prospect" in the same place. His two sweepings had yielded perhaps a pennyweight of the precious metal--enough to set him to thinking. It seemed queer that in the neighborhood of Black Jack's bunk he could find no pay whatever.

Slevin had left his hip boots in the cabin, and as Laughing Bill turned down their tops and set them out in the wind to dry his sharp eye detected several yellow pin-points of color which proved, upon closer investigation, to be specks of gold clinging to the wet lining.

"Well, I be danged!" said Mr. Hyde. Carefully, thoughtfully, he replaced the boots where he had found them. The knowledge that he was on a hot trail electrified him.

At the next clean-up Laughing Bill took less interest in his part of the work and more in Denny Slevin's. When the riffles were washed, and the loose gravel had been worked down into yellow piles of rich concentrates, Slevin, armed with whisk broom, paddle, and scoop, climbed into the sluices. Bill watched him out of a corner of his eye, and it was not long before his vigilance was rewarded. The hold-up man turned away with a feeling of genuine admiration, for he had seen Slevin, under the very nose of the lookout, "go south" with a substantial amount of gold.

The foreman's daring and dexterity amazed Bill and deepened his respect. Slevin's work was cunning, and yet so simple as to be almost laughable. With his hip boots pulled high he had knelt upon one knee in the sluice scooping up the wet piles of gold and black iron sand, while Berg held a gold pan to receive it. During the process Black Jack had turned to address the vigilant owner's representative, and, profiting by the brief diversion, Bill had seen Denny dump a heaping scoop-load of "pay" into the gaping pocket-like top of his capacious rubber boot.

"The sons-of-a-gun!" breathed Laughing Bill. "The double-crossing sons-of-a-gun! Why, it begins to look like a big summer for me."

Bill slept well that night, for now that he knew the game which was going on he felt sure that sooner or later he would take a hand in it. Just how or when the hand would fall he could not tell, but that did not worry him in the least, inasmuch as he already held the trumps. It seemed that a kindly fortune had guided him to the Aurora; that fate had decreed he should avenge the wrongs of Ponatah. The handy-man fell asleep with a smile upon his lips.

The first ship arrived that very evening, and the next day Doctor Slayforth in person appeared at the Aurora. He was a thin, restless man with weak and shifting eyes; he said grace at dinner, giving thanks for the scanty rations of hash and brown beans over which his hungry workmen were poised like cormorants. The Aurora had won the name of a bad feeder, but its owner seemed satisfied with his meal. Later Bill overheard him talking with his superintendent.

"I'm disappointed with the clean-ups," Slayforth confessed. "The pay appears to be pinching out."

"She don't wash like she sampled, that's a fact," said Black Jack.

"I'm afraid we shall have to practise economies--"

"Look here! If you aim to cut down the grub, don't try it," counseled Berg. "It's rotten now."

"Indeed? There appeared to be plenty, and the quality was excellent. I fear you encourage gluttony, and nothing so interferes with work. We must effect a saving somehow; there is too great a variation between theoretical and actual values."

"Huh! You better try feeding hay for a while," sourly grumbled the superintendent. "If you ain't getting what you aimed to get it's because it ain't in the cards."

This conversation interested Bill, for it proved that the robbers had helped themselves with a liberal hand, but how they had managed to appropriate enough gold to noticeably affect the showing of the winter's work intensely mystified him; it led him to believe that Black Jack and Denny were out for a homestake.

That such was indeed the case and that Slevin was not the only thief Bill soon discovered, for after the next clean-up he slipped away through the twilight and took stand among the alders outside the rear window of the shack on the hill. From his point of concealment he could observe all that went on inside.

It was a familiar scene. By the light of an oil lamp Black Jack was putting the final touches to the clean-up. Two gold pans, heaped high with the mingled black sand and gold dust, as it came out of the sluices, were drying on the Yukon stove, and the superintendent was engaged in separating the precious yellow particles from the worthless material which gravity had deposited with it. This refining process was slow, painstaking work, and was effected with the help of a flat brass scoop--a "blower." By shaking this blower and breathing upon its contents the lighter grains of iron sand were propelled to the edge, as chaff is separated from wheat, and fell into a box held between the superintendent's knees. The residue, left in the heel of the blower after each blowing process, was commercial "dust," ready for the bank or the assay office. Doctor Slayforth, with his glasses on the end of his nose, presided at the gold scales, while Denny Slevin looked on. As the dust was weighed, a few ounces at a time, it was dumped into a moose-skin sack and entered upon the books.