"Yep, has fits," the man said, hiding his mangled hand from the
baggageman, who had been attracted by the sounds of struggle. "I'm
takin' 'm up for the boss to 'Frisco. A crack dog doctor there thinks that
he can cure 'm."
Concerning that night's ride, the man spoke most eloquently for
himself, in a little shed back of a saloon on the San Francisco water front.
"All I get is fifty for it," he grumbled; "an'I wouldn't do it over for a
thousand, cold cash."
His hand was wrapped in a bloody handkerchief, and the right trouser
leg was ripped from knee to ankle.
"How much did the other mug get?" the saloonkeeper demanded.
"A hundred," was the reply. "Wouldn't take a sou less, so help me."
"That makes a hundred and fifty," the saloonkeeper calculated; "and
he's worth it, or I'm a squarehead."
The kidnapper undid the bloody wrappings and looked at his
lacerated hand. "If I don't get the hydrophoby--"
"It'll be because you was born to hang," laughed the saloonkeeper.
"Here, lend me a hand before you pull your freight," he added.
Dazed, suffering intolerable pain from throat and tongue, with the
life half throttled out of him, Buck attempted to face his tormentors. But
he was thrown down and choked repeatedly, till they succeeded in filing
the heavy brass collar from off his neck. Then the rope was removed, and
he was flung into a cagelike crate.
There he lay for the remainder of the weary night, nursing his wrath
and wounded pride. He could not understand what it all meant. What did
they want with him, these strange men? Why were they keeping him pent
up in this narrow crate? He did not know why, but he felt oppressed by
the vague sense of impending calamity. Several times during the night he
sprang to his feet when the shed door rattled open, expecting to see the
Judge, or the boys at least. But each time it was the bulging face of the
saloon-keeper that peered in at him by the sickly light of a tallow candle.
And each time the joyful bark that trembled in Buck's throat was twisted
into a savage growl.