, help the puddin', Colonel," said the Boy like one who starts up
from an evil dream.

But they sat chilled and moody, eating plum-pudding as if it had been
so much beans and bacon. Mac felt Robert Bruce's expensive education
slipping out of reach. Potts saw his girl, tired of waiting, taking up
with another fellow. The Boy's Orange Grove was farther off than
Florida. Schiff and Hardy wondered, for a moment, who was the gainer
for all their killing hardship? Not they, at present, although there
was the prospect--the hope--oh, damn the Trader!

The Colonel made the punch. O'Flynn drained his cup without waiting for
the mockery of that first toast--_To our Enterprise_--although no one
had taken more interest in the programme than O'Flynn. Benham talked
about the Anvik saw-mill, and the money made in wood camps along the
river. Nobody listened, though everyone else sat silent, smoking and
sulkily drinking his punch.

Kaviak's demand for some of the beverage reminded the Boy of the
Christmas-tree. It had been intended as a climax to wind up the
entertainment, but to produce it now might save the situation. He got
up and pulled on his parki.

"Back 'n a minute." But he was gone a long time.

Benham looked down the toast-list and smiled inwardly, for it was
Klondyked from top to bottom. The others, too, stole uneasy glances at
that programme, staring them in the face, unabashed, covertly
ironic--nay, openly jeering. They actually hadn't noticed the fact
before, but every blessed speech was aimed straight at the wonderful
gold camp across the line--not the Klondyke of Benham's croaking, but
the Klondyke of their dreams.

Even the death's head at the feast regretted the long postponement of
so spirited a programme, interspersed, as it promised to be, with
songs, dances, and "tricks," and winding up with an original poem, "He
won't be happy till he gets it."

Benham's Indian had got up and gone out. Kaviak had tried to go too,
but the door was slammed in his face. He stood there with his nose to
the crack exactly as a dog does. Suddenly he ran back to Mac and tugged
at his arm. Even the dull white men could hear an ominous snarling
among the Mahlemeuts.

Out of the distance a faint answering howl of derision from some enemy,
advancing or at bay. It was often like this when two teams put up at
the Big Chimney Camp.

"Reckon our dogs are gettin' into trouble," said Salmon P. anxiously to
his deaf and crippled partner.