The cheering over the Englishman’s discomfiture rose uproariously until a big Swede stilled it by raising up his brawny arms above the crowd as a signal for silence.
“Ay tank day United States ban all right. Ay tank day American dog with the ugly face ban all right too. How you all like to fight four more mens after you already lick three? Ay tank we better let the dog and boys go.”
The air rang with applause from the now good-natured crowd. “Let ’em go,” shouted a hundred voices, and the two boys worked their way through the ropes into the open once more, followed by the Yukon Kid.
Once distant from the circle of tents, the Kid stopped. “I guess you can find the boat all right,” he said. “I’m going to take a short cut home. I’ve traveled fifty miles today and only eaten one meal. I’ll rest a bit and then get something to eat.”
“I wish you would take your rest and then come down to the boat and have supper with us,” Clay said earnestly. “We have got a lot of dainties, and we brought up loads of books and magazines.”
“I’ll go you,” said the Kid boyishly. “I have been living on bacon and beans all winter—and magazines and books! Have you really got them? I had almost forgotten that there were such things in the world. Why, I got hold of a New York paper last winter and I read it and read it until I wore it out. Sure, I’ll be down just as soon as I can catch a couple of hours’ rest. So long, boys, till supper.”
Clay and Case made their way down to the Rambler without any difficulty. The ancient mariner was still sitting on the post, watching, with delight, Ike and Alex pouring pail after pail of water on Teddy Bear, who, up in the prow in the sunshine, was snoring loudly. The only effect the water seemed to have upon him was to make him roll over on the other side and resume his loud snoring.
The veteran prospector beckoned to Clay to approach him. “Say,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “There’s been strange goings on in your boat since you left. I never expected to see anything like it around here. Just after you left, two men came down the dock and went aboard your boat. I didn’t take much notice of them, ’cause the latch string is always hangin’ out in the North and I could see that they were sour dough boys and reckoned they were some friends of yours. But they staid down in the cabin so long that I made up my mind that I’d step down and tell ’em that you-alls wouldn’t be back for a couple of hours. Soon as I peeked into the cabin, I saw what they was up to. There they was with all the lockers pulled out looking through your things and throwing your clothes out on the floor. One of them was just putting a battered silver watch in his pocket. I got a bead on him with my old 44 and let out a yell. He dropped the watch like it was red hot. I marched ’em out of the cabin and up on the dock. Then I says to ’em, ‘Hike for shore and don’t be long getting there, for my fingers are getting shaky with old age and might press the trigger too hard, any minute.’”
“Did they run?” questioned Clay, with a grin.
“I could not have caught them if I had been forty years younger, and, believe me, I used to be some runner,” said the old prospector with open admiration at the speed the two fugitives had displayed. “But the further they got the madder I got to thinking old sour doughs would act meaner than a chekako. One of them was marked with a red scar across one cheek, and, just as they made the shore, I decided I’d mark the other one so I’d be sure to know him the next time I saw him.”