Dơnload Promise To Keep Doubeck Crime Family 2 1st Edition J L Beck Monica Corwin Full Chapter
Dơnload Promise To Keep Doubeck Crime Family 2 1st Edition J L Beck Monica Corwin Full Chapter
https://ebookmeta.com/product/keep-her-close-bacelli-crime-
family-1-1st-edition-jenika-snow/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/hateful-promise-costa-crime-
family-3-1st-edition-b-b-hamel/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/marked-by-fate-1st-edition-beck-
hallman-j-l-beck-c-hallman/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/empire-of-lies-torrio-empire-
book-2-a-dark-mafia-romance-j-l-beck/
Dante Di Salvo Crime Family Book 2 1st Edition Cameron
Hart
https://ebookmeta.com/product/dante-di-salvo-crime-family-
book-2-1st-edition-cameron-hart/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/protection-4-mine-to-keep-1st-
edition-mitchell-kennedy-l/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/scarhaven-keep-1st-edition-j-s-
fletcher/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/contracted-to-the-devil-agostino-
crime-family-1-1st-edition-dahlia-reign/
https://ebookmeta.com/product/deviant-desires-a-dark-mafia-
romance-the-valenti-crime-family-book-2-1st-edition-kelsie-
calloway/
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
it’s a case of work at the oars and make time. Let’s get a move on
ourselves.”
We did, most effectually, and in just two hours’ time were shoving
a crude, whipsawed skiff out into the river, and feeling the current
catch us and sweep us toward the Ramparts below. We had begun
the grim chase to overtake the one man who had paid his toll of
gratitude by robbing the man who had twice saved his life, and it was
certain that, did we overtake him, this time there would be no
escape; for we would bring him back for trial.
The current helped us, and, to our satisfaction, we discovered that
the apparently clumsy skiff handled excellently and responded
bravely to our steady oars. We tore through the Ramparts where the
waters lashed the rocks, and out into the breadths below, and then
set ourselves to our task, as we traveled through that great
uninhabited country. Save for the flying fowl, and a bear that lazily
paused from drinking on a distant shore, we saw no living thing, and
we did not pause for luncheon, but took turns with the oars.
Accustomed as we were to the heaviest work, and in the perfect
physical condition that comes from healthful food and clean lives, we
did not suffer from the prolonged exertion. Indeed, had our mission
been less melancholy and desperate, I, for one, would have enjoyed
that steady, rhythmic motion, the gurgling of the water under our
bow, the ever-changing scenery at our sides, and the beauties of a
perfect day. We did not talk much, but once or twice Shakespeare
George, brooding, quoted as if to himself, in a bitter tone, his own
version of Wordsworth’s “Gratitude.”
What would have been evening in a more southerly latitude came
on, and found us still rowing with that same measured stroke, save
that we took shorter turns at the oars, and found the resting spells
more grateful. The current carried us closer toward a shore, around
a point that seemed blanketed with the evening’s purple haze, and
we stopped rowing abruptly at the sound of a rifle shot. Nestled at
the foot of a bluff was a squalid little Indian village, and the natives
were running excitedly up and down the water’s edge and waving to
us. It was evident that the shot had been fired to attract our attention.
We headed the boat toward them, and they caught our prow and
pulled us up on the shingle before we could protest.
“Come! Quick come!” urged a withered, kindly faced old native,
presumably the tyune of this little domain. “White man ’most peluck!
Him soon die. Quick come!”
We hastened after him to the big Kazima, a sort of clubhouse
which each village of any size possesses, crawled in after him, and
when our eyes grew accustomed to the dull, smoke-blackened,
raftered interior, lighted only by a huge hole in the upper center over
the fire pit through which the soft daylight streamed, we stood above
the cause of his solicitude. Our chase was ended; for on the skins, at
our feet, lay Laughing Jim.
George knelt beside him, and ran his hand inside the blue shirt
that was torn open across the chest, and then looked up at us.
“Somethin’s happened to him,” he said, “feels to me as if he was
all shot to pieces.”
At the sound of his voice Laughing Jim opened his eyes a little
wildly, then smiled as recognition crept into their clear, but pain-
drawn, depths.
“I’m going,” he croaked, with a queer, gasping effort. “You got here
just in time. I—I⸺ Drink!”
Bill Davis pulled our little emergency flask from his pocket, George
lifted the wounded man up, and gave him a strong sup of the brandy,
and it momentarily strengthened him. All our animosity was forgotten
now, as we stood there rubbing shoulders with death, such is the
queer awe and pity that assails us at sight of the mortally stricken
regardless of their merits.
“Who did it, Jim?” asked George, still supporting the dying man’s
shoulders and head.
“Mahoney. But I got him! He’s over there!”
He rolled his eyes toward the dark corner of the Kazima, and with
exclamations of surprise all of us, save George, hurried to the
corner, struck matches, and looked. There lay Phil Mahoney, beyond
all aid, dead. I threw my handkerchief over his face before we went
back to George and Jim, on tiptoe, as if the sound of our footsteps
on that beaten earth would ever matter to him. We gave Jim another
draft of the brandy, and he feebly waved for silence.
“Let me talk,” he said. “Not much time left. Been going out all day.
I’ve never been any good. Gambler’s habit of sleeping days, awake
nights. Took walk yesterday morning. Wanted to get close to birds
and hear ’em sing. Mile above camp. Saw Phil Mahoney toting
something toward boat. Acted queer. Didn’t see me. Got in boat and
shoved off. Skirted opposite shore as if afraid being seen. ‘Funny,’
says I. ‘Wonder what that big, ugly devil’s up to?’ Forgot all about it
and went back to my cabin, to clean up. Couldn’t find best shoes.
Cussed some, and wondered what Siwash could have swiped them.
Then, all of sudden, remembered Mahoney walked queer. So I⸺”
He stopped and his lithe, wounded body was twisted with a harsh
cough that threatened to undo him, and again we gave him brandy.
After a time, but in a weaker and more broken voice, he went on: “So
I went back. Never trusted him, anyhow. Sure enough there were
tracks in the mud. He had ’em on. I back-tracked him. Found thicket
of pussy willows, and inside of it empty gold sacks. Special buck.
You fellows’ names on ’em in indelible pencil. Got wild! Ran back
farther along tracks and saw he must have come from gulch trail—
your direction. Saw it all in a minute. Saw you fellows wouldn’t
believe me, because you know I’ve been a bad one—sometimes—
not always. Maybe not so bad as some. Only thing I could do to
show you I wasn’t a dog, and appreciated what you all had done for
me, was to catch thief. Grabbed canoe and chased him. Caught him
here, where he’d stopped to make tea, above village. Saw smoke.
Found boat—nothing in it. Crept up on him. He had gold dust with
him. Tried to get drop on him, but he was too quick. Whirled and
shot.”
He rested silently for a moment as if to gather strength, and there
was a little, exultant gleam in his eyes as he continued:
“I was down. Played fox. ‘That’s all right!’ says he, as he came up
and stood over me, ‘but I’d rather you’d been hanged by them
Competents.’ Then he laughed and turned back. I got to my elbow
and shot. He went down. Then we shot from the ground, and luck
was against me. Could feel every one of his hit. Didn’t know any
more till Indians came running and picked me up. Phil was dead.
Made natives bring me here with your dust. Told ’em better bring
Phil, too, so if I went out, and you came, you’d understand.”
He coughed again, more violently, and the brandy seemed to
have lost its effect. He motioned with his dying fingers toward his
side, and we had to bend over to catch his whispered words:
“It’s there—by me—all of it—and—and—George, you’re white and
—I’m not so bad—after all—am I? Wanted you boys to know that
⸺”
As if the severing of soul and body had given him an instant’s
strength, he half stiffened, struggled, and then tried to laugh, a
ghastly semblance of that reckless, full-throated laugh that had given
him his sobriquet, twitched, gasped, seemed to abruptly relax, and
rested very still.
“Right? You’re right as rain! You are! God knows you are!”
George shouted the words to him as if speeding them out to
overtake his parting soul, and I like to remember that Laughing Jim’s
eyes seemed to twitch and that he went out with a smile on his face.
Side by side we buried them there, close to where the babble of
the Yukon might croon to them in the long summers, or display to the
cold skies its beaten winter trails, Phil Mahoney, the thief, in his
stolen shoes, and Laughing Jim, the strange admixture of evil and
nobility. And over each, with equal forgiveness, we put a rude
wooden cross, while curious, stolid natives stood quietly by. The sole
distinction we made was that the cross above Jim was carefully
hewn. But George lingered behind as we made our preparations to
camp in the village for the night, and the next morning, still filled with
the tragedy, I slipped back up the hillside for a last look at the
graves. On that of Laughing Jim, who would laugh no more, lay a
handful of dying wild flowers, and I saw scrawled on the cross, in the
handwriting of Shakespeare George, these words:
Under here is Laughing Jim. Paid a little favor with his life,
And died with a laugh on his lips! Bad as he was, better’n
Most of us, and provin’ that sometimes even poets is
wrong, and
That men don’t forget. Lord help us all to do as well.
And so we left him, and my eyes were fixed, as we rowed back up
the river, and the village with its natives was lost to view, on the
rough-hewn cross that seemed to blaze with a peculiar glory all its
own, a shining standard for one honorably dead on the field of
gratitude.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also
govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most
countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside
the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to
the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying,
displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works
based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The
Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright
status of any work in any country other than the United States.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if
you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project
Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or
other format used in the official version posted on the official
Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at
no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a
means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project
Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”
• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
1.F.
Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.