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- Chalker Jack L W Świecie Studni 5 Zmierzch przy Studni Dusz (pdf)
- Ian Rankin [Jack Harvey 03] Blood Hunt (v4.0) (pdf)
- Jack L. Chalker Watchers at the Well 03 Gods at the Well of Souls
- James Fenimore Cooper Jack Tier, Volume 2
- Chalker Jack L W Świecie Studni 3 Poszukiwanie (pdf)
- Jack McKinney RoboTech 14 Dark Powers
- Jack McKinney RoboTech 05 Force of Arms
- Jack L. Chalker Dancing Gods 3 Vengance of the Dance
- Jack L. Chalker Three Kings 3 Kaspars Box
- Jack McKinney RoboTech 01 Genesis
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I shall stay no more away."
"Well, it's this way, Hitchcock," he finally said, "I'm in the
same boat with the rest. If three-score bucks have made up their
mind to kill the girl, why, we can't help it. One rush, and we'd
be wiped off the landscape. And what good'd that be? They'd
still have the girl. There's no use in going against the customs
of a people except you're in force."
"But we are in force!" Hitchcock broke in. "Four whites are a
match for a hundred times as many reds. And think of the girl!"
Sigmund stroked the dog meditatively. "But I do think of the
girl. And her eyes are blue like summer skies, and laughing like
summer seas, and her hair is yellow, like mine, and braided in
ropes the size of a big man's arms. She's waiting for me, out
there, in a better land. And she's waited long, and now my pile's
in sight I'm not going to throw it away."
"And shamed I would be to look into the girl's blue eyes and
remember the black ones of the girl whose blood was on my hands,"
Hitchcock sneered; for he was born to honor and championship, and
to do the thing for the thing's sake, nor stop to weigh or
measure.
Sigmund shook his head. "You can't make me mad, Hitchcock, nor do
mad things because of your madness. It's a cold business
proposition and a question of facts. I didn't come to this
country for my health, and, further, it's impossible for us to
raise a hand. If it is so, it is too bad for the girl, that's
all. It's a way of her people, and it just happens we're on the
spot this one time. They've done the same for a thousand-thousand
years, and they're going to do it now, and they'll go on doing it
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for all time to come. Besides, they're not our kind. Nor's the
girl. No, I take my stand with Wertz and Hawes, and--"
But the dogs snarled and drew in, and he broke off, listening to
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75
the crunch-crunch of many snowshoes. Indian after Indian stalked
into the firelight, tall and grim, fur-clad and silent, their
shadows dancing grotesquely on the snow. One, the witch doctor,
spoke gutturally to Sipsu. His face was daubed with savage paint
blotches, and over his shoulders was drawn a wolfskin, the
gleaming teeth and cruel snout surmounting his head. No other
word was spoken. The prospectors held the peace. Sipsu arose and
slipped into her snowshoes.
"Good-by, O my man," she said to Hitchcock. But the man who had
sat beside her on the sled gave no sign, nor lifted his head as
they filed away into the white forest.
Unlike many men, his faculty of adaptation, while large, had never
suggested the expediency of an alliance with the women of the
Northland. His broad cosmopolitanism had never impelled toward
covenanting in marriage with the daughters of the soil. If it
had, his philosophy of life would not have stood between. But it
simply had not. Sipsu? He had pleasured in camp-fire chats with
her, not as a man who knew himself to be man and she woman, but as
a man might with a child, and as a man of his make certainly would
if for no other reason than to vary the tedium of a bleak
existence. That was all. But there was a certain chivalric
thrill of warm blood in him, despite his Yankee ancestry and New
England upbringing, and he was so made that the commercial aspect
of life often seemed meaningless and bore contradiction to his
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deeper impulses.
So he sat silent, with head bowed forward, an organic force,
greater than himself, as great as his race, at work within him.
Wertz and Hawes looked askance at him from time to time, a faint
but perceptible trepidation in their manner. Sigmund also felt
this. Hitchcock was strong, and his strength had been impressed
upon them in the course of many an event in their precarious life.
So they stood in a certain definite awe and curiosity as to what
his conduct would be when he moved to action.
But his silence was long, and the fire nigh out, when Wertz
stretched his arms and yawned, and thought he'd go to bed. Then
Hitchcock stood up his full height.
"May God damn your souls to the deepest hells, you chicken-hearted
cowards! I'm done with you!" He said it calmly enough, but his
strength spoke in every syllable, and every intonation was
advertisement of intention. "Come on," he continued, "whack up,
and in whatever way suits you best. I own a quarter-interest in
the claims; our contracts show that. There're twenty-five or
thirty ounces in the sack from the test pans. Fetch out the
scales. We'll divide that now. And you, Sigmund, measure me my
quarter-share of the grub and set it apart. Four of the dogs are
mine, and I want four more. I'll trade you my share in the camp
outfit and mining-gear for the dogs. And I'll throw in my six or
seven ounces and the spare 45-90 with the ammunition. What d'ye
Tales of the Klondyke
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76
say?"
The three men drew apart and conferred. When they returned,
Sigmund acted as spokesman. "We'll whack up fair with you,
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Hitchcock. In everything you'll get your quarter-share, neither
more nor less; and you can take it or leave it. But we want the
dogs as bad as you do, so you get four, and that's all. If you
don't want to take your share of the outfit and gear, why, that's
your lookout. If you want it, you can have it; if you don't,
leave it."
"The letter of the law," Hitchcock sneered. "But go ahead. I'm
willing. And hurry up. I can't get out of this camp and away
from its vermin any too quick."
The division was effected without further comment. He lashed his
meagre belongings upon one of the sleds, rounded in his four dogs,
and harnessed up. His portion of outfit and gear he did not
touch, though he threw onto the sled half a dozen dog harnesses,
and challenged them with his eyes to interfere. But they shrugged
their shoulders and watched him disappear in the forest.
A man crawled upon his belly through the snow. On every hand
loomed the moose-hide lodges of the camp. Here and there a
miserable dog howled or snarled abuse upon his neighbor. Once,
one of them approached the creeping man, but the man became
motionless. The dog came closer and sniffed, and came yet closer,
till its nose touched the strange object which had not been there
when darkness fell. Then Hitchcock, for it was Hitchcock,
upreared suddenly, shooting an unmittened hand out to the brute's
shaggy throat. And the dog knew its death in that clutch, and
when the man moved on, was left broken-necked under the stars. In
this manner Hitchcock made the chief's lodge. For long he lay in
the snow without, listening to the voices of the occupants and
striving to locate Sipsu. Evidently there were many in the tent,
and from the sounds they were in high excitement. At last he
heard the girl's voice, and crawled around so that only the moose-
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hide divided them. Then burrowing in the snow, he slowly wormed
his head and shoulders underneath. When the warm inner air smote
his face, he stopped and waited, his legs and the greater part of
his body still on the outside. He could see nothing, nor did he
dare lift his head. On one side of him was a skin bale. He could
smell it, though he carefully felt to be certain. On the other
side his face barely touched a furry garment which he knew clothed
a body. This must be Sipsu. Though he wished she would speak
again, he resolved to risk it.
He could hear the chief and the witch doctor talking high, and in
a far corner some hungry child whimpering to sleep. Squirming
over on his side, he carefully raised his head, still just
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