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Updated: May 16, 2025
"No; lined them up with the North Star." "Sure?" "Sure." Cardegee groaned, then stole a glance at the trail. The sled was just clearing a rise, barely a mile away, and the dogs were in full lope, running lightly. "'Ow close is the shadows to the line?" Kent walked to the primitive timepiece and studied it. "Three inches," he announced, after a careful survey.
A minute, a second too quick, an' I'll 'aunt you, so 'elp me, I will!" Jacob Kent looked dubious, but declined to talk. "'Ow's your chronometer? Wot's your longitude? 'Ow do you know as your time's correct?" Cardegee persisted, vainly hoping to beat his executioner out of a few minutes. "Is it Barrack's time you 'ave, or is it the Company time?
Such a thing was unheard of. Jacob Kent was making the fire, chopping wood, packing water doing menial tasks for a guest! When Jim Cardegee left Dawson, it was with his head filled with the iniquities of this roadside Shylock; and all along the trail his numerous victims had added to the sum of his crimes.
But just a fraction of a second too soon, Cardegee rolled backward into the hole. Kent held his fire and ran to the edge. Bang! The gun exploded full in the sailor's face as he rose to his feet. But no smoke came from the muzzle; instead, a sheet of flame burst from the side of the barrel near its butt, and Jacob Kent went down.
Near the butt of the right-hand barrel, with lips pressed outward, gaped a fissure several inches in length. The sailor picked it up, curiously. A glittering stream of yellow dust ran out through the crack. The facts of the case dawned upon Jim Cardegee. "Strike me standin'!" he roared; "'ere's a go! 'Ere's 'is bloomin' dust!
Jim Cardegee loosed the strings of his profanity and fairly outdid himself. Jacob Kent brought out a stool that he might enjoy it in comfort. Having exhausted all the possible combinations of his vocabulary, the sailor quieted down to hard thinking, his eyes constantly gauging the progress of the sun, which tore up the eastern slope of the heavens with unseemly haste.
Kent merely threw back his weight, shutting off the other's wind. "Bloomin' Bur ugh " "Where is it?" Kent repeated. "Wot?" Cardegee asked, as soon as he had caught his breath. "The gold-dust." "Wot gold-dust?" the perplexed sailor demanded. "You know well enough, mine." "Ain't seen nothink of it. Wot do ye take me for? A safe-deposit? Wot 'ave I got to do with it, any'ow?"
The dogs dashed up the bank, dragging the sled over his body, and the driver sprang off as Jim Cardegee freed his hands and drew himself from the hole. "Jim!" The new-comer recognized him. "What's the matter?" "Wot's the matter? Oh, nothink at all. It jest 'appens as I do little things like this for my 'ealth. Wot's the matter, you bloomin' idjit? Wot's the matter, eh?
"'Ow close?" "Half an inch." Just then Kent heard the jarring churn of the runners and turned his eyes to the trail. The driver was lying flat on the sled and the dogs swinging down the straight stretch to the cabin. Kent whirled back, bringing his rifle to shoulder. "It ain't eight bells yet!" Cardegee expostulated. "I'll 'aunt you, sure!" Jacob Kent faltered.
Try as he would, they wandered back to that one point as inevitably as the needle to the pole. "Do it 'urt you?" Jim Cardegee thundered suddenly, looking up from the spreading of his blankets and encountering the rapt gaze of the other. "It strikes me as 'ow it 'ud be the proper thing for you to draw your jib, douse the glim, an' turn in, seein' as 'ow it worrits you.
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