'The thing to safely sling yer hopes of heaven by,' promptly
endorsed Lon McFane.

'Listen! I, Malemute Kid, give you my word--and you know what
that means that the man who is not shot stretches rope within ten
minutes after the shooting.' He stepped back as Pilate might have
done after washing his hands.

A pause and a silence came over the men of Forty-Mile. The sky
drew still closer, sending down a crystal flight of frost--little
geometric designs, perfect, evanescent as a breath, yet destined
to exist till the returning sun had covered half its northern
journey.

Both men had led forlorn hopes in their time--led with a curse or
a jest on their tongues, and in their souls an unswerving faith
in the God of Chance. But that merciful deity had been shut out
from the present deal. They studied the face of Malemute Kid, but
they studied as one might the Sphinx. As the quiet minutes
passed, a feeling that speech was incumbent on them began to
grow. At last the howl of a wolf-dog cracked the silence from the
direction of Forty-Mile. The weird sound swelled with all the
pathos of a breaking heart, then died away in a long-drawn sob.

'Well I be danged!' Bettles turned up the collar of his mackinaw
jacket and stared about him helplessly.

'It's a gloryus game yer runnin', Kid,' cried Lon McFane. 'All
the percentage of the house an' niver a bit to the man that's
buckin'. The Devil himself'd niver tackle such a cinch--and