Wilder nodded. He laid his rifle back in its place with the breech closed, and a fresh clip of cartridges in its magazine.
“The boys are worrying, an’ it ain’t good. Buck Maberley told me a bunch of stuff,” the other went on. “But it ain’t the trouble they’re liable to make. We ken fix that sort o’ junk easy—up here. No. They’ve a reas’nable grouch though. For once their fool brains are leaking something better than Placer hooch. I guess they’re askin’ each other the questions you an’ me have been askin’ ourselves without makin’ a shout of it. And they’re mostly finding the same answer we get. They’re guessing if we lie around here about another month, makin’ target practice for them crazy foreign Injuns we look like takin’ a big chance of never hitting up against Placer hooch ever again. Which is only another way o’ sayin’ winter’ll fall on us before we can get back on to the Hekor, an’ if we’ve the grub we ain’t got the guts to see it through. You see, it would be kind o’ diff’rent if we’d the colour of gold to sort of cheer us up. But what spare time those blamed Injuns leave the boys they spend in panning river dirt for the stuff it never heard about since ever the world began. An’ they’re sick to death makin’ fools of their better judgment. Curse the skitters.” Again Chilcoot brushed his hand across his blistered neck and wiped its palm on his moleskin trouser leg.
Wilder nodded as he, too, strove to rid himself of the insect attacks.
“We’ll have to beat it,” he said with a sigh of regret, but with decision. “I hate quitting,” he went on a little gloomily. “I wouldn’t say you’re right, boy, ther’s no gold on this river. But we can’t get after it right. If the stuff right down here on the river in front of us ain’t pay dirt I’m all sorts of a sucker. But it don’t matter. These cursed Euralians have got us dead set so we can’t shake a pan right. We’re beat. Plumb beat. They got us worried and guessing, which in a territory like this, means—finished. Man, I’m sick to death of the bald hummocks and the flies. Another winter up here would get me yeppin’ around like a crazy coyote.”
Chilcoot had turned back to his watch on the river. “Yep,” he agreed, relieved at his chief’s swift decision. “When’ll we pull out?”
“Right after Red Mike gets back.”
The men continued their vigil in silence for awhile. The contemplation of retreat, the acknowledgment of defeat were things that affected them deeply. Both were of a keen fighting disposition. But their inclinations were coldly tempered by the experience and wisdom which in earlier days must have been impossible.
“You know, boy,” Wilder went on presently, in the contemplative fashion of a mind groping, “these Indians have got me guessing harder than I’ve ever guessed in my life. It’s up to us handing a report to old Raymes when we get along down. Well, I guess if I was to pass him haf the stuff jangling around in my head, I’d be liable to get a laugh from our superior that ’ud make me want to commit murder. These darn neches are fighting like Prussian Junkers. They’re armed like Bolsheviks. And they’re using the soft-nosed slugs you’d reckon to find in the hands of modern Communists. Here they are thousands of miles beyond the reach of the folk who could hand ’em that stuff. Yet they’ve got it plenty, and know every darn move in the game played by European armies. Say, it wouldn’t stagger me to find our fort doused with poison gas.”
Chilcoot spat with unnecessary vigour.
“You’re guessin’ ther’s something white behind ’em?” he said sharply.