41 Lure O Gold 1904

"
A
"
Few
"
"
The Lure o
Gold
"
What s all right?"
I asked.
"
Well, you see, my boy, we ve got a dead man down
below in that same hold, and I don t think he s stowed
away very tight."
dead man ?
said I,
raising my eyebrows.
"Yes."
"I
didn t know about that."
people aboard do know about it. He and the
beer bottles are every ounce of freight
we ve got aboard.
I hope his box won t get broken while we are pitching
about so. The men aboard this ship
I mean the
crew
are regular cranks for superstition,
so the Cap
tain had to have that dead box made big and square
instead of long and narrow, to fool em. He smuggled
it aboard as reindeer skins; otherwise those foolish
galoots might have left the ship at Nome every
mother s son of em. They were bitten by the gold
fever, as it was, and some of em got away, but we made
up the
beach."
number by stranded chaps picked up
on the
"But Nome isn t exporting any reindeer skins," I
said, laughing. "Wouldn t the crew have suspected
the deception
?
"
Not they. They re a little dull about some things,
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