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| title
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|---|---|---|---|
28405
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "NOTES AND QUERIES."
}
] |
28405
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sun's rays putting out the fire,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "N. & Q.,"
}
] |
28405
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Court-house of Painswick. Vol. viii., p. 596., col. 2., for"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The lodge, an old wooden house, read"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Also in his article in Vol. ix., p. 8., col. 2., for"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rev. ---- Hook, read"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Rev. ---- Stock."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "NOTES AND QUERIES"
}
] |
28405
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Petite Soeur des Pauvres;"
}
] |
28405
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Certainly one of the most extraordinary and ably written publications of the day. It is entirely original, and abounds with sterling ideas.... It needs but to be perused to commend itself to the genuine Christian of every denomination."
}
] |
28405
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Familiar Explanation of the Phenomena"
}
] |
28405
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A great advance on the works we have hitherto had, connected with our Church and Cathedral Service."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A collection of Psalm Tunes certainly unequalled in this country."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "One of the best collections of tunes which we have yet seen. Well merits the distinguished patronage under which it appears."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "A collection of Psalms and Hymns, together with a system of Chanting of a very superior character to any which has hitherto appeared."
}
] |
28405
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We, the undersigned members of the musical profession, having carefully examined the Royal Pianofortes manufactured by MESSRS. D'ALMAINE & CO., have great pleasure in bearing testimony to their merits and capabilities. It appears to us impossible to produce instruments of the same size possessing a richer and finer tone, more elastic touch, or more equal temperament, while the elegance of their construction renders them a handsome ornament for the library, boudoir, or drawing-room. (Signed) J. L. Abel, F. Benedict, H. R. Bishop, J. Blewitt, J. Brizzi, T. P. Chipp, P. Delavanti, C. H. Dolby, E. F. Fitzwilliam, W. Forde, Stephen Glover, Henri Herz, E. Harrison, H. F. Hassé, J. L. Hatton, Catherine Hayes, W. H. Holmes, W. Kuhe, G. F. Kiallmark, E. Land, G. Lauza, Alexander Lee, A. Leffler, E. J. Loder, W. H. Montgomery, S. Nelson, G. A. Osborne, John Parry, H. Panofka, Henry Phillips, F. Praegar, E. F. Rimbault, Frank Romer, G. H. Rodwell, E. Rockel, Sims Reeves, J. Templeton, F. Weber, H. Westrop, T. H. Wright,"
}
] |
403067
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I jerked the trunk,"
}
] |
295044
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Of course."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Gold Girl,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Gun Brand,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Texan,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Prairie Flowers,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Promise,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "BELVA LOU"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "YOU ARE WHITE!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I tell you it's there! It's bound to be there, he announced with conviction."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just waitin' for the man that's man enough to go an' get it."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There ye go again with ye're tomrot an' ye're foolishness! exploded the old Frenchman, as he threw away his match and crowded the swelling tobacco back into the bowl of his pipe."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Always babblin' about the gold. Always wantin' to go an' find out for ye'reself it ain't there."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I'm tellin' you it _is_ there,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where is it, then? Why ain't it be'n got?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Because the right man ain't gone after it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An' ye're the right man, I suppose! Still lackin' of twenty-five years, an' be'n four years in the bush; tellin' me that's be'n forty years in the fur country, an' older than ye before ever I seen it. Ye'll do better to ferget this foolishness an' stick to the fur like me. I've lived like a king in one post an' another--an' when I'm old I'll retire on my pension."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' when I'm old, if I find the gold, I'll ask pension of no man. It ain't so much for myself that I want gold--it's for them--for Margot, there, an' the wee Margot in yon."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Margot has lived always in the bush. She needs no gold, an' the little one needs no gold. Gold costs lives. Come, Margot, speak up! Would ye send ye're man to die in the barrens for the gold that ain't there?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I am not sending him into the barrens, she said."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If he goes, I go, and the little Margot, too. If one dies, we all die together. But there must be gold there. Has not Murdo read it in books? And we have heard rumors of gold among the Indians."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Read it in books! sniffed Molaire."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Rumors among Injuns! Ye better stick to fur, boy. Ye take to it natural. There's no better judge of fur in all the traders I've had. Before long the Company'll make ye a factor."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When the lass an' I were married, back yon, to the boomin' of the bells of Ste. Anne's, I vowed me a vow that I'd do the best 'twas in me to do for her. An' I vowed it again when, a year later, the bells of Ste. Anne's rang out at the christening of the wee little Margot. Is it the best a man can do--to spend his life in the buyin' of fur for a wage, when gold 'twould pay for a kingdom lies hid in the sands for the takin'?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ha, it's Downey, who else? Lad, lad, what a night to be buckin' the storm!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It was buck the storm to Lashin' Water post, or hole up in a black spruce swamp till it was over. She looks like a three days' storm, an' I prefer Lashin' Water."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ye're well in time for supper, Corporal, welcomed Molaire,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Come, insisted the old man,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is the gold bug still buzzin' in your bonnet, Mac?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Aye, answered the young Scotchman."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' when the rivers run free in the spring, I'll be goin' to get it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If he goes, I go, and the little Margot, too. If one dies, we all die together."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "breathed the old man, and as if in final appeal, turned to Corporal Downey, who had known him long, and who had guessed what was passing in his mind."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Tell him, Downey, you know the North beyond the barrens. Tell him he is a fool!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, a man ain't always a fool because he goes huntin' for gold. That's accordin'. Where is this gold, Mac? An' how do you know it's there?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's there, all right--gold and copper, too. Didn't Captain Knight try to find it? And Samuel Hearne?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, broke in Molaire,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's why the gold is still there,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where 'bouts is it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Up in the Coppermine River country, to the north and east of Bear Lake."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How do you know?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Injuns had chunks of it. That's what sent Knight and Hearne after it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How long ago?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Captain Knight started in 1719, an' Hearne about fifty years later."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gosh! exclaimed Downey."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ain't that figurin' quite a ways back?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Gold don't rot. If it was there then, it's there now. It's never been brought out."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes--_if_ it was there. But, maybe it ain't there an' never was--what then?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I talked with an Injun, a year back, that said he had seen an Injun from the North that had seen some Eskimos that had dishes made of yellow metal."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He was prob'ly lyin', observed Downey,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Maybe it's because you've stuck to the Mackenzie, where the posts are. Have you ever crossed the barrens straight north--between the Mackenzie an' the Bay?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, answered Downey, dryly,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A camp of 'em! exclaimed Molaire, in surprise."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Who were they? My Injuns are all on the trap lines."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "These are from the North somewheres. I couldn't savvy their lingo. They ain't much good I guess. They're non-treaty Injuns--wanderers. They wanted to know where a post was, an' I told 'em. They'll prob'ly be in to trade when the storm lets up."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' ye'd of finessed your ten-spot through on my lead of hearts we'd of made two points an' game!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How was I to know?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A baby! cried Margot, as MacFarlane made his way to the counter, his eyes upon the packs of fur. She stooped and patted her own little one who was rolling about upon a thick blanket spread on the floor. The squaw smiled, and fumbling in the depths of the bag drew forth a tiny brown-red mite which ceased crying and stared stolidly at the cluster of strange white faces."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What a terrible day for a baby to be out!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We buy food,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where did you come from? queried the trader."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' how is it that you talk English an' the rest of 'em can't talk nothin'?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We come from far to the northward, she answered."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I have been to school at the mission. These are Dog Ribs. They have not been to school. I am of the Yellow Knives. My man was drowned in a rapids. He was name Bonnetrouge. He was a Dog Rib so I live with these."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why don't you trade at your own post? asked MacFarlane, suspiciously."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is it because you have a debt there that you have not paid?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No. We have no debt at any post. We are only a small band. We move about all the time. We do not like to stay in one place like the rest. We see many new rivers, and many lakes, and we go to many places that the others do not know. We have no debt at any post, we trade as we go and pay with skins for what we buy."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "One of them wanderin' bands, observed Downey."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've run across two or three of 'em here an' there. They camp a while somewheres an' then, seems like, they just naturally get restless an' move on."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The police is right. We do not like to stay and trap in one place. I have seen many new things, and many things that even the oldest man has not seen."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, that is a good otter. He is worth more."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where did you get it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I trapped it far to the northward, in the barren grounds, upon a river that has no name. It is a good skin."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Did you trap it yourself?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes. I am a good trapper. My man was a good trapper and he showed me how. These are good trappers, too, she indicated the three Indians,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And all the rest who are with us. There are thirty of us counting the women and children. But we have not had good luck. That is all the fur we have caught, she pointed to the skins MacFarlane had just bought,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Those and the little black fox. When the storms stops we will go again into the barren grounds, and we must have food, or, if we have bad luck again, some of us will die."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why do you go to the barren grounds? asked MacFarlane."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The trappin' is better to the eastward, or to the westward."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My man he had been to school a little, but mostly he had worked far to the westward along the coast of the sea--among the white men who dig for gold. And he heard men talk of the gold that lies in the barren grounds and northward to the coast of the frozen sea. So he went back to the country of his people, far up on the Mackenzie, and he told the men of the gold and how it was worth many times more than the fur. But the old men would not believe him and many of the young men would not, but some of them did, and these he persuaded to go with him and hunt for the gold. It was when they were crossing through the country of my people that I saw him and he saw me and we were married. That was two years ago and since then we have traveled far and have seen many things. Then my husband was drowned in a rapids, and I have taken his place. I will not go back to my people. They were very angry when I married Bonnetrouge, for the Yellow Knives hate the Dog Ribs. Even if they were not angry I would not go back, for my husband said there is gold in the barren grounds. He did not lie. So we will go and get the gold."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's your chance, Mac, grinned Corporal Downey,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You better throw in with 'em an' get in on the ground floor."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An' have you found any gold in the barrens?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How much?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are a good man, she said, simply."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You have dealt fairly. Sometime, maybe you will know that Wananebish does not forget."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No. These are my people. I will go with them. Where one goes, all go."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But the baby! This is a terrible storm to take a baby into."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The baby is warm. She does not know that it storms. She is one of us. Where we go, she goes, too."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ye could of bought it for half the price!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Aye, answered the younger man as he resumed his cards."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But the Company has still a good margin of profit. They're headin' for the barrens, an' if, as she said, they have bad luck some of 'em would die. An' you know who would be the first to go--it would be the babies. I'm glad I done as I did. I'll sleep better nights."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And I'm glad, too, added Margot, as she reached over and patted her husband's hand,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And so is papa way down in his heart. But he loves to have people think he is a cross old bear--and bears must growl."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What was it you said, he asked,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It was a year ago, d'ye mind, an' just such a storm--when that squaw came bringin' her black fox skin, and her nugget of damned gold."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It would be about a year, agreed Downey, gravely nodding his head."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I made this patrol in February."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's just a year--the thirteenth of the month. I'll not be forgetting it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' have you had no word?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No word. They left in May--with the rivers not yet free of running ice. Two light canoes. Margot could handle a canoe like a man."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You'll prob'ly hear from 'em on the break-up this spring. Maybe they'll give it up an' come back."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ye don't know Murdo MacFarlane, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He'll never give up. He swore he would never return to Lashin' Water without gold. He's Scotch--an' stubborn as the seven-year itch."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm Scotch,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She'd be two years old, now, Molaire said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An' maybe talkin' a bit. Maybe they've taught her to say grand-père. Don't you think she might be talkin' a little?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I don't know much about 'em. Do they talk when they're two?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why--it seems to me _she_ did--the other Margot. But--it's a long time ago--yet it seems like yesterday. I'm gettin' old an' my memory plays me tricks. Maybe it was three, instead of two when she begun to say words. D'ye mind, Downey, a year ago we played whist?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Two-handed cribbage is all right,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What was that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I hear nothing, he answered,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, he answered,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It is the wind. I must have be'n dozin'. But it sounded like bells. I've heard the bells of Ste. Ann's boom like that--tollin'--when some one--died. Stiffly he rose from his chair and fumbled upon the counter for a candle which he handed to Downey."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We'll be goin' to bed, now, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's late."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's all right, Murdo, she murmured,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The pain in my side seems better. I think I slept a little."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, Margot, you have been asleep for an hour. In a few days, now, I'm thinkin' you'll be sittin' up, an' in a week's time you'll be on your feet again."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We are not children, Murdo--you and I, she whispered."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We must not be afraid to face--this thing. We have found much happiness together. That will be ours always. Nothing can rob us of that. We have had it. And now you must face a great unhappiness. I am going to die. In your eyes I have seen that you, too, know this--when you thought I slept. To-day--to-night--not later than to-morrow I must go away. I am not afraid to go--only sorry. We would have had many more years of happiness, Murdo--you--and I--and the little one--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "God! he breathed, hoarsely,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An' it's all my fault for bringin' you into this damned waste of snow an' ice, an' bitter cold!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, Murdo, it is not your fault. I was as anxious to come as you were. I am a child of the North, and I love the North. I love its storms and its sunshine. I love even the grim cruelty of it--its relentless snuffing out of lives in the guarding of its secrets. Strong men have gone to their death fighting it, and more men will go--why then should not I, who am a woman, go also? But, it would have been the same if we had stayed at Lashing Water. I know what this sickness is. I have seen men die of it before--Nash, of the Mounted--and Nokoto, a Company Indian. It is the appendicitis, and no doctor could have got to Lashing Water in time, any more than he could have got here. They sent the fastest dog-team on the river when Nash was sick, and before the doctor came he was dead. It is not your fault, my husband. It is no one's fault. There is a time when each of us must die. My time is now. That is all. She ceased speaking, and with an effort that brought little beads of cold sweat to her forehead, she raised herself upon her elbow and pointed a faltering forefinger toward the little roughly made crib that stood close beside the bunk."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Promise me, Murdo, she gasped,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Aye, girl, the deep voice of MacFarlane rumbled through the room as he eased his wife back onto the pillow,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I promise."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mamma! Daddy! I cold! For a moment the man lay trying to collect his befuddled senses."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just a minute, baby, he called,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Daddy's comin'."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Daddy, I cold."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just a minute, baby, till daddy lights the light."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I want to get in bed with mamma,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't, don't! little one, he cried, then lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper, he bent low over the crib."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "S-h-s-h, don't disturb mamma. She's--asleep."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I want sumpin' to eat. I want some gravy and some toast."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, you wait till daddy builds the fire an' then we'll be nice an' warm, an' daddy'll get supper."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good bye--Margot--lass-- his voice broke thickly. He was conscious of a gnawing pain in his throat, and two great scalding tears rolled down his cheeks and dropped to the mass of dark hair where they glistened in the steady glow of the single candle like tiny globes of fire. He raised the blanket to cover the still face, lowered it again and crossed to the table where he laid out a tincup for himself and a little thick yellow bowl into which he crumbled the toast and poured the gravy over it. Then he warmed a tiny blanket, wrapped the baby in it and, holding her on his lap, fed her from a spoon. Between the slowly portioned spoonfuls he drank great gulps of scalding tea. There were still several spoonfuls left in the bowl when the tiny mite in his arms snuggled warmly against him."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Tell me a 'tory, demanded the mite. MacFarlane told the"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I sleepy, came drowsily from the blanket."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I want to kiss mamma."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "S-h-s-h, mamma's asleep. Kiss daddy, and we'll go to bed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I want to kiss mamma,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "See, mamma's asleep, he whispered, pointing to the mass of dark hair on the pillow."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just kiss her hair--and we--won't--wake--her--up."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where is the squaw? he cried in English, grasping the man by the shoulder and shaking him roughly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where is Wananebish?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wananebish! he called. And again,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Wananebish!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, came the answer,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What does the white man want?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It is MacFarlane, the trader at Lashing Water. Do you remember a year ago you sold me a black fox skin?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I remember. Did I not say that Wananebish would not forget? Wait, and I will let you in, for it is cold."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What would you have me do?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Keep the little one and care for her until I return, answered the man,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I will pay you well."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where are you going?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To find gold."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And, if you do not return--what then?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If I do not return by the time of the breaking up of the rivers, answered the man,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You will take the baby to Lashing Water post to Molaire, the factor, who is the father of her mother. As he spoke MacFarlane drew from his pocket the leather notebook, and a packet wrapped in parchment deer skin and tied with buckskin thongs. He handed them to the squaw:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Take these, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But this Molaire is an old man. Suppose by the time of the breaking up of the rivers he is not to be found at Lashing Water? He may be dead, or he may have gone to the settlements."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If he has gone to the settlements, you are to find him. If he is dead-- MacFarlane hesitated:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If Molaire is dead, he repeated,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are to take care of the baby until she is old enough to enter the school at some mission. I'm Scotch, an' no Catholic--but, her mother was Catholic, an' if the priests an' the sisters make as good woman of her as they did of her mother, I could ask no more. Give them the notebook in which I have set down the story as I have told it to you. The packet you shall open and take out whatever is due you for her keep. It contains money. Keep some for yourself and give some to the priests to pay for her education."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It shall be as you say. And, if for any reason, we move from here before the breaking up of the rivers, I will write our direction and place it inside the caribou skull that hangs upon the great split stump beside the river."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "May God use you as you use the little one, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll be going now, before she wakes up. It will be better so. He stooped and gazed for a long time at the face of the sleeping baby. A hot tear splashed upon the back of his hand, and he brushed it away and faced the squaw in the door of the tepee:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Goodbye, he said, gruffly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Until the rivers break up in the spring."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do not say it like that, she answered,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "For those were the words of my man when he, too, left to find gold. And when the river broke up in the spring he did not come back to me--for the grinding ice-cakes caught his canoe, and he was crushed to death in a rapids."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The bells, he muttered,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I heard them--d'you hear them, Margot--girl? It's for us--the booming of the bells of Ste. Anne's!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Margot--girl, he whispered,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "the whisper thickened and choked him. He squared his shoulders and cleared his throat roughly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Aw hell!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Ore Dump saloon, the eyes of the head bartender swept with approval from the soles of the high laced boots to the crown of the jauntily tilted Stetson."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What'll it be this morning, Mr. Brent? he greeted."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Little eye-opener?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How did you guess it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, after last night, thought maybe you'd have a kind of fuzzy taste in your mouth."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Fuzzy is right! My tongue is coated with fur--dark brown fur--thick and soft. What time was it when we left here?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Must have been around two o'clock. But, how does it come you ain't on the works this mornin'? Never knew you to lose a day on account of a hang-over. Heard a couple of the S. & R.'s tunnels got flooded last night."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, he answered, dryly,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And that's why I'm not on the works. I'm hunting a job, and the S. & R. is hunting a new mining engineer."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jepson fired you, did he! Well, you should worry. I've heard 'em talkin' in here, now an' then--some of the big guns--an' they all claim you're one of the best engineers in Montana. They say if you'd buckle down to business you'd have 'em all skinned."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Buckle down to business, eh! The trouble with them is that when they hire a man they think they buy him. It's none of their damn business what I do evenings. If I'm sober when I'm on the job--and on the job six days a week, and sometimes seven--they're getting all they're paying for."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They sure are, agreed the other with emphasis,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Have another shot, he shoved the decanter toward the younger man and leaned closer:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say Mr. Brent, you ain't--er, you don't need a little change, do you? If you do just say so, you're welcome to it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No thanks. You can cash this check for me though. Jepson was square enough about it--paid me in full to date and threw in a month's salary in advance. I don't blame him any. We quit the best of friends. When he hired me he knew I liked a little drink now and then, so I took the job with the understanding that if the outfit ever lost a dollar because of my boozing, I was through right then."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What was it flooded the tunnels?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Water,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, laughed the bartender,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I thought maybe it was booze."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You'd have thought so all the more if you'd been there this morning to hear the temperance lecture that old Jepson threw in gratis along with that extra month's pay. About the tunnels--we get our power from Anaconda, and something happened to the high tension wire, and the pumps stopped, and there wasn't any light, and Number Four and Number Six are wet tunnels anyway so they filled up and drowned two batteries of drills. Then, instead of rigging a steam pump and pumping them out through Number Four, one of the shift bosses rigged a fifteen inch rotary in Number Six and started her going full tilt with the result that he ran the water down against that new piece of railroad grade and washed about fifty feet of it into the river and left the track hanging in the air by the rails."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The damn fool!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I don't know. He did the best he could. A shift boss isn't hired to think."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What did old Jepson fire _you_ for? He didn't think you clim up an' cut the high tension wire did he? Or, did he expect you to set around nights an' keep the juice flowin'?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not exactly. But they tried to find me and couldn't. So when I showed up this morning old Jepson sent for me and asked me where I was last night. I could have lied out of it easy enough. He would have accepted any one of a half a dozen excuses--but lying's poor business--so I told him I was out having a hell of a good time and wound up about three in the morning with a pretty fair snootful."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bet he thinks a damn sight more of you than if you'd of lied, at that. But they's plenty of jobs fer you. You've got it in your noodle--what they need--an' what they've got to pay to get. You might drop around an' talk to Gunnison, of the Little Ella. He was growlin' in here the other night because he couldn't get holt of an engineer. Goin' to do a lot of cross tunnel work or somethin'. Said he was afraid he'd have to send back East an' get some pilgrim or some kid just out of college. Hold on a minute there's a bird down there, among them hard rock men, that looks like he was figgerin' on startin' somethin'. I'll just step down an' put a flea in his ear."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Ore Dump was essentially a mining man's saloon. Its proprietor, Patsy Kelliher, was an old time miner who, having struck it lucky with pick and shovel, had started a modest little saloon, and later had opened"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Ore Dump, in the fitting up of which he had gone the limit in expensive furnishings. It was his boast that no miner had ever gone out of his door hungry or thirsty, nor had any man ever lost a cent by unfair means within his four walls. Rumor had it that Patsy had given away thousands. Be that as it may,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Ore Dump had for years been the mecca of the mining fraternity. Millionaire mine owners, managers, engineers, and on down through the list to the humblest"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They were a bunch of damned good sports, he muttered to himself,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And we sure did roll 'em high! Speedy Bennet was always the first to go under--about two drinks and we'd lay him on the shelf to call for when needed. Then came McGivern, then Sullivan, and about that time little Morse would begin flapping his arms around and proclaiming he could fly. Then, after a while there wouldn't be anyone left but Morey and me--good old Morey--they canned him in his senior year--and they've been canning me ever since."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Drink up and have one on the stranger--he just set 'em up to the house."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What's the excitement? he asked,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A man don't ordinarily get as popular as he seems to be just because he buys a round of drinks, does he?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Didn't you see it? It ain't the round of drinks, it's--wait-- He stepped to the back bar and lifting the scoop from the scales set it down in front of Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's what it is--_gold_! Yes sir, pure gold just as she comes from the sand--nuggets and dust. It's be'n many a year since any of that stuff has been passed over this bar for the drinks. I've be'n here seven years and it's the first _I've_ took in, except now and then a few colors that some _hombre's_ washed out of some dry coulee or creek bed--fine dust that's cost him the shovelin' an' pannin' of tons of gravel. Patsy keeps the scales settin' around for a curiosity--that, an' because the old-timers likes to see 'em handy. Kind of reminds 'em of the early days an' starts 'em gassin'. But this here's the real stuff. Look at that boy. He poked with his finger at an irregular nugget the size of a navy bean,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Looks like a chunk of slag--an' that ain't all! He's got a bag full of 'em. I held it in my hand, an' it weighed _pounds_!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where did he get it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "God, man! If I know'd that I wouldn't be standin' here, would I? He jerked his thumb toward the rear of the room where men were frenziedly crowding the stranger."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's what they all want to know. Lord, if he'd let the word slip what a stampede there'd be! Every man for himself an' the devil take the hindmost. Out of every hundred that's in on a stampede, about one makes a stake, an' ten gets their ante back, an' the rest goes broke. They all know what they're going up against--but the damned fools! Every one of 'em would stake all they've got, an' their life throw'd in, to be in on it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's the lure of gold, muttered Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I've heard of it, but I never felt it before. Are they damned fools? Wouldn't you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Wouldn't I--what?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wouldn't you go--along with the rest?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Let's liquor, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No chance. Take a look at him. Believe me, there's one _hombre_ that ain't goin' to spill nothin' he don't want to. An' when a man makes a strike like that he don't hang around bars runnin' off at the chin about it--not what you could notice, he don't. Far as I can see we got just one chance. It's a damn slim one, but you can't always tell what's runnin' in these birds' heads. He asked me if Patsy Kelliher was runnin' this dump, an' when I told him he was, he had me send for him. Said he wanted to see him _pronto_. An' then he kind of throw'd his eyes around over the faces of the boys an' he says: 'You're all friends of Patsy's?' He seen in a minute how Patsy stood acehigh with them all, an' then he says; 'Well, just kind of stick around 'till Patsy gets down here an' it might be I'll explode somethin' amongst his friends that'll clean this dump out.' Now, you might take that two ways, but he don't look like one of these, what you might call, anarchists, does he? An' when he said that he laughed, an' he says: 'Belly up to the bar an' I'll buy a little drink--_an' I'll pay for it with coarse gold!_' Well, you seen how much drinkin' they done, an'--Here's Patsy, now!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Ore Dump"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is it yersilf that sint fer me, Mister Brint, ye spalpeen? he grinned,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Bein' a gintleman yersilf, ye'll be knowin' Oi'd still be at me newspaper an' seegar. Whut's on yer mind thot ye'll be dhraggin' a mon from the bossom of his family befoor lunch?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It ain't him, explained the bartender,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's the stranger, I told him you didn't never show up till after dinner, but----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Kelliher's fist smote the bar, and as he scowled into the face of his head bartender, Brent detected a twinkle in the deep-set blue eyes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Didn't the owld woman beat that same into me own head a wake afther we'd moved into the big house? An' she done ut wid a tree-calf concoordance to Shakspere wid gold edges thot sets on the par--livin' room table? 'Tis a handy an' useful weapon--a worthy substitute, as the feller says, to the pleebeen rollin' pin an' fryin' pan. Thim tree calves has got a hide on 'em loike the bottom av a sluice-box. Oi bet they could make anvils out av the hide av a full-grow'd tree-bull. G'wan now an' trot out this ill-fared magpie that must be at his chatterin' befoor the break av day!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I figured you wouldn't know me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An' no more I don't, retorted the other, unconsciously tilting his high silk hat at an aggressive angle over his right eye."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let's git the cards on the table. Who are ye? An' what ye got in ye're head that ye couldn't kape there till afther lunch?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm McBride."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ye're McBride! The tone was good-naturedly sarcastic,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, ye'd av still be'n McBride this afthernoon, av ye'd be'n let live that long. But who the divil's McBride that Oi shud come tearin' down to look into the ugly mug av um?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The stranger paused and smiled as a subdued ripple of whisperings went from man to man as he mentioned the Kootenay. Then he looked Kelliher squarely in the face:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There wasn't no gold in the Kootenay, he said simply,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Or leastwise I couldn't find none. I figured someone had be'n stringin' you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I git ye now, son, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I moind the white face av ye, an' the chist bowed in like the bottom av a wash bowl, an' yer shoulders stuck out befront ye loike the horns av a cow. He paused as his eyes ran the lines of sinewy leanness and came to rest upon the sun bronzed face:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So ye made a failure av the trip, eh? A plumb clane failure--an' Oi'm out the couple av hundred it cost me fer the grub stake----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It cost you more than five hundred, interrupted the other."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I was in bad shape and there was things I needed that other men wouldn't of--that I don't need--now."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well--foive hundred, thin. An' how long has ut be'n ago?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Nine years."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who was roight--me or the damn doctors? Ye've lived eighteen toimes as long as they was going to let ye live a'ready--an' av me eyes deceive me roight, ye ain't ordered no coffin yet."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No--I ain't ordered no coffin. I come here to hunt you up an' pay you back."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There ain't nothin' to pay son. You don't owe me a cent. A grub-stake's a grub-stake, an' no one iver yit said Patsy Kelliher welched on a bargain. Besoides, Oi guess ye got all Oi sint ye afther. I know'd damn well they wasn't no gold in the Kootenay--none that a tenderfoot lunger cud foind."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure--I knew after I'd been there six months what you done it for. I doped it all out. But, as you say, a grub-stake's a grub-stake, an' no time limit on it, an' no one ever said Jim McBride ever welched on a bargain, neither. I ain't never be'n just ready to come back an' settle with you, till now. I drifted north, and farther north, till I wound up in the Yukon country. I prospected around there an' had pretty good luck. I'd got back my strength an' my health till right now there ain't but damn few men in the big country that can hit the trail with Jim McBride. But I wasn't never satisfied with what I was takin' out. I know'd there was somethin' big somewheres up there. I could _feel_ it, an' I played for the big stake. Others stuck by stuff that was pannin' 'em out wages. I didn't. They called me a fool--an' I let 'em. I struck up river at last an' they laughed--but they ain't laughin' now. Me an' a squaw-man named Carmack hunted moose together over on Bonanza. One day Carmack was scratchin' around the roots of a big birch tree an' just fer fun he gets to monkeyin' with my pan. The man paused and Brent could hear the suppressed breathing of the miners who had crowded close. His eyes swept their faces and he saw that every eye in the house was staring into the face of McBride as they hung upon his every word. He realized suddenly that he himself was waiting in a fever of impatience for the man to go on."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Then I come into camp, an' we both fooled with the pan--but we didn't fool long. God, man! We was shakin' it out of the grass roots! _Coarse gold!_ I stayed at it a month--an' I've filed on every creek within ten miles of that lone birch tree. Then I come outside to find you an' settle. He paused and his eyes swept the room:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "These men friends of yourn? he asked. Kelliher nodded."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well then I'm lettin' 'em in. Right here starts the biggest stampede the world ever seen. Some of the old timers that was already up there are into the stuff now--but in the spring the whole world will be gettin' in on it!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What'll she run to the pan?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "cried Kelliher,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Man ye're crazy!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' we thought she was _little_ when she run a hundred dollars--two hundred! I've washed out six-hundred dollars to the pan! An' I ain't to bed rock!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's your share of what I've took out. You're filed along with me as full pardner in all the claims I've got. They's millions in them claims--an' more millions fer the men that gets there first. He paused and turned to the men of the crowd who stood silent, with tense white faces, and staring eyes glued on the pile of buckskin sacks:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Beat it, you gravel hogs! he cried,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It's the biggest strike that ever was! Hit fer Seattle, go by Dyea Beach an' over the Chilkoot, an' take a thousand pounds of outfit--or you'll die. A hell of a lot of you'll die anyhow--but some of you will win--an' win big. Over the Chilkoot, down through the lakes, an' down the Yukon to Dawson--"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ore Dump Saloon and had seen Jim McBride toss one after another upon the bar twenty buckskin pouches filled to bursting with coarse gold in his reckoning with Kelliher, these forty had accomplished the first leg of the long North trail. The next year and the next, thousands, and tens of thousands of men would follow in their footsteps, for these forty were the forerunners of the great stampede from the"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He said they was Injuns would pack this here junk, complained a man beside him,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where'n hell be they?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Search me, grinned Brent,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How much can you carry?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't know--not a hell of a lot over them rocks--an' he said this here Chilkoot was so steep you had to climb it instead of walk."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Suppose we make a try, suggested Brent."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A man ought to handle a hundred pounds----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You like to walk better than I do, shrugged Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Have you stopped to figure that a twenty-five-pound pack means four trips to the hundred--forty trips for the thousand? And forty round trips of twenty-eight miles means something over twenty-two hundred miles of hiking."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Gawd! exclaimed the other, in dismay,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It must be hell to be eggicated! If _I'd_ figgered that out, _I'd_ of stayed on the boat! We're in a hell of a fix now, an' no ways to git back. That grub'll all be et gittin' it over the pass, an' when we git there, we ain't nowheres--we got them lakes an' river to make after that. Looks like by the time we hit this here Bonanza place all the claims will be took up, or the gold'll be rotted with old age."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're sure a son of gloom, opined Brent as he stooped and affixed his straps to a hundred-pound sack of flour."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I'm going to hit the trail. So long."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hurry back, taunted the other,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You ort to make about four trips by supper time."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "McBride said a good packer could walk off with a hundred, or a hundred and fifty pounds, and he'd seen 'em pack two hundred, he muttered."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And I've been an hour moving one hundred pounds one mile! And I'm so near all in that I couldn't move it another mile in a week. I wonder where those Indian packers are that he said we could get? His eyes travelled back across the flats, every inch of which had caused him bodily anguish, and came to rest upon the men who still moved aimlessly among the rain-sodden bales, or stood about in groups."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Anyway I'm the only one that has made a stab at it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hello, there, old Nick o' Time! Want a job? I've got a thousand pounds of junk back there on the beach, counting this piece, and all you gentlemen have got to do is to flip it up onto your backs and skip over the Chilkoot with it--it's a snap, and I'll pay you good wages. Do you speak English?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Me spik Eengliss. Me no nem Nickytam. Nem Kamish--W'ite man call Joe Pete."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All right, Joe Pete. Now how much are you and your gang going to charge me to pack this stuff up over the pass?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You _chechako_,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just as you say, grinned Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I wouldn't take that from everybody, whatever it means, but if you'll get that stuff over the pass you can call me anything you want to."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You Boston man."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No--I'm from Tennessee. But we'll overlook even that. How much you pack it over the pass."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Top Chilkoot fi' cent poun'--hondre poun', fi' dolla. Lak Lindermann, three cent poun' mor'--hondre poun' all way, eight dolla."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're on! agreed Brent,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Thousand pounds, eighty dollars--all the way."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The littlest runt of the bunch has got me skinned a thousand miles, he muttered,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But I'll learn the trick. A year from now I'll hit the trail with any of 'em."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, you don't! cried Brent,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "These men are working for me. When I'm through with them you can have them, and not before."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who the hell do you think you are?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Divide 'em up!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Give someone else a chanct."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Just stay where you are, boys, he said."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "This stuff here is my stuff, and for the time being the ground it's on is my ground."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Any man that crosses that line is going to find trouble--and find it damned quick."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He's bluffin', cried a thick voice from the rear of the crowd,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let me up there. I'll show the damn dude!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come on, invited Brent,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If I'm bluffing I won't shoot. You're twice as big as I am. I wouldn't stand a show in the world in a rough-and-tumble. But, I'm not bluffing--and there won't be any rough-and-tumble."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You would shoot a man, damn you!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What's he made of? Don't he ever rest?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No sign of the brigade? she asked."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They have probably tied up for the night. Tomorrow maybe--or the day after, they will come. Ensued a long pause during which both studied the river."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I think, continued the Nun,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Eh? The priest turned his head quickly and regarded Sister Mercedes with a frown."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Henri of the White Water? Think you he has----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, no! To school. She is nineteen, now. We can do nothing more for her here. In the matter of lessons, as you well know, she has easily outstripped all others, and books! She has already exhausted our meagre library."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To us here at the mission have been brought many children, both of the Indians and of the Metis. And, having absorbed to their capacity our teachings, the Indians have gone stolidly back to their tepees, and to their business of hunting and trapping, carrying with them a measure of useful handicraft, a smattering of letters, and the precepts of the Word. The smile had faded from the clean-cut lips of the priest, and Sister Mercedes noted a touch of sadness in the voice, as she watched a slanting ray of sunlight play for a moment upon the thinning, silvery hair."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I have grown old in the service of God here at this mission, and it is natural that I have sought diligently among my people for the outward and visible signs of the fruit of my labor. And I have found, with a few notable exceptions that in one year, or two, or three, the handicraft is almost forgotten, the letters are but a dim blur of memory, and the Word? He shrugged,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who but God can tell? It is the Metis who are the real problem. For it is in their veins that civilization meets savagery. The clash and the conflict of races--the antagonism that is responsible for the wars of the world--is inherent in the very blood that gives them life. And the outcome is beyond the ken or the conjecture of man. I have seen, I think, every conceivable combination of physical and mental condition, save the one most devoutly to be hoped for--a blending of the best that is in each race. That I have not seen. Unless it be that we are to see it in Snowdrift."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I do not believe that Snowdrift is a half breed. I believe she is a white child."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Still of that belief? But, it is impossible. I know her mother. She, too, was a child of this mission--long before your time. She is one of the few Indians who did not forget the handicraft nor the letters. The old man paused and shook his head sadly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And until she brought this child here I believed that she had not forgotten the Word. For she continued to profess her belief, and among her people she waged war upon the rum-runners. Later, I, myself, married her to a Dog Rib, a man who was the best of his tribe. Then they disappeared and I heard nothing from her until she brought this child, Snowdrift, to us here at the mission. She told me that her husband had been drowned in a rapid, and then she told me--not in confessional, for she would not confess, that this was her child and that her father was a white man, but that he was not her husband."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She may have lied. Loving the child, she may have feared that we would take her away, or institute a search for her people."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She loves the child--with the mother love. But she did not lie. If she had lied, would she not have said that after the death of her husband she had married this white man? I would have believed her. But, evidently the idea of truth is more firmly implanted in her heart than--other virtues--so she told the truth--knowing even as she did so the light in which she would stand before men, and also the standing of her daughter."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, it is a shame! cried the Nun,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, still I do not believe it! I cannot believe it! Snowdrift's skin, where the sun and the wind have not turned it, is as white as mine."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But her hair and eyes are the dark hair and eyes of the Indian. And when she was first brought here, have you forgotten that she fought like a little wild cat, and that she ran away and trailed her band to its encampment? Could a white child have done that?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But after she had been brought back, and had begun to learn she fought just as hard against returning to the tribe for a brief vacation. She is a dreamer of dreams. She loves music and appreciates its beauty, and the beauty of art and the poets."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She can trail an animal through country that would throw many an Indian at fault."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She hates the sordid. She hates the rum-runners, and the greasy smoke-blackened tepees of the Indians. In her heart there has been an awakening. She longs for something better--higher. She has consented to go to the convent."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And at the same time we are in mortal dread lest she marry that prince of all devils, Henri of the White Water. Why she even dresses like an Indian--the only one of the older girls who does not wear the clothing of white women."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That is because of her artistic temperament. She loves the ease and comfort of the garments. And she realizes their beauty in comparison to the ugliness of the coarse clothing and shoes with which we must provide them."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where is she now?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hunting."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And I predict that she will not return until she has brought down her caribou, or her moose. Would your white maiden of nineteen be off hunting alone in the hills with her rifle? No. By our very contentions we have established the dual nature of her. In her the traits of civilization and savagery are not blended, but each in turn dominate and order her thoughts and actions. Hers is what one might term an alternating ego. And it is a thing that troubles me sore. What will happen down there--down at the convent, where they will not understand her, and where there is no hunting? To what end will this marvelous energy exert itself? For, it will not remain pent up within her breast. It will seek outlet. And then?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Who can tell? answered the Nun, thoughtfully."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "At least, I shall be glad indeed to know that she will be far from the baleful influence of Henri of the White Water. For, devil that he is, there is no gainsaying the fact that there is something attractive about him, with his bold free manner, and his handsome face, and gay clothing. He is a figure that might well attract a more sophisticated woman than our little Snowdrift. As yet, though, I think he has failed to rouse in her more than a passing interest. If she cared for him she would not be away hunting while everyone else is eagerly watching for the brigade."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What luck?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good luck, she answered,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A young bull caribou, and two wolves that were just closing in on a cow with a young calf. Every bullet went true. I shot three times. Has the brigade passed?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, not yet. They will have camped before this for the night. As he spoke the girl's eyes strayed to the river, and at the extreme reach of glistening water, they held:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Look! she cried,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They are coming, now!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ah-ha, greetings, _ma chères_! From Henri of the White Water to the fairest flower of the North, and her--ah, guardian angel--_non_? His lips flashed a smile, and he continued:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, there are times when even a guardian angel is not desired to be. Come with me, Snowdrift, and we will walk yonder to the edge of the bank, where we will still be within sight of the ever watching eye of the church, but well out of hearing of its ever listening ear. You see, Sister _religieuse_, I am a respecter of your little laws! He laughed aloud,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ah, yes Henri of the White Water is a great respecter of laws, _voila_!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And so, he concluded,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When the scows return, in one month from now, you shall leave this place forever. We shall go away and be married, and we will journey far, far up the rivers to the cities of the white men, and only upon occasion will we make flying trips into the North--to the trade."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It is said that you trade hooch, said the girl,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I will not marry any man who trades hooch. I hate the traders of hooch."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ah-ha! _Ma chère!_ Yes, I have now and then traded hooch. You see, I do not deny. Henri of the White Water must have adventure. But upon my soul, if you do not want me to trade hooch, I shall never trade another drop--_non_."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When the scows return in a month, I shall go with them, answered the girl dispassionately,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, not to be married. I am going to school----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To school! _Mon Dieu!_ Have you not had enough of school? It is time you were finished with such foolishness. You, who are old enough to be the mother of children, talking of going to school! Bah! It is to laugh! And where would you go--to school?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To the convent, at Montreal."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The devil take these meddlers! cried the man, rising and pacing rapidly up and down before the girl. Then suddenly he paused and looking down upon her, laughed aloud."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ha, ha! You would go to Montreal! And what will you do when you get there? What will you say when they ask you who is your father? Eh, what will you tell them?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, what do you mean? I shall tell them the truth--that my father is dead. Why should I not tell them that my father is dead. He was a good man. My mother has told me."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Such innocence! It is unbelievable! They will have nothing to do with you in the land of the white men. They will scorn you and look down upon you. You never had a father----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It is a lie! I did have a father! And he was a good man. He was not like the father of you, old Boussard, the drunken and thieving old hanger-on about the posts!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Aye, I grant you that the old devil is nothing to brag of. I do not point to him with the finger of pride, but he is nevertheless a produceable father. He and my Indian mother were married. I at least am no _enfant natural_--no _batarde_! No one can poke at me the finger of scorn, and draw aside in the passing, as from a thing unclean!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I do not know what you mean! she cried,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But I do know that I hate you! I will find out what you mean--and then maybe I will kill you."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "of Dawson;"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Nugget of uproarious fame; Cuter Malone's"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Klondike Palace,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But in the spending of it, men had taken his measure--the bills and the coined gold had branded him as a man from the"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Queen of the Yukon,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sometime your luck will change, warned the dancing girl as the two sat one evening in the early fall at a little table in Stoell's and drank champagne which cost Brent fifty dollars the quart."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And then you'll be broke and----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It can't change. It's a part of me. As long as I'm me, I'll be lucky. Look, I'll show you! You want to marry me--you've told me so. Well, I don't want to marry you, or anyone else--wouldn't know what to do with you if I did marry you. You want me to go back on the claim--well, here's a bargain--just to show you that I can't lose. He pulled a buckskin sack full of gold from his pocket and held it before the girl's eyes."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "See this sack. It isn't very big. It can't cover many numbers. I'm going to stand up in this chair and toss it onto the roulette table over there, and play every number it touches. If I lose I lose the dust--Stoell will get that. But that isn't all I'll lose--I'll lose myself--to you. If one of the numbers that this sack falls on don't win, I marry you tonight, and we hit for the claim tomorrow."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you mean that--you'll quit gambling--and you'll sober up and--and live with me?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, I'll quit gambling, and sober up, and live with you till--how does it go--till death us do part."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Toss it!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Number 13 wins,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Here, little girl, he said gently."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Forgive me. I didn't know you really felt--that way. Here, this is all yours--take it. The bet paid six to one. The weigher will cash this slip at the bar."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, I--I hope you _die_!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "in a poker game was a thing unknown."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Table stakes did not exist, nor did a man mention the amount he stood to lose when he sat in a game. When a player took his seat it was understood that he stood good for all he possessed of property, whatever or wherever it might be. If the play on any hand ran beyond his"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "all he had to do was to announce the fact and the other players would either draw down to it, or if they wished to continue the play, the pot, including the amount of the"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "player's last bet was pushed aside until the last call was made, the"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We're after yer hide, he grinned good-naturedly at Brent,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Come and get it! laughed Brent."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But I'll give you fair warning that I wear it tight and before you rip it off someone's going to get hurt. Cards in hand he glanced at the tense faces around the board."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've got a hunch that this game is going to make history on the Yukon, he smiled,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And it better be opened formally with a good stiff round of drinks. While they waited for the liquor his eye fell upon the face of Johnny Claw, who sat at the table, the second man from his right."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I thought you wouldn't sit in a game with me,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' I wouldn't, neither, while yer luck was runnin'--but, it's different, now. Yer luck's busted--an' you'll be busted. An' I'm right here to git my money back, an' some of yourn along with it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You won't be in the game an hour, Claw. I don't like you, and I don't like your business, and the best thing you can do is to cash in right now before the game starts."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll play my cards, an' you play yourn, an' I'll do my cashin' in later, he answered."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An' here's the drinks, so le's liquor an' git to goin'."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yer holdin' a four-straight damn high, he snarled at Brent,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Here's your white chip, Bill, and I'll just lift it ten thousand--I'm that much light in the pot for a minute."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I ain't got ten thousan', he whined,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I figger I've got about five thousan' outside this here stack, an' if I call fer that an' lose I'm busted flat. His hand pushed the two blue chips toward the pot, hesitated, and was quickly withdrawn."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Damned if I do! he snarled,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My jacks-up ain't worth it--not agin luck like yourn."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I haven't got a damned thing, and I never did have. What have you got buried, Bill, another ace?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nope, my down card's a king, too. All I got is them pair of aces. Where's yer guts, Claw?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You jest done that to git me! he growled,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I ain't got no show in this game--if you can't beat me yerself you'll run me up agin a better hand till I'm busted, if you lose money doin' it!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You've got it doped right, Claw, said Brent, evenly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I told you you wouldn't last an hour, and if you'd have listened to me you'd have been eight thousand better off. Your hour isn't up yet, we've got plenty of time to get the rest of it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You'll raise hell gittin' the rest of it!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come on, girl, let's go find something to eat and some fuzzy water, he smiled."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They sure had my number, tonight, but I'll go after them tomorrow."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You're different than you were a year ago,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure, I was a poor man, then----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And you'll never amount to a _damn_ until you're a poor man again!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What! What do you mean?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I mean just what I said. A year ago you were _some man_. Folks say you're a mining engineer--educated in a college. What are you now? You're a gam., that's what you are, and the hooch is putting its mark on you, too--and it's a shame."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What in the world is the matter with you, Kitty? The man stared at her in surprise,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The hooch don't hurt me any--and I only play for the fun of the game----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No you don't! You play because its got into your blood, and you can't help playing. And you'll keep on playing till you're busted and it'll be a good thing when you are! Your luck has changed now, and they'll get you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm still playing on their money, retorted Brent a little nettled at the girl's attack."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If they clean me out, all right. They'll only win the half million I took out of my two claims--the rest of it I took away from them. Anyway, whose business is it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It ain't nobody's business, but yours. I--I wish to God it was mine. Everybody knows the hooch is getting you--and that is just what they all say--it's a shame--but it's his own business. I'm the only one that could say anything to you, and I'm--I'm sorry I did."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They're right--it's my business, and no one else's. If they think I'm so damned far gone let them come and get my pile--I'll still have the claims, and I'll go out and bring in another stake and go after them harder than ever!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No you won't--they'll get the claims, too. And you won't have the nerve, nor the muscles to go out and make another strike. When you once bust, you'll be a bum--a has-been--_right_."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I suppose, sneered Brent, thoroughly angry now:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No--I wouldn't marry you on a bet--now. I was foolish enough to think of it, once--but not now. I've done some thinking since that night you tossed that sack of dust on the board. If you married me and did go back to where you were--if you quit the cards and the hooch and got down to be what you ought to be--where would I stand? Who am I, and what am I? You would stick by your bargain--but you wouldn't want me. You could never go back outside--with _me_. And if you wouldn't quit the cards and the hooch, I wouldn't have _you_--not like you are now--flabby, and muddy-eyed, an' your breath so heavy with rot-gut you could light it with a match. No, that dream's busted and inside of a week you'll be busted, too. Setting down her glass the girl quitted the table abruptly, leaving Brent to finish the bottle of champagne alone, after which he sauntered down to Cuter Malone's"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Klondike Palace"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's good, he announced, as Bill showed Aces-up."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And that just finishes me--I held the claims at a million--and that's the last of it."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Kitty was right, he confided to his reflection in the glass,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "My luck did turn--and now, I'm broke."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Eyes _are_ a little muddy, he grudgingly admitted,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And face a little pouchy and red, but, hell, it isn't the hooch!--I don't drink enough to hurt me any. It's being indoors so much, and the smoke. Two days on the trail will fix that. I've got to slip out and make another strike. And when I come back--that bunch will be in for an awful cleaning."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She said I wouldn't have the nerve nor the muscles to hit out and locate another claim, he grinned as he swallowed a draught of scalding coffee."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll show her!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I thought it was pretty dark in here for this time of day--some blizzard!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hello, Ace-In-The-Hole! I'm buyin' a drink. The room was deserted except for the bartender who promptly set out bottle and glasses."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Let's go over here,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Bring the bottle and glasses!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Now, he began, as Brent filled his glass,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Let's get this here deal straightened out. In the first place, is them two claims of yourn worth a million?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hold on, now. I didn't mean what you're thinkin' about--an' you ort to know me well enough to know I didn't. When you said them two claims was worth a million, not me, nor no one else questioned your word, did we? Well, what I'm gettin' at is are they worth more than a million, 'n' how much more?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They're worth more than a million. How much more I don't know. I took out a half a million last summer, and I don't think I'm half way to bed-rock at the deepest."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All right, that's what I wanted to know. You see, there's five or six of us holds your slips an' markers that totals a million over an' above what was in Stoell's safe. I'll jest cash them slips an' markers, an' take over the claims."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Go ahead. It don't make any difference to me how you divide them up."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It does make a hell of a lot of difference to you how we divide 'em up, he said."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's like this: I like your style. You're a _tillicum_--a natural borned sourdough. You're white clean through. When you said there's so and so much in Stoell's safe, the dust was there. An' when you know'd yer claims was worth more than a million, you says a million instead of stretchin' it to two million, an' maybe stickin' some one. Now when I cash them markers that's out agin the claims, an' figger in the slips an' markers I hold myself, I'll have a million invested, won't I? An', that's what I won--a million--not a million an' a half, or two million--just a million. Well, when I get that million back--you get the claims back--see?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What do you mean? I lost the claims--lost them fair and square----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No you didn't, interrupted the other,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You lose just what yer slips an' markers says you lose--an' not a damn cent more. The claims was only a sort of security for the dust. C'latteral the banks would call it. Am I right, or wrong?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No more for me. Too much of that stuff ain't no good. But about them claims--am I right, or wrong?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're the whitest damned white man that walks on two legs, if that's what you mean, answered Brent, in a low voice."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll make the claims over to you, now."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Don't say that, replied Camillo Bill,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But what if there isn't a million in them. I believe there is--much more than a million. But, what if they're 'spotted,' and I just happened to hit the spots, or what if bed-rock shows a lot shallower than I think it will----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What if! What if! To hell with what if! If the claims peter out I ain't no better off if I hold title to 'em, am I? If they ain't good for the million, what the hell difference does it make who owns 'em? I'd ruther someone else holds a bum claim than me, any day, he added with a grin."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' now that's settled, what you goin' to do, while I'm gettin' out my dust?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, I'm going to hit out and locate another strike,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where at?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why I don't know. There are plenty of creeks--Eldorado--Ophir--Doolittle----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Listen here, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "While you be'n here in town rollin' 'em high an' soppin' up hooch, they's be'n a hell of a change on the creeks. Ain't you stopped to notice that Dawson's more'n twict as big as she was in August, an' that the country is gittin full of tin-horns, an' _chechakos_. Well it is--an' every creek's filed that's worth a damn--an' so's every one that ain't. They ain't a claim to be took up no more on Bonanza, nor Ophir, nor Siwash, nor Eldorado, nor Alhambra, nor Sulphur, nor Excelsis, nor Christo, nor Doolittle, nor not hardly none on no pup nor dry wash that runs into 'em."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "All right, I'll go farther, then, retorted Brent, pouring more liquor into his glass."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll go beyond the last creek that's staked. And, by God, I'll find gold!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Look a here, you ain't in no shape to hit out on no long trip. You've laid up too long to tackle it, an' you've drunk too much of that damned hooch. It ain't none of my business what you do, or what you don't do--maybe you ain't drinkin' enough of it, I don't know. But that there's damn poor stuff to train on for a long trail in winter--an' I'm tellin' it to you that winter's sure hit these diggin's an' hit 'em hard. Tell you what I'll do. I've be'n nosin' 'round buyin' claims while you be'n layin' abed daytimes sleepin' off the hooch. I've got more'n what I kin 'tend to alone. I'll give you two thousand a month to help me look after 'em, an' you can sort of ease off the hooch, an' get broke in easy agin. If you sleep nights, an' keep out doors daytimes, an' lay off the cards an' the hooch, you'll be good as ever agin spring."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not on your life, flared Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm as good a man right now as I ever was! And a damn sight too good a man to be anybody's pensioner. You know damned well that you don't need me at two thousand a month, or any other figure, except at an ounce a day, the same as anyone else gets. What the hell's the matter with everybody? A querulous note crept into Brent's voice,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I tell you I'm as good a man as I ever was! Kitty told me the same thing--that I'm drinking too much! Whose business is it if I am? But, I'm not, and I'll hit the trail tomorrow and show you all!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "So long, said Camillo Bill as he rose from his chair."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I told you it wasn't no one's business but yourn, so they ain't no argyment there. Only, jest you remember that I'm a friend of yourn, an' so is Kitty--an' a man might have a damn sight worse friend than her, at that."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "They romped right up your middle, didn't they, the last week or so?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They cleaned me out. I played them too high for the cards I was holding."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What you figuring on doing now?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Going to hit out and locate another claim when this storm lets up."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You've got a long trip ahead. Everything's staked."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So they say, but I guess I'll find something, somewhere."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why don't you take an inside job this winter. Hell of a lot of grief out there in the snow with only a tent and a bunch of huskies."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What kind of a job?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm figuring on starting up a new layout--faro. How'd you like to deal? Just till spring when the weather lets up a little. You can't tell what you're staking under ten foot of snow anyhow."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I never dealt faro."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It won't take you long to learn. I only run one big game now because I can't trust no one to deal another--but I could get plenty of play on one if I had it goin'. I figure that the boys all like you, an' you'd be a good card. They all know you're square an' I'd get a good play on your layout. What do you say? It's a damn sight better than mushin' out there in the cold."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What will you pay?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, how would five hundred a month, an' five percent of the winnings of the layout do? You wouldn't need to come on till around nine in the evening, and stay till the play was through. I'll throw in your supper, and dinner at midnight, and we won't keep any bar tab. You're welcome to what drinks you want--only you've got to keep sober when you're on shift."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I guess I'll take you up on that, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "When do I start?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It'll take me a day or so to get rigged up. Let's make it day after tomorrow night. Meantime you can do your eating and drinking here--just make yourself at home. The boys'll be tickled when they hear the news--it'll spread around the camp pretty lively that you're dealing faro at Stoell's, and we'll get good play--see."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You'll be on yer feet agin, 'fore long. If you need any change in the meantime, just holler, imparted one. Said another:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Here, jest slip this poke in yer jeans. I ain't needin' it. Somethin'll turn up d'rectly, an' you can slip it back then. But Brent declined all offers, with thanks. And to each he explained that he had a job, and each, when he learned the nature of the job, either answered rather evasively, or congratulated him in terms that somehow seemed lacking in enthusiasm. Old Bettles was the only man to voice open disapproval:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hell, he blurted,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Anyone c'n deal faro. Anyone c'n gamble with another man's money, an' eat another man's grub, an' drink another man's hooch. But, it's along the cricks an' the gulches you find the reg'lar he-man sourdoughs."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm only doing it till spring, then I'm going to hit into the hills, and when I come back we'll play them higher than ever, he explained."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm a little soft now and don't feel quite up to tackling the winter trail."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Humph, grunted Bettles,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You won't be comin' back--because you ain't never goin' to go. If yer soft now, you'll be a damn sight softer agin spring. Dealin' from a box an' lappin' up hooch ain't a-goin' to put you in shape for to chaw moose-meat an' wrestle a hundred pound pack. It'll sap yer guts."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "He had cleaned up ten million in a summer on a claim."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He killed three men with three blows of his fist."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Queen of the Yukon was all caked in on him, and he wouldn't have her. He tossed her a slip for half a million that he had won on a single bet at the wheel, and because she was sore at him, she ground it into the floor with her foot."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He had bet a million on an ace in the hole--hence his name. He had gambled away twenty million in a week. And so it went. Men fell over themselves to make his acquaintance that they might ostentatiously boast of that acquaintance at the bars. One would casually mention that"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Ace-In-The-Hole says to me, the other day, he says-- Or,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I was tellin' Ace-In-The-Hole about one time I an' a couple of tarts down in 'Frisco-- Or,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Me an' Ace-In-The-Hole was eatin' supper the other night, an' he says to me--"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who are all your friends? she whispered indicating the tin-horns and _chechakos_ that rimmed the table. Brent flushed, slightly, and answered nothing."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "So this is what you meant by hitting the trail when they broke you, is it? Well, take it from me, it's a short trail, and a steep grade slanting down, and when you're on the toboggan it ain't going to take long to hit the bottom--with a bump."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Nugget, or to Cuter Malone's"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Klondike Palace."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What do you want?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, jest dropped in fer a little visit. Been 'outside.' Try a shot of this hooch--better'n anything Stoell's got."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Didn't know you were so damned friendly with me that you would lug me in a bottle of hooch from the outside, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What's on your chest?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Le's liquor, he said, offering one to Brent."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good stuff, ain't it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Damned good. But what's the idea?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Idee is jest this, announced Claw, eyeing him shrewdly,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You damn near busted me, but I ain't holdin' that agin' you. He paused and Brent, who knew that he was lying, waited for him to proceed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You told me right plain out that you didn't like the business I was in! That's all right, too. I s'pose it ain't no hell of a good business, but someone's got to bring 'em in or you bucks wouldn't have nobody to dance with. But, layin' all that aside, you're dealin' the big game for Stoell."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yup."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, listen: You're hittin' the hooch too hard fer to suit Stoell. At the end of the month you're out of a job--see? He's goin' to let you out, 'cause yer showin' up too reg'lar with a bun on. Says it's got to where yer crocked so often he might's well be dealin' the game hisself."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who did he tell this to--you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Naw, not to me. He don't like me no more'n what you do. But, I happened to hear him tellin' it to Old Bettles an' Camillo Bill. 'That's right,' says Bettles, 'fire him, an' maybe we kin git him into the hills.' 'I'm 'fraid not,' says Camillo Bill. 'Leastways not till spring. An' at the rate he's goin', by that time he'll be countin' bees.' 'It's a shame,' says Bettles, 'There's a damn good man gone wrong.' 'He is a damn good man,' says Stoell, 'They ain't many I'd trust to deal that big game. He's square as hell--but, the hooch has got him.'"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The hell it has, said Brent, with a short laugh."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "They're damned fools! I don't drink enough to hurt me any. I'm as good a man as I ever was!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sure you be, assented Claw."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What little you drink wouldn't hurt no one. What's it any of their business? You don't need no guardeen to tell you when to take a drink, he paused and refilled Brent's glass."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "says Stoell--"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well--why not git even with him, an' at the same time clean up big fer yerself? They ain't no chanct to git caught."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What do you mean?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I got it all doped out. Cold deck him--an' I'll play agin the fixed deck an' make a cleanin'--an' we'll split."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You mean----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I mean this. Me an' you will fix up a deck, an' I'll copy off how the cards lays. Then you slip 'em into the box an' start the deal, an' I'll lay the bets. Of course, knowin' how they'll fall, I kin win whenever I want to. No one'll ever b'lieve it's a frame-up, 'cause they know you're square, an' likewise they know you hate me, an' they wouldn't figger we'd git together. I'll make the play strong by comin' in fer a night er two before we spring it an' braggin' that I've got a system. Then I'll have my slip of paper an' I'll look at it, an' make bets, an' of course I'll lose--'cause they ain't no system. An' the next night I'll do the same an' the third night we'll slip in the fixed deck--an' then my system'll win. An' all the time I'll be sneerin' at you, like I hated yer guts----"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Nugget, where for a month, he dealt faro on percentage in a"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "game--for with the tin-horns and the _chechakos_ had come also"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "and"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Queen of the Yukon"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hear how yer out of a job, quoth Cuter, as he set two glasses and a bottle upon the little table between them. Brent nodded, and the other continued:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Want to keep on dealin'?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why yes, I guess so. I'm going to hit the trail right after the break-up, but until that comes I might as well be doing something."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Sure. Well I got a good percent proposition fer you. You'll draw quite a little trade--you done it at Stoell's, an' then swung the heft of it over to 'The Nugget.'"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Is it a limit game? asked Brent."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What percentage will you pay?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "W-e-e-l, that's accordin'. This here game I'm figgerin' on is a sure thing--that is, o' course, lots o' turns has got to lose, but in the long run she wins big."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What do you mean--a sure thing?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "D'ye ever hear tell of a double-slotted box? Well, I've got one, an'----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What you mean is that because I've got the reputation for being square, you want to use me for a decoy, and when they come in, rob them on a percentage."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, that's--er--talkin' it out kind of plain----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You can go to hell! exclaimed Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't git sore about it. Business is business, an' I'm into it to git the money, one way an' another. If you don't want to deal, how about goin' behind the bar? That's a square enough game. He paused and grinned."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An' I wouldn't mind fer onct havin' someone handlin' my dust that I wouldn't feel like friskin' every time he went out the door to see how much of it had stuck to him."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Klondike Palace, and Kitty, as she faced him for the first time with her dancing partner and called for a drink, addressed him in words that to her partner meant nothing:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Your toboggan is going good, now--ain't it, Ace-In-The-Hole? You're most there, now--most to the bump that lays at the end of the trail."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Klondike Palace was the wildest and most notorious of all the dives of the big camp. Unlike Stoell's and"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Nugget,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "with Cuter Malone. It was bitter cold and snowing thickly, and Brent, with lowered head, was boring through the white smother on his way to work. He paused in the light that shone dully through the heavily frosted windows of Malone's and was about to push open the door, when from the thick darkness around the side of the building he heard a woman scream. It was a sharp, terrible scream, that ended in a half-muffled shriek. And without an instant's hesitation, Brent dashed around the corner. The"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Klondike Palace was located well upon the edge of the big camp, beyond it being only a few scattered cabins. Scarcely fifty feet from the street he came upon a man standing over a woman who was cowering in the snow. Neither saw him, and even as he looked the man struck with a coiled dog whip. Again the woman screamed, and the man jumped upon her and started to kick her first with one foot then with the other as she lay in the snow. Like an avalanche Brent hurled himself upon the man, his fist catching him squarely upon the side of the head and sending him sprawling. Without waiting for him to get up, Brent jerked the woman to her feet and pushed her toward the street. He saw then that she was one of the girls who roomed over Malone's, and that she was clad in the thinnest of silk stockings, and the flimsiest of semi-transparent gowns. One of her high-heeled slippers had been lost in the snow. Scarce able to stand, the girl staggered whimpering toward the light. Turning upon the man who had regained his feet Brent found himself looking into the muzzle of a forty-five. So close was the man that even in the darkness he could see his face. It was Johnnie Claw, and Brent saw that the recognition was mutual. Claw's thick lips writhed back in a grin of hate, and Brent could hear his breath sucking heavily between his clenched teeth. Eye to eye they stared as Brent's lips moved in a sneer:"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well--you--damned--pimp--why don't you shoot?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Say, what the hell be you buttin' in on other folks business fer?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What do you mean?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You know what I mean. What did you go knockin' Johnnie Claw down fer, when he was givin' that damn Violet what was comin' to her, fer holdin' out on him?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Giving her what was coming! My God, man, he would have kicked her to death there in the snow--that's what he would have done!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well, what if he did--she's hisn, ain't she?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just let this stick to you, Malone, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What passes between me and Claw, or me and anyone else, when it isn't on your premises and on your time, is my business--see?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's Johnnie Claw over there by the door. He's one-two-three with Cuter Malone--some say they're pardners."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It ain't worryin' me none who he's pardners with. I don't like the looks of him, nohow."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Sh-sh-sh, warned Kitty,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What a man learns in this country don't hurt him any. I was just telling you so if you ever happened to run foul of Claw, you'd know enough to keep your eye on Malone, too."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Guess I ain't goin' to run foul of him. Come on, let's dance."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come on, urged Claw,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Have another."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, two or three's my limit. I don't aim to git drunk."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Drunk, hell! laughed Claw,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I don't nuther. You've only had two. Make it three, an' I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll throw off a leetle on that claim. I ain't got time to fool with it, noways."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Well, one more, then, an' that's all. But you'll have to throw off more'n just a little on that property, fer me to touch it."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I guess we kin deal, all right. Le's drink, an' then we'll slip into the back room there an' figger it out."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Better fill her up again, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There was a fly in it. A fly on the Yukon, with the rivers still frozen, and the sodden snow three feet deep on the ground! Moosehide stared, and before Brent could move, Cuter Malone had floored him with a blow from a heavy bottle. The truth flashed upon Moosehide Charlie. One blow of his fist settled Claw, while with his other hand he reached across the bar and jerked a gun from the hand of Cuter Malone. The poker players rose from their chairs and started for the bar, but Moosehide motioned them back with the gun."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jest go on with yer game, boys, he said meaningly."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't mind me. And as they settled into their places he stepped around the bar, keeping Malone covered. Kitty, who had been chatting with the girls on the opposite side of the room, darted across the floor and brushing past Moosehide, knelt beside Brent."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Jest raise up his head, girl, an' throw some water in his face, ordered Moosehide,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' pour a little licker down his throat. If he can't swaller it, it'll make him gag an' bring him to. Then he turned to Malone:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An' you, you damn crook! You git busy an' weigh out what's comin' to him. An' weigh it damn quick--an' weigh it right. 'Cause if it ain't right, I'm a-comin' back here with about forty or ninety of my friends an' I'm tellin' it to you, we'll gut this damn joint--an' you along with it!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You won't be needing me any more, said the girl, simply, as she stood in the doorway late in the afternoon. She pointed to two small buckskin sacks which she had laid upon the table."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's your pay that was coming to you from Cuter Malone, and a sack that Moosehide Charlie left for you."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Moosehide Charlie? He don't owe me anything."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Says he owes you a whole lot, and he wanted me to give you that. He's gone off on a trip up Indian River."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Give this back to him, he said shortly."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I don't need it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You do too need it, she said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How long will that pinch of dust last you? And what are you going to do when it's gone?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It don't make any difference what I do when it's gone. Whatever I do, I won't live on charity."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You're a fool, Ace-In-The-Hole, she said, quietly,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A _damn fool_."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's right, I reckon. Anyway we won't quarrel about it. Will you do me just one more favor?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What is it?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Take this dust and get me a bottle of hooch--a quart bottle--two of them."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, I won't!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll have to go myself, then,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You ain't able! You're weak as a cat, and you'd fall down in the snow."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll get up again, then."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll go, the words were hurled at him, and he handed her Cuter Malone's sack."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Never mind that--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Take it! Or I won't touch the hooch."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Will you drink with me?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No! I'm going, now."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good bye, Kitty, he said, gravely."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I know what you've done for me--and I won't forget it. You'll come to see me--sometimes?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No. I hate you! An' if you could see yourself the way I see you--knowing what you are, and what you ought to be--you'd hate yourself!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm as good a man as I ever was,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You are--like hell! Why, you ain't even got a job--now. You're a bum! You hit the bump that I told you was at the end of your trail--now, where do you go from here?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where do I go from here? he repeated slowly, as he sank into a chair beside his table, and swallowed a stiff drink of whiskey. And,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where do I go from here?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "She said I am a bum, he muttered to himself one evening as he laid aside his book, and in the gathering darkness walked to the door and watched the last play of sunlight upon the distant glittering peaks."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, I'll show her--I'll show her where I'll go from here. I'm as good a man as I ever was."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It's the fever, he assured himself,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It left me weak. I'll be all right in a day or so. I'm as good a man as I ever was--only, a little out of practice."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'll just wait now, for snow, he decided late in August."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Then I'll get a good dog team together, and make a real rush. There's no use hitting out with a poling boat, the creeks are all staked, and back-packing is too hard work for a white man. I'm as good a man as I ever was, and when the snow comes I'll show them."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hello, Camillo, greeted the owner of the cabin as he rose to his feet and extended his hand,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Come in and sit down."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Well I'll be damned!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Have a drink,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Take some more, urged Brent,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've got another quart under the bunk."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No thanks, refused the other, curtly,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I heard you was down an' out, but--by God, I wasn't lookin' for this!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What's the matter? asked Brent, flushing beneath his stubby beard,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What do you mean?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Mean! You know damn well what I mean! he thundered."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Look around this shack! Look in the lookin' glass up there! You're livin' here worse'n a dog lives! You're worse'n a--a squaw-man!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No man--not even you can insult me and get away with it. I'm as good a man as I ever was, and I'll prove it if you'll step outside."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You couldn't prove nothin' to nobody, noway. Kitty told me you'd gone to hell--but, I didn't know you'd gone on plumb through."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm as good a man as I ever was,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Shut up! Camillo Bill's fist struck the table,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "It makes me mad to look at you! You're a hell of a lookin' object. You won't winter through. They'll find you froze some mornin' half ways between here an' some saloon."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I won't be here when winter comes. I'm going to hit the trail when snow flies, with a dog outfit."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Where do you aim to go?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Over beyond the Mackenzie. Over in the Coppermine River country. There's gold over there, and there aren't a million _chechakos_ gouging for it."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Over beyond the Mackenzie! Picked you out the roughest an' the furtherest place to go there is. An' nuthin' there when you get there--only you'd never get there. You ain't got the strength nor the guts to cross Indian River--let alone the Mackenzie. An' besides, where do you aim to get your outfit?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll work in the sawmill till I get enough, or anyone will grub-stake me--you will."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I will--like hell! An' no one else won't, neither. You'd never buy nothin' but hooch if they did."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Say, he asked,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How about my claims? You must have taken out your million by this time."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Petered plumb out, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That's what I come to tell you about. They ain't an ounce left in 'em."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Did you get yours? asked Brent dully."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you didn't, just let me know how much you are shy, and I'll make it good--when I make my strike, over beyond the Mackenzie."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All gone to hell--puffed an' bloated, an' rotten with hooch--an' still square as a brick school house!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How much are you shy?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Huh?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I said, how much are you shy of that million?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, I don't know yet. I ain't cleaned up the tailin' of the dump. It ain't goin' to be so far off, though. I'll let you know later. He got up and crossed to the door."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "So long,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We got a job to do, he announced, plunging straight into his subject,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "An' we got to do it thorough."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Meanin' which?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Meanin' to kidnap a man, an' hide him out fer a year, an' make him work like hell every minute he ain't sleepin' or eatin'."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "That sounds like a hell of a contrack, opined Swiftwater Bill."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Who's goin' to keep him workin', an' what at, an' what for?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "For the good of his soul, grinned Camillo,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The spark of a man's there yet--an' a damn good man. But if we all don't git down an' blow like hell the spark's goin' out."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Clear as mulligan,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Anyone saw Ace-In-The-Hole, lately?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I seen him about a month ago--bought him a drink. He's on the toboggan."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I ain't seen him since spring when he saved me from gettin' doped in Cuter Malone's. Cuter floored him with a bottle an' Kitty an' I got him home an' she looked after him till he got better. I give her a sack of dust to give him, but he wouldn't take it--throw'd it out in the snow, an' Kitty dug it out an' brung it back. If you all is figgerin' on gettin' up a stake fer him, let me in I'll go as high as the next."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Nothin' doin' on the stake stuff. He wouldn't take it, an' if he did it would be the worst thing we could do to him. He'd blow it all in fer hooch. I went over to his cabin just now to turn back his claims. I've took out my million, an' only worked one of 'em. An' it ain't worked half out. They must be two or three million in 'em yet. Kitty told me the hooch had got him right--but she didn't tell it strong enough. He's in a hell of a shape, an' thinks he's as good a man as he ever was. He's dirty, an' ragged, an' bloated with hooch an' broke--an' yet, by God--he's a man! When I seen how things was, I decided not to say anything about the claims because if he got holt of 'em now, he'd blow 'em in as fast as he could get out the dust. But, after a while he asked me, an' I told him they'd petered out. He never batted an eye, but he says, 'Did you get out your million? 'Cause,' he says, 'if you didn't just tell me how much you're shy, an' I'll make it good!' He thinks he's goin' somewhere over beyond the Mackenzie when the snow comes--but, hell--he ain't in no shape to go nowheres. What we got to do is jest na'chelly steal him, an' put him in a cabin somewheres way out in the hills, an' hire a couple of guards for him, an' keep him workin' for a whole damn year. It'll nearly kill him at first, but it'll put him back where he was, if it don't kill him--an' if it does, it's better to die workin' than to freeze to death drunk like McMann did."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I got the place to put him, said Swiftwater,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The claim's no good, but it's way to hell an' gone from here, an' there's a cabin on it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just the ticket,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We better send out quite a bunch of hooch. So he can kind of taper off,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Taper--hell! cried Bettles,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If you taper off, you taper on agin. I know. The way to quit is to quit."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We'll figger that out, laughed Camillo,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The best way is to ask the doc. I'll tend to that, an' I'll get a guard hired, an' see about grub an' tools and stuff. We'll meet here a week from tonight an' pull the deal off, an' Swiftwater he can go along fer guide--only you don't want to let him see you. I'll get guards that he don't know, an' that don't know him. We'll have to pay 'em pretty good, but it's worth it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "He was a damn good man, onct."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An' he'll be agin'! exclaimed Camillo,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "If he lives through it. His heart's right."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Are you not going to the land of the white men?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who is he? I will cut his heart out!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, no, not that."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There are some good white men, she said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Tell me again, was my father a good white man?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A good white man--yes. He is dead."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Murdo MacFarlane."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I do' no' what to say, to ye, lass, he began,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The Company holds me to account for the debt I give, an' half the band is already in my debt. Ye're mither, auld Wananebish is gude for all she wants an' so are you, for ye're a gud lass. Some of the others are gud too, but theer be some amongst them that I wad na trust for the worth of a buckshot. They've laid around the river too lang. They're a worthless, hooch-guzzlin' outfit. They're na gude."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But that's just why I want debt, cried the girl,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "To get them away from the river. There's no hooch here now, and they will go. I, myself, will stand responsible for the debt."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wheer wad ye tak them?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Way to the eastward, beyond Bear Lake, there is a river. The trapping is good there, and there is gold----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "The Coppermine, interrupted McTavish,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Always theer has been talk of gold on the Coppermine--but na gold has been found theer. However, as ye say, the trappin' should be gude. Yer Injuns be na gude along the river. They're lazy an' no account, an' gettin' worse. Theer's a bare chance ye can save 'em yet if ye can get 'em far into the barrens. I'm goin' to give ye that chance. If ye'll guarantee the debt, I'll outfit 'em--no finery an' frippery, mind ye--just the necessities for the winter in the bush. Bring 'em along, lass, an' the sooner ye get started the better, for 'tis a lang trail ye've set yerself--an' may gude luck go with ye."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Don't see how I can spare a man right now, little girl, he answered,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm hiring every man I can find that will handle a pick or a shovel, or drive a nail, or carry a board. I've still got three miles of flume to put in, and half a mile of railroad grade to finish--and the snow will hit us any time now."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You can't work your old dredges in the winter, anyhow, why don't you wait till spring."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "When spring comes I want to be in shape to begin throwing out the gravel the minute the ground thaws, and I don't want to be bothered building flume and railroad."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But, dearest, the floor is so cold. We can't live in this house in the winter unless it is banked. All the neighbors have their houses banked three or four feet high, and if the ground freezes we'll never get it done."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "That's right, he admitted,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Tell you what I'll do, I'll come down Saturday afternoon and stay over Sunday and bank it myself. Maybe I can find someone to help me. There's an old tramp that lives in a cabin a piece back from the river. One of my foremen has hired him three or four times, but he's no good--won't work more than two or three days at a stretch--he's a drunkard, and can't stay away from booze. Maybe, though, if I stay right on the job with him till it's finished I can get a day's work out of him--anyway I'll try."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Murdo MacFarlane, Lashing Water, he read,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wonder where Lashing Water is? And who was this Murdo MacFarlane? And where is he now? Did he find Hearne's lost gold? Or, did he--did he--?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come in!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hello, greeted the intruder, plunging straight into the object of his visit,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I'm up against it, and I wonder if you won't help me out. He paused, and Brent waited for him to proceed,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'm Reeves, of the Northern Dredge Company, and I've got every available man in Dawson out there on the works trying to finish three miles of flume and a half mile of railroad before snow flies. I can't spare a man off the works, but I've got to bank my house, so I decided to stay home myself tomorrow and tackle it. If you'll help me, and if we get a good early start, I think we can finish the job by night. I wouldn't care a rap if it were not for my wife, she's from the South, and I'm afraid of those cold floors. What do you say, will you do it? I'll pay you well."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "All right, that's fine! What time can I expect you?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Daylight, answered Brent,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Will you have a drink?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, thanks, I've got to tackle some work tonight that I've been putting off for weeks. See you in the morning."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "From the South,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "and little boys shod in stiff hot looking black shoes and stockings, and little girls with tight-braided pig-tails hanging down their backs, and short starched skirts, who watched with envious eyes as the velvet clad boy ran across to the"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "that flanked the courthouse sidewalk, and mounted a stocky little"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Shetland pony, and rode down the tree-shaded street at a furious gallop. On the outskirts of the town the pony swerved of its own accord between two upstanding stone posts and into a broad avenue that swept in graceful curves between two rows of huge evergreens that led from the white turnpike to a big brick house, the roof of whose broad gallery was supported upon huge white pillars. Up the avenue raced the pony and up the dozen steps that led to the gallery, just at the moment that the huge bulk of a round-eyed colored"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Hyah, yo' rascal, yo'! cried the outraged negress flourishing her broom,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Git yo' circus hoss offen my clean gallery flo', fo' I bus' him wide open wif dis, broom! Lawd sakes, efen Miss Callie see yo' hyah, she gwine raise yo' ha'r fo' sho'! Yo' Ca'teh Brent, yo' _git_!"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We've got it! he exclaimed,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We're a little more than half through, and none too soon. The wind had blown steadily from the north, carrying with it frequent flurries of snow."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We'll knock off now. Just step into the house."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, I'll slip over to the cabin. I'll be back by the time you're through dinner."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come in, won't you. I've got a little liquor that I brought from the outside. I think you'll like it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Just help yourself, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I never use it, and passed into the next room. Eagerly Brent poured himself half a tumblerful and gulped it down, and as he returned the glass to the table, he heard the voice of Reeves:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You don't mind if he eats with us do you? He's worked mighty hard, and--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why, certainly he will eat with us. See, the table's all set. I saw you coming so I brought the soup in. Hurry before it gets cold. At the man's words Brent's eyes had flashed a swift glance over his disreputable garments. His lips had tightened at the corners, and as he had waited for the expected protest, they had twisted into a cynical smile. But at the woman's reply, the smile died from his lips, and he took a furtive step toward the door, hesitated, and unconsciously his shoulders stiffened, and a spark flickered for a moment in his muddy eyes. Why not? It had been many a long day since he had sat at a table with a woman--that kind of a woman. Like a flash came Reeves' words of the night before."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "She's from the South."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are to dine here, he announced,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I thank you, answered Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "May I wash?"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "My wife, Mr.----,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Let us leave it that way, please. Mrs. Reeves, allow me, and stepping swiftly to her chair he seated her with a courtly bow. He looked up to see Reeves staring in open-mouthed amazement. Again, he smiled, and stepped to his own place, not unmindful of the swift glance of surprise that passed between husband and wife. After that surprises came fast. Surprise at the ease and grace of manner with which he comported himself, gave place to surprise and admiration at his deft maneuvering of the conversation to things of the"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You are from the South, aren't you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, far from the South--very far."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I am from the South, too, and I love it, continued the woman, her eyes upon the man's face."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "From Plantersville, Tennessee--I've lived there all my life."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You win, he smiled, regarding her curiously,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, you will pardon me I'm sure. I've been away a long time, and I'm afraid----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, you wouldn't recognize me. I was only sixteen or seventeen when you left Plantersville. You had been away at college, and you came home for a month. I'm Reba Moorhouse----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Indeed I do remember you, laughed Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why you did me the honor to dance with me at Colonel Pinkney's ball. But, tell me, how are your mother and father and Fred and Emily? I suppose Doctor Moorhouse still shoots his squirrels square in the eye, eh!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mother died two years ago, and dad has almost given up his practice, she smiled,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "So he'll have more time to shoot squirrels. Fred is in college, and Emily married Charlie Harrow, and they bought the old Melcher place out on the pike."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And--and--my father--have you seen him lately?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, indeed! General Brent and Dad are still the greatest of cronies. He hasn't changed a bit since I can first remember him. Old Uncle Jake still drives him to the bank at nine o'clock each morning, he still eats his dinners at the Planter's Hotel, and then makes his rounds of the lumber yard, and the coal yard, and the tobacco warehouse, or else Uncle Jake drives him out to inspect some of his farms, and back home at four o'clock. No, to all appearances, the General hasn't changed--but, dad says there is a change in the last two or three years. He--he--would give everything he owns just to hear from--you."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, he must not hear--yet. I'll make another strike, one of these days--and then-----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Did you make a strike?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, I was on the very peak of the first stampede. Did you, by chance, ever hear of Ace-In-The-Hole?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes--notorious gambler, wasn't he? Were you here when he was? Made a big strike, somewhere, and then gambled away ten or twenty million, didn't he, and then--I never did hear what became of him."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Yes, he made a strike. Then, I suppose, he was just what you said--a notorious gambler--his losses were grossly exaggerated, they were not over two millions at the outside."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "A mere trifle, laughed Reeves,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What ever became of him."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Just at this moment he is seated at a dining table, talking with a generous host, and a most charming hostess----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Are _you_ Ace-In-The-Hole?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "So designated upon the Yukon,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Oh, why don't you--why don't you brace up? Let liquor alone, and----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Theoretically a very good suggestion, he smiled,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But, practically--it won't work. Personally, I do not think I drink enough to hurt me any--but we will waive that point--if I do, it is my own fault. He was about to add that he was as good a man as he ever was, but something saved him that sophistry, and when he looked into the face of his hostess his muddy eyes twinkled humorously."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "At least, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I have succeeded in eliminating one fault--I have not gambled in quite some time."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And you never will gamble again?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I didn't say that. However I see very little chance of doing so in the immediate future."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Promise me that you never will? she asked,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You might, at least, promise me that, if you won't give up the other."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What assurance would you have that I would keep my promise?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "The word of a Brent!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, he said,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I will promise you that, if it will please you, 'Upon the word of a Brent.' He turned abruptly to Reeves,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We had better be getting at that job again, or we won't finish it before dark, he said, and with a bow to Mrs. Reeves,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You will excuse us, I know."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Who is he?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Who is he! exclaimed his wife,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why he's Carter Brent! The very last of the Brents! Anyone in the South can tell you what that means. They're the bluest of the blue bloods. His father, the old General, owns the bank, and about everything else that's worth owning in Plantersville, and half the county besides! And oh, it's a shame! A shame! We've got to do something! You've got to do something! He's a mining engineer, too. I recognized him before he told me, and when I mentioned Plantersville, did you see his hand tremble? I was sure then. Oh, can't you give him a position?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Why, yes, I could use a good mining engineer. But--he's too far gone. He couldn't stay away from the booze. I don't think there's any use trying."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "There is, I tell you! The blood is there--and when the blood is there it is _never_ too late! Didn't you notice the air with which he gave me his promise not to gamble 'Upon the word of a Brent.' He would die before he would break that promise--you see."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But--he wouldn't promise to let liquor alone. The gambling--in his circumstances is more or less a joke."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But, when he gets on his feet again it won't be a joke! she insisted."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You mark my words, he is going to make good. I can _feel_ it. And that is why I got him to promise not to gamble. If you can make him promise to let liquor alone you can depend on it he will let it alone. You'll try--won't you dear?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, little girl, I'll try, smiled Reeves, kissing his young wife,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "But I'll tell you beforehand, you are a good deal more sanguine of success than I am."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Snug and tight for the winter! exclaimed Reeves,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And just in time!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes, answered Brent,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Winter is here."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Supper is ready!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Come in, invited Reeves, heartily,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "We'll put that supper where it will do the most good, and then we'll----"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Thank you, I'll go home."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Oh, come, now! insisted the other."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Mrs. Reeves is expecting you. She will be really disappointed if you run off that way."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Disappointed--_hell_! cried Brent, so fiercely that Reeves stared at him in surprise."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Do you think for a minute that it was easy for me to sit at a table--the table of a southern lady--in these rags? Would you care to try it--to try and play the rôle of a gentleman behind a six weeks' growth of beard, and with your hair uncut for six months? It would have been an ordeal at any table, but to find out suddenly--at a moment when you were straining every nerve in your body to carry it through, that your hostess was one you had known--in other days--and who had known you--I tell you man it was hell! What I've got to have is not food, but whiskey--enough whiskey to make me drunk--very drunk. And the hell I've gone through is not a circumstance to the hell I've got to face when that same whiskey begins to die out--lying there in the bunk staring wide-eyed into the thick dark--seeing things that aren't there--hearing voices that were, and are forever stilled, and voices that never were--the voices of the damned--taunting, reviling, mocking your very soul, asking you what you have done with your millions? And where do you go from here? And your hands shaking so that you can't draw the cork from the bottle to drown the damned voices and still them till you have to wake up again, hoping when you do it will be daylight--it's easier in daylight. I tell you man that's _hell_! It isn't the hell that comes after he dies a man fears--it's the hell that comes in the dark. A hell born of whiskey, and only whiskey will quench the fires of it--and more whiskey--and more----"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I think I understand, old man--a little, he said."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I'll make excuse to Mrs. Reeves."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Tell her the truth if you want to, growled Brent, turning away,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "We'll never meet again."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You've forgotten something,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What is this--wages or charity?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Wages--and you've earned every cent of it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Shoveling dirt, or play acting?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Shoveling dirt,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Men shovel dirt in this camp now for eight or ten."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I think I am quite capable of judging what a man's services are worth to me, answered Reeves,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Good bye."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Winter is here, he muttered, at length,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And I've got to hit the trail."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Come in,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I came, partly on my own account, and partly at the earnest solicitation of my wife. He smiled,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I hardly know how to begin."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "If it's a sermon, begin about three words from the end; but if it is a drinking bout, begin at the beginning, but you will have to pardon me for beginning in the middle, for I have already consumed half a quart."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not guilty on either count, he laughed,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I neither preach nor drink. What brings me here is a mere matter of business."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Business? Sure you haven't got your dates mixed. I have temporarily withdrawn from the business world."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "No, it is regarding the termination of this temporary withdrawal that I want to see you. I understand you're a mining engineer."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Colorado School of Mines--five good jobs within two years in Montana--later, placer miner, 'notorious gambler,' and--"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you want another good job?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "What kind of a job?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "An engineering job. How would you like to be my assistant in the operation of this dredging proposition?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "It wouldn't work."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Why not?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Too close to Dawson. I like the hooch too well. And, aside from that, you don't need me. You will be laying off men now. Not hiring them."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Laying off laborers, yes. But there is plenty of work along that creek this winter for the right man--for me, and for you, if you will assume it."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There is another reason, he objected,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I have got to make another strike--and a good one. I have an obligation to meet--an obligation that in all probability will involve more money than any salary I could earn."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Small chance of a rich strike, now. The whole country is staked."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Around here, yes. But not where I'm going."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Where is that?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Over beyond the Mackenzie. In the Coppermine River country."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Beyond the Mackenzie! cried Reeves,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Man are you crazy!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "No, not crazy, only, at the moment, comfortably drunk. But that has nothing whatever to do with my journey to the Coppermine. I will be cold sober when I hit the trail."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And when will that be? How do you expect to finance the trip?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Ah, there's the rub, grinned Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I have not the least idea in the world of how I am going to finance it. When that detail is arranged, I shall hit the trail within twenty-four hours."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "There's no booze over there, he said aloud,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How much would you have to take with you?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Not a damned drop!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "What!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I have been fooling myself, he said, in a low tense voice,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Do you know what my shibboleth has been? What I have been telling myself and telling others--and expecting them to believe? I began to say it, and honestly enough, when I first started to get soft, and I kept it up stubbornly when the softness turned to flabbiness, and I maintained it doggedly when the flabbiness gave way to pouchiness: 'I am as good a man as I ever was!' That's the damned lie I've been telling myself! I nearly told it at your table, and before your wife, but thank God I was spared that humiliation. Just between friends, I'll tell the truth--I'm a damned worthless, hooch-guzzling good-for-naught! And the hell of it is, I haven't got the guts to quit! He seized the bottle from the table and drank three or four swallows in rapid succession,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "See that--what did I tell you? He glared at Reeves as if challenging a denial."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "But, I've got one chance."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Over beyond the Mackenzie there is no hooch. If I can get away from it for six months I can beat it. If I can get my nerve back--get my _health_ back, By God, I _will_ beat it! If there's enough of a Brent left in me, for that girl, your wife, to recognize through this disguise of rags and hair and dirt, there's enough of a Brent, sir, to put up one hell of a fight against booze!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You've said it man! You've said it! I will arrange for the financing."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You! How?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "On your own terms."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Take your pick, he said,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Grub-stake me, or loan me two thousand dollars. If I live I'll pay you back--with interest. If I don't--you lose."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I lose, only in case you die--you promise me that--on the word of a Brent? And I don't mean the two thousand--you understand what I mean, I think."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "I understand. And I promise--on the word of a Brent. But, he hastened to add,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I am not promising that I will not drink any more hooch--now or any other time--I have here a quart and a half of liquor. In all probability between now and tomorrow morning I shall get very drunk."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You said you would leave within twenty-four hours,"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "And so I will."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "How do you want the money?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "How do I want it? I'll tell you. I want it in dust, and I want it inside of an hour. Can you get it?"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Yes,"
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Hey, Joe Pete, come out here! I want you!"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Come with me, ordered Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "To the cabin."
}
] |
37815
|
Unknown Title
|
Unknown Author
|
[
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Joe Pete, this is Mr. Reeves. Reeves, that Injun is Joe Pete, the best damned Injun in Alaska, or anywhere else. Used to pack over the Chilkoot, until he made so much money he thought he'd try his hand at the gold--now he's broke. Joe Pete is going with me. He and I understand each other perfectly. He picked up the sack and handed it to the Indian:"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Two thousand dolla--_pil chikimin_. Go to police, find out trail to Mackenzie--Fort Norman. How many miles? How many days? Buy grub for two. Buy good dogs and sled. Buy two outfits clothes--plenty tabac. Keep rest of _pil chikimin_ safe until two days on trail, then give it to me. We hit the trail at eight o'clock tomorrow morning."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You've got a lot of confidence in that Indian! he exclaimed."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I wouldn't trust one of them out of my sight with a dollar bill!"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "You don't know Joe Pete, grinned Brent."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "I've got more confidence in him than I have in myself. The hooch joints will be two days behind me before I get my hands on that dust."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "And now, what?"
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "Be here at eight o'clock tomorrow morning and witness the start, grinned Brent,"
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "In the meantime, I am going to make the most of the fleeting hours."
},
{
"from": "gpt",
"value": "You won't be in any shape to hit the trail in the morning, if you go too heavy on that."
},
{
"from": "human",
"value": "Again, I may say, you don't know Joe Pete."
}
] |
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