Chapter XXIII: In the Toils

Late one afternoon, a dog sled, with Joe Pete in the lead, and Brent and Snowdrift following swung rapidly down the Klondike River. A few miles from Dawson, the outfit overtook a man walking leisurely toward town, a rifle swung over his shoulder. Recognizing him as one Zinn, a former hanger-on at Cuter Malone's, Brent called a greeting.

"Damned if it ain't Ace-In-The-Hole!" cried the man, in well simulated surprise. "They'll be rollin' 'em high in Dawson tonight!"

Brent laughed, and hurried on. And behind him upon the trail Zinn quickened his pace.

At the outskirts of town the three removed their snowshoes and, ordering Joe Pete to take the outfit to his own shack, Brent and Snowdrift hurried toward the Reeves'.

As they passed up the street Brent noticed that the dark eyes of the girl were busily drinking in the details of the rows upon rows of low frame houses. "At last you are in Dawson," he said, including with a sweep of the arm the mushroom city that had sprung up in the shadow of Moosehide Mountain, "Does it look like you expected it would? Are you going to like it?"

The girl smiled at the eagerness in his voice: "Yes, dear, I shall love it, because it will be our home. It isn't quite as I expected it to look. The houses all placed side by side, with the streets running between are as I thought they would be, but the houses themselves are different. They are not of logs, or of the thin iron like the warehouse of the new trading company on the Mackenzie, and they are not made of bricks and stones and very tall like the pictures of cities in the books."

Brent laughed: "No, Dawson is just half way between. Since the sawmills came the town has rapidly outgrown the log cabin stage, although there are still plenty of them here, but it has not yet risen to the dignity of brick and stone."

"But the houses of brick and stone will come!" cried the girl, enthusiastically, "And take the place of the houses of wood, and we shall be here to see the building of another great city."

Brent shook his head: "I don't know," he replied, doubtfully, "It all depends on the gravel. I wouldn't care to do much speculating in Dawson real estate right now. The time for that has passed. The next two or three years will tell the story. If I were to do any predicting, I'd say that instead of the birth of a great city, we are going to witness the lingering death of an overgrown town." He paused and pointed to a small cabin of logs that stood deserted, half buried in snow. "Do you see that shack over there? That's mine. It don't look like much, now. But, I gave five thousand in dust for it when I made my first strike."

The girl's eyes sparkled as she viewed the dejected looking building, "And that will be our home!" she cried.

"Not by a long shot, it won't!" laughed Brent, "We'll do better than that. I never want to see the inside of the place again! Yes, I do--just once. I want to go there and get a book--the book that lured me to the Coppermine--the book in which is written the name of Murdo MacFarlane. We will always keep that book, darling. And some day we will get it bound in leather and gold."

Before a little white-painted house that stood back from the street, the man paused: "The Reeves' live here," he announced, and as he turned into the neatly shovelled path that led to the door, he reached down and pressed the girl's hand reassuringly: "Mrs. Reeves is an old, old friend," he whispered, "She will be a sister to you."

As Brent led the way along the narrow path his eyes rested upon the slope of snow-buried earth that pitched sharply against the base of the walls of the house, "Hardest work I ever did," he grinned, "Hope the floor kept warm."

As he waited the answer to his knock upon the door, he noticed casually that Zinn sauntered past and turned abruptly into the street that led straight to Cuter Malone's. The next instant the door was opened and Reba Reeves stood framed in the doorway. Brent saw that in the gloom of early evening she did not recognize him. "Is Mr. Reeves home?" he asked.

"Yes, won't you step in? answered the woman, standing aside.

"Thank you. I think we will."

Something in the man's tone caused the woman to step quickly forward and peer sharply into his face: "Carter Brent!" she cried, and the next instant the man's hands were in both of hers, and she was pulling him into the room. Like a flash Brent remembered that other time she had called his name in a tone of intense surprise, and that there had been tears in her eyes then, even as there were tears in her eyes now, but this time they were tears of gladness. And then, from another room came Reeves, and a pair of firm hands were laid upon his shoulders and he was spun around to meet the gaze of the searching grey eyes that stared into his own. Brent laughed happily as he noted the start of surprise that accompanied Reeves' words: "Good Lord! What a change!" A hand slipped from his shoulder and grasped his own.

A moment later, Brent freed the hand, and as Mrs. Reeves lighted the lamp, turned and drew Snowdrift toward him. "And now I want you to meet--Miss Margot MacFarlane. Within a very few hours she is going to become Mrs. Carter Brent. You see," he added turning to Reba Reeves, "I brought her straight to you. The hotel isn't----"

The sentence was never finished, already the two women were in each other's arms, and Reba Reeves was smiling at him over the girl's shoulder: "Carter Brent! If you had dared to even think of taking her to the hotel, I'd never have spoken to you again! You just let me catch you talking about hotels--when your _folks_ are living right here! And now take off your things because supper is most ready. You'll find warm water in the reservoir of the stove, and I'll make an extra lot of good hot coffee, because I know you will be tired of tea."

Never in his life had Brent enjoyed a meal as he enjoyed that supper in the dining room of the Reeves', with Snowdrift, radiant with happiness, beside him, and his host and hostess eagerly plying him with questions.

"I think it is the most romantic thing I ever heard of!" cried Reba Reeves, when Snowdrift had finished telling of her life among the Indians, and at the mission, "It's easy enough to see why Carter chose you, but for the life of me I can't see how you came to take an old scapegrace like him!" she teased, and the girl smiled:

"I took him because I love him," she answered, "Because he is good, and strong, and brave, and because he can be gentle and tender and--and he understands. And he is not a scapegrace any more," she added, gravely, "He has told me all about how he drank hooch until he became a--a bun----"

"A what?"

"A bun--is it not that when a man drinks too much hooch?"

"A bum," supplied Brent, laughing.

"So many new words!" smiled the girl. "But I will learn them all. Anyway, we will fight the hooch together, and we will win."

"You bet you'll win!" cried Reeves, heartily, "And if I'm any judge, I'd say you've won already. How about it Brent?"

Deliberately--thoughtfully, Brent nodded: "She has won," he said.

"On the word of a Brent?" Reba Reeves' eyes were looking straight into his own as she asked the question.

"Yes," he answered, "On the word of a Brent."

A moment's silence followed the words, after which he turned to Reeves: "And, now--let's talk business. I have used about half the dust you loaned me. There is nothing worth while on the Coppermine--now." He smiled, as his eyes rested upon the girl, "So I have come back to take that job you offered me. Eleven hundred miles, we came, under the chaperonage of Joe Pete----"

"And a very capable chaperonage it was!" laughed Reeves, "Funniest thing I ever saw in my life--there in your cabin the morning you started. It was then I learned to know Joe Pete. But, go on."

"That's about all there is to it. Except that I'd like to keep the rest of the dust, and pay you back in installments--that is, if the job is still open. I've got to borrow enough for a start, somewhere--and I reckon you're about the only friend I've got left."

"How about that fellow, Camillo Bill? I thought he was a friend of yours."

"I thought so too, but--when I was down and out, and wanted a grub-stake, he turned me down. He's all right though--square as a die."

"About that job," continued Reeves, gravely, "I'm a little afraid you wouldn't just fill the bill."

For a moment Brent felt as though he had been slapped in the face. He had counted on the job--needed it. The next instant he was smiling: "Maybe you're right," he said, "I reckon I am a little rusty on hydraulics and----"

"I'd take a chance on the hydraulics," laughed Reeves, "But--before we go any further, what would you take for your title to those two claims that Camillo Bill has been operating?"

"Depends on who wanted to buy 'em," grinned Brent.

"What will you sell them to me for?"

"What will you give?"

"How would ten thousand for the two of them strike you?"

Brent laughed: "Don't you go speculating on any claims," he advised, "I'd be tickled to death to get ten thousand dollars--or ten thousand cents out of those claims--but not from you. It would be highway robbery."

"And if I did buy them from you at ten thousand, or a hundred thousand, you would be only a piker of a robber, as compared to me."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that if anybody offers you a million for 'em--you laugh at 'em," exclaimed Reeves, "Because they're worth a whole lot more than that."

Brent stared at the man as though he had taken leave of his senses. "Who has been stringing you?" he asked, "The fact is, those claims are a liability, and not an asset. Camillo Bill took them over to try to get the million I owed him out of 'em--and he couldn't do it. And when Camillo Bill can't get the dust out, it isn't there."

"How do you know he couldn't do it?"

"Because he told me so."

"He lied."

Brent flushed: "I reckon you don't know Camillo Bill," he said gravely, "As I told you, he wouldn't grub-stake me when I needed a grub-stake, and I don't understand that. But, I'd stake my life on it that he never lied about those claims--never tried to beat me out of 'em when I was down and out! Why, man, he won them in a game of stud--and he wouldn't take them!"

"But he lied to you, just the same," insisted Reeves, and Brent saw that the man's eyes were twinkling. "And it was because he is one of the best friends a man ever had that he did lie to you, and that he wouldn't grub-stake you. You said a while ago that I was about the only friend you had left. Let me tell you a little story, and then judge for yourself.

"About a week after you had gone, inquiries began to float around town as to your whereabouts. I didn't pay any attention to them at first, but the inquiries persisted. They searched Dawson, and all the country around for you. When I learned that the inquiries emanated from such men as Camillo Bill, and Old Bettles, and Moosehide Charlie, and a few more of the heaviest men in the camp, I took notice, and quietly sent for Camillo Bill and had a talk with him. It seems that after he had taken his million out of the claims, he went to you for the purpose of turning them back. He had not seen you for some time, and he was--well, it didn't take him but a minute to see what would happen if he turned back the claims and dumped a couple of million dollars worth of property into your hands at that time. So he told you they had petered out. Then he hunted up a bunch of the real sourdoughs who are your friends, and they planned to kidnap you and take you away for a year--keep you under guard in a cabin, a hundred miles from nowhere, and keep you off the liquor, and make you work like a nigger till you found yourself again. They laid their plot, and when they came to spring it, you had disappeared."

Brent listened, with tight-pressed lips, and as Reeves finished, he asked:

"And you say he got out his million, and there is still something left in the gravel?"

Reeves laughed: "I would call it something! Camillo Bill says he only worked one of the claims--and only about half of that. Yes, I would say there was something left."

"I reckon a man don't always know his friends," murmured Brent, after a long silence, "I wonder where I can find Camillo Bill?"

"He's in town, somewhere. I saw him this afternoon."

Brent turned to Snowdrift, who had listened, wide-eyed to the narrative: "You wait here, dear," he said, "And I'll hunt up a parson, and a ring, and Camillo Bill. I need a--a best man!"

"Oh, why don't you wait a week or so and give us time to get ready so we can have a real wedding?" cried Mrs. Reeves.

Brent shook his head: "I reckon this one will be real enough," he grinned, "And besides, we've waited quite a while, already."

As he turned into the street from the path leading from the door he almost bumped into a man in the darkness:

"Hello! Is that you, Ace-In-The-Hole? Yer the man I'm huntin' fer. Friend of yourn's hurt an' wants to see you."

"Who is it, Zinn? And how did he know I was in town?"

"It's Camillo Bill. I was tellin' I see'd you comin' in--an hour or so back, in Stoell's. Then Camillo, he goes down to the sawmill to see about some lumber, an' a log flies off the carriage an' hits him. He's busted up pretty bad. Guess he's goin' to cash in. They carried him to a shack over back of the mill an' he's hollerin' fer you."

"Come on then--quick!" cried Brent. "What the hell are you standin' there for? Have they got a doctor?"

"Yup," answered Zinn, as he hurried toward the outskirts of the town, "He'll be there by now."

Along the dark streets, and through a darker lumber yard, hurried Zinn, with Brent close at his heels urging him to greater speed. At length they passed around behind the sawmill and Brent saw that a light showed dimly in the window of a disreputable log shack that stood upon the edge of a deep ravine. The next moment he had pushed through the door, and found himself in the presence of four as evil looking specimens as ever broke the commandments. One of them he recognized as "Stumpy" Cooley, a man who, two years before had escaped the noose only by prompt action of the Mounted, after he had been duly convicted by a meeting of outraged miners of robbing a _cache_.

"Where's Camillo Bill?" demanded Brent, his eyes sweeping the room.

"Tuk him to the hospital jest now," informed Stumpy.

"Hospital!" cried Brent.

"Yes--built one sence you was here. But, you don't need to be in no hurry, 'cause he's out of his head, now." The man produced a bottle and pulling the cork, offered it to Brent: "Might's well have a little drink, an' we'll be goin'."

"To hell with your drinks!" cried Brent, "Where is this hospital?" Suddenly he sensed that something was wrong. And whirling saw that two of the men had slipped between himself and the door. He turned to Stumpy to see an evil grin upon the man's face.

"When I ask anyone to drink with me, he most generally does it," he sneered, "Or I know the reason why."

"There's the reason!" roared Brent, and quick as a flash his right fist smashed into the man's face, the blow knocking him clean across the room. The next instant a man sprang onto Brent's back and another dived for his legs, while a third struck at him with a short piece of scantling. Brent fought like a tiger, weaving this way and that, and stumbling about the room in a vain effort to rid himself of the two men who clung to him like leeches. Stumpy staggered toward him, and Brent making a frenzied effort to release one of his pinioned arms, saw him raise the heavy quart whiskey bottle. The next instant it descended with a full arm swing. Brent saw a blinding flash of light, a stab of pain seemed to pierce his very brain, his knees buckled suddenly and he was falling, down, down, down, into a bottomless pit of intense blackness.