Smoke Bellew by Jack London (chrome ebook reader txt) đ
- Author: Jack London
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Smoke turned it with a minimum of effort, and the rope slipped and creaked. âNow, Shorty, you go outside and tell me what it sounds like.â
Shorty, listening at the closed door, heard all the sounds of a windlass hoisting a load, and caught himself unconsciously attempting to estimate the depth of shaft out of which this load was being hoisted. Next came a pause, and in his mindâs eye he saw the bucket swinging short to the windlass. Then he heard the quick lower-away and the dull sound as of the bucket coming to abrupt rest on the edge of the shaft. He threw open the door, beaming.
âI got you,â he cried. âI almost fell for it myself. What next?â
The next was the dragging into the cabin of a dozen sled-loads of rock. And through an exceedingly busy day there were many other nexts.
âNow you run the dogs over to Dawson this evening,â Smoke instructed, when supper was finished. âLeave them with Breck. Heâll take care of them. Theyâll be watching what you do, so get Breck to go to the A. C. Company and buy up all the blasting-powderâthereâs only several hundred pounds in stock. And have Breck order half a dozen hard-rock drills from the blacksmith. Breckâs a quartz-man, and heâll give the blacksmith a rough idea of what he wants made. And give Breck these location descriptions, so that he can record them at the gold commissionerâs to-morrow. And finally, at ten oâclock, you be on Main Street listening. Mind you, I donât want them to be too loud. Dawson must just hear them and no more than hear them. Iâll let off three, of different quantities, and you note which is more nearly the right thing.â
At ten that night Shorty, strolling down Main Street, aware of many curious eyes, his ears keyed tensely, heard a faint and distant explosion. Thirty seconds later there was a second, sufficiently loud to attract the attention of others on the street. Then came a third, so violent that it rattled the windows and brought the inhabitants into the street.
âShook âem up beautiful,â Shorty proclaimed breathlessly, an hour afterward, when he arrived at the cabin on Tra-Lee. He gripped Smokeâs hand. âYou should a-saw âem. Ever kick over a ant-hole? Dawsonâs just like that. Main Street was crawlinâ anâ humminâ when I pulled my freight. You wonât see Tra-Lee to-morrow for folks. Anâ if they ainât some a-sneakinâ acrost right now I donât know mininâ nature, thatâs all.â
Smoke grinned, stepped to the fake windlass, and gave it a couple of creaking turns. Shorty pulled out the moss-chinking from between the logs so as to make peep-holes on every side of the cabin. Then he blew out the candle.
âNow,â he whispered at the end of half an hour.
Smoke turned the windlass slowly, paused after several minutes, caught up a galvanized bucket filled with earth and struck it with slide and scrape and grind against the heap of rocks they had hauled in. Then he lighted a cigarette, shielding the flame of the match in his hands.
âTheyâs three of âem,â Shorty whispered. âYou oughta saw âem. Say, when you made that bucket-dump noise they was fair quiverinâ. Theyâs one at the window now tryinâ to peek in.â
Smoke glowed his cigarette, and glanced at his watch.
âWeâve got to do this thing regularly,â he breathed. âWeâll haul up a bucket every fifteen minutes. And in the meantimeââ
Through triple thicknesses of sacking, he struck a cold-chisel on the face of a rock.
âBeautiful, beautiful,â Shorty moaned with delight. He crept over noiselessly from the peep-hole. âTheyâve got their heads together, anâ I can almost see âem talkinâ.â
And from then until four in the morning, at fifteen-minute intervals, the seeming of a bucket was hoisted on the windlass that creaked and ran around on itself and hoisted nothing. Then their visitors departed, and Smoke and Shorty went to bed.
After daylight, Shorty examined the moccasin-marks. âBig Bill Saltman was one of them,â he concluded. âLook at the size of it.â
Smoke looked out over the river. âGet ready for visitors. There are two crossing the ice now.â
âHuh! Wait till Breck files that string of claims at nine oâclock. Thereâll be two thousand crossing over.â
âAnd every motherâs son of them yammering âmother-lode,ââ Smoke laughed. ââThe source of the Klondike placers found at last.ââ
Shorty, who had clambered to the top of a steep shoulder of rock, gazed with the eye of a connoisseur at the strip they had staked.
âIt sure looks like a true fissure vein,â he said. âA expert could almost trace the lines of it under the snow. Itâd fool anybody. The slide fills the front of it anâ see them outcrops? Look like the real thing, only they ainât.â
When the two men, crossing the river, climbed the zigzag trail up the slide, they found a closed cabin. Bill Saltman, who led the way, went softly to the door, listened, then beckoned Wild Water Charley up to him. From inside came the creak and whine of a windlass bearing a heavy load. They waited at the final pause, then heard the lower-away and the impact of a bucket on rock. Four times, in the next hour, they heard the thing repeated. Then Wild Water knocked on the door. From inside came low furtive noises, then silences, and more furtive noises, and at the end of five minutes Smoke, breathing heavily, opened the door an inch and peered out. They saw on his face and shirt powdered rock-fragments. His greeting was suspiciously genial.
âWait a minute,â he added, âand Iâll be with you.â
Pulling on his mittens, he slipped through the door and confronted the visitors outside in the snow. Their quick eyes noted his shirt, across the shoulders, discolored and powdery, and the knees of his overalls that showed signs of dirt brushed hastily but not quite thoroughly away.
âRather early for a call,â he observed. âWhat brings you across the river? Going hunting?â
âWeâre on, Smoke,â Wild Water said confidentially. âAnâ youâd just as well come through. Youâve got something here.â
âIf youâre looking for eggsââ Smoke began.
âAw, forget it. We mean business.â
âYou mean you want to buy lots, eh?â Smoke rattled on swiftly. âThereâs some dandy building sites here. But, you see, we canât sell yet. We havenât had the town surveyed. Come around next week, Wild Water, and for peace and quietness, Iâll show you something swell, if youâre anxious to live over here. Next week, sure, it will be surveyed. Good-by. Sorry I canât ask you inside, but Shortyâwell, you know him. Heâs peculiar. He says he came over for peace and quietness, and heâs asleep now. I wouldnât wake him for the world.â
As Smoke talked he shook their hands warmly in farewell. Still talking and shaking their hands, he stepped inside and closed the door.
They looked at each other and nodded significantly.
âSee the knees of his pants?â Saltman whispered hoarsely.
âSure. Anâ his shoulders. Heâs been bumpinâ anâ crawlinâ around in a shaft.â As Wild Water talked, his eyes wandered up the snow-covered ravine until they were halted by something that brought a whistle to his lips. âJust cast your eyes up there, Bill. See where Iâm pointing? If that ainât a prospect-hole! Anâ follow it out to both sidesâyou can see where they tramped in the snow. If it ainât rim-rock on both sides I donât know what rim-rock is. Itâs a fissure vein, all right.â
âAnâ look at the size of it!â Saltman cried. âTheyâve got something here, you bet.â
âAnâ run your eyes down the slide thereâsee them bluffs standinâ out anâ slopinâ in. The whole slideâs in the mouth of the vein as well.â
âAnd just keep a-lookinâ on, out on the ice there, on the trail,â Saltman directed. âLooks like most of Dawson, donât it?â
Wild Water took one glance and saw the trail black with men clear to the far Dawson bank, down which the same unbroken string of men was pouring.
âWell, Iâm goinâ to get a look-in at that prospect-hole before they get here,â he said, turning and starting swiftly up the ravine.
But the cabin door opened, and the two occupants stepped out.
âHey!â Smoke called. âWhere are you going?â
âTo pick out a lot,â Wild Water called back. âLook at the river. All Dawsonâs stampeding to buy lots, anâ weâre going to beat âem to it for the choice. Thatâs right, ainât it, Bill?â
âSure thing,â Saltman corroborated. âThis has the makinâs of a Jim-dandy suburb, anâ it sure looks like itâll be some popular.â
âWell, weâre not selling lots over in that section where youâre heading,â Smoke answered. âOver to the right there, and back on top of the bluffs are the lots. This section, running from the river and over the tops, is reserved. So come on back.â
âThatâs the spot weâve gone and selected,â Saltman argued.
âBut thereâs nothing doing, I tell you,â Smoke said sharply.
âAny objections to our strolling, then?â Saltman persisted.
âDecidedly. Your strolling is getting monotonous. Come on back out of that.â
âI just reckon weâll stroll anyways,â Saltman replied stubbornly. âCome on, Wild Water.â
âI warn you, you are trespassing,â was Smokeâs final word.
âNope, just strollinâ,â Saltman gaily retorted, turning his back and starting on.
âHey! Stop in your tracks, Bill, or Iâll sure bore you!â Shorty thundered, drawing and leveling two Coltâs forty-fours. âStep another step in your steps anâ I let eleven holes through your danged ornery carcass. Get that?â
Saltman stopped, perplexed.
âHe sure got me,â Shorty mumbled to Smoke. âBut if he goes on Iâm up against it hard. I canât shoot. Whatâll I do?â
âLook here, Shorty, listen to reason,â Saltman begged.
âCome here to me anâ weâll talk reason,â was Shortyâs retort.
And they were still talking reason when the head of the stampede emerged from the zigzag trail and came upon them.
âYou canât call a man a trespasser when heâs on a town-site lookinâ to buy lots,â Wild Water was arguing, and Shorty was objecting: âBut theyâs private property in town-sites, anâ that there strip is private property, thatâs all. I tell you again, it ainât for sale.â
âNow weâve got to swing this thing on the jump,â Smoke muttered to Shorty. âIf they ever get out of handââ
âYouâve sure got your nerve, if you think you can hold them,â Shorty muttered back. âTheyâs two thousanâ of âem anâ more a-cominâ. Theyâll break this line any minute.â
The line ran along the near rim of the ravine, and Shorty had formed it by halting the first arrivals when they got that far in their invasion. In the crowd were half a dozen Northwest policemen and a lieutenant. With the latter Smoke conferred in undertones.
âTheyâre still piling out of Dawson,â he said, âand before long there will be five thousand here. The danger is if they start jumping claims. When you figure there are only five claims, it means a thousand men to a claim, and four thousand out of the five will try to jump the nearest claim. It canât be done, and if it ever starts, thereâll be more dead men here than in the whole history of Alaska. Besides, those five claims were recorded this morning and canât be jumped. In short, claim-jumping mustnât start.â
âRight-o,â said the lieutenant. âIâll get my men together and station them. We canât have any trouble here, and we wonât have. But youâd better get up and talk to them.â
âThere must be some mistake, fellows,â Smoke began in a loud voice. âWeâre not ready to sell lots. The streets are not surveyed yet. But next week we shall have the grand opening sale.â
He was interrupted by an outburst of
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