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Her dark line of smoke was discovered by those on board the schooner, before she had doubled the headland of Tatman, and it was very plain, that, let the schooner's purpose be what it might, she desired to avoid all unnecessary observation, and especially that of the steamer.
But I've got to tell you of a thing that happened a long time ago, before you can understand. You haven't forgotten you will never forget Ben Tatman?" As Kent spoke the name, a name which Dirty Fingers had heard no lips but his own speak aloud in nearly a quarter of a century, a strange and potent force seemed suddenly to take possession of the forest bencher's huge and flabby body.
And a superman was there in that crowd of hunger-stricken and embittered men. At the last moment he stepped out and in a loud voice declared that Tatman was innocent and that he was guilty. Unafraid, he made a remarkable confession. He had stolen the beans and the potatoes and had slipped them into the Tatman cabin when they were asleep. Why? Because he wanted to save the woman from hunger!
They say it happened twenty years ago or more. This Tatman, so I was told, was a young fellow green from San Francisco a bank clerk, I think who came into the gold country and brought his wife with him. They were both chuck-full of courage, and the story was that each worshiped the ground the other walked on, and that the girl had insisted on being her husband's comrade in adventure.
But it was only the shell of a man that won out after that day when I took Tatman's place. Something happened. I don't know what. But you see me now. I never went back into the diggings. I degenerated. I became what I am." "And you are today just what you were when you went out to die for Mary Tatman," cried Kent. "The same heart and the same soul are in you.
You could go out and kill a man, then, and perhaps get away with it, Fingers. But if you stole so much as a crust of bread or a single bean, you were taken to the edge of the camp and told to go! And that meant certain death death from hunger and cold, more terrible than shooting or hanging, and for that reason it was the penalty for theft. "Tatman wasn't a thief.
They say it happened twenty years ago or more. This Tatman, so I was told, was a young fellow green from San Francisco a bank clerk, I think who came into the gold country and brought his wife with him. They were both chuck-full of courage, and the story was that each worshiped the ground the other walked on, and that the girl had insisted on being her husband's comrade in adventure.
It rippled over and through him like an electrical voltaism, making his body rigid, stiffening what had seemed to be fat into muscle, tensing his hands until they knotted themselves slowly into fists. The wheeze went out of his breath, and it was the voice of another man who answered Kent. "You have heard about Ben Tatman?" "Yes. I heard it away up in the Porcupine country.
But those were the days when a woman couldn't save a man, no matter how lovely she was. Tatman was taken to the edge of camp and given his pack and his gun but no food. And the girl, hooded and booted, was at his side, for she was determined to die with him. For her sake Tatman had lied up to the last minute, protesting his innocence.
But those were the days when a woman couldn't save a man, no matter how lovely she was. Tatman was taken to the edge of camp and given his pack and his gun but no food. And the girl, hooded and booted, was at his side, for she was determined to die with him. For her sake Tatman had lied up to the last minute, protesting his innocence.
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