United States or Namibia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It contained the same facts, though somewhat condensed. Corry and Mabel were indubitably married. Pentfield returned to the Opera House and resumed his seat in the game. He asked to have the limit removed. "Trying to get action," Nick Inwood laughed, as he nodded assent to the dealer. "I was going down to the A. C. store, but now I guess I'll stay and watch you do your worst."
"Now, if you'll just listen and not get astride that high horse of yours so blamed quick," his partner went on, "you'll see that the only fair thing under the circumstances is for me to let you go out this year. Next year is only a year away, and then I can take my fling." Pentfield shook his head, though visibly swayed by the temptation. "It won't do, Corry, old man.
Hutchinson snuffed the smoky candle and reflectively rubbed the soot from the wick between thumb and forefinger. "By Jove, I wish we could both go out!" he abruptly exclaimed. "That would settle it all." Pentfield looked at him darkly. "If it weren't for your cursed obstinacy, it'd be settled anyway. All you have to do is get up and go. I'll look after things, and next year I can go out."
Six sledloads of mails had been lost at the Big Salmon. Besides, Pentfield knew that Corry and his bride must by that time have started in over the trail. They were even then on their honeymoon trip the honeymoon trip he had dreamed of for himself through two dreary years. His lip curled with bitterness at the thought; but beyond being kinder to Lashka he gave no sign.
We're not exactly brother and sister, seeing that I have not even met her, and it wouldn't be just the proper thing, you know, for us to travel together. Of course, it would be all right you and I know that; but think of the looks of it, man!" Pentfield swore under his breath, consigning the looks of it to a less frigid region than Alaska.
At the gee-pole was a man who steered in a manner familiar to Pentfield, and behind the sled walked two women. His glance returned to the man at the gee-pole. It was Corry. Pentfield got on his feet and waited. He was glad that Lashka was with him. The meeting could not have come about better had it been planned, he thought.
"Every man to his taste," Nick Inwood laughed; "but I should scarcely call getting married a good time." "Corry married!" Pentfield cried, incredulous and yet surprised out of himself for the moment. 'Sure," Inwood said. "I saw it in the 'Frisco paper that came in over the ice this morning." "Well, and who's the girl?"
"Go 'way, child. I don't want your money." "I thought so," Pentfield sneered, returning to the game and laying a couple of bets. Nick Inwood's face flushed, and, as though doubting his senses, he ran careful eyes over the print of a quarter of a column. Then be turned on Lawrence Pentfield. "Look here, Pentfield," he said, in a quiet, nervous manner; "I can't allow that, you know." "Allow what?"
The next day Lawrence Pentfield shook hands with him for the last time and watched him, running with his dogs, disappear up the frozen Yukon on his way to salt water and the world. Pentfield went back to his Bonanza mine, which was many times more dreary than before, and faced resolutely into the long winter.
"I'd have ordered salads and green things," Hutchinson criticized hungrily, "with a big, rare, Porterhouse, and young onions and radishes, the kind your teeth sink into with a crunch." "I'd have followed the eggs with them, I guess, if I hadn't awakened," Pentfield replied. He picked up a trail-scarred banjo from the floor and began to strum a few wandering notes.
Word Of The Day