going again. The face of Jim O Brien, a Mastodon King and old-time
comrade, caught his eyes. It was as a cue to him, seeming to rouse him
to do what he would never have dreamed of doing.
Can you lend me a thousand? he asked, almost in a whisper.
Sure, answered O Brien, thumping down a plethoric sack by the side of
Matthewson s. Though it s little faith I m having, John, that the
beast can do the trick.
The Eldorado emptied its occupants into the street to see the test. The
tables were deserted, and the dealers and gamekeepers came forth to see
the outcome of the wager and to lay odds. Several hundred men, furred
and mittened, banked around the sled within easy distance. Matthewson s
sled, loaded with a thousand pounds of flour, had been standing for a
couple of hours, and in the intense cold (it was sixty below zero) the
runners had frozen fast to the hard-packed snow. Men offered odds of
two to one that Buck could not budge the sled. A quibble arose
concerning the phrase break out. O Brien contended it was Thornton s
privilege to knock the runners loose, leaving Buck to break it out
from a dead standstill. Matthewson insisted that the phrase included
breaking the runners from the frozen grip of the snow. A majority of
the men who had witnessed the making of the bet decided in his favor,
whereat the odds went up to three to one against Buck.
There were no takers. Not a man believed him capable of the feat.
Thornton had been hurried into the wager, heavy with doubt; and now
that he looked at the sled itself, the concrete fact, with the regular
team of ten dogs curled up in the snow before it, the more impossible
the task appeared. Matthewson waxed jubilant.
Three to one! he proclaimed. I ll lay you another thousand at that
figure, Thornton. What d ye say?
Thornton s doubt was strong in his face, but his fighting spirit was
aroused the fighting spirit that soars above odds, fails to recognize
the impossible, and is deaf to all save the clamor for battle. He
called Hans and Pete to him. Their sacks were slim, and with his own
the three partners could rake together only two hundred dollars. In the
ebb of their fortunes, this sum was their total capital; yet they laid
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