JAN, THE UNREPENTANT
"For there's never a law of God or man
Runs north of Fifty-three."
Jan rolled over, clawing and kicking. He was fighting hand and
foot now, and he fought grimly, silently. Two of the three men
who hung upon him, shouted directions to each other, and strove to
curb the short, hairy devil who would not curb. The third man
howled. His finger was between Jan's teeth.
"Quit yer tantrums, Jan, an' ease up!" panted Red Bill, getting a
strangle-hold on Jan's neck. "Why on earth can't yeh hang decent
and peaceable?"
But Jan kept his grip on the third man's finger, and squirmed over
the floor of the tent, into the pots and pans.
"Youah no gentleman, suh," reproved Mr. Taylor, his body following
his finger, and endeavoring to accommodate itself to every jerk of
Jan's head. "You hev killed Mistah Gordon, as brave and honorable
a gentleman as ever hit the trail aftah the dogs. Youah a
murderah, suh, and without honah."
"An' yer no comrade," broke in Red Bill. "If you was, you'd hang
'thout rampin' around an' roarin'. Come on, Jan, there's a good
fellow. Don't give us no more trouble. Jes' quit, an' we'll hang
yeh neat and handy, an' be done with it."
"Steady, all!" Lawson, the sailorman, bawled. "Jam his head into
the bean pot and batten down."
"But my fingah, suh," Mr. Taylor protested.
"Leggo with y'r finger, then! Always in the way!"
"But I can't, Mistah Lawson. It's in the critter's gullet, and
nigh chewed off as 't is."
"Stand by for stays!" As Lawson gave the warning, Jan half lifted
himself, and the struggling quartet floundered across the tent
into a muddle of furs and blankets. In its passage it cleared the
body of a man, who lay motionless, bleeding from a bullet-wound in
the neck.
All this was because of the madness which had come upon Jan--the
madness which comes upon a man who has stripped off the raw skin
of earth and grovelled long in primal nakedness, and before whose
eyes rises the fat vales of the homeland, and into whose nostrils
steals the whiff of bay, and grass, and flower, and new-turned
soil. Through five frigid years Jan had sown the seed. Stuart
River, Forty Mile, Circle City, Koyokuk, Kotzebue, had marked his
bleak and strenuous agriculture, and now it was Nome that bore the
harvest,--not the Nome of golden beaches and ruby sands, but the
Nome of '97, before Anvil City was located, or Eldorado District
organized. John Gordon was a Yankee, and should have known
better. But he passed the sharp word at a time when Jan's blood-
shot eyes blazed and his teeth gritted in torment. And because of
this, there was a smell of saltpetre in the tent, and one lay
quietly, while the other fought like a cornered rat, and refused
to hang in the decent and peacable manner suggested by his
comrades.
"If you will allow me, Mistah Lawson, befoah we go further in this
rumpus, I would say it wah a good idea to pry this hyer varmint's
teeth apart. Neither will he bite off, nor will he let go. He
has the wisdom of the sarpint, suh, the wisdom of the sarpint."
"Lemme get the hatchet to him!" vociferated the sailor. "Lemme
get the hatchet!" He shoved the steel edge close to Mr. Taylor's
finger and used the man's teeth as a fulcrum. Jan held on and
breathed through his nose, snorting like a grampus. "Steady, all!
Now she takes it!"
"Thank you, suh; it is a powerful relief." And Mr. Taylor
proceeded to gather into his arms the victim's wildly waving legs.
But Jan upreared in his Berserker rage; bleeding, frothing,
cursing; five frozen years thawing into sudden hell. They swayed
backward and forward, panted, sweated, like some cyclopean, many-
legged monster rising from the lower deeps. The slush-lamp went
over, drowned in its own fat, while the midday twilight scarce
percolated through the dirty canvas of the tent.
"For the love of Gawd, Jan, get yer senses back!" pleaded Red
Bill. "We ain't goin' to hurt yeh, 'r kill yeh, 'r anythin' of
that sort. Jes' want to hang yeh, that's all, an' you a-messin'
round an' rampagin' somethin' terrible. To think of travellin'
trail together an' then bein' treated this-a way. Wouldn't
'bleeved it of yeh, Jan!"
"He's got too much steerage-way. Grab holt his legs, Taylor, and
heave'm over!"
"Yes, suh, Mistah Lawson. Do you press youah weight above, after
I give the word." The Kentuckian groped about him in the murky
darkness. "Now, suh, now is the accepted time!"
There was a great surge, and a quarter of a ton of human flesh
tottered and crashed to its fall against the side-wall. Pegs drew
and guy-ropes parted, and the tent, collapsing, wrapped the battle
in its greasy folds.
"Yer only makin' it harder fer yerself," Red Bill continued, at
the same time driving both his thumbs into a hairy throat, the
possessor of which he had pinned down. "You've made nuisance
enough a' ready, an' it'll take half the day to get things
straightened when we've strung yeh up."
"I'll thank you to leave go, suh," spluttered Mr. Taylor.
Red Bill grunted and loosed his grip, and the twain crawled out
into the open. At the same instant Jan kicked clear of the
sailor, and took to his heels across the snow.
"Hi! you lazy devils! Buck! Bright! Sic'm! Pull 'm down!" sang
out Lawson, lunging through the snow after the fleeing man. Buck
and Bright, followed by the rest of the dogs, outstripped him and
rapidly overhauled the murderer.
There was no reason that these men should do this; no reason for
Jan to run away; no reason for them to attempt to prevent him. On
the one hand stretched the barren snow-land; on the other, the
frozen sea. With neither food nor shelter, he could not run far.
All they had to do was to wait till he wandered back to the tent,
as he inevitably must, when the frost and hunger laid hold of him.
But these men did not stop to think. There was a certain taint of
madness running in the veins of all of them. Besides, blood had
been spilled, and upon them was the blood-lust, thick and hot.
"Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord, and He saith it in temperate
climes where the warm sun steals away the energies of men. But in
the Northland they have discovered that prayer is only efficacious
when backed by muscle, and they are accustomed to doing things for
themselves. God is everywhere, they have heard, but he flings a
shadow over the land for half the year that they may not find him;
so they grope in darkness, and it is not to be wondered that they
often doubt, and deem the Decalogue out of gear.
Jan ran blindly, reckoning not of the way of his feet, for he was
mastered by the verb "to live." To live! To exist! Buck flashed
gray through the air, but missed. The man struck madly at him,
and stumbled. Then the white teeth of Bright closed on his
mackinaw jacket, and he pitched into the snow. TO LIVE! TO
EXIST! He fought wildly as ever, the centre of a tossing heap of
men and dogs. His left hand gripped a wolf-dog by the scruff of
the back, while the arm was passed around the neck of Lawson.
Every struggle of the dog helped to throttle the hapless sailor.
Jan's right hand was buried deep in the curling tendrils of Red
Bill's shaggy head, and beneath all, Mr. Taylor lay pinned and
helpless. It was a deadlock, for the strength of his madness was
prodigious; but suddenly, without apparent reason, Jan loosed his
various grips and rolled over quietly on his back. His
adversaries drew away a little, dubious and disconcerted. Jan
grinned viciously.
"Mine friends," he said, still grinning, "you haf asked me to be
politeful, und now I am politeful. Vot piziness vood you do mit
me?"
"That's right, Jan. Be ca'm," soothed Red Bill. "I knowed you'd
come to yer senses afore long. Jes' be ca'm now, an' we'll do the
trick with neatness and despatch."
"Vot piziness? Vot trick?"
"The hangin'. An' yeh oughter thank yer lucky stars for havin' a
man what knows his business. I've did it afore now, more'n once,
down in the States, an' I can do it to a T."
"Hang who? Me?"
"Yep."
"Ha! ha! Shust hear der man speak foolishness! Gif me a hand,
Bill, und I vill get up und be hung." He crawled stiffly to his
feet and looked about him. "Herr Gott! listen to der man! He
vood hang me! Ho! ho! ho! I tank not! Yes, I tank not!"
"And I tank yes, you swab," Lawson spoke up mockingly, at the same
time cutting a sled-lashing and coiling it up with ominous care.
"Judge Lynch holds court this day."
"Von liddle while." Jan stepped back from the proffered noose.
"I haf somedings to ask und to make der great proposition.
Kentucky, you know about der Shudge Lynch?"
"Yes, suh. It is an institution of free men and of gentlemen, and
it is an ole one and time-honored. Corruption may wear the robe
of magistracy, suh, but Judge Lynch can always be relied upon to
give justice without court fees. I repeat, suh, without court
fees. Law may be bought and sold, but in this enlightened land
justice is free as the air we breathe, strong as the licker we
drink, prompt as--"
"Cut it short! Find out what the beggar wants," interrupted
Lawson, spoiling the peroration.
"Vell, Kentucky, tell me dis: von man kill von odder man, Shudge
Lynch hang dot man?"
"If the evidence is strong enough--yes, suh."
"An' the evidence in this here case is strong enough to hang a
dozen men, Jan," broke in Red Bill.
"Nefer you mind, Bill. I talk mit you next. Now von anodder ding
I ask Kentucky. If Shudge Lynch hang not der man, vot den?"
"If Judge Lynch does not hang the man, then the man goes free, and
his hands are washed clean of blood. And further, suh, our great
and glorious constitution has said, to wit: that no man may twice
be placed in jeopardy of his life for one and the same crime, or
words to that effect."
"Unt dey can't shoot him, or hit him mit a club over der head
alongside, or do nodings more mit him?"
"No, suh."
"Goot! You hear vot Kentucky speaks, all you noddleheads? Now I
talk mit Bill. You know der piziness, Bill, und you hang me up
brown, eh? Vot you say?"
"'Betcher life, an', Jan, if yeh don't give no more trouble ye'll
be almighty proud of the job. I'm a connesoor."
"You haf der great head, Bill, und know somedings or two. Und you
know two und one makes tree--ain't it?"
Bill nodded.
"Und when you haf two dings, you haf not tree dings--ain't it?
Now you follow mit me close und I show you. It takes tree dings
to hang. First ding, you haf to haf der man. Goot! I am der
man. Second ding, you haf to haf der rope. Lawson haf der rope.
Goot! Und tird ding, you haf to haf someding to tie der rope to.
Sling your eyes over der landscape und find der tird ding to tie
der rope to? Eh? Vot you say?"
Mechanically they swept the ice and snow with their eyes. It was
a homogeneous scene, devoid of contrasts or bold contours, dreary,
desolate, and monotonous,--the ice-packed sea, the slow slope of
the beach, the background of low-lying hills, and over all thrown
the endless mantle of snow. "No trees, no bluffs, no cabins, no
telegraph poles, nothin'," moaned Red Bill; "nothin' respectable
enough nor big enough to swing the toes of a five-foot man clear
o' the ground. I give it up." He looked yearningly at that
portion of Jan's anatomy which joins the head and shoulders.
"Give it up," he repeated sadly to Lawson. "Throw the rope down.
Gawd never intended this here country for livin' purposes, an'
that's a cold frozen fact."
Jan grinned triumphantly. "I tank I go mit der tent und haf a
smoke."
"Ostensiblee y'r correct, Bill, me son," spoke up Lawson; "but y'r
a dummy, and you can lay to that for another cold frozen fact.
Takes a sea farmer to learn you landsmen things. Ever hear of a
pair of shears? Then clap y'r eyes to this."
The sailor worked rapidly. From the pile of dunnage where they
had pulled up the boat the preceding fall, he unearthed a pair of
long oars. These he lashed together, at nearly right angles,
close to the ends of the blades. Where the handles rested he
kicked holes through the snow to the sand. At the point of
intersection he attached two guy-ropes, making the end of one fast
to a cake of beach-ice. The other guy he passed over to Red Bill.
"Here, me son, lay holt o' that and run it out."
And to his horror, Jan saw his gallows rise in the air. "No! no!"
he cried, recoiling and putting up his fists. "It is not goot! I
vill not hang! Come, you noddleheads! I vill lick you, all
together, von after der odder! I vill blay hell! I vill do
eferydings! Und I vill die pefore I hang!"
The sailor permitted the two other men to clinch with the mad
creature. They rolled and tossed about furiously, tearing up snow
and tundra, their fierce struggle writing a tragedy of human
passion on the white sheet spread by nature. And ever and anon a
hand or foot of Jan emerged from the tangle, to be gripped by
Lawson and lashed fast with rope-yarns. Pawing, clawing,
blaspheming, he was conquered and bound, inch by inch, and drawn
to where the inexorable shears lay like a pair of gigantic
dividers on the snow. Red Bill adjusted the noose, placing the
hangman's knot properly under the left ear. Mr. Taylor and Lawson
tailed onto the running-guy, ready at the word to elevate the
gallows. Bill lingered, contemplating his work with artistic
appreciation.
"Herr Gott! Vood you look at it!"
The horror in Jan's voice caused the rest to desist. The fallen
tent had uprisen, and in the gathering twilight it flapped ghostly
arms about and titubated toward them drunkenly. But the next
instant John Gordon found the opening and crawled forth.
"What the flaming--!" For the moment his voice died away in his
throat as his eyes took in the tableau. "Hold on! I'm not dead!"
he cried out, coming up to the group with stormy countenance.
"Allow me, Mistah Gordon, to congratulate you upon youah escape,"
Mr. Taylor ventured. "A close shave, suh, a powahful close
shave."
" Congratulate hell! I might have been dead and rotten and no
thanks to you, you--!" And thereat John Gordon delivered himself
of a vigorous flood of English, terse, intensive, denunciative,
and composed solely of expletives and adjectives.
"Simply creased me," he went on when he had eased himself
sufficiently. "Ever crease cattle, Taylor?"
"Yes, suh, many a time down in God's country."
"Just so. That's what happened to me. Bullet just grazed the
base of my skull at the top of the neck. Stunned me but no harm
done." He turned to the bound man. "Get up, Jan. I'm going to
lick you to a standstill or you're going to apologize. The rest
of you lads stand clear."
"I tank not. Shust tie me loose und you see," replied Jan, the
Unrepentant, the devil within him still unconquered. "Und after
as I lick you, I take der rest of der noddleheads, von after der
odder, altogedder!"
