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Instead of the clean moss-chinked log shelters men were wont to build in this land, they found the community housed like marmots in holes and burrows. It seemed that the troop had landed, fresh from the States, a hundred and a quarter strong, hot with the lust for gold, yet shaken by the newspaper horrors of Alaska's rigorous hardships and forbidding climate.
The walls of the house were of moss-chinked logs that deadened every sound, but the door itself was of thin, whip-sawed pine boards with ample cracks at top and bottom, and, the room being of small dimensions, they heard plainly. The Lieutenant leaned forward, then with difficulty smothered an exclamation, for he heard another voice now the voice of John Gale.
And now, even while she recognized the grotesqueness of the situation, she burned to wear it and see herself in the garb of other women. So, with the morning sun streaming brightly into her room, lighting up the moss-chinked walls, the rough barbarism of fur and head and trophy, she donned the beautiful garments.
The bootblack looked curiously up at him, and he remembered his moosehide moccasins and went away hastily. Hark! The wind-vane must be surely spinning. No; a mere singing in his ears. That was all a mere singing. The ice must have passed the latch by now. More likely the upper hinge was covered. Between the moss-chinked roof-poles, little points of frost began to appear. How slowly they grew!
Vance Corliss wiped the last tin dish and filed it away on the shelf, lighted his pipe, and rolled over on his back on the bunk to contemplate the moss-chinked roof of his French Hill cabin. This French Hill cabin stood on the last dip of the hill into Eldorado Creek, close to the main-travelled trail; and its one window blinked cheerily of nights at those who journeyed late.
"It's gettin' me goin'. Let's break in an' find what's eatin' 'em." Smoke knocked at a lighted cabin, and was followed in by Shorty in answer to the "Come in" of the voice they heard groaning. It was a simple log cabin, the walls moss-chinked, the earth floor covered with sawdust and shavings.
No living thing could have stood up against what was happening in these moments. Bullets tore through the windows and between the moss-chinked logs, crashing against metal and glass and tinware; one of the candles sputtered and went out, and in this hell Alan heard a cry and saw Mary Standish coming out of the cellar-pit toward him. He had flung himself down quickly, and she thought he was hit!
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