Pardners Part 1

Pardners.

by Rex Beach.

PARDNERS

"Most all the old quotations need fixing," said Joyce in tones forbidding dispute. "For instance, the guy that alluded to marriages germinating in heaven certainly got off on the wrong foot. He meant pardners.h.i.+ps. The same works ain't got capacity for both, no more'n you can build a split-second stop-watch in a stone quarry. No, sir!

A true pardners.h.i.+p is the sanctifiedest relation that grows, is, and has its beans, while any two folks of opposite sect can marry and peg the game out some way. Of course, all pardners.h.i.+ps ain't divine. To every one that's heaven borned there's a thousand made in ----.

There goes them cussed dogs again!"

He dove abruptly at the tent flap, disappearing like a palmed coin, while our canvas structure reeled drunkenly at his impact. The sounds of strife without rose shrilly into blended agony, and the yelps of Keno melted away down the gulch in a rapid and rabid diminuendo.

Inasmuch as I had just packed out from camp in a loose pair of rubber boots, and was nursing two gall blisters, I did not feel called upon to emulate this energy of arbitration, particularly in bare feet.

"That black malamoot is a walking delegate for strife," he remarked, returning. "Sometime I'll lose my temper--and that's the kind of pardners me and Justus Morrow was."

Never more do I interrupt the allegory of my mate, no matter how startling its structure. He adventures orally when and in the manner the spirit calls, without rote, form, or tone production. Therefore I kicked my blistered heels in the air and grunted aimless encouragement.

"I was prospectin' a claim on Caribou Creek, and had her punched as full of holes as a sponge cake, when the necessity of a change appealed to me. I was out of everything more nouris.h.i.+ng than hope and one slab of pay-streaked bacon, when two tenderfeet 'mushed' up the gulch, and invited themselves into my cabin to watch me pan.

It's the simplest thing known to science to salt a tenderfoot, so I didn't have no trouble in selling out for three thousand dollars.

"You see, they couldn't kick, 'cause some of us 'old timers' was bound to get their money anyhow--just a question of time; and their inexperience was cheap at the price. Also, they was real nice boys, and I hated to see 'em fall amongst them crooks at Dawson. It was a short-horned triumph, though. Like the Dead Sea biscuits of Scripture, it turned to ashes in my mouth. It wasn't three days later that they struck it; right in my last shaft, within a foot of where I quit diggin'. They rocked out fifty ounces first day. When the news filtered to me, of course, I never made no holler. I couldn't--that is, honestly--but I bought a six hundred dollar grub stake, loaded it aboard a dory, and--having instructed the trader regarding the disposition of my mortal, drunken remains, I fanned through that camp like a prairie fire shot in the sirloin with a hot wind.

"Of course, it wasn't such a big spree; nothing gaudy or Swedelike; but them that should know, claimed it was a model of refinement.

Yes, I have got many encomiums on its general proportions and artistic finish. One hundred dollars an hour for twenty-four hours, all in red licker, confined to and in me and my choicest sympathizers. I reckon all our booze combined would have made a fair sluice-head. Anyhow, I woke up considerable farther down the dim vistas of time and about the same distance down the Yukon, in the bottom of my dory, seekin' new fields at six miles an hour. The trader had follered my last will and testament scrupulous, even to coverin' up my legs.

"That's how I drifted into Rampart City, and Justus Morrow.

"This here town was the same as any new camp; a mile long and eighteen inches wide, consisting of saloons, dance-halls, saloons, trading-posts, saloons, places to get licker, and saloons. Might not have been so many dancehalls and trading-posts as I've mentioned, and a few more saloons.

"I dropped into a joint called The Reception, and who'd I see playing 'bank' but 'Single Out' Wilmer, the worst gambler on the river.

Mounted police had him on the woodpile in Dawson, then tied a can on him. At the same table was a nice, tender Philadelphia squab, 'bout fryin' size, and while I was watching, Wilmer pulls down a bet belonging to it. That's an old game.

"'Pardon me,' says the broiler; 'you have my checks.'

"'What?' growls 'Single Out;' 'I knowed this game before you quit nursin', Bright Eyes. I can protect my own bets.'

"'That's right,' chimes the dealer, who I seen was 'Curly' Budd, Wilmer's pardner.

"'Lord!' thinks I, 'there's a pair to draw to.'

"'Do you really think you had ought to play this? It's a man's game,' says Wilmer nasty.

"I expected to see the youngster dog it. Nothin' of the kind.

"'That's my bet!' he says again, and I noticed something dry in his voice, like the rustle of silk.

"Single Out just looks black and snarls at the dealer.

"'Turn the cards!'

"'Oh, very well,' says the chechako, talking like a little girl.

"Somebody snickered and, thinks I 'there's sprightly doin's hereabouts. I'll tarry a while and see 'em singe the fowl. I like the smell of burning pin feathers; it clears my head.'

"Over in the far corner was another animal in knee panties, riggin'

up one of these flash-light, snappy-shot, photograft layouts. I found afterwards that he done it for a living; didn't work none, just strayed around as co-respondent for an English newspaper syndicate, taking pictures and writing story things. I didn't pay much attention to him hiding under his black cloth, 'cause the faro-table was full of bets, and it's hard to follow the play. Well, bye-and-bye Wilmer s.h.i.+fted another stack belonging to the Easterner.

"The lad never begged his pardon nor nothin'. His fist just shot out and landed on the nigh corner of Wilmer's jaw, clean and fair, and 'Single Out' done as pretty a headspin as I ever see--considering that it was executed in a cuspidore. 'Twas my first insight into the amenities of football. I'd like to see a whole game of it. They say it lasts an hour and a half. Of all the cordial, why-how-do-you-do mule kicks handed down in rhyme and story, that wallop was the adopted daddy.

"When he struck, I took the end of the bar like a steeplechaser, for I seen 'Curly' grab at the drawer, and I have aversions to witnessing gun plays from the front end. The tenderfoot riz up in his chair, and s.n.a.t.c.hin' a stack of reds in his off mit, dashed 'em into 'Curly's' face just as he pulled trigger. It spoiled his aim, and the boy was on to him like a mountain lion, follerin' over the table, along the line of least resistance.

"It was like takin' a candy sucker from a baby. 'Curly' let go of that 'six' like he was plumb tired of it, and the kid welted him over the ear just oncet. Then he turned on the room; and right there my heart went out to him. He took in the line up at a sweep of his lamps:

"'Any of you gentlemen got ideas on the subject?' he says, and his eyes danced like waves in the suns.h.i.+ne.

"It was all that finished and genteel that I speaks up without thinkin', 'You for me pardner!'

"Just as I said it, there come a swish and flash as if a kag of black powder had changed its state of bein'. I s'pose everybody yelled and dodged except the picture man. He says, 'Thank you, gents; very pretty tableau.'

"It was the first flash-light I ever see, and all I recall now is a panorama of starin' eyeb.a.l.l.s and gaping mouths. When it seen it wasn't torpedoed, the population begin crawlin' out from under chairs and tables. Men hopped out like toads in a rain.

"I crossed the boy's trail later that evening; found him watchin' a dance at the Gold Belt. The photografter was there, too, and when he'd got his dog-house fixed, he says:

"'Everybody take pardners, and whoop her up. I want this picture for the _Weekly_. Get busy, you, there!" We all joined in to help things; the orchestra hit the rough spots, and we went highfalutin'

down the centre, to show the English race how our joy pained us, and that life in the Klond.y.k.e had the Newport whirl, looking like society in a Siwash village. He got another good picture.

"Inside of a week, Morrow and I had joined up. We leased a claim and had our cabin done, waiting for snow to fall so's to sled our grub out to the creek. He took to me like I did to him, and he was an educated lad, too. Somehow, though, it hadn't gone to his head, leaving his hands useless, like knowledge usually does.

"One day, just before the last boat pulled down river, Mr. Struthers, the picture man, come to us--R. Alonzo Struthers, of London and 'Frisco, he was--and showin' us a picture, he says:

"'Ain't that great? Sunday supplements! Full page! Big display!

eh?'

"It sure was. 'Bout 9x9, and showing every detail of the Reception saloon. There was 'Single Out' a.n.a.lyzing the cuspidore and 'Curly'

dozin', as contorted and well-done as a pretzel. There was the crowd hiding in the corners, and behind the faro-table stood the kid, one hand among the scattered chips and cards, the other dominating the layout with 'Curley's' 'six.' It couldn't have looked more natural if we'd posed for it. It was a bully likeness, I thought, too, till I seen myself glaring over the bar. All that showed of William P.

Joyce, bachelor of some arts and plenty of science, late of Dawson, was the white of his eyes. And talkin' of white--say, I looked like I had was.h.i.+ng hung out. Seemed like the draught had riz my hair up, too.

"'Nothing like it ever seen,' continues Struthers. 'I'll call it 'The Winning Card,' or 'At Bay,' or something like that. Feature it as a typical Klond.y.k.e card game. I'll give you a two-page write-up.

Why, it's the greatest thing I ever did!'

"'I'm sorry,' says Morrow, thoughtful, 'but you musn't run it.'

"'What! says he, and I thinks, 'Oh, Lord! There goes my only show to get perpetufied in ink.'

"'I can't let you use it. My wife might see it.'

"'Your wife!' says I. 'Are you married, pardner?'