Argosy, Vol. 120, No. 1 — page 138: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

128 ' He had, to begm with, plenty of clothes; the warmest that money could get. As for that, incidentally, he had money enough, as he assured himself, to buy up al? the fur- posts in northwest territory. Money? Tons of it! But of that later. Then he bad an ax, and there was an abundance of fir-trees not so far off. For a Jong time after he arrived, it was easily light enough around noon to cut them down and drag them up to camp. So that the fuel question occasioned no uneasiness. For one man who fed sparmegly, there was also grub enough. Bardwell had found on the sled when he took posscssion of it, in addition to all the regular supphies, corn meal, flour, and baking powder, which was almost unheard of opulence for winter sledg- ing. Then through a hole chopped in the river ice the salmon were still to be had almost for the asking. .There was nothing which prevented him from settlmg down in safety and comparative comfort—nothing but one thing, and that was himself. Bardwell had never been used to plan- ning and looking ahead and doing for him- self. blithe brotherhood, he had levted his neces- sities as a charge on all socrety—from which, they say, a living is surely due them as much as any one. In the matter of food, for instance, when one meal was over, there was no question of the next till hunger suggested the need of ways and means. Fpod had always been at hand in full abundance—some one else’s food. The only problem was of laymg possession to it, and cleverness had fur- nished the solution. Never, so far as he recalled, had Bardwell paid honestly for a meal with money that he had earned him- self. So that instead of cutting his great wood- pile, as any other man would have done, he fetched only as he needed, and then sourly and grumbling. Catching salmon was too cold work, and he would not bother with it. Never having learned how to cook, he pitched the flour-bags inte the corner and forgot them. The fine dog-team he slaugh- tered one day in a fit of pettishness so as to be rid of the problem of feeding them. What he subsisted on was the most ob- All his life, like the others of his. THE ARGOSY. " vious and easily prepared—the bacon, fried m huge slices at spendthrift rate, soda crackers from the single box, and tea, into each cup of which he dumped four times as many heaping spoonfuls of sugar as he had any business to. Of the hour when he would scrape the bettoms of his boxes he did not dare to thik; yet its nearer marching terrified him. Foresightless days he had lived, ali his life; foresightless he continued. As long as he had grub at his elbow he served himself unstintingly, although the sight of his dwin- ding supplies brought agony. Although he ate voraciousty, he began to grow thin. His hands took to twittering. He became more and more terrified of the thickening darkness, and going out not at all except when he must for wood, took refuge behind his foot-thick door, getting daily more white and tremulous and bearded —which last is passing bad for a man cause it slovens his self-respect and epee cuts his nerve—and slept and gorged and blasphéemed the northland and his theughts. It had begun to get him. That was the way things lay when the other man, Pete Lacey came. Bardwell, staggering back with wood one twilight noon, had, open-mouthed, watched his figure struggling up the steep trail, a snow squal thickening at his heels. Then he dropped out of sight behind the boulder at the turn, and Bardwell ducked back into the shack. In a moment the stranger came scrambling around and up, and the yard was clamorous with the powwowmg of the huskies. Bardwell, stanchng beck among the shadows, saw the door pushed open and # mountain of fur blocking the entrance. Then the bulk advanced, pushed up its seal- skim helmet, and perceived him. “Hands up!” snapped Bardwell, step- ping forward mto the hght. The snout of his automatic was eloquent. The other obeyed promptly. It was evident that he was surprised but noe frightened. His eyes fiitted about, taking © in the squatter’s figure, the dirty reom, the odds and ends of food littering the table, the disemboweled wood-pile in the comer. Then he did an amazing thing; he began to laugh, jiggling his huge shoulders and EO 1NOO S CO@