“No use you tryin' to get away,” he flung back over his shoulder. “Besides, I'm goin' to borrow your dogs.”
“What is it?—another one of them blamed stampedes?” the old blind trapper asked in a queer and petulant falsetto, as the cries of men and dogs and the grind of the sleds swept the silence of the room.
“It sure is,” Lucy answered. “An' I never seen gold like it. Feel that, old man.”
She put the big nugget in his hand. He was but slightly interested.
“It was a good fur-country,” he complained, “before them danged miners come in an' scared back the game.”
The door opened, and Breck entered. “Well,” he said, “we four are all that are left in camp. It's forty miles to the Stewart by the cut-off I broke, and the fastest of them can't make the round trip in less than five or six days. But it's time you pulled out, Smoke, just the same.”
Breck drew his hunting-knife across the other's bonds, and glanced at the woman. “I hope you don't object?” he said, with significant politeness.
“If there's goin' to be any shootin',” the blind man broke out, “I wish somebody'd take me to another cabin first.”
“Go on, an' don't mind me,” Lucy answered. “If I ain't good enough to hang a man, I ain't good enough to hold him.”
Smoke stood up, rubbing his wrists where the thongs had impeded the circulation.