among
the onlookers. Daylight showed four queens and an ace; MacDonald four
jacks and an ace; and Kearns four kings and a trey. Kearns reached
forward with an encircling movement of his arm and drew the pot in to
him, his arm shaking as he did so.

Daylight picked the ace from his hand and tossed it over alongside
MacDonald's ace, saying:--

"That's what cheered me along, Mac. I knowed it was only kings that
could beat me, and he had them.

"What did you-all have?" he asked, all interest, turning to Campbell.

"Straight flush of four, open at both ends--a good drawing hand."

"You bet! You could a' made a straight, a straight flush, or a flush
out of it."

"That's what I thought," Campbell said sadly. "It cost me six thousand
before I quit."

"I wisht you-all'd drawn," Daylight laughed. "Then I wouldn't a'
caught that fourth queen. Now I've got to take Billy Rawlins' mail
contract and mush for Dyea. What's the size of the killing, Jack?"

Kearns attempted to count the pot, but was too excited. Daylight drew
it across to him, with firm fingers separating and stacking the markers
and I.O.U.'s and with clear brain adding the sum.

"One hundred and twenty-seven thousand," he announced. "You-all can
sell out now, Jack, and head for home."

The winner smiled and nodded, but seemed incapable of speech.

"I'd shout the drinks," MacDonald said, "only the house don't belong to
me any more."

"Yes, it does," Kearns replied, first wetting his lips with his tongue.
"Your note's good for any length of time. But the drinks are on me."

"Name your snake-juice, you-all--the winner pays!" Daylight called out
loudly to all about him, at the same time rising from his chair and
catching the Virgin by the arm. "Come on for a reel, you-all dancers.
The night's young yet, and it's Helen Breakfast and the mail contract
for me in the morning. Here, you-all Rawlins, you--I hereby do take
over that same contract, and I start for salt water at nine
A.M.--savvee? Come on, you-all! Where's that fiddler?"

CHAPTER III

It was Daylight's night. He was the centre and the head of the revel,
unquenchably joyous, a contagion of fun. He multiplied himself, and in
so doing multiplied the excitement. No prank he suggested was too wild
for his followers, and all followed save those that developed into
singing imbeciles and fell warbling by the wayside. Yet never did
trouble intrude. It was known on the Yukon that when