“'Tain't any extra sort of job for me, Colonel Ward!” grumbled Hackett “I've got to watch that critter day in an' day out, an' Tumble-dick camp is all o' twenty miles from here, or from any other camp, for that matter.”
“That's why I want him there, Hackett. We'll tie him on a moose sled, an' you start in an hour, whilst the men are still asleep. I'll break a window out of the wangan, an' on this crust there'll be no foot-tracks. It'll be thought he broke out and ran away—an' that'll be his own lookout.”
His voice became low and husky. “Yeh needn't hitch him too tight in Tumble-dick camp, Hackett, providin' you hide the most of his clothes an' it looks like a storm comin' on. If he wants to duck out away from a good home into the woods, with grub an' fire twenty-five miles away, why, that's his own lookout.”
The man licked his lips nervously.
“That ain't our liability, yeh knew.”
The man pondered.
“It's eight hundred for you, Hackett, an' always a good job with me as long as I hire men,” persisted Colonel Ward.
At last Hackett got up and struck his elbows against his sides.
“I'll do it!” he grunted.
Parker's first alarmed awakening was with a cloth about his neck, choking him so that his cry of fright rattled in his throat. He fought bravely, but two strong men are better than one who has struggled and gasped until he has only a trickle of air in his lungs. He was bound, his head muffled in a strip of torn blanket, and he was carried out into the night. He could not see his captors, but he knew that Ward was one of the assailants, because a hoarse command to Hackett had betrayed him.