“WE must have money,” said Glenister a few days later. “When McNamara jumped our safe he put us down and out. There’s no use fighting in this court any longer, for the Judge won’t let us work the ground ourselves, even if we give bond, and he won’t grant an appeal. He says his orders aren’t appealable. We ought to send Wheaton out to ’Frisco and have him take the case to the higher courts. Maybe he can get a writ1 of supersedeas.”
“I don’t rec’nize the name, but if it’s as bad as it sounds it’s sure horrible. Ain’t there no cure for it?”
“It simply means that the upper court would take the case away from this one.”
“Well, let’s send him out quick. Every day means ten thousand dollars to us. It ’ll take him a month to make the round trip, so I s’pose he ought to leave to-morrow on the Roanoke.”
“Yes, but where’s the money to do it with? McNamara has ours. My God! What a mess we’re in! What fools we’ve been, Dex! There’s a conspiracy2 here. I’m beginning to see it now that it’s too late. This man is looting our country under color of law, and figures on gutting3 all the mines before we can throw him off. That’s his game. He’ll work them as hard and as long as he can, and Heaven only knows what will become of the money. He must have big men behind him in order to fix a United States judge this way. Maybe he has the ’Frisco courts corrupted4, too.”
“If he has, I’m goin’ to kill him,” said Dextry. “I’ve worked like a dog all my life, and now that I’ve struck pay I don’t aim to lose it. If Bill Wheaton can’t win out accordin’ to law, I’m goin’ to proceed accordin’ to justice.”
During the past two days the partners had haunted the court-room where their lawyer, together with the counsel for the Scandinavians, had argued and pleaded, trying every possible professional and unprofessional artifice5 in search of relief from the arbitrary rulings of the court, while hourly they had become more strongly suspicious of some sinister6 plot—some hidden, powerful understanding back of the Judge and the entire mechanism8 of justice. They had fought with the fury of men who battle for life, and had grown to hate the lines of Stillman’s vacillating face, the bluster9 of the district-attorney, and the smirking10 confidence of the clerks, for it seemed that they all worked mechanically, like toys, at the dictates11 of Alec McNamara. At last, when they had ceased, beaten and exhausted12, they were too confused with technical phrases to grasp anything except the fact that relief was denied them; that their claims were to be worked by the receiver; and, as a crowning defeat, they learned that the Judge would move his court to St. Michael’s and hear no cases until he returned, a month later.
Meanwhile, McNamara hired every idle man he could lay hand upon, and ripped the placers open with double shifts. Every day a stream of yellow dust poured into the bank and was locked in his vaults13, while those mine-owners who attempted to witness the clean-ups were ejected from their claims. The politician had worked with incredible swiftness and system, and a fortnight after landing he had made good his boast to Struve, and was in charge of every good claim in the district, the owners were ousted14, their appeals argued and denied, and the court gone for thirty days, leaving him a clear field for his operations. He felt a contempt for most of his victims, who were slow-witted Swedes, grasping neither the purport15 nor the magnitude of his operation, and as to those litigants16 who were discerning enough to see its enormity, he trusted to his organization to thwart17 them.
The two partners had come to feel that they were beating against a wall, and had also come squarely to face the proposition that they were without funds wherewith to continue their battle. It was maddening for them to think of the daily robbery that they suffered, for the Midas turned out many ounces of gold at every shift; and more maddening to realize the receiver’s shrewdness in crippling them by his theft of the gold in their safe. That had been his crowning stroke.
“We MUST get money quick,” said Glenister. “Do you think we can borrow?”
“Borrow?” sniffed18 Dextry. “Folks don’t lend money in Alaska.”
They relapsed into a moody19 silence.
“I met a feller this mornin’ that’s workin’ on the Midas,” the old man resumed. “He came in town fer a pair of gum boots, an’ he says they’ve run into awful rich ground—so rich that they have to clean up every morning when the night shift goes off ’cause the riffles clog20 with gold.”
“Think of it!” Glenister growled21. “If we had even a part of one of those clean-ups we could send Wheaton outside.”
In the midst of his bitterness a thought struck him. He made as though to speak, then closed his mouth; but his partner’s eyes were on him, filled with a suppressed but growing fire. Dextry lowered his voice cautiously:
“There’ll be twenty thousand dollars in them sluices22 to-night at midnight.”
Glenister stared back while his pulse pounded at something that lay in the other’s words.
“It belongs to us,” the young man said. “There wouldn’t be anything wrong about it, would there?”
Dextry sneered24. “Wrong! Right! Them is fine an’ soundin’ titles in a mess like this. What do they mean? I tell you, at midnight to-night Alec McNamara will have twenty thousand dollars of our money—”
“God! What would happen if they caught us?” whispered the younger, following out his thought. “They’d never let us get off the claim alive. He couldn’t find a better excuse to shoot us down and get rid of us. If we came up before this Judge for trial, we’d go to Sitka for twenty years.”
“Sure! But it’s our only chance. I’d ruther die on the Midas in a fair fight than set here bitin’ my hangnails. I’m growin’ old and I won’t never make another strike. As to bein’ caught—them’s our chances. I won’t be took alive—I promise you that—and before I go I’ll get my satisfy. Castin’ things up, that’s about all a man gets in this vale of tears, jest satisfaction of one kind or another. It ’ll be a fight in the open, under the stars, with the clean, wet moss25 to lie down on, and not a scrappin’-match of freak phrases and law-books inside of a stinkin’ court-room. The cards is shuffled27 and in the box, pardner, and the game is started. If we’re due to win, we’ll win. If we’re due to lose, we’ll lose. These things is all figgered out a thousand years back. Come on, boy. Are you game?”
“Am I game?” Glenister’s nostrils28 dilated29 and his voice rose a tone. “Am I game? I’m with you till the big cash-in, and Lord have mercy on any man that blocks our game to-night.”
“We’ll need another hand to help us,” said Dextry. “Who can we get?”
At that moment, as though in answer, the door opened with the scant30 ceremony that friends of the frontier are wont31 to observe, admitting the attenuated32, flapping, dome-crowned figure of Slapjack Simms, and Dextry fell upon him with the hunger of a wolf.
It was midnight and over the dark walls of the valley peered a multitude of stars, while away on the southern horizon there glowed a subdued33 effulgence34 as though from hidden fires beneath the Gold God’s caldron, or as though the phosphorescence of Bering had spread upward into the skies. Although each night grew longer, it was not yet necessary to light the men at work in the cuts. There were perhaps two hours in which it was difficult to see at a distance, but the dawn came early, hence no provision had been made for torches.
Five minutes before the hour the night-shift boss lowered the gates in the dam, and, as the rush from the sluices subsided35, his men quit work and climbed the bluff36 to the mess tent. The dwellings37 of the Midas, as has already been explained, sat back from the creek38 at a distance of a city block, the workings being thus partially39 hidden under the brow of the steep bank.
It is customary to leave a watchman in the pit during the noon and midnight hours, not only to see that strangers preserve a neutral attitude, but also to watch the waste-gates and water supply. The night man of the Midas had been warned of his responsibility, and, knowing that much gold lay in his keeping, was disposed to gaze on the curious-minded with the sourness of suspicion. Therefore, as a man leading a packhorse approached out of the gloom of the creek-trail, his eyes were on him from the moment he appeared. The road wound along the gravel40 of the bars and passed in proximity41 to the flumes. However, the wayfarer42 paid no attention to them, and the watchman detected an explanatory weariness in his slow gait.
“Some prospector43 getting in from a trip,” he thought.
The stranger stopped, scratched a match, and, as he undertook to light his pipe, the observer caught the mahogany shine of a negro’s face. The match sputtered44 out and then came impatient blasphemy45 as he searched for another.
“Evenin’, sah! You-all oblige me with a match?” He addressed the watcher on the bank above, and, without waiting a reply, began to climb upward.
No smoker46 on the trail will deny the luxury of a light to the most humble47, so as the negro gained his level the man reached forth48 to accommodate him. Without warning, the black man leaped forward with the ferocity of an animal and struck the other a fearful blow. The watchman sank with a faint, startled cry, and the African dragged him out of sight over the brow of the bank, where he rapidly tied him hand and foot, stuffing a gag into his mouth. At the same moment two other figures rounded the bend below and approache............