So he was not taken unawares when he
ordered them back in quest of their abandoned charge, and saw the
gleam of the hunting knives that they drew from the sheaths. A
pitiful spectacle, three weak men lifting their puny strength in
the face of the mighty vastness; but the two recoiled under the
fierce rifle blows of the one and returned like beaten dogs to
the leash. Two hours later, with Joe reeling between them and
Sitka Charley bringing up the rear, they came to the fire, where
the remainder of the expedition crouched in the shelter of the
fly.
'A few words, my comrades, before we sleep,' Sitka Charley said
after they had devoured their slim rations of unleavened bread.
He was speaking to the Indians in their own tongue, having
already given the import to the whites. 'A few words, my
comrades, for your own good, that ye may yet perchance live. I
shall give you the law; on his own head by the death of him that
breaks it. We have passed the Hills of Silence, and we now travel
the head reaches of the Stuart. It may be one sleep, it may be
several, it may be many sleeps, but in time we shall come among
the men of the Yukon, who have much grub. It were well that we
look to the law.
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