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All he needs now, as he sets out to spend a day on the Neversink, or the Willowemoc, or the Shepaug, or the Swiftwater, is a good lunch in his pocket, and a little friendship-fire to burn pleasantly beside him while he eats his frugal fare and prolongs his noonday rest. This form of fire does less work than any other in the world.
He was lucky the ice slide had not hit him in the head. A broken leg would mend. While they ate, the party went into committee of the whole to decide what was best to be done. Gordon noticed that in all the tentative suggestions made by Holt and Swiftwater the comfort of Sheba was the first thing in mind.
There was McMann, who ran up a single bar-room bill of thirty-eight thousand dollars; and Jimmie the Rough, who spent one hundred thousand a month for four months in riotous living, and then fell down drunk in the snow one March night and was frozen to death; and Swiftwater Bill, who, after spending three valuable claims in an extravagance of debauchery, borrowed three thousand dollars with which to leave the country, and who, out of this sum, because the lady-love that had jilted him liked eggs, cornered the one hundred and ten dozen eggs on the Dawson market, paying twenty-four dollars a dozen for them and promptly feeding them to the wolf-dogs.
None the less, it was too bad that his lead dog had been ailing when he left the gold camp eight days before. Miss O'Neill knew that Swiftwater Pete was anxious, and though she was not yet afraid, the girl understood the reason for it. The road ran through the heart of a vast snow-field, the surface of which was being swept by a screaming wind.
Both legs frozen and amputated at the Five Fingers. And Jack Dalton? Blown up on the "Sea Lion" with all hands. And Bettles? Wrecked on the "Carthagina," in Seymour Narrows, twenty survivors out of three hundred. And Swiftwater Bill? Gone through the rotten ice of Lake LeBarge with six female members of the opera troupe he was convoying. Governor Walsh?
And the elder of the two lads often comes back with me to that pleasant place and shares my fisherman's luck beside the Swiftwater. But the younger lad? Ah, my little Barney, you have gone to follow a new stream, clear as crystal, flowing through fields of wonderful flowers that never fade. It is a strange river to Teddy and me; strange and very far away.
It was before Smoke Bellew staked the farcical town-site of Tra-Lee, made the historic corner of eggs that nearly broke Swiftwater Bill's bank account, or won the dog-team race down the Yukon for an even million dollars, that he and Shorty parted company on the Upper Klondike. Shorty's task was to return down the Klondike to Dawson to record some claims they had staked.
Upon the inert body the victor dropped, his knees clinching the torso of the unconscious man. "Now, Pete. Go to him," urged Holt wildly. But before Swiftwater could move, before the great fist of Macdonald could smash down upon the bleeding face upturned to his, a sharp blow struck the flesh of the raised forearm and for the moment stunned the muscles.
His head felt as though it were about to split in two; a cloud, shot with crimson stars, swam before his eyes. The track swung suddenly to the right, in a sharp curve, and Constans's heart bounded wildly; he had forgotten how close he must be to the crossing of the Swiftwater.
Secretary, allow me to present Mr. Reeves, Mr. Carleton, Mr. Schmidt, Mr. Dunkel, Mr. Street, Mr. Swiftwater and Mr. Manges." The men filing into the room bowed and mumbled. Enoch looked after Abbott's retreating back admiringly. "I've been hearing Abbott do that sort of thing for two years, but it never fails to rouse my admiration," he said. "A wonderful memory!" commented one of the visitors.
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