man connotes civilization; and he was sorely offended, though the
offense was of long standing. For years he had done a white man's work,
had done it alongside of white men, and often had done it better than
they did. He wore the same pants they wore, the same hearty woolens and
heavy shirts. He sported as good a watch as they, parted his short hair
on the side, and ate the same food--bacon, beans, and flour; and yet he
was denied their greatest diversion and reward; namely, whiskey. Cultus
George was a money-earner. He had staked claims, and bought and sold
claims. He had been grub-staked, and he had accorded grub-stakes. Just
now he was a dog-musher and freighter, charging twenty-eight cents
a pound for the winter haul from Sixty Mile to Mucluc--and for bacon
thirty-three cents, as was the custom. His poke was fat with dust. He
had the price of many drinks. Yet no barkeeper would serve him. Whiskey,
the hottest, swiftest, completest gratifier of civilization, was not for
him. Only by subterranean and cowardly and expensive ways could he get a
drink. And he resented this invidious distinction, as he had resented
it for years, deeply. And he was especially thirsty and resentful this
night, while the white men he had so sedulously emulated he hated more
bitterly than ever before. The white men would graciously permit him to
lose his gold across their gaming-tables, but for neither love nor money
could he obtain a drink across their bars. Wherefore he was very sober,
and very logical, and logically sullen.

The Virginia reel in the dance-room wound to a wild close that
interfered not with the three camp drunkards who snored under the piano.
"All couples promenade to the bar!" was the caller's last cry as the
music stopped. And the couples were so promenading through the wide
doorway into the main room--the men in furs and moccasins, the women
in soft fluffy dresses, silk stockings, and dancing-slippers--when the
double storm-doors were thrust open, and Smoke Bellew staggered wearily
in.

Eyes centered on him, and silence began to fall. He tried to speak,
pulled off his mittens (which fell dangling from their cords), and
clawed at the frozen moisture of his breath which had formed in fifty
miles of running. He halted irresolutely, then went over and leaned his
elbow on the end of the bar.

Only the man at the craps-table, without turning his head, continued
to roll the dice and to cry: "Oh! you Joe! Come on, you Joe!" T