The man looked at him curiously.

“Oh, that’s all right,” he said, waving his hand deprecatingly.  “You needn’t think as I’ll ’arm you or your blasted dust.

“You’re a rum ’un, you are,” he added reflectively, as he watched the sweat pouring from off Kent’s face and the quavering of his knees.

“W’y don’t you pipe up an’ say somethin’?” he went on, as the other struggled for breath.  “Wot’s gone wrong o’ your gaff?  Anythink the matter?”

“W—­w—­where’d you get it?” Kent at last managed to articulate, raising a shaking forefinger to the ghastly scar which seamed the other’s cheek.

“Shipmate stove me down with a marlin-spike from the main-royal.  An’ now as you ’ave your figger’ead in trim, wot I want to know is, wot’s it to you?  That’s wot I want to know—­wot’s it to you?  Gawd blime me! do it ‘urt you?  Ain’t it smug enough for the likes o’ you?  That’s wot I want to know!”

“No, no,” Kent answered, sinking upon a stool with a sickly grin.  “I was just wondering.”

“Did you ever see the like?” the other went on truculently.

“No.”

“Ain’t it a beute?”

“Yes.”  Kent nodded his head approvingly, intent on humoring this strange visitor, but wholly unprepared for the outburst which was to follow his effort to be agreeable.

“You blasted, bloomin’, burgoo-eatin’ son-of-a-sea-swab!  Wot do you mean, a sayin’ the most onsightly thing Gawd Almighty ever put on the face o’ man is a beute?  Wot do you mean, you—­”

And thereat this fiery son of the sea broke off into a string of Oriental profanity, mingling gods and devils, lineages and men, metaphors and monsters, with so savage a virility that Jacob Kent was paralyzed.  He shrank back, his arms lifted as though to ward off physical violence.  So utterly unnerved was he that the other paused in the mid-swing of a gorgeous peroration and burst into thunderous laughter.

“The sun’s knocked the bottom out o’ the trail,” said the Man with the Gash, between departing paroxysms of mirth.  “An’ I only ’ope as you’ll appreciate the hoppertunity of consortin’ with a man o’ my mug.  Get steam up in that fire-box o’ your’n.  I’m goin’ to unrig the dogs an’ grub ’em.  An’ don’t be shy o’ the wood, my lad; there’s plenty more where that come from, and it’s you’ve got the time to sling an axe.  An’ tote up a bucket o’ water while you’re about it.  Lively! or I’ll run you down, so ’elp me!”

Such a thing was unheard of.  Jacob Kent was making the fire, chopping wood, packing water—­doing menial tasks for a guest!  When Jim Cardegee left Dawson, it was with his head filled with the iniquities of this roadside Shylock; and all along the trail his numerous victims had added to the sum of his crimes.  Now, Jim Cardegee, with the sailor’s love for a sailor’s joke, had determined, when he pulled into the cabin, to bring its inmate down a peg or so.  That he had succeeded beyond expectation he could not help but remark, though he was in the dark as to the part the gash on his cheek had played in it.  But while he could not understand, he saw the terror it created, and resolved to exploit it as remorselessly as would any modern trader a choice bit of merchandise.