Also they pressed upon him the
passage money in advance. And while they wrote to their respective
journals concerning the Good Samaritan with the thousand dozen
eggs, the Good Samaritan was hurrying back to the Swede at
Linderman.
"Here, you! Gimme that boat!" was his salutation, his hand
jingling the correspondents' gold pieces and his eyes hungrily bent
upon the finished craft.
The Swede regarded him stolidly and shook his head.
"How much is the other fellow paying? Three hundred? Well, here's
four. Take it."
He tried to press it upon him, but the man backed away.
"Ay tank not. Ay say him get der skiff boat. You yust wait--"
'Here's six hundred. Last call. Take it or leave it. Tell 'm
it's a mistake.'
The Swede wavered. "Ay tank yes," he finally said, and the last
Rasmunsen saw of him his vocabulary was going to wreck in a vain
effort to explain the mistake to the other fellows.
The German slipped and broke his ankle on the steep hogback above
Deep Lake, sold out his stock for a dollar a dozen, and with the
proceeds hired Indian packers to carry him back to Dyea. But on
the morning Rasmunsen shoved off with his correspondents, his two
rivals followed suit.
'How many you got?" one of them, a lean little New Englander,
called out.
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