ough the snow, to git over here.
An' besides I cain't think right without I can rare back with my feet on
the table an' my back ag'in' a good solid log wall."

Cain, who understood and loved his employer, chuckled heartily. A few
minutes later he rolled up the blue print and buttoned his mackinaw. "By
the way, Waseche," he said, with his hand in the door latch, "I'm
sending you over a stenographer----"

"_Me_ one!" cried Waseche Bill in alarm.

"Yes, you need one. Be reasonable, and let me talk for a minute. Here
you are, one of the gold magnates of Alaska, and a lot of the
correspondence that comes in you've got to handle yourself. You know
your spelling and Mr. Webster's don't always agree, and your handwriting
is almost illegible in pencil--and worse in ink----"

"Well, ain't we got a half dozen stenographers now?"

"Yes, but they're all up to their ears in work, and we've been paying
them overtime to transcribe your scrawls into readable English. So I
heard of this fellow in Fairbanks, and sent for him. He came in
yesterday, with Black Jack Demeree's mail team." Cain's eyes twinkled as
he paused and grinned. "He's only been in the country a few weeks--a
rank _chechako_--but try to put up with him, because stenographers are
hard to get and he seems to be a good one. I'll send him over with a
couple of men to carry his outfit. I thought I ought to break the news
to you----"

"An' I ort to break your neck," growled Waseche. "But send him
along--mebbe my spellin' an', as the fellow says, chiropody, aint what
it ort to be--anyway we'll try him."

A few minutes later the door opened and a couple of miners entered with
a chair and a table, upon which they deposited a typewriter. Waseche
glared as the miners withdrew, and a young man of twenty-one or-two
stepped into the room. He was a tall, pale young man with store clothes
and nose glasses. Waseche continued to glare as the newcomer addressed
him:

"Is this Mr. Antrim? I'm the new stenographer. You were expecting me,
sir?"

Waseche eyed him from top to toe, and shook his head in resignation.
"Well--almost, from what Cain said--but not quite. Was you born in
servitude?"

The newcomer shifted his weight to the other foot. "Sir?" he asked,
doubtfully.

Waseche deliberately filled his pipe and, tilting his chair against the
wall, folded his arms. "Yup--that's what I meant--that 'sir,' an' the
'Mister Antrim.' I ain't no Englishman. I'm an American. I ain't no