The One Thousand Dozen
David Rasmunsen was a hustler, and, like many a greater man, a manof the one idea. Wherefore, when the clarion call of the Northrang on his ear, he conceived an adventure in eggs and bent all hisenergy to its achievement. He figured briefly and to the point,and the adventure became iridescent-hued, splendid. That eggswould sell at Dawson for five dollars a dozen was a safe workingpremise. Whence it was incontrovertible that one thousand dozenwould bring, in the Golden Metropolis, five thousand dollars.On the other hand, expense was to be considered, and he consideredit well, for he was a careful man, keenly practical, with a hardhead and a heart that imagination never warmed. At fifteen cents adozen, the initial cost of his thousand dozen would be one hundredand fifty dollars, a mere bagatelle in face of the enormous profit.And suppose, just suppose, to be wildly extravagant for once, thattransportation for himself and eggs should run up eight hundred andfifty more; he would still have four thousand clear cash and cleanwhen the last egg was disposed of and the last dust had rippledinto his sack"You see, Alma,"--he figured it over with his wife, the cosydining-room submerged in a sea of maps, government surveys, guide-books, and Alaskan itineraries,--"you see, expenses don't reallybegin till you make Dyea--fifty dollars'll cover it with a first-class passage thrown in. Now from Dyea to Lake Linderman, Indianpackers take your goods over for twelve cents a pound, twelvedollars a hundred, or one hundred and twenty dollars a thousand.Say I have fifteen hundred pounds, it'll cost one hundred andeighty dollars--call it two hundred and be safe. I am creditablyinformed by a Klondiker just come out that I can buy a boat forthree hundred. But the same man says I'm sure to get a couple ofpassengers for one hundred and fifty each, which will give me theboat for nothing, and, further, they can help me manage it. And .. . that's all; I put my eggs ashore from the boat at Dawson. Nowlet me see how much is that?""Fifty dollars from San Francisco to Dyea, two hundred from Dyea toLinderman, passengers pay for the boat--two hundred and fifty alltold," she summed up swiftly."And a hundred for my clothes and personal outfit," he went onhappily; "that leaves a margin of five hundred for emergencies.And what possible emergencies can arise?"Alma shrugged her shoulders and elevated her brows. If that vastNorthland was capable of swallowing up a man and a thousand dozeneggs, surely there was room and to spare for whatever else he mighthappen to possess. So she thought, but she said nothing. She knewDavid Rasmunsen too well to say anything."Doubling the time because of chance delays, I should make the tripin two months. Think of it, Alma! Four thousand in two months!Beats the paltry hundred a month I'm getting now. Why, we'll buildfurther out where we'll have more space, gas in every room, and aview, and the rent of the cottage'll pay taxes, insurance, andwater, and leave something over. And then there's always thechance of my striking it and coming out a millionaire. Now tellme, Alma, don't you think I'm very moderate?"And Alma could hardly think otherwise. Besides, had not her owncousin,--though a remote and distant one to be sure, the blacksheep, the harum-scarum, the ne'er-do-well,--had not he come downout of that weird North country with a hundred thousand in yellowdust, to say nothing of a half-ownership in the hole from which itcame?David Rasmunsen's grocer was surprised when he found him weighingeggs in the scales at the end of the counter, and Rasmunsen himselfwas more surprised when he found that a dozen eggs weighed a poundand a half--fifteen hundred pounds for his thousand dozen! Therewould be no weight left for his clothes, blankets, and cookingutensils, to say nothing of the grub he must necessarily consume bythe way. His calculations were all thrown out, and he was justproceeding to recast them when he hit upon the idea of weighingsmall eggs. "For whether they be large or small, a dozen eggs is adozen eggs," he observed sagely to himself; and a dozen small oneshe found to weigh but a pound and a quarter. Thereat the city ofSan Francisco was overrun by anxious-eyed emissaries, andcommission houses and dairy associations were startled by a suddendemand for eggs running not more than twenty ounces to the dozen.Rasmunsen mortgaged the little cottage for a thousand dollars,arranged for his wife to make a prolonged stay among her ownpeople, threw up his job, and started North. To keep within hisschedule he compromised on a second-class passage, which, becauseof the rush, was worse than steerage; and in the late summer, apale and wabbly man, he disembarked with his eggs on the Dyeabeach. But it did not take him long to recover his land legs andappetite. His first interview with the Chilkoot packersstraightened him up and stiffened his backbone. Forty cents apound they demanded for the twenty-eight-mile portage, and while hecaught his breath and swallowed, the price went up to forty-three.Fifteen husky Indians put the straps on his packs at forty-five,but took them off at an offer of forty-seven from a Skaguay Croesusin dirty shirt and ragged overalls who had lost his horses on theWhite Pass trail and was now making a last desperate drive at thecountry by way of Chilkoot.But Rasmunsen was clean grit, and at fifty cents found takers, who,two days later, set his eggs down intact at Linderman. But fiftycents a pound is a thousand dollars a ton, and his fifteen hundredpounds had exhausted his emergency fund and left him stranded atthe Tantalus point where each day he saw the fresh-whipsawed boatsdeparting for Dawson. Further, a great anxiety brooded over thecamp where the boats were built. Men worked frantically, early andlate, at the height of their endurance, caulking, nailing, andpitching in a frenzy of haste for which adequate explanation wasnot far to seek. Each day the snow-line crept farther down thebleak, rock-shouldered peaks, and gale followed gale, with sleetand slush and snow, and in the eddies and quiet places young iceformed and thickened through the fleeting hours. And each morn,toil-stiffened men turned wan faces across the lake to see if thefreeze-up had come. For the freeze-up heralded the death of theirhope--the hope that they would be floating down the swift river erenavigation closed on the chain of lakes.To harrow Rasmunsen's soul further, he discovered three competitorsin the egg business. It was true that one, a little German, hadgone broke and was himself forlornly back-tripping the last pack ofthe portage; but the other two had boats nearly completed, and weredaily supplicating the god of merchants and traders to stay theiron hand of winter for just another day. But the iron hand closeddown over the land. Men were being frozen in the blizzard whichswept Chilkoot, and Rasmunsen frosted his toes ere he was aware.He found a chance to go passenger with his freight in a boat justshoving off through the rubble, but two hundred hard cash, wasrequired, and he had no money."Ay tank you yust wait one leedle w'ile," said the Swedish boat-builder, who had struck his Klondike right there and was wiseenough to know it--"one leedle w'ile und I make you a tam fineskiff boat, sure Pete."With this unpledged word to go on, Rasmunsen hit the back trail toCrater Lake, where he fell in with two press correspondents whosetangled baggage was strewn from Stone House, over across the Pass,and as far as Happy Camp."Yes," he said with consequence. "I've a thousand dozen eggs atLinderman, and my boat's just about got the last seam caulked.Consider myself in luck to get it. Boats are at a premium, youknow, and none to be had."Whereupon and almost with bodily violence the correspondentsclamoured to go with him, fluttered greenbacks before his eyes, andspilled yellow twenties from hand to hand. He could not hear ofit, but they over-persuaded him, and he reluctantly consented totake them at three hundred apiece. Also they pressed upon him thepassage money in advance. And while they wrote to their respectivejournals concerning the Good Samaritan with the thousand dozeneggs, the Good Samaritan was hurrying back to the Swede atLinderman."Here, you! Gimme that boat!" was his salutation, his handjingling the correspondents' gold pieces and his eyes hungrily bentupon the finished craft.The Swede regarded him stolidly and shook his head."How much is the other fellow paying? Three hundred? Well, here'sfour. Take it."He tried to press it upon him, but the man backed away."Ay tank not. Ay say him get der skiff boat. You yust wait--"'Here's six hundred. Last call. Take it or leave it. Tell 'mit's a mistake.'The Swede wavered. "Ay tank yes," he finally said, and the lastRasmunsen saw of him his vocabulary was going to wreck in a vaineffort to explain the mistake to the other fellows.The German slipped and broke his ankle on the steep hogback aboveDeep Lake, sold out his stock for a dollar a dozen, and with theproceeds hired Indian packers to carry him back to Dyea. But onthe morning Rasmunsen shoved off with his correspondents, his tworivals followed suit.'How many you got?" one of them, a lean little New Englander,called out."One thousand dozen," Rasmunsen answered proudly."Huh! I'll go you even stakes I beat you in with my eighthundred."The correspondents offered to lend him the money; but Rasmunsendeclined, and the Yankee closed with the remaining rival, a brawnyson of the sea and sailor of ships and things, who promised to showthem all a wrinkle or two when it came to cracking on. And crackon he did, with a large tarpaulin square-sail which pressed the bowhalf under at every jump. He was the first to run out ofLinderman, but, disdaining the portage, piled his loaded boat onthe rocks in the boiling rapids. Rasmunsen and the Yankee, wholikewise had two passengers, portaged across on their backs andthen lined their empty boats down through the bad water to Bennett.Bennett was a twenty-five-mile lake, narrow and deep, a funnelbetween the mountains through which storms ever romped. Rasmunsencamped on the sand-pit at its head, where were many men and boatsbound north in the teeth of the Arctic winter. He awoke in themorning to find a piping gale from the south, which caught thechill from the whited peaks and glacial valleys and blew as cold asnorth wind ever blew. But it was fair, and he also found theYankee staggering past the first bold headland with all sail set.Boat after boat was getting under way, and the correspondents fellto with enthusiasm."We'll catch him before Cariboo Crossing," they assured Rasmunsen,as they ran up the sail and the Alma took the first icy spray overher bow.Now Rasmunsen all his life had been prone to cowardice on water,but he clung to the kicking steering-oar with set face anddetermined jaw. His thousand dozen were there in the boat beforehis eyes, safely secured beneath the correspondents' baggage, andsomehow, before his eyes were the little cottage and the mortgagefor a thousand dollars.It was bitter cold. Now and again he hauled in the steering-sweepand put out a fresh one while his passengers chopped the ice fromthe blade. Wherever the spray struck, it turned instantly tofrost, and the dipping boom of the spritsail was quickly fringedwith icicles. The Alma strained and hammered through the big seastill the seams and butts began to spread, but in lieu of bailingthe correspondents chopped ice and flung it overboard. There wasno let-up. The mad race with winter was on, and the boats torealong in a desperate string."W-w-we can't stop to save our souls!" one of the correspondentschattered, from cold, not fright."That's right! Keep her down the middle, old man!" the otherencouraged.Rasmunsen replied with an idiotic grin. The iron-bound shores werein a lather of foam, and even down the middle the only hope was tokeep running away from the big seas. To lower sail was to beovertaken and swamped. Time and again they passed boats poundingamong the rocks, and once they saw one on the edge of the breakersabout to strike. A little craft behind them, with two men, jibedover and turned bottom up."W-w-watch out, old man," cried he of the chattering teeth.Rasmunsen grinned and tightened his aching grip on the sweep.Scores of times had the send of the sea caught the big square sternof the Alma and thrown her off from dead before it till the afterleach of the spritsail fluttered hollowly, and each time, and onlywith all his strength, had he forced her back. His grin by thenhad become fixed, and it disturbed the correspondents to look athim.They roared down past an isolated rock a hundred yards from shore.From its wave-drenched top a man shrieked wildly, for the instantcutting the storm with his voice. But the next instant the Almawas by, and the rock growing a black speck in the troubled froth."That settles the Yankee! Where's the sailor?" shouted one of hispassengers.Rasmunsen shot a glance over his shoulder at a black square-sail.He had seen it leap up out of the grey to windward, and for anhour, off and on, had been watching it grow. The sailor hadevidently repaired damages and was making up for lost time."Look at him come!"Both passengers stopped chopping ice to watch. Twenty miles ofBennett were behind them--room and to spare for the sea to toss upits mountains toward the sky. Sinking and soaring like a storm-god, the sailor drove by them. The huge sail seemed to grip theboat from the crests of the waves, to tear it bodily out of thewater, and fling it crashing and smothering down into the yawningtroughs."The sea'll never catch him!""But he'll r-r-run her nose under!"Even as they spoke, the black tarpaulin swooped from sight behind abig comber. The next wave rolled over the spot, and the next, butthe boat did not reappear. The Alma rushed by the place. A littleriffraff of oats and boxes was seen. An arm thrust up and a shaggyhead broke surface a score of yards away.For a time there was silence. As the end of the lake came insight, the waves began to leap aboard with such steady recurrencethat the correspondents no longer chopped ice but flung the waterout with buckets. Even this would not do, and, after a shoutedconference with Rasmunsen, they attacked the baggage. Flour,bacon, beans, blankets, cooking-stove, ropes, odds and ends,everything they could get hands on, flew overboard. The boatacknowledged it at once, taking less water and rising morebuoyantly."That'll do!" Rasmunsen called sternly, as they applied themselvesto the top layer of eggs."The h-hell it will!" answered the shivering one, savagely. Withthe exception of their notes, films, and cameras, they hadsacrificed their outfit. He bent over, laid hold of an egg-box,and began to worry it out from under the lashing."Drop it! Drop it, I say!"Rasmunsen had managed to draw his revolver, and with the crook ofhis arm over the sweep head, was taking aim. The correspondentstood up on the thwart, balancing back and forth, his face twistedwith menace and speechless anger."My God!"So cried his brother correspondent, hurling himself, face downward,into the bottom of the boat. The Alma, under the divided attentionof Rasmunsen, had been caught by a great mass of water and whirledaround. The after leach hollowed, the sail emptied and jibed, andthe boom, sweeping with terrific force across the boat, carried theangry correspondent overboard with a broken back. Mast and sailhad gone over the side as well. A drenching sea followed, as theboat lost headway, and Rasmunsen sprang to the bailing bucketSeveral boats hurtled past them in the next half-hour,--smallboats, boats of their own size, boats afraid, unable to do aughtbut run madly on. Then a ten-ton barge, at imminent risk ofdestruction, lowered sail to windward and lumbered down upon them."Keep off! Keep off!" Rasmunsen screamed.But his low gunwale ground against the heavy craft, and theremaining correspondent clambered aboard. Rasmunsen was over theeggs like a cat and in the bow of the Alma, striving with numbfingers to bend the hauling-lines together."Come on!" a red-whiskered man yelled at him."I've a thousand dozen eggs here," he shouted back. "Gimme a tow!I'll pay you!""Come on!" they howled in chorus.A big whitecap broke just beyond, washing over the barge andleaving the Alma half swamped. The men cast off, cursing him asthey ran up their sail. Rasmunsen cursed back and fell to bailing.The mast and sail, like a sea anchor, still fast by the halyards,held the boat head on to wind and sea and gave him a chance tofight the water out.Three hours later, numbed, exhausted, blathering like a lunatic,but still bailing, he went ashore on an ice-strewn beach nearCariboo Crossing. Two men, a government courier and a half-breedvoyageur, dragged him out of the surf, saved his cargo, and beachedthe Alma. They were paddling out of the country in a Peterborough,and gave him shelter for the night in their storm-bound camp. Nextmorning they departed, but he elected to stay by his eggs. Andthereafter the name and fame of the man with the thousand dozeneggs began to spread through the land. Gold-seekers who made inbefore the freeze-up carried the news of his coming. Grizzled old-timers of Forty Mile and Circle City, sour doughs with leathernjaws and bean-calloused stomachs, called up dream memories ofchickens and green things at mention of his name. Dyea and Skaguaytook an interest in his being, and questioned his progress fromevery man who came over the passes, while Dawson--golden,omeletless Dawson--fretted and worried, and way-laid every chancearrival for word of him.But of this Rasmunsen knew nothing. The day after the wreck hepatched up the Alma and pulled out. A cruel east wind blew in histeeth from Tagish, but he got the oars over the side and buckedmanfully into it, though half the time he was drifting backward andchopping ice from the blades. According to the custom of thecountry, he was driven ashore at Windy Arm; three times on Tagishsaw him swamped and beached; and Lake Marsh held him at the freeze-up. The Alma was crushed in the jamming of the floes, but the eggswere intact. These he back-tripped two miles across the ice to theshore, where he built a cache, which stood for years after and waspointed out by men who knew.Half a thousand frozen miles stretched between him and Dawson, andthe waterway was closed. But Rasmunsen, with a peculiar tense lookin his face, struck back up the lakes on foot. What he suffered onthat lone trip, with nought but a single blanket, an axe, and ahandful of beans, is not given to ordinary mortals to know. Onlythe Arctic adventurer may understand. Suffice that he was caughtin a blizzard on Chilkoot and left two of his toes with the surgeonat Sheep Camp. Yet he stood on his feet and washed dishes in thescullery of the PAWONA to the Puget Sound, and from there passedcoal on a P. S. boat to San Francisco.It was a haggard, unkempt man who limped across the shining officefloor to raise a second mortgage from the bank people. His hollowcheeks betrayed themselves through the scraggy beard, and his eyesseemed to have retired into deep caverns where they burned withcold fires. His hands were grained from exposure and hard work,and the nails were rimmed with tight-packed dirt and coal-dust. Hespoke vaguely of eggs and ice-packs, winds and tides; but when theydeclined to let him have more than a second thousand, his talkbecame incoherent, concerning itself chiefly with the price of dogsand dog-food, and such things as snowshoes and moccasins and wintertrails. They let him have fifteen hundred, which was more than thecottage warranted, and breathed easier when he scrawled hissignature and passed out the door.Two weeks later he went over Chilkoot with three dog sleds of fivedogs each. One team he drove, the two Indians with him driving theothers. At Lake Marsh they broke out the cache and loaded up. Butthere was no trail. He was the first in over the ice, and to himfell the task of packing the snow and hammering away through therough river jams. Behind him he often observed a camp-fire smoketrickling thinly up through the quiet air, and he wondered why thepeople did not overtake him. For he was a stranger to the land anddid not understand. Nor could he understand his Indians when theytried to explain. This they conceived to be a hardship, but whenthey balked and refused to break camp of mornings, he drove them totheir work at pistol point.When he slipped through an ice bridge near the White Horse andfroze his foot, tender yet and oversensitive from the previousfreezing, the Indians looked for him to lie up. But he sacrificeda blanket, and, with his foot incased in an enormous moccasin, bigas a water-bucket, continued to take his regular turn with thefront sled. Here was the cruellest work, and they respected him,though on the side they rapped their foreheads with their knucklesand significantly shook their heads. One night they tried to runaway, but the zip-zip of his bullets in the snow brought them back,snarling but convinced. Whereupon, being only savage Chilkat men,they put their heads together to kill him; but he slept like a cat,and, waking or sleeping, the chance never came. Often they triedto tell him the import of the smoke wreath in the rear, but hecould not comprehend and grew suspicious of them. And when theysulked or shirked, he was quick to let drive at them between theeyes, and quick to cool their heated souls with sight of his readyrevolver.And so it went--with mutinous men, wild dogs, and a trail thatbroke the heart. He fought the men to stay with him, fought thedogs to keep them away from the eggs, fought the ice, the cold, andthe pain of his foot, which would not heal. As fast as the youngtissue renewed, it was bitten and scared by the frost, so that arunning sore developed, into which he could almost shove his fist.In the mornings, when he first put his weight upon it, his headwent dizzy, and he was near to fainting from the pain; but later onin the day it usually grew numb, to recommence when he crawled intohis blankets and tried to sleep. Yet he, who had been a clerk andsat at a desk all his days, toiled till the Indians were exhausted,and even out-worked the dogs. How hard he worked, how much hesuffered, he did not know. Being a man of the one idea, now thatthe idea had come, it mastered him. In the foreground of hisconsciousness was Dawson, in the background his thousand dozeneggs, and midway between the two his ego fluttered, striving alwaysto draw them together to a glittering golden point. This goldenpoint was the five thousand dollars, the consummation of the ideaand the point of departure for whatever new idea might presentitself. For the rest, he was a mere automaton. He was unaware ofother things, seeing them as through a glass darkly, and givingthem no thought. The work of his hands he did with machine-likewisdom; likewise the work of his head. So the look on his facegrew very tense, till even the Indians were afraid of it, andmarvelled at the strange white man who had made them slaves andforced them to toil with such foolishness.Then came a snap on Lake Le Barge, when the cold of outer spacesmote the tip of the planet, and the force ranged sixty and odddegrees below zero. Here, labouring with open mouth that he mightbreathe more freely, he chilled his lungs, and for the rest of thetrip he was troubled with a dry, hacking cough, especiallyirritable in smoke of camp or under stress of undue exertion. Onthe Thirty Mile river he found much open water, spanned byprecarious ice bridges and fringed with narrow rim ice, tricky anduncertain. The rim ice was impossible to reckon on, and he daredit without reckoning, falling back on his revolver when his driversdemurred. But on the ice bridges, covered with snow though theywere, precautions could be taken. These they crossed on theirsnowshoes, with long poles, held crosswise in their hands, to whichto cling in case of accident. Once over, the dogs were called tofollow. And on such a bridge, where the absence of the centre icewas masked by the snow, one of the Indians met his end. He wentthrough as quickly and neatly as a knife through thin cream, andthe current swept him from view down under the stream ice.That night his mate fled away through the pale moonlight, Rasmunsenfutilely puncturing the silence with his revolver--a thing that hehandled with more celerity than cleverness. Thirty-six hours laterthe Indian made a police camp on the Big Salmon."Um--um--um funny mans--what you call?--top um head all loose," theinterpreter explained to the puzzled captain. "Eh? Yep, clazy,much clazy mans. Eggs, eggs, all a time eggs--savvy? Come bime-by."It was several days before Rasmunsen arrived, the three sledslashed together, and all the dogs in a single team. It wasawkward, and where the going was bad he was compelled to back-tripit sled by sled, though he managed most of the time, throughherculean efforts, to bring all along on the one haul. He did notseem moved when the captain of police told him his man was hittingthe high places for Dawson, and was by that time, probably, half-way between Selkirk and Stewart. Nor did he appear interested wheninformed that the police had broken the trail as far as Pelly; forhe had attained to a fatalistic acceptance of all naturaldispensations, good or ill. But when they told him that Dawson wasin the bitter clutch of famine, he smiled, threw the harness on hisdogs, and pulled out.But it was at his next halt that the mystery of the smoke wasexplained. With the word at Big Salmon that the trail was brokento Pelly, there was no longer any need for the smoke wreath tolinger in his wake; and Rasmunsen, crouching over lonely fire, sawa motley string of sleds go by. First came the courier and thehalf-breed who had hauled him out from Bennett; then mail-carriersfor Circle City, two sleds of them, and a mixed following ofingoing Klondikers. Dogs and men were fresh and fat, whileRasmunsen and his brutes were jaded and worn down to the skin andbone. They of the smoke wreath had travelled one day in three,resting and reserving their strength for the dash to come whenbroken trail was met with; while each day he had plunged andfloundered forward, breaking the spirit of his dogs and robbingthem of their mettle.As for himself, he was unbreakable. They thanked him kindly forhis efforts in their behalf, those fat, fresh men,--thanked himkindly, with broad grins and ribald laughter; and now, when heunderstood, he made no answer. Nor did he cherish silentbitterness. It was immaterial. The idea--the fact behind theidea--was not changed. Here he was and his thousand dozen; therewas Dawson; the problem was unaltered.At the Little Salmon, being short of dog food, the dogs got intohis grub, and from there to Selkirk he lived on beans--coarse,brown beans, big beans, grossly nutritive, which griped his stomachand doubled him up at two-hour intervals. But the Factor atSelkirk had a notice on the door of the Post to the effect that nosteamer had been up the Yukon for two years, and in consequencegrub was beyond price. He offered to swap flour, however, at therate of a cupful of each egg, but Rasmunsen shook his head and hitthe trail. Below the Post he managed to buy frozen horse hide forthe dogs, the horses having been slain by the Chilkat cattle men,and the scraps and offal preserved by the Indians. He tackled thehide himself, but the hair worked into the bean sores of his mouth,and was beyond endurance.Here at Selkirk he met the forerunners of the hungry exodus ofDawson, and from there on they crept over the trail, a dismalthrong. "No grub!" was the song they sang. "No grub, and had togo." "Everybody holding candles for a rise in the spring." "Flourdollar 'n a half a pound, and no sellers.""Eggs?" one of them answered. "Dollar apiece, but there ain'tnone."Rasmunsen made a rapid calculation. "Twelve thousand dollars," hesaid aloud."Hey?" the man asked."Nothing," he answered, and MUSHED the dogs along.When he arrived at Stewart River, seventy from Dawson, five of hisdogs were gone, and the remainder were falling in the traces. He,also, was in the traces, hauling with what little strength was leftin him. Even then he was barely crawling along ten miles a day.His cheek-bones and nose, frost-bitten again and again, were turnedbloody-black and hideous. The thumb, which was separated from thefingers by the gee-pole, had likewise been nipped and gave himgreat pain. The monstrous moccasin still incased his foot, andstrange pains were beginning to rack the leg. At Sixty Mile, thelast beans, which he had been rationing for some time, werefinished; yet he steadfastly refused to touch the eggs. He couldnot reconcile his mind to the legitimacy of it, and staggered andfell along the way to Indian River. Here a fresh-killed moose andan open-handed old-timer gave him and his dogs new strength, and atAinslie's he felt repaid for it all when a stampede, ripe fromDawson in five hours, was sure he could get a dollar and a quarterfor every egg he possessed.He came up the steep bank by the Dawson barracks with flutteringheart and shaking knees. The dogs were so weak that he was forcedto rest them, and, waiting, he leaned limply against the gee-pole.A man, an eminently decorous-looking man, came sauntering by in agreat bearskin coat. He glanced at Rasmunsen curiously, thenstopped and ran a speculative eye over the dogs and the threelashed sleds."What you got?" he asked."Eggs," Rasmunsen answered huskily, hardly able to pitch his voiceabove a whisper."Eggs! Whoopee! Whoopee!" He sprang up into the air, gyratedmadly, and finished with half-a-dozen war steps. "You don't say--all of 'em?""All of 'em.""Say, you must be the Egg Man." He walked around and viewedRasmunsen from the other side. "Come, now, ain't you the Egg Man?"Rasmunsen didn't know, but supposed he was, and the man sobereddown a bit."What d'ye expect to get for 'em?" he asked cautiously.Rasmunsen became audacious. "Dollar 'n a half," he said."Done!" the man came back promptly. "Gimme a dozen.""I--I mean a dollar 'n a half apiece," Rasmunsen hesitatinglyexplained."Sure. I heard you. Make it two dozen. Here's the dust."The man pulled out a healthy gold sack the size of a small sausageand knocked it negligently against the gee-pole. Rasmunsen felt astrange trembling in the pit of his stomach, a tickling of thenostrils, and an almost overwhelming desire to sit down and cry.But a curious, wide-eyed crowd was beginning to collect, and manafter man was calling out for eggs. He was without scales, but theman with the bearskin coat fetched a pair and obligingly weighed inthe dust while Rasmunsen passed out the goods. Soon there was apushing and shoving and shouldering, and a great clamour.Everybody wanted to buy and to be served first. And as theexcitement grew, Rasmunsen cooled down. This would never do.There must be something behind the fact of their buying so eagerly.It would be wiser if he rested first and sized up the market.Perhaps eggs were worth two dollars apiece. Anyway, whenever hewished to sell, he was sure of a dollar and a half. "Stop!" hecried, when a couple of hundred had been sold. "No more now. I'mplayed out. I've got to get a cabin, and then you can come and seeme."A groan went up at this, but the man with the bearskin coatapproved. Twenty-four of the frozen eggs went rattling in hiscapacious pockets, and he didn't care whether the rest of the townate or not. Besides, he could see Rasmunsen was on his last legs."There's a cabin right around the second corner from the MonteCarlo," he told him--"the one with the sody-bottle window. Itain't mine, but I've got charge of it. Rents for ten a day andcheap for the money. You move right in, and I'll see you later.Don't forget the sody-bottle window.""Tra-la-loo!" he called back a moment later. "I'm goin' up thehill to eat eggs and dream of home."On his way to the cabin, Rasmunsen recollected he was hungry andbought a small supply of provisions at the N. A. T. & T. store--also a beefsteak at the butcher shop and dried salmon for the dogs.He found the cabin without difficulty, and left the dogs in theharness while he started the fire and got the coffee under way.A dollar 'n a half apiece--one thousand dozen--eighteen thousanddollars!" he kept muttering it to himself, over and over, as hewent about his work.As he flopped the steak into the frying-pan the door opened. Heturned. It was the man with the bearskin coat. He seemed to comein with determination, as though bound on some explicit errand, butas he looked at Rasmunsen an expression of perplexity came into hisface."I say--now I say--" he began, then halted.Rasmunsen wondered if he wanted the rent."I say, damn it, you know, them eggs is bad."Rasmunsen staggered. He felt as though some one had struck him anastounding blow between the eyes. The walls of the cabin reeledand tilted up. He put out his hand to steady himself and rested iton the stove. The sharp pain and the smell of the burning fleshbrought him back to himself."I see," he said slowly, fumbling in his pocket for the sack. "Youwant your money back.""It ain't the money," the man said, "but hain't you got any eggs--good?"Rasmunsen shook his head. "You'd better take the money."But the man refused and backed away. "I'll come back," he said,"when you've taken stock, and get what's comin'."Rasmunsen rolled the chopping-block into the cabin and carried inthe eggs. He went about it quite calmly. He took up the hand-axe,and, one by one, chopped the eggs in half. These halves heexamined carefully and let fall to the floor. At first he sampledfrom the different cases, then deliberately emptied one case at atime. The heap on the floor grew larger. The coffee boiled overand the smoke of the burning beefsteak filled the cabin. Hechopped steadfastly and monotonously till the last case wasfinished.Somebody knocked at the door, knocked again, and let himself in."What a mess!" he remarked, as he paused and surveyed the scene.The severed eggs were beginning to thaw in the heat of the stove,and a miserable odour was growing stronger."Must a-happened on the steamer," he suggested.Rasmunsen looked at him long and blankly."I'm Murray, Big Jim Murray, everybody knows me," the manvolunteered. "I'm just hearin' your eggs is rotten, and I'mofferin' you two hundred for the batch. They ain't good as salmon,but still they're fair scoffin's for dogs."Rasmunsen seemed turned to stone. He did not move. "You go tohell," he said passionlessly."Now just consider. I pride myself it's a decent price for a messlike that, and it's better 'n nothin'. Two hundred. What yousay?""You go to hell," Rasmunsen repeated softly, "and get out of here."Murray gaped with a great awe, then went out carefully, backward,with his eyes fixed an the other's face.Rasmunsen followed him out and turned the dogs loose. He threwthem all the salmon he had bought, and coiled a sled-lashing up inhis hand. Then he re-entered the cabin and drew the latch in afterhim. The smoke from the cindered steak made his eyes smart. Hestood on the bunk, passed the lashing over the ridge-pole, andmeasured the swing-off with his eye. It did not seem to satisfy,for he put the stool on the bunk and climbed upon the stool. Hedrove a noose in the end of the lashing and slipped his headthrough. The other end he made fast. Then he kicked the stool outfrom under.
zpostcode
Recruit
weather
mreligion
Yellowpages
sport
constellation
shopping
name
game
directory
literature
Word
tour
furnish
Lottery
tftnews
lyrics
News
digital
car
dir
Edu
Finance
