Dick Kent on Special Duty

“Rat” MacGregor dropped to the floor and crawled on hands and knees to the bunk wherein Dewberry, weary after hours of heavy mushing over an almost unbroken trail, now slept the sleep of the just. Dewberry’s raucous snores could be heard plainly. He lay face up, mouth partly open, while one large, hairy arm hung limply over the side of his bed.

MacGregor knew that Dewberry was really asleep. Not only did he know this, but he was cognizant of another fact, of which he alone was the sole possessor. He knew that the big Englishman could not easily be awakened. He was aware that something else besides weariness and exhaustion compelled Dewberry to slumber thus. And he grinned over the thought of it.

Before retiring for the night, the prospector had, following the usual custom, removed none of his clothes. Neither had he troubled to unstrap the money-belt that he wore, and place it in safe-keeping. The money-belt was full, almost bursting with yellowbacks and greenbacks of various denominations. But the thing which interested MacGregor even more, was the small poke, suspended from a moosehide cord, and tied securely about the sleeping man’s neck.

In his present predicament, the prospector would have been easy prey for the figure who crept towards him, had circumstances been a little different. The difference was this: In the room, the large airy room of one “Frenchie” Frischette, keeper of road-houses, were a number of other persons besides MacGregor and the drugged Dewberry.

These persons reclined in various attitudes and conditions of sleep. Not a few of them, including Corporal Rand, of the Royal North West Mounted police, possessed—even in slumber—a sense of hearing exceedingly acute. The creak of a board, a sudden rustling movement—almost any noise at all—would have aroused them at once. No one realized this any better than MacGregor. His job had been only half accomplished a few hours before when, with very little difficulty, he had drugged the man from Crooked Stick River.

The thief rose slowly to a position on his knees. He was so close to his victim that the man’s feverish breath fanned his cheek. He could hear plainly his own heart and the heart of the sleeper, beating in a sort of wild harmony together. His right hand was within eight inches of the rugged prospector, yet he seemed unable, powerless to extend it one infinitesimal part of the distance which separated it from the actual point of contact.

In the dull, red glow of the fireplace he could see the tell-tale bulge on Dewberry’s barrel-like chest. It filled him with a sort of agony to realize that at the crucial moment he lacked the courage and the strength to accomplish his task. Never before had he been so overcome with weakness. A few quick movements only were required to bring wealth into his grasp; yet here he knelt, with a cold dampness suffusing his face and a tingling paralysis of all his muscles.

The prospector groaned and moved slightly, then raised one knee in a convulsive movement of pain. MacGregor shrank back trembling, his eyes darting about apprehensively. In a far corner another form stirred uneasily and a loud, full-throated cough broke across the stillness like a trumpet of doom.

Several minutes elapsed before MacGregor had recovered sufficiently from his fright to attempt another furtive movement forward. This time he summoned to his aid the last remnant of a wilted spirit. His hands went out toward Dewberry’s throat. These clammy physical members found the cord, but his fingers refused to function in his efforts to untie the knot. For a moment he hesitated, then with a low, almost inhuman growl, he tore his hunting knife from its sheath and tried to cut the cord. In his haste, inadvertently the sharp point of the knife pricked the sleeping man’s chest and, to MacGregor’s great astonishment and horror, Dewberry started visibly and opened his eyes.