understandingly. The bunk was built against a side and end of the cabin.
It was a rude affair, the bottom being composed of drift-wood logs
overlaid with moss. At the foot the rough ends of these timbers
projected in an uneven row. From the side next the wall Uri ripped back
the moss and removed three of the logs. The jagged ends he sawed off and
replaced so that the projecting row remained unbroken. Fortune carried
in sacks of flour from the cache and piled them on the floor beneath the
aperture. On these Uri laid a pair of long sea-bags, and over all spread
several thicknesses of moss and blankets. Upon this Fortune could lie,
with the sleeping furs stretching over him from one side of the bunk to
the other, and all men could look upon it and declare it empty.

In the weeks which followed, several domiciliary visits were paid, not a
shack or tent in Nome escaping, but Fortune lay in his cranny
undisturbed. In fact, little attention was given to Uri Bram's cabin;
for it was the last place under the sun to expect to find the murderer of
John Randolph. Except during such interruptions, Fortune lolled about
the cabin, playing long games of solitaire and smoking endless
cigarettes. Though his volatile nature loved geniality and play of words
and laughter, he quickly accommodated himself to Uri's taciturnity.
Beyond the actions and plans of his pursuers, the state of the trails,
and the price of dogs, they never talked; and these things were only
discussed at rare intervals and briefly. But Fortune fell to working out
a system, and hour after hour, and day after day, he shuffled and dealt,
shuffled and dealt, noted the combinations of the cards in long columns,
and shuffled and dealt again. Toward the end even this absorption failed
him, and, head bowed upon the table, he visioned the lively all-night
houses of Nome, where the gamekeepers and lookouts worked in shifts and
the clattering roulette ball never slept. At such times his loneliness
and bankruptcy stunned him till he sat for hours in the same unblinking,