United States or Aruba ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Come here to me," was Shorty's greeting. "Come across. Fork over. Cough up." "I don't understand," Wentworth quavered, shivering from recollection of the two beatings, hand and foot, he had already received from Shorty. "That thousand dollars, d' ye understand that? That thousand dollars gold Smoke bought that measly potato with. Come through." And Amos Wentworth passed the gold-sack over.
Elam Harnish dropped into the waiting chair, started to pull out his gold-sack, and changed his mind. The Virgin pouted a moment, then followed in the wake of the other dancers. "I'll bring you a sandwich, Daylight," she called back over her shoulder. He nodded. She was smiling her forgiveness. He had escaped the apron-string, and without hurting her feelings too severely.
But an hour later, at his own camp, Joe Ladue strode in, fresh from Bonanza Creek. At first, non-committal over Carmack's strike, then, later, dubious, he finally offered Daylight a hundred dollars for his share in the town site. "Cash?" Daylight queried. "Sure. There she is." So saying, Ladue pulled out his gold-sack.
"No, you're not, Smoke. It's a pipe-dream. I'm asleep. Bimeby I'll wake up, an' build the fire, an' start breakfast." "Well, my unbelieving friend, there's the dust. Heft it." So saying, Smoke tossed the bulging gold-sack upon his partner's knees. It weighed thirty-five pounds, and Shorty was fully aware of the crush of its impact on his flesh. "It's real," Smoke hammered his point home. "Huh!
The gold-sack stood on a little table at the front of the platform where all the house could see it.
And Smoke thrilled when Amos Wentworth put out his hand in the darkness and hefted the gold. Smoke heard him fumble in the blankets, and then felt pressed into his hand, not the heavy gold-sack, but the unmistakable potato, the size of a hen's egg, warm from contact with the other's body. Smoke did not wait till morning.
It was the old "road-agent spin," which Gale as a boy had practised hours at a time; but that this man was in earnest he showed by glancing upward sharply when the trader laughed. "This one hangs all right," he said; "give me a box of cartridges." He emptied his gold-sack in payment for the gun and ammunition, then remarked: "That pretty nearly cleans me. If I had the price I'd take them both."
He it was, in the first year of Dawson, who had cracked an ocean of champagne at fifty dollars a quart; who, with the bottom of his gold-sack in sight, had cornered the egg-market, at twenty-four dollars per dozen, to the tune of one hundred and ten dozen, in order to pique the lady-love who had jilted him; and he it was, paying like a prince for speed, who had chartered special trains and broken all records between San Francisco and New York.
He examined the finger curiously, with wondering eyes, slowly crooking it back and forth. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold-sack. "How much?" The doctor shook his head impatiently. "Nothing. I'm not practising Your play, Bob." The Swede moved heavily on his feet, re-examined the finger, then turned an admiring gaze on the doctor. "You are good man. What your name?"
"Yep," Bettles retorted, "an' Daylight'll do the second thousand back again on end in thirty days more, and I got five hundred dollars that says so, and damn the blizzards." To emphasize his remarks, he pulled out a gold-sack the size of a bologna sausage and thumped it down on the bar. Doc Watson thumped his own sack alongside. "Hold on!" Daylight cried. "Bettles's right, and I want in on this.
Word Of The Day