Hawes stretched, discovered a lame muscle in his arm, and rubbed it sleepily. “Wonder where Hitchcock bunked last night?” he queried, reaching for his moccasins. They were stiff, and he walked gingerly in his socks to the fire to thaw them out. “It’s a blessing he’s gone,” he added, “though he was a mighty good worker.”
“Yep. Too masterful. That was his trouble. Too bad for Sipsu. Think he cared for her much?”
“Don’t think so. Just principle. That’s all. He thought it wasn’t right—and, of course, it wasn’t,—but that was no reason for us to interfere and get hustled over the divide before our time.”
“Principle is principle, and it’s good in its place, but it’s best left to home when you go to Alaska. Eh?” Wertz had joined his mate, and both were working pliability into their frozen moccasins. “Think we ought to have taken a hand?”
Sigmund shook his head. He was very busy. A scud of chocolate-colored foam was rising in the coffee-pot, and the bacon needed turning. Also, he was thinking about the girl with laughing eyes like summer seas, and he was humming softly.
His mates chuckled to each other and ceased talking. Though it was past seven, daybreak was still three hours distant. The aurora borealis had passed out of the sky, and the camp was an oasis of light in the midst of deep darkness. And in this light the forms of the three men were sharply defined. Emboldened by the silence, Sigmund raised his voice and opened the last stanza of the old song:-
“In a year, in a year, when the grapes are ripe—”
Then the night was split with a rattling volley of rifle-shots. Hawes sighed, made an effort to straighten himself, and collapsed. Wertz went over on an elbow with drooping head. He choked a little, and a dark stream flowed from his mouth. And Sigmund, the Golden-Haired, his throat a-gurgle with the song, threw up his arms and pitched across the fire.
* * * * *
The witch doctor’s eyes were well blackened, and his temper none of the best; for he quarrelled with the chief over the possession of Wertz’s rifle, and took more than his share of the part-sack of beans. Also he appropriated the bearskin, and caused grumbling among the tribesmen. And finally, he tried to kill Sigmund’s dog, which the girl had given him, but the dog ran away, while he fell into the shaft and dislocated his shoulder on the bucket. When the camp was well looted they went back to their own lodges, and there was a great rejoicing among the women. Further, a band of moose strayed over the south divide and fell before the hunters, so the witch doctor attained yet greater honor, and the people whispered among themselves that he spoke in council with the gods.