"London, Jack - Tales of the klondyke" - читать интересную книгу автора (London Jack)

other camp, but sank back, a trembling mass, wailing: "As the
spirit moves! As the spirit moves! Who am I that I should set
aside the judgments of God? Before the foundations of the world
were all things written in the book of life. Worm that I am,
shall I erase the page or any portion thereof? As God wills, so
shall the spirit move!"

Bill reached over, plucked him to his feet, and shook him,
fiercely, silently. Then he dropped the bundle of quivering
nerves and turned his attention to the two converts. But they
showed little fright and a cheerful alacrity in preparing for the
coming passage at arms.

Stockard, who had been talking in undertones with the Teslin
woman, now turned to the missionary.

"Fetch him over here," he commanded of Bill.

"Now," he ordered, when Sturges Owen had been duly deposited
before him, "make us man and wife, and be lively about it." Then
he added apologetically to Bill: "No telling how it's to end, so
I just thought I'd get my affairs straightened up."

The woman obeyed the behest of her white lord. To her the
ceremony was meaningless. By her lights she was his wife, and had
been from the day they first foregathered. The converts served as
witnesses. Bill stood over the missionary, prompting him when he
stumbled. Stockard put the responses in the woman's mouth, and
when the time came, for want of better, ringed her finger with
thumb and forefinger of his own.

"Kiss the bride!" Bill thundered, and Sturges Owen was too weak to
disobey.

"Now baptize the child!"

"Neat and tidy," Bill commented.

"Gathering the proper outfit for a new trail," the father
explained, taking the boy from the mother's arms. "I was grub-
staked, once, into the Cascades, and had everything in the kit
except salt. Never shall forget it. And if the woman and the kid
cross the divide to-night they might as well be prepared for pot-
luck. A long shot, Bill, between ourselves, but nothing lost if
it misses."

A cup of water served the purpose, and the child was laid away in
a secure corner of the barricade. The men built the fire, and the
evening meal was cooked.