



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
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THE SIN THAT WAS HIS

By Frank L. Packard

The Copp Clark Co. Toronto, Canada

1917

THE SIN THAT WAS HIS




CHAPTER I--THREE-ACE ARTIE

|OF Arthur Leroy, commonly known throughout the Yukon as Three-Ace
Artie, Ton-Nugget Camp knew a good deal--and equally knew very
little. He had drifted in casually one day, and, evidently finding the
environment remuneratively to his liking, had stayed. He was a bird of
passage--tarrying perhaps for the spring clean-up.

He was not exactly elegant in his apparel, for the conditions of an
out-post mining camp did not lend themselves to elegance; but he was
immeasurably the best dressed and most scrupulously groomed man that
side of Dawson. His hands, for instance, were very soft and white; but
then, he did no work--that is, of a nature to impair their nicety.

His name was somewhat confusing. It might be either French or English,
according to the twist that was given to its pronunciation--and
Three-Ace Artie could give it either twist with equal facility. He
confessed to being a Canadian--which was the only confession of any
nature whatsoever that Three-Ace Artie had ever been known to make. He
spoke English in a manner that left no doubt in the world but that it
was his native language--except in the mind of Canuck John, the only
French Canadian in the camp, who was equally positive that in the person
of Three-Ace Artie he had unquestionably found a compatriot born to the
French tongue.

A few old-timers around Dawson might have remembered, if it had not been
so commonplace an occurrence when it happened, that Leroy, as a very
young man, had toiled in over the White Pass; though that being only a
matter of some four years ago at this time, Leroy was still a very young
man, even if somewhat of a change had taken place in his appearance--due
possibly, or possibly not, to the rigours of the climate. Three-Ace
Artie since then had grown a full beard. But Leroy's arrival, being but
one of so many, the old-timers had found in it nothing to remember.

Other and more definite particulars concerning Three-Ace Artie, however,
were in the possession of Ton-Nugget Camp. Three-Ace Artie had no
temperance proclivities--but he never drank during business hours. No
one had ever seen a glass at his elbow when there was a pack of cards on
the table! Frankly a professional gambler, he was admitted to be a
good one--and square. He was polished, but not too suave; he was
unquestionably possessed of far more than an ordinary education, but
he never permitted his erudition to become objectionable; and he had a
reputation for coolness and nerve that Ton-Nugget Camp had seen enhanced
on several occasions and belied on none. He was of medium height, broad
shouldered, and muscular; he had black hair and black eyes; under the
beard the jaw was square; unruffled, he was genial; ruffled, he was
known to be dangerous; and, still too young to show the markings of an
ungracious life, his forehead was unwrinkled, and his skin clear and
fresh.

Also, during his three months' sojourn in Ton-Nugget Camp, he was
credited, not without reason, in having won considerably more than
he had lost. Upon these details rested whatever claim to an intimate
acquaintanceship with Three-Ace Artie the camp could boast; for the
rest, Ton-Nugget Camp, in common with the Yukon in general, was quite
privileged to hazard as many guesses as it pleased!

In a word, such was Three-Ace Artie's status in Ton-Nugget Camp when
there arrived one afternoon a young man, little more than a boy,
patently fresh from the East. And here, though Ton-Nugget Camp was quick
to take the newcomer's measure, and, ignoring the other's claim to the
self-conferred title of Gerald Rogers, promptly dubbed him the Kid, it
permitted, through lack of observation, a slight detail to escape its
notice that might otherwise perhaps have suggested a new and promising
field for its guesses concerning Three-Ace Artie.

Though at no more distant a date than a few days previous to his
arrival, the Kid had probably never seen a “poke” in his life before,
much less one filled with currency in the shape of gold dust, he had, in
the first flush of his entry to MacDonald's, and with the life-long
air of one accustomed to doing nothing else, flung a very new and
pleasantly-filled poke in the general direction of the scales at the end
of the bar, and, leaning back against the counter, supporting himself on
his elbows, proceeded to “set them up” for all concerned. MacDonald's,
collectively and individually, which is to say no small portion of
the camp, for MacDonald's was at once hotel, store, bar and general
hang-out, obeyed the invitation without undue delay, and was in the act
of enjoying the newcomer's hospitality when Three-Ace Artie strolled in.

Some one nearest the bar reached out a glass to the gambler over the
intervening heads, the cluster of men broke away that the ceremony of
introduction with the stranger might be duly performed--and Ton-Nugget
Camp, failing to note the sudden tightening of the gambler's fingers
around his glass, the startled flash in the dark eyes that was instantly
veiled by half dropped, sleepy lids, heard only Three-Ace Artie's, “Glad
to know you, Mr. Rogers,” in the gambler's usual and quietly modulated
