Smoke Bellew by Jack London (chrome ebook reader txt) đ
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âHow are your feet?â he asked, as he worked.
âPretty numb. I canât move nor feel my toes. But it will be all right. The fire is burning beautifully. Watch out you donât freeze your own hands. They must be numb now from the way youâre fumbling.â
He slipped his mittens on, and for nearly a minute smashed the open hands savagely against his sides. When he felt the blood-prickles, he pulled off the mittens and ripped and tore and sawed and hacked at the frozen garments. The white skin of one foot appeared, then that of the other, to be exposed to the bite of seventy below zero, which is the equivalent of one hundred and two below freezing.
Then came the rubbing with snow, carried on with an intensity of cruel fierceness, till she squirmed and shrank and moved her toes, and joyously complained of the hurt.
He half-dragged her, and she half-lifted herself, nearer to the fire. He placed her feet on the blanket close to the flesh-saving flames.
âYouâll have to take care of them for a while,â he said.
She could now safely remove her mittens and manipulate her own feet, with the wisdom of the initiated, being watchful that the heat of the fire was absorbed slowly. While she did this, he attacked his hands. The snow did not melt nor moisten. Its light crystals were like so much sand. Slowly the stings and pangs of circulation came back into the chilled flesh. Then he tended the fire, unstrapped the light pack from her back, and got out a complete change of foot-gear.
Shorty returned along the creek bed and climbed the bank to them. âI sure staked a full thousanâ feet,â he proclaimed. âNumber twenty-seven anâ number twenty-eight, though Iâd only got the upper stake of twenty-seven, when I met the first geezer of the bunch behind. He just straight declared I wasnât goinâ to stake twenty-eight. Anâ I told himââ
âYes, yes,â Joy cried. âWhat did you tell him?â
âWell, I told him straight that if he didnât back up plum five hundred feet Iâd sure punch his frozen nose into ice-cream anâ chocolate eclaires. He backed up, anâ Iâve got in the center-stakes of two full anâ honest five-hundred-foot creek claims. He staked next, and I guess by now the bunch has Squaw Creek located to headwaters anâ down the other side. Ourn is safe. Itâs too dark to see now, but we can put out the corner-stakes in the morninâ.â
When they awoke, they found a change had taken place during the night. So warm was it, that Shorty and Smoke, still in their mutual blankets, estimated the temperature at no more than twenty below. The cold snap had broken. On top of their blankets lay six inches of frost crystals.
âGood morning! how are your feet?â was Smokeâs greeting across the ashes of the fire to where Joy Gastell, carefully shaking aside the snow, was sitting up in her sleeping-furs.
Shorty built the fire and quarried ice from the creek, while Smoke cooked breakfast. Daylight came on as they finished the meal.
âYou go anâ fix them corner-stakes, Smoke,â Shorty said. âThereâs gravel under where I chopped ice for the coffee, anâ Iâm goinâ to melt water and wash a pan of that same gravel for luck.â
Smoke departed, axe in hand, to blaze the stakes. Starting from the down-stream center-stake of âtwenty-seven,â he headed at right angles across the narrow valley towards its rim. He proceeded methodically, almost automatically, for his mind was alive with recollections of the night before. He felt, somehow, that he had won to empery over the delicate lines and firm muscles of those feet and ankles he had rubbed with snow, and this empery seemed to extend to the rest and all of this woman of his kind. In dim and fiery ways a feeling of possession mastered him. It seemed that all that was necessary was for him to walk up to this Joy Gastell, take her hand in his, and say âCome.â
It was in this mood that he discovered something that made him forget empery over the white feet of woman. At the valley rim he blazed no corner-stake. He did not reach the valley rim, but, instead, he found himself confronted by another stream. He lined up with his eye a blasted willow tree and a big and recognizable spruce. He returned to the stream where were the center-stakes. He followed the bed of the creek around a wide horseshoe bend through the flat and found that the two creeks were the same creek. Next, he floundered twice through the snow from valley rim to valley rim, running the first line from the lower stake of âtwenty-seven,â the second from the upper stake of âtwenty-eight,â and he found that THE UPPER STAKE OF THE LATTER WAS LOWER THAN THE LOWER STAKE OF THE FORMER. In the gray twilight and half-darkness Shorty had located their two claims on the horseshoe.
Smoke plodded back to the little camp. Shorty, at the end of washing a pan of gravel, exploded at sight of him.
âWe got it!â Shorty cried, holding out the pan. âLook at it! A nasty mess of gold. Two hundred right there if itâs a cent. She runs rich from the top of the wash-gravel. Iâve churned around placers some, but I never got butter like whatâs in this pan.â
Smoke cast an incurious glance at the coarse gold, poured himself a cup of coffee at the fire, and sat down. Joy sensed something wrong and looked at him with eagerly solicitous eyes. Shorty, however, was disgruntled by his partnerâs lack of delight in the discovery.
âWhy donât you kick in anâ get excited?â he demanded. âWe got our pile right here, unless youâre stickinâ up your nose at two-hundred-dollar pans.â
Smoke took a swallow of coffee before replying. âShorty, why are our two claims here like the Panama Canal?â
âWhatâs the answer?â
âWell, the eastern entrance of the Panama Canal is west of the western entrance, thatâs all.â
âGo on,â Shorty said. âI ainât seen the joke yet.â
âIn short, Shorty, you staked our two claims on a big horseshoe bend.â
Shorty set the gold pan down in the snow and stood up. âGo on,â he repeated.
âThe upper stake of âtwenty-eightâ is ten feet below the lower stake of âtwenty-seven.ââ
âYou mean we ainât got nothinâ, Smoke?â
âWorse than that; weâve got ten feet less than nothing.â
Shorty departed down the bank on the run. Five minutes later he returned. In response to Joyâs look, he nodded. Without speech, he went over to a log and sat down to gaze steadily at the snow in front of his moccasins.
âWe might as well break camp and start back for Dawson,â Smoke said, beginning to fold the blankets.
âI am sorry, Smoke,â Joy said. âItâs all my fault.â
âItâs all right,â he answered. âAll in the dayâs work, you know.â
âBut itâs my fault, wholly mine,â she persisted. âDadâs staked for me down near Discovery, I know. Iâll give you my claim.â
He shook his head.
âShorty,â she pleaded.
Shorty shook his head and began to laugh. It was a colossal laugh. Chuckles and muffled explosions yielded to hearty roars.
âIt ainât hysterics,â he explained. âI sure get powerful amused at times, anâ this is one of them.â
His gaze chanced to fall on the gold-pan. He walked over and gravely kicked it, scattering the gold over the landscape.
âIt ainât ourn,â he said. âIt belongs to the geezer I backed up five hundred feet last night. Anâ what gets me is four hundred anâ ninety of them feet was to the goodâhis good. Come on, Smoke. Letâs start the hike to Dawson. Though if youâre hankerinâ to kill me I wonât lift a finger to prevent.â
IV. SHORTY DREAMS.
âFunny you donât gamble none,â Shorty said to Smoke one night in the Elkhorn. âAinât it in your blood?â
âIt is,â Smoke answered. âBut the statistics are in my head. I like an even break for my money.â
All about them, in the huge barroom, arose the click and rattle and rumble of a dozen games, at which fur-clad, moccasined men tried their luck. Smoke waved his hand to include them all.
âLook at them,â he said. âItâs cold mathematics that they will lose more than they win tonight, that the big proportion are losing right now.â
âYouâre sure strong on figgers,â Shorty murmured admiringly. âAnâ in the main youâre right. But theyâs such a thing as facts. Anâ one fact is streaks of luck. Theyâs times when every geezer playinâ wins, as I know, for Iâve sat in such games anâ saw moreân one bank busted. The only way to win at gamblinâ is wait for a hunch that youâve got a lucky streak cominâ and then play it to the roof.â
âIt sounds simple,â Smoke criticized. âSo simple I canât see how men can lose.â
âThe trouble is,â Shorty admitted, âthat most men gets fooled on their hunches. On occasion I sure get fooled on mine. The thing is to try anâ find out.â
Smoke shook his head. âThatâs a statistic, too, Shorty. Most men prove wrong on their hunches.â
âBut donât you ever get one of them streaky feelinâs that all you got to do is put your money down anâ pick a winner?â
Smoke laughed. âIâm too scared of the percentage against me. But Iâll tell you what, Shorty. Iâll throw a dollar on the âhigh cardâ right now and see if it will buy us a drink.â
Smoke was edging his way in to the faro table, when Shorty caught his arm.
âHold on. Iâm gettinâ one of them hunches now. You put that dollar on roulette.â
They went over to a roulette table near the bar.
âWait till I give the word,â Shorty counselled.
âWhat number?â Smoke asked.
âPick it yourself. But wait till I say let her go.â
âYou donât mean to say Iâve got an even chance on that table?â Smoke argued.
âAs good as the next geezerâs.â
âBut not as good as the bankâs.â
âWait anâ see,â Shorty urged. âNow! Let her go!â
The gamekeeper had just sent the little ivory ball whirling around the smooth rim above the revolving, many-slotted wheel. Smoke, at the lower end of the table, reached over a player, and blindly tossed the dollar. It slid along the smooth, green cloth and stopped fairly in the center of â34.â
The ball came to rest, and the gamekeeper announced, âThirty-four wins!â He swept the table, and alongside of Smokeâs dollar, stacked thirty-five dollars. Smoke drew the money in, and Shorty slapped him on the shoulder.
âNow, that was the real goods of a hunch, Smoke! Howâd I know it? Thereâs no tellinâ. I just knew youâd win. Why, if that dollar of yournâd fell on any other number itâd won just the same. When the hunch is right, you just canât help winninâ.â
âSuppose it had come âdouble naughtâ?â Smoke queried, as they made their way to the bar.
âThen your dollarâd been on âdouble naught,ââ was Shortyâs answer. âTheyâs no gettinâ away from it. A hunch is a hunch. Hereâs how. Come on back to the table. I got a hunch, after pickinâ you for a winner, that I can pick some few numbers myself.â
âAre you playing a system?â Smoke asked, at the end of ten minutes, when his partner had dropped a hundred dollars.
Shorty shook his head indignantly, as he spread his chips out in the vicinities of â3,â â11,â and â17,â and tossed a spare chip on the green.
âHell is sure cluttered with geezers that played systems,â he exposited, as the
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