The Taming of “Bad Jack” Creedy

by James B. Hendryx

The Taming of
“Bad Jack”
Creedy

by
James B.
Hendryx

Author of “The Big Flash”

WHEN John Enger struck pay dirt on a small tributary of White River, the inevitable stampede followed, and men flocked by the hundreds into the Klotassin country.

A new gold trail took its toll of lives, while back on the Yukon, steamboat men raved, coal-mines closed down, trading companies ran their stores short-handed, and bosses and superintendents of the big dredge companies raged impotently, or stalked gloomily about the deserted buildings and idle dredges.

For in the gold country men will toil at their work, contented with their jobs and satisfied with their wage, and then, suddenly, comes the whispered news of a strike on some far distant creek or river. Men drop their tools and crowd about the bearer of the tale. Dull eyes gleam. Jaws clamp tight. And questions are followed by answers, jerked out in quick, tense sentences.

The crowd breaks up into small excited groups. Hurried partnerships are formed. An insistent, clamoring mob, fighting and gouging for place, crowds the paymaster’s window. Trail-packs are thrown together in a frenzy of haste and the meat-eaters are off on the trail of gold.

Such was the White River stampede. And the valley of the little creek, upon the head-waters of which John Enger struck gold, was transformed in a day to a valley of tents and of camp-fires, a valley whose sands bristled with the stakes of the greed-crazed miners.

And on the heels of the big stampede, in the interest of law and order, came big Sergeant Jim McGovern, Corporal Blaine, and “Rookie” Adair—B Division’s very newest recruit—the “mere boy” who is loved by the bearded men of the big country.

For they remember how, when the Sally West heeled over on her side and settled to the bottom of the river, the “kid” refused to climb aboard a convenient piece of wreckage, but remained to lash the unconscious form of his father, the Sally West's engineer, to a section of superstructure.

And they knew that because the meager flat could not bear the weight of two, the boy struck out for shore and was picked up hours later more dead than alive. Old Man Adair was pulled from the river, ten miles farther down, dead.

The kid then went down to Dawson where he sought out the Assistant Commissioner of the Mounted. Because the assistant commissioner had known Old Man Adair, and had heard the story of the wreck of the Sally West, he used his discretion, waived the “age twenty-two” clause, and enrolled the boy in the service.

 

THREE months later, the White River stampede broke, and Rookie Adair was detailed into the Klotassin.

The officers had been many days upon the trail. Upon their arrival at the big camp they proceeded to make snug for the Winter.

For the White River stampede was a Fall stampede. The creeks and rivers were freezing at night along their edges, and sourdoughs, wise in the ways of the North, were preparing for the snow, and after staking their claims, immediately turned to the building of comfortable quarters. But many there were whose inexperience was blatantly advertised by the slovenly, make shift shelters they had thrown together in their mad haste to “get into the gravel.”

Among these inexperienced men moved the three officers, warning, advising, and in many cases even assisting them to prepare for file inevitable. Thus it was that Sergeant McGovern, accompanied by Rookie Adair paused to speak to four men who were eating supper beside an open fire in the lee of a light shelter-tent.

“Hey, you fellers,” grinned the sergeant good-naturedly, “do you think this here country is a Summer resort? Here it is ’way into October and the big snow on you any day, and you layin’ ’round in the shade of a rag ’twouldn’t keep the cold off’n a husky dog. Get busy now and build yourselves somethin’ to live in. There ain’t no one goin’ to steal your claims.”

The four men glowered sullenly, and something in the eyes of one who appeared to be the leader, caused the sergeant to scrutinize him closely. Suddenly another, the youngest of the four spoke up.

“Suppose you mind your own business,” he said with an air of vaunting bravado. “I guess folks can live like they want to, can’t they? I’ve heard tell of you fellows, over acrost the line. You ain’t such a much. Leastways you don’t look good to me.”

McGovern regarded the younger man with a tolerant sneer.

“Oh, so you’re one of them tin horns from acrost the line, are you?”

“Tin horn, eh. You call me a tin horn? Say, I guess you don’t know who I am?”

McGovern laughed.

“No, can’t say as I do,” he admitted. “But you needn’t mind tellin’ me. I ain’t got no time for nonsense.”

“Oh, you ain’t eh,” retorted the other. “Well I’ll just tell you anyway. I’m ‘Bad Jack’ Creedy. That’s who I am. And I don’t need no nurse to tell me how to go to bed, neither, see?”

“Yes,” answered McGovern, “I see.”

And again he glanced sharply at the other man who was scowling his evident disapproval of Creedy’s outburst. Then without a word the two officers passed on.

When they were beyond ear-shot the leader’s scowl changed quickly to a grin. And with a swift wink toward the others, he addressed Bad Jack in a tone of admiration:

“That’s the way to hand it to him, kid. These Canucks over here have got it into their heads that their Mounted is all to the good. But over acrost the line we know better. I’ve run up against ’em before. Many a head of stock I’ve run acrost into Montana, right under their nose. An’ I never got caught neither.”

The youth swelled visibly under the man’s evident approval.

“They’ll have to go some to get us,” he said airily. “Gee, I’m glad I happened to fall in with you fellows, or I might have been working for wages yet over in the Tetling Mines.”

“Ain’t nothin’ in workin’ for wages,” assented the man hastily. “This gulch is full of men that has worked for wages. You just wait a couple of days till we can slip around and glom onto a poke or two, and every last man of ’em ’ll cache their wages in the tradin’ company’s safe. Then as soon as it snows, we’ll pour a little soup in the door and hit for the line. ’Tain’t over twenty or twenty-five mile. Then we can split up and lose ourselves over on the Tanana.”

“Sure,” assented Bad Jack, “we’ll show the Mounted up if we can only get to the line.”

“Get to the line,” growled the other. “How can we help but get to the line. We’ll pull off the job in the snow-storm. And with the snow coverin’ our tracks, we can make twenty-five mile with a twelve-hour start. I got four pair of rackets cached over in the timber.”

“I never walked on snow-shoes,” ventured Bad Jack, doubtfully.

“That don’t make no difference. Same as any other kind of walkin’. Just put ’em on and hike out. Still, if you don’t want to be in on this, you don’t need to. I ain’t strong for no chechako nohow. But I took a chance on you, ’cause I says to myself ‘There’s a kid,’ I says, ‘that’s got somethin’ to him.’”

“’Course, I’m in on it,” cried the other, flushing. “Didn’t I tell you I’d stick.”

“That’s all right,” laughed the man. “You got a good head on you kid, and you got the nerve.”

 

DAYS passed and the expected snow did not come.

Several miners visited the police tent and reported the loss of their money. News of this petty thievery spread through out the camp and the men placed their money in the little iron safe of the trading- company’s big tent. In every instance the thefts had occurred in the daytime, and the three officers patrolled unceasingly among the tents.

One morning as the three officers were eating breakfast before the little tent, Bad Jack Creedy passed with a rifle over his shoulder. McGovern hailed him. The young fellow paused, and eyed the three officers with a tolerant grin.

“Where’d you get your nick-name, kid?” asked McGovern suddenly.

“Tetling, over acrost the line. Where they ain’t afraid to carry guns—an’ use ’em, too, for that matter.”

“How old are you? An’ how long did you stay in Tetling?”

“I’m eighteen. I stayed there six months, an’ I let ’em see right off the reel I carried just as big a gun as any man in camp.”

“So they got to callin’ you Bad Jack, eh. An’ you never caught on, I suppose, that they was kiddin’ you? That you’re prob’ly the rawest thing in the shape of a chechako that ever hit a camp? No wonder the boys strung you along.”

The young fellow flushed.

“Is that so?” he exploded defiantly. “And that’s why, I suppose, when the news of this strike hit Tetling, Dick Sloan picked me out for one of his partners?”

McGovern nodded.

“Yep,” he said, “that’s why. Your partner calls himself Dick Sloan, eh. Well, that ain’t his name. I’ve seen him somewhere before, but I can’t place him. Whoever he is, you better cut loose from him, kid. I don’t know what his game is, but your Dick Sloan outfit ain’t here for no good—I know that much.

“An’ I know this, too—that when the time comes for ’em to duck from under, you’re goin’ to be left holdin’ the bag. That’s what they brought you along for. I’m tellin’ you this for your own good. You’re no bad actor. You’re just a kid that’s got a wrong start. I’ve run acrost a few of your kind. Most always they don’t get this far. Just listen for a minute an’ see if I can’t give it to you pretty straight.

“It starts about the time you begin playin’ hookey from school. You an’ some of your pals slip round amongst the alleys, smokin’ cigarets and readin’ dime novels. Then you get acquainted with other fellers that’s be’n runnin’ the alleys till the dime novel and cigaret stage has lost its excitement. They show you how to shoot craps, and how when you’re unlucky you can always get another stake, by hookin’ lead pipe an’ old brass an’ sellin’ it to the junk-men.

“Along ’bout this time you start rushin’ the can amongst the lumber piles an’ ware houses. Here’s where you begin pickin’ up with the bums, an’ the yeggs, an’ you learn a lot of deviltry, that you ain’t got the nerve to try on for yourself.

“There’s too many police in this country, you say. Now if I was out West where there is plenty of stages, where everybody travels the road, with ’bout a million dollars in gold-dust in each pants pocket, I’d have a snap. All a fellow needs is a fast horse and a forty-five revolver and a little nerve. It’s a cinch.

“Then you buy more novels an’ read up about Diamond Dick, an’ Black Bart, an’ Kid Curry, an’ the rest of the stickups. Then you put it up to your pals. But the West looks a long ways off an’ they ain’t got the grit. You try to argue ’em into it for a few days, but they’re plumb yeller an’ they’d ruther stage around the lumber piles talkin’ with the bums an’ the yeggs.

“So one bright mornin’, all by your lonesome, you hop a freight. You ain’t got no fast horse nor no gun, an’ you don’t know where you’re goin’, but you got the nerve, or you think you have, an’ that ’mounts to the same thing. A couple of weeks later you’re out West. You get a job in a sheep camp or a loggin’ gang. An’ you work three or four months till you get the lay of the land, an’ enough money to buy an outfit.

“’Bout that time you get wised up to the fact that you ain’t noticed no stage-coaches, an’ the fellows that travel the trail ain’t got no oncommon bulge to their pants pockets that looks like a gold-mine. ‘The West ain’t what it used to be,’ you decide, ‘I got to go further. Alaska,’ you say, ‘that’s the place for me. Every one’s got gold up in Alaska.’

“So you keep on workin’ till you get your stake saved up an’ then you hit for Alaska. First thing you do, you heel yourself with a forty-five. Skagway gives you kind of a jolt, when you can’t take your brand-new gun over die pass. So you come on to Valdez.

“Then you drift among the camps workin’ further an’ further into the country. An’ always posin’ with your blusterin’ an’ bluffin' as a bad man. You don’t fool no one. You don’t make no friends. The boys call you Bad Jack an’ they string you along, but you take it alj in earnest till you really get to believin’ you are a bad man.

“Right there you hit the danger line. The history of most of the ‘Bad Jacks’ winds up about there. They pick out some quiet, doleful-minded cuss that is wearin’ overalls an’ mindin’ his own business, an’ start somethin’. Couple hours later, after the last of the gravel is kind of rounded up over the bad man the boys goes back to take a drink. An’ the kindest thing that’s said about him is, that the ‘—— fool got what was comin’ to him.’

“Take you now. Tell me, how many friends have you got in Tetling? You ain’t got none, have you? You knew that, an’ it kind of got under your hide. ‘Posin’ as the camp’s bad man don’t get you no friends. But you started in that way an’ you got to play your string out.

“Then along comes Dick Sloan an’ he sizes you up in about a minute. He’s got some game or other up his sleeve, an’ he knows he can use you, so he starts in to be friends with you. He tells you about the White River stampede. He kids you ’long a little an’ you throw in with him. Why? Because here’s a friend—the first one you’ve found. An’ here you are.”

McGovern paused and regarded the youth intently. Bad Jack had listened to every word, and as he listened his face was a study. His truculence changed to interest, interest to a foolish shamefaced grin, and at the conclusion the grin gave place to a swift scowl of anger.

“Now don’t get mad, son,” said the sergeant, noting the change. “If I’ve called the turn, you know—I don’t—I was only guessin’. But if I did, ain’ it a pretty good time to stop an’ get a-holt of yourself? Because, believe me, I can tell you the rest of the story—an’ it won’t take long, neither.”

For just an instant the younger man hesitated, then with a growling, unintelligible retort, turned on his heel and the three officers watched in silence until he disappeared in the edge of the timber.

 

“YOU had him goin’, Jim,” said Rookie Adair, as the figure of Bad Jack passed from sight. “Gee, he’s a fool.”

“Yes, he’s a fool, kid, but he’s got some stuff in him somewheres, or he wouldn’t have had the nerve to push on into the big country. It’s just as I told. He’s got a wrong start, an’ I’m hopin’ we can bring him to his senses, before he gets in bad. We’ll try to work him around to our way of thinkin’. What’ll you bet that a year from now that kid will be ashamed he was ever called ‘Bad Jack’ Creedy?”

“I don’t know,” grumbled Corporal Blaine. “Once a crook, always a crook.”

“Not by a long shot,” broke in Rookie. “I don’t believe that for a minute. Besides, that fellow isn’t a crook yet.”

“No, but he’s headed that way mighty fast.”

“Yes, and it’s up to us to head him off,” retorted the boy. “Jim’s right. He hasn’t got a bad eye. He’s just a fool. And I could see Jim’s words got under his hide. If we could get him away from that bunch——”

Suddenly the boy’s eyes sparkled.

“Let’s pinch ’em for ‘vags,’” he cried. “Then we can take our time with Bad Jack. The way it is now, with these fellows around to call him a piker, he’ll be ashamed to quit them.”-

“You’re right there, son,” answered McGovern. “Only we can’t pick ’em up for ‘vags.’ They’ve got claims staked an’ they’ve got an outfit.”

During the morning, the weather thickened and the air was heavy with the feel of snow. Work on the claims was all but abandoned, while men hurriedly put the finishing touches upon their camps. Toward noon the storm broke, and the whole world became a dancing riot of flakes that whirled and eddied and covered the ground with a thick, soft carpet of white.

All through the night the snow fell. Early the following morning, Rookie Adair was awakened by a frantic clawing and scratching, at the flap of the tent. McGovern and Blaine still snored in their blankets. Suddenly, an excited face was thrust into the interior. It was the face of Hodson, the company’s storekeeper.

“Hey, get up quick!” the man roared. “Some one’s blowed the safe.”

McGovern and Blaine blinked sleepily at the face in the doorway.

“Safe,” cried Rookie. “What safe?”

“Why, the safe down to the store. We brung it up in a polin’ boat to keep the cash in. An’ not only that—when the money begun to be stole out of the tents, most of the boys brung their cash over to be locked up, too. There was dost to sixty thousan’ dollars in that safe—an’ every cent of it gone!”

As the man talked, the three officers climbed hastily into their clothing, and a moment later followed Hodson to the canvas store, at the lower end of the gulch.

“Why didn’t you tell us you had a lot of cash in your safe?” growled McGovern. “We didn’t even know there was such a thing as a safe in camp.”

“I don’t know,” whined Hodson. “Never thought of it. Never expected no one to blow a safe up here, nohow.”

Inside the store a group of excited miners had collected about the rifled safe.

“The fellows that did that knew their business,” said McGovern, after a thorough examination of the wrecked strong-box. “They did it in the early part of the night too—for they left no trail.”

As the news of the daring robbery spread over the camp, other men flocked to the tent, and ugly mutterings ran through the crowd. Some one produced a rope and a determined group edged toward the door way. McGovern turned suddenly upon them.

“Cut out that talk,” he said sharply. “We’re here to handle this case. We know who blew the safe. We know they headed for the line, an’ we’ll get ’em too, an’ they’ll get what’s comin’ to ’em. But, they’ll get it accordin’ to law, an’ not by verdict of no miners’ meetin’—an’ that goes! Here you sand hog—drop that rope!”

For a moment the crowd seemed to hesitate. Rookie, from his place at McGovern’s side allowed his eyes to travel over the faces of the men. And he noted with satisfaction that the sourdoughs were on the side of the police.

“Come on boys,” cried the youngster. “Jim’s right, and you know it. This is our job. It’s what we’re paid for.”

Somewhere in the crowd a man laughed.

“Kid’s right,” exclaimed a deep voice. “He’s there. The Mounted can handle ’em.”

 

AFTER a hasty breakfast the three officers fastened on their snow-shoes, and with several days’ provisions in their packs, struck into the timber.

“Seein’ as it’s quit snowin’,” observed the sergeant, “we’ll hit west about ten or fifteen mile an’ split up and hike north an’ south. It’s a cinch they hit for the line, an’ it’s a cinch they couldn’t of covered more than ten or fifteen mile in the night. After that, the trail will be plain enough for a blind man to follow.”

For two hours the three pushed steadily westward on the long lift of the divide. Suddenly, McGovern, who was in the lead, stopped abruptly and stared at a curious depression in the surface of the deep snow.

“What do you make of it, kid?” he asked, as Rookie Adair and Corporal Blaine halted beside him. Rookie scrutinized the shallow trough, whose unbroken surface was only slightly lower than the surface of the surrounding snow.

“Snow-shoe trail,” he answered, “but why is it heading north? And why does it run along the side of the ridge?”

The sergeant grinned.

“Can’t you guess the answer?” he asked.

Suddenly, Rookie straightened up. “It’s Bad Jack,” he cried, “and he’s lost.”

McGovern nodded.

“That’s right, son,” he answered, “he’s only be’n in the country six months. Prob’ly never had a pair of rackets on before. You see, his pals had that all figured out. They knew he couldn’t keep up with ’em. Figured he’d blunder round all night and half the next day before he petered out. An’ they figured we’d waste enough time followin’ his trail to let ’em over the divide.

“You see they got it in their heads that onct they cross the line they’re safe, as far as the Mounted is concerned. An’ when we come onto ’em they’ll put up a big yell about their rights. But, shucks. Inspector Constantine followed a fellow for six months, nabbed him down in Mexico, an’ brung him back by way of Halifax. As for us wastin’ time on this trail, they got another guess comin’.”

“One of us has got to hunt up this Bad Jack party, though, before he gets bushed an’ froze or kills his fool self. An’ the others keeps on after the gang.”

The sergeant paused and gazed speculatively at his two subordinates.

“You go after Bad Jack, kid,” he said, at length. “An’ when you get him, take him on to Dawson. Take him straight acrost. There ain’t nothin’ will do him so much good as a hundred-mile hike. You got grub enough to take you to old man Conrad’s, on Ladue Creek. Then cut acrost to Sixty-mile an’ on down the river an’ don’t be easy on him, neither. It’s just what he needs.”

“What charge shall I place against him?” asked the boy.

McGovern grinned.

“That’s up to you,” he said. “If I know anythin’ about it, it will take you a good week to make that hundred miles, an’ by the time you get to Dawson, you’ll know how his heart is.”

Rookie found no serious difficulty in following Bad Jack’s trail. It was a curious trail—aimless and circuitous, leading in and out among thickets, over logs, up hill and down. Evidently, the chechako’s one thought was to keep moving, regardless of obstacles or the conformation of the country.

During the afternoon the trail grew fresher and the signs told that the man had fallen frequently. Halting upon the top of a low ridge, the boy saw smoke ascending from the dense thicket a mile ahead, and abandoning the floundering trail, he cut straight through the timber. The camp was easily located, and after a few moments of reconnoitering the youngster slipped noiselessly to the fire.

Rolled in a single blanket close to the blaze lay Bad Jack. A rifle of heavy caliber leaned against a near-by tree, and three woolen socks and a pair of moccasins decorated some sticks stuck into the snow by the fireside. The other sock with the foot burned off lay smoking at the edge of the coals.

Rookie threw the rifle as far as he could and watched it bury itself in the deep snow.

It was late in the afternoon, and the boy made tamp, without waking Bad Jack. He selected a spot where the trees thinned, and at once proceeded to make himself comfortable for the night. Making sure that there were no overhanging branches above him, he scraped the snow from a space six or eight feet in diameter and built his fire. Then, with an abundance of wood within easy reach, he spread his blankets and sat down to his supper of bacon and tea.

The boy grinned as he glanced toward Bad Jack. He knew it would not be long before the other would awaken through sheer discomfort. The roaring fire the chechako had built beneath the branches of a snow-laden spruce was getting in its work and water was dropping upon the sleeping man’s blanket. Another sock tumbled into the blaze. Rookie noted also that Bad Jack had neglected to gather a supply of fire-wood, and that the muckluks which hung close to the fire were shriveled into hard lumps.

 

THE “BAD MAN” awoke with a start, sat up, and stared in bewilderment from his soaked blanket to the dying fire. Then slowly and stiffly he arose to his feet, growling at the sight of the charred socks. With chattering teeth and much groaning and muttering the chechako drew the remaining pair of coarse socks over his blistered feet.

His eye suddenly fell upon Rookie seated warm and comfortable upon his blankets close beside his little fire. He recognized the boy instantly, and swiftly his eyes sought the tree against which his rifle had leaned. He returned his gaze to Rookie who sat apparently oblivious to his presence.

“Well,” he growled at length. “What you doing here?”

“Camping,” answered Rookie, laconically. “I was waiting for you to wake up.”

“And now I’m awake, what you goin’ to do about it?”

“Nothing. We’ll just camp here till morning, then we’ll hit the trail.”

“Where to?”

“Dawson.”

“Dawson,” exclaimed the other. “I ain’t goin’ to Dawson.”

“Yes, you are,” answered the boy. “That’s just exactly where you are going.”

“You mean you’re goin’ to arrest me?” There was a contemptuous note in the chechako’s voice.

Rookie grinned.

“Nope, I ain’t going to; you’re arrested already.”

Bad Jack laughed.

“So you think you can take me to Dawson, do you?”

Rookie nodded.

“We start at daylight,” he answered. “And if I were you I’d get busy on those muckluks. Because a hundred-mile hike in your stocking feet ain’t going to be any snap.”

“A hundred miles,” cried the other. “I couldn’t walk a hundred miles in a month on snow-shoes. My feet’s all blistered now.”

Again Rookie grinned.

“And they’ll be blistered worse than that when you get there,” he answered cheerfully. “But, you’re going just the same.”

Bad Jack made no reply, but fingered gingerly the shriveled muckluks.

“These here ain’t no good,” he ventured at length. “They’re all knotted up.”

“Soak ’em and stretch ’em and then stuff ’em with brush,” advised Rookie. “Then dry ’em slow.”

The other glowered resentfully, and picking up the muckluks dabbled them in the shallow puddle of water that had collected about the edge of his fire.

“Got any grub?” he snarled after a while.

“Sure,” replied Rookie, “haven’t you?”

“Naw, the others packed the grub.”

“And pulled out on you, eh? Fine bunch to throw in with.”

Bad Jack finished stuffing spruce twigs into the muckluks, and picking up his ice-stiffened blanket, limped painfully through the snow to the boy’s fire. Rookie fried some bacon, which the other wolfed down greedily.

After his meal, Bad Jack lapsed into silence. Presently Rookie arose, and scraping his fire to the lower end of the cleared rectangle, threw boughs over the warmed spot and spread his blankets for the night. Then tossing an armful of wood upon the fire he “crawled in.”

Bad Jack eyed him furtively and glanced resentfully at his own blanket which had frozen stiff.

“Better roll in with me,” suggested the boy at length. “You’ll sleep better.”

The chechako glanced at him in surprise, but accepted the invitation eagerly. And soon the two were lying side by side between the blankets.

A long silence was broken at length by Bad Jack.

“Say kid, you never put no handcuffs on me.”

“Uh huh,” replied the boy sleepily. “You’ll sleep better without ’em.”

“But,” persisted the other, “what’s to hinder me from—from pulling out on you in the night?”

Rookie laughed.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Why—why acrost the line of course.”

“All right,” answered the boy sleepily. “Go ahead. See you in the morning.”

Bad Jack was puzzled. He planned his escape in detail. But the snow-trail had been too much for him and next morning when he awoke, Rookie had prepared breakfast.

The prisoner’s muscles were stiff and ached fearfully, and the boy noticed that he winced as he worked his swollen and blistered feet into the muckluks.

“How did you find things across the line?” Rookie asked cheerfully.

Upon receiving no answer he continued:

“It’s about eight miles to old man Conrad’s on Ladue Creek, and it’s going to be a pretty tough trail for you, but we ought to make it by noon. Then we’ll lay up for a couple of days and doctor your feet.”

“Eight miles,” groaned Bad Jack. “I couldn’t walk eight rods. I’ll never make it.”

“Oh, yes, you will,” encouraged the boy. “You’ve got to. We can’t stay here.”

“S’pose I won’t go?” growled Bad Jack surlily. “You can’t drag me, nor carry me.”

“No,” grinned Rookie. “I won’t try. I’ve got to hike on after breakfast. Maybe your friends will come back and hunt you up. Most likely, though, the four-legged wolves will find you first.”

For a long time Bad Jack sat gazing silently into the fire.

“I—I ain’t got no friends,” he said gruffly.

Rookie refilled his cup with tea and looked straight into his eyes.

“Buck up, Jack,” he said. “Maybe you’ll find friends where you least expect ’em.”

That eight-mile trail was a trail of torture for Bad Jack Creedy. At every step his blistered feet burned as if packed in live coals, and a hundred times he was on the point of quitting, but always the boy urged him on, helping him to his feet when he sprawled awkwardly in the snow, and, with the aid of a light pole, easing him up and down the steep sides of ridges. And long after noon when they reached the lone cabin on Ladue Creek, the prisoner barely managed to stagger through the door and throw himself in a huddled heap upon the bunk. Old man Conrad had thrown in with the Enger Creek stampede, and the two had the cabin to themselves.

Rookie produced his first-aid kit, and showed Bad Jack how to care for his feet, but it was three days before the prisoner was able to travel.

“We’ll start for Sixty-mile in the morning,” announced the boy as the two sat about the little stove, on the evening of the third day.

Bad Jack stared a long time at the stove.

“The big feller had it doped out right,” he ventured, after a long silence. “He sure called the turn. I’ve been doin’ a lot of thinkin’ the last four days, kid. Sure wished I’d of listened to him instead of them others—but it’s too late now. You’ve treated me white, kid. It’s like he said—I got a wrong start. But that wasn’t nobody’s fault but mine.

“When you arrested me I made up my mind I wouldn’t go to Dawson. But I’ve been thinkin’ it over considerable and I figured if I did get away from you, it wouldn’t get me nothin’. I’d always be on the run. I’ve had enough of trying to be a crook. Trouble with me is, I never done no thinkin’ before. Guess where I’m goin’ now though I’ll have plenty of time to think things out.

“I ain’t never been mixed up in no crooked work before. But that ain’t nothin’ to my credit—it was only because I never had a chance. I got it all doped out now. The best thing for me to do is to go down and own up to the judge and take my medicine. And when I get turned loose nobody won’t have anythin’ on me. I’ll make me a new start. A man can’t run straight less’n he starts straight, can he, kid?”

“No,” Rookie answered, meeting his gaze squarely. “He can’t. You said something, then, Jack.”

He held out a small hand and the other gripped it firmly.

“Come on,” said Bad Jack, “let’s roll in, so as we can get an early start. I want to hurry up and get it over with.”

 

AT DAWSON, the prisoner was hustled into a cell and Rookie Adair sought out the assistant commissioner with whom he was closeted for over an hour. When the interview closed the assistant commissioner reached for the telephone upon his desk and a few moments later a gray-haired man entered the room—a man who listened intently to what the assistant commissioner had to say, and asked Rookie a few curt questions.

“Bring the prisoner in,” he ordered at length, and the Boy hurried through the door and returned shortly with Bad Jack. The judge was the first to break the silence.

“What is your name?” he asked abruptly.

“Creedy” answered the prisoner. “Howard Creedy.”

“Where do you live?”

“Chicago,” answered the young man, “then Montana, then Tetling over on the Tanana, then I came over to the White River country.”

“What did you go to the White River country for?”

The prisoner flushed.

“We figured there would be some one over there with money,” he answered. “We thought we’d hold ’em up. Then we found out about the safe, an’ we swiped a few pocketbooks out of the tents, so the men would deposit their money and things. Then we waited for the snow to cover up our tracks and blowed the door of the safe.”

“It was a pretty smooth trick, wasn’t it?” asked the judge sharply.

“That ain’t the way it looks from here,” answered Bad Jack.

“Were these your ideas? Did you think them out?”

Bad Jack shook his head.

“No sir, but I was in on the job and if it had worked I would have taken my share.”

The judge’s frown deepened.

“So you admit you were guilty of safe robbing?”

“Yes sir,” answered Bad Jack firmly. “I do.”

A constable entered with a telegram which he laid upon the Assistant Commissioner’s desk. The officer read it and handed it to the judge.

“Your friends have been arrested,” he said, turning to the prisoner.

“They ain’t my friends,” answered Bad Jack, “I thought they was, but I know different now. I ain’t got no friends. There’s only one reason, Judge, it’s because I ain’t earned none. You see, Judge, I thought it was a fine thing to be known as Bad Jack Creedy. I thought I was gettin’ away with it, until the kid’s pardner, the big feller, called the turn on me. Then, I begun to see what a fool I was.

“But somehow, it seemed like I’d gone too far to turn back. But the kid here, he tamed me. He never said nothin’ much—just let me alone. But—I don’ know—I guess it was just the way he done things. Went at ’em like he know’d what was what. My bluffs about gettin’ away an’ not comin’ along didn’t get his goat. He’s a sure-enough sourdough an’ I’m a piker, an’ he showed me up proper.

“An’ he’s such a square kid an’ he treated me so white that I got to likin’ him, an’ I made up my mind I’d come along without givin’ him no trouble, an’ own up fair and square an’ take my medicine an’ start all over.”

The judge tugged at his gray mustache.

“Creedy,” he said, “you have pleaded guilty to a very serious charge. Have you anything to say—any reason to advance why you should not go to prison?”

Bad Jack shook his head.

“No sir,” he answered, “I guess not. You see, the big feller, he give me warnin’ an’ I didn’t have sense enough to take it.”

The judge nodded and cleared his throat.

“Young man,” he began, “I believe you have spoken the truth. I do not believe you are a criminal at heart. You have the eyes of an honest man. Nevertheless my duty to this Territory compels me to sentence you to three years at hard labor.”

The prisoner’s face paled at the words, but he gritted his teeth and met unflinchingly the stern-eyed gaze of the judge, who continued after a long pause:

“However, upon certain recommendations earnestly advanced by Constable Adair and seconded by my friend the assistant commissioner, I am constrained to believe it no less than my duty to commute this sentence.”

The judge reached for a pad of paper upon the desk and wrote rapidly for a few moments, while Bad Jack Creedy stared uncomprehendingly from face to face.

“You said,” continued the judge gruffly, “that you had no friends.”

He paused and pointed toward Rookie Adair.

“But, there stands one friend of yours, and I tell you right here, he is a friend worth having.”

He turned toward the assistant commissioner.

“And there sits another friend, and he, also, is a friend worth having. And you will find that Sergeant McGovern, the big fellow as you call him, who tried to show you where your course was leading you, is also your friend.”

He extended the paper upon which he had written.

“Take this down to the superintendent of the C. K. N. Company, and I think he will give you a job.”

The judge’s voice suddenly lost its note of gruffness. He walked over and laid a hand on Bad Jack’s shoulder.

“Son,” he said, “I believe you intend to run straight. You have got to run straight—it’s the only way. Whenever you feel like it, I wish you would come up to the house and talk things over with me, and I think, very probably, that you will find that I am one of your friends.”

Bad Jack tried to stammer his thanks, choked up, and grasped the judge’s hand, and then tightly clutching the paper, he turned toward the boy, who stood trim and neat in his service uniform, and the gray-haired judge and the stern-faced assistant commissioner watched in silence, as Rookie Adair and his prisoner left the room, arm in arm.