The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1955, Síða 40

38
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Spring 1955
examined it. Then he sped back to
camp.
“Tom,” he shouted. “I think I’ve
found the continuation of that vein.”
Feverishly, Bill began to collect
tools.
“Come,” he said. “We have work to
do.”
They were loading their equipment
into the canoe when they heard the
staccato throb of a plane.
“I didn’t expect Matt back today,”
Bill muttered uneasily, shielding his
eyes with his hand to get a better view.
Then, as the plane circled closer and
banked for a landing, the staggering
truth burst upon him.
“That ain’t Matt Kern,” he exclaim-
ed. “It’s Sam Greenback’s outfit, and
they’re landing at Rocky Island.”
“Are we taking some grub?” Tom
asked.
“Tom, we ain’t going,” Bill said.
“That sample I just showed you; I got
it on the island.”
Shakily Bill fumbled for a cigarette
and lit it, while his eyes stared at
Greenback’s men in the distance.
“They’re pitching tent, and staying
a while, — canoe and all,” Tom ob-
served.
Bill’s brows beetled in a meditative
scowl.
“They’re after my old claims,” he
conjectured. “They will be open for
re-staking tonight at midnight, and
Rocky Island is part of ’em.”
“But you said they are worthless?”
Tom reminded.
“One never knows. Greenback thinks
there’s a mine. He’s staking all ’round
me,” Bill calculated.
He puffed viciously at his pipe.
“Or could it be they already know
about the island?” he quaked.
Helplessly, the two men waited.
The plane thundered off in the direc-
tion of Steel, and hunger at length
drove them back to camp, leaving
their half-loaded canoe. In silence,
they ate their pork and beans; in
silence, lounged about their campfire.
They felt grim in the face of their bad
luck.
Then, in the dead of night, they stole
back to Rocky Island, circling wide.
They paddled silently as an Indian
war party, and beached their canoe on
the far shore.
Bill crept through the darkness,
slowly feeling his way, till he could
see the tent, pitched rignt before the
rock-cleft.
His heart sank.
“They must have seen it,” he
thought desperately, his worried eyes
on the gang sprawled about the camp-
fire.
Still as one of the shadowed bould-
ers, Bill listened.
“We better get going,” someone
said. “It’s nearing midnight, and we
start staking on the stroke of twelve.”
For a breathing space, Bill stood
rooted to the spot. Then he crept
back to Tom. His stakes were ready;
he would try to beat them at their own
game.
The two men worked frantically in
the darkness. They could hear the
clamour of the gang as they appeared
to be spreading out on the island.
Their high spirits rang in shouts and
laughter that echoed through the
night. Hearing the merriment, Bill
felt that he had little hope of winning.
With two against four, it seemed they
were beaten before they had begun.
An eerie silence fell. Bill and Tom
could no longer hear Greenback’s men,
or know their wereabouts in the
pitch blackness. At any moment, as
they pursued their hopeless task, their
tights might be disputed by another
stake, or a living rival moving in the
night.