“Wind him up Bill,” called out Jack.
“All right,” his partner answered, and with that he gave Pete one of his famous ’ospital punches and he went to the floor in a heap.
Jack went over to Pete and slowly counted ten and as he still failed to show any signs of intelligence he counted him out. Pete’s friends carried him over to a corner where he came to a half hour later and then they put him to bed. He had had “a yard and a half over plenty,” as Bill would say.
Rip sawed away again on his fiddle, Doc put the tables back on the floor, René danced and wrestled with his good-natured bear and the men played cards again, but no one asked Bill or Jack to have a drink, a cigar or a bullet as long as they were in Circle. I dare say that the veriest tenderfoot can now go into the Grand Palace Hotel and he will be treated as considerately as he would in the Waldorf-Astoria, in New York, the Blackstone in Chicago or the Palace in San Francisco.
The next morning after the bout Black Pete lit out for other diggings and he has never been seen in Circle since. In this primitive way then are bad breeds often made into better men.
CHAPTER VI
MUSH, YOU HUSKIES, MUSH
When pioneer Jack McQuesten saw Bill deliver the final blow that knocked Black Pete out he knew he was safe in going ahead with the boys’ outfit. He also made it known that very night that they were in the market to buy some dogs, that nothing but the best would be good enough for them and that he himself would pick them out. The result was that within the next two or three days there was quite a bunch of dogs in Circle, enough I should say to make up half-a-dozen dog-teams.
“How many dogs do you reckon we’ll need to haul our outfit?” Bill wanted to know.
“What do you say, Mr. McQuesten?” Jack put it up to the storekeeper.
“You could get along with five or six dogs to the team, but seven will give you much better service and besides, if any thing should happen to any of them, you would be in no danger of getting stuck.”