You've lost some dust.You say as 'ow I know, an' I say as 'ow Idon't.Let's get a hobservation an' shape a course--""Vast heavin'!" Kent dashed in, maliciously imitating the other's enunciation."I'm going to shape all the courses of this shebang, and you observe; and if you do anything more, I'll bore you as sure as Moses!""For the sake of my mother--""Whom God have mercy upon if she loves you.Ah! Would you?" He frustrated a hostile move on the part of the other by pressing the cold muzzle against his forehead."Lay quiet, now! If you lift as much as a hair, you'll get it."It was rather an awkward task, with the trigger of the gun always within pulling distance of the finger; but Kent was a weaver, and in a few minutes had the sailor tied hand and foot.Then he dragged him without and laid him by the side of the cabin, where he could overlook the river and watch the sun climb to the meridian.
"Now I'll give you till noon, and then--"
"Wot?"
"You'll be hitting the brimstone trail.But if you speak up, I'll keep you till the next bunch of mounted police come by.""Well, Gawd blime me, if this ain't a go! 'Ere I be, innercent as a lamb, an' 'ere you be, lost all o' your top 'amper an' out o'
your reckonin', run me foul an' goin' to rake me into 'ell-fire.
You bloomin' old pirut! You--"
Jim Cardegee loosed the strings of his profanity and fairly outdid himself.Jacob Kent brought out a stool that he might enjoy it in comfort.Having exhausted all the possible combinations of his vocabulary, the sailor quieted down to hard thinking, his eyes constantly gauging the progress of the sun, which tore up the eastern slope of the heavens with unseemly haste.His dogs, surprised that they had not long since been put to harness, crowded around him.His helplessness appealed to the brutes.
They felt that something was wrong, though they knew not what, and they crowded about, howling their mournful sympathy.
"Chook! Mush-on! you Siwashes!" he cried, attempting, in a vermicular way, to kick at them, and discovering himself to be tottering on the edge of a declivity.As soon as the animals had scattered, he devoted himself to the significance of that declivity which he felt to be there but could not see.Nor was he long in arriving at a correct conclusion.In the nature of things, he figured, man is lazy.He does no more than he has to.
When he builds a cabin he must put dirt on the roof.From these premises it was logical that he should carry that dirt no further than was absolutely necessary.Therefore, he lay upon the edge of the hole from which the dirt had been taken to roof Jacob Kent's cabin.This knowledge, properly utilized, might prolong things, he thought; and he then turned his attention to the moose-hide thongs which bound him.His hands were tied behind him, and pressing against the snow, they were wet with the contact.This moistening of the raw-hide he knew would tend to make it stretch, and, without apparent effort, he endeavored to stretch it more and more.
He watched the trail hungrily, and when in the direction of Sixty Mile a dark speck appeared for a moment against the white background of an ice-jam, he cast an anxious eye at the sun.It had climbed nearly to the zenith.Now and again he caught the black speck clearing the hills of ice and sinking into the intervening hollows; but he dared not permit himself more than the most cursory glances for fear of rousing his enemy's suspicion.
Once, when Jacob Kent rose to his feet and searched the trail with care, Cardegee was frightened, but the dog-sled had struck a piece of trail running parallel with a jam, and remained out of sight till the danger was past.
"I'll see you 'ung for this," Cardegee threatened, attempting to draw the other's attention."An' you'll rot in 'ell, jes' you see if you don't.