"I will kill Jack," he said, "I, I, kill Jack!"
He saw the world in a haze: the Mill danced darkly before his eyes, dark against a golden sunset, his brain reeled, and when he came to his own door he fell inside and lay insensible.
"Pete dlink too much, he gleedy beast," said Annie. But Annawillee nursed her empty bottle to her bosom and said foolishly—
"I see—nika nanitsh Jenny klatawa, oh, hyu keely Annawillee."
And the night presently came down, and as the shacks lighted up it was told among all the Siwashes and the Chinkies and the White Men of ten Nations that Jenny, pretty Jenny, tenas toketie Jenny, had "scooted" with Shipman Jack across the water to Victoria, to California, to China, oh, to hell-an'-gone somewhere!
"To Hell and Gone out of this," they said. And Spanish Joe sang to the guitar a bitter little song about someone's señora who fled across the sea, and Chihuahua grinned at Jack's luck (Annawillee did not tell him the truth), and the Whites, Long Mac, and Shorty Gibbs and Tenas Billy and even young Tom Willett, who knew nothing about klootchmen, though some had their eye on him hopefully, said there was no knowing what any woman would do. They understood that men would do what they had a mind to.
"Anyhow," said Shorty, "she was a dern sight too pretty for a golderned Siwash like Pete. Someone wuz sure to kapswalla her sooner or later. If I wuz given to klootchmen, which I ain't, thank the Lord, I'd ha' put in for her myself."
But to think of such a coyoté as Jack Mottram picking up the Pearl of the River!
"It would sicken a hog," said Shorty Gibbs.