makes me feel I cud wurruk."

"Not in this climate; and you're safe to take cold in the reaction."

"Cowld is ut? Faith, ye'll be tellin' us Mr. Schiff got his toes froze
wid settin' too clost be the foire."

"You don't seriously mean you go on the trail without any alcohol?"
asks the Colonel.

"No, I don't go without, but I keep it on the outside of me, unless I
have an accident."

Salmon P. studied the trader with curiosity. A man with seven
magnificent dogs and a native servant, and the finest furs he'd ever
seen--here was either a capitalist from the outside or a man who had
struck it rich "on the inside."

"Been in long?"

"Crossed the Chilcoot in June, '85."

"What! twelve year ago?"

Benham nodded.

"Gosh! then you've been in the Klondyke?"

"Not since the gold was found."

"And got a team like that 'n outside, and not even goin' to Minook?"

"Guess not!"

What made the feller so damn satisfied? Only one explanation was
possible: he'd found a mine without going even as far as Minook. He was
a man to keep your eye on.

A goodly aroma of steaming oysters and of grilling moose arose in the
air. The Boy set up the amended bill of fare, lit the Christmas
candles--one at the top, one at the bottom of the board--and the
Colonel announced the first course, though it wasn't one o'clock, and
they usually dined at four.

The soup was too absorbingly delicious to admit of conversation. The
moose-steaks had vanished like the "snaw-wreath in the thaw" before
anything much was said, save:

"Nothin' th' matter with moose, hey?"

"Nop! Bet your life."

The "Salmi of ptarmigan" appeared as a great wash of gravy in which
portions of the much cut-up bird swam in vain for their lives. But the
high flat rim of the dish was plentifully garnished by fingers of
corn-bread, and the gravy was "galoppshus," so Potts said.

Salmon P., having appeased the pangs of hunger, returned to his
perplexed study of Benham.

"Did I understand you to say you came into this country to _prospect_?"

"Came down the Never-Know-What and prospected a whole summer at Forty
Mile."

"What river did you come by?"

"Same as you go by--the Yukon. Indians up yonder call it the
Never-Know-What, and the more you find out about it, the better you
think the name."

"Did you do any good at Forty Mile?"

"Not enough to turn my head, so I tried the Koyukuk--and other diggins
too."

"Hear that, Schiff?" he roared at his bandaged frien