The thumb, which was separated from the
fingers by the gee-pole, had likewise been nipped and gave him
great pain. The monstrous moccasin still incased his foot, and
strange pains were beginning to rack the leg. At Sixty Mile, the
last beans, which he had been rationing for some time, were
finished; yet he steadfastly refused to touch the eggs. He could
not reconcile his mind to the legitimacy of it, and staggered and
fell along the way to Indian River. Here a fresh-killed moose and
an open-handed old-timer gave him and his dogs new strength, and at
Ainslie's he felt repaid for it all when a stampede, ripe from
Dawson in five hours, was sure he could get a dollar and a quarter
for every egg he possessed.
He came up the steep bank by the Dawson barracks with fluttering
heart and shaking knees. The dogs were so weak that he was forced
to rest them, and, waiting, he leaned limply against the gee-pole.
A man, an eminently decorous-looking man, came sauntering by in a
great bearskin coat. He glanced at Rasmunsen curiously, then
stopped and ran a speculative eye over the dogs and the three
lashed sleds.
"What you got?" he asked.
"Eggs," Rasmunsen answered huskily, hardly able to pitch his voice
above a whisper.
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