Porportuk
went away and came back with a man at his heels, on whose shoulders was a
weight of gold-dust in moose-hide sacks. Also, at Porportuk's back,
walked another man with a rifle, who had eyes only for Akoon.

"Here are the notes and mortgages," said Porportuk, "for fifteen thousand
nine hundred and sixty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents."

El-Soo received them into her hands and said to Tommy, "Let them be
reckoned as sixteen thousand."

"There remains ten thousand dollars to be paid in gold," Tommy said.

Porportuk nodded, and untied the mouths of the sacks. El-Soo, standing
at the edge of the bank, tore the papers to shreds and sent them
fluttering out over the Yukon. The weighing began, but halted.

"Of course, at seventeen dollars," Porportuk had said to Tommy, as he
adjusted the scales.

"At sixteen dollars," El-Soo said sharply.

"It is the custom of all the land to reckon gold at seventeen dollars for
each ounce," Porportuk replied. "And this is a business transaction."

El-Soo laughed. "It is a new custom," she said. "It began this spring.
Last year, and the years before, it was sixteen dollars an ounce. When
my father's debt was made, it was sixteen dollars. When he spent at the
store the money he got from you, for one ounce he was given sixteen
dollars' worth of flour, not seventeen. Wherefore, shall you pay for me
at sixteen, and not at seventeen." Porportuk grunted and allowed the
weighing to proceed.

"Weigh it in three piles, Tommy," she said. "A thousand dollars here,
three thousand here, and here six thousand."

It was slow work, and, while the weighing went on, Akoon was closely
watched by all.

"He but waits till the money is paid," one said; and the word went around
and was accepted, and they waited for what Akoon should do when the money
was paid. And Porportuk's man with the rifle waited and watched Akoon.

The weighing was finished, and the gold-dust lay on the table in three
dark-yellow heaps. "There is a debt of my father to the Company for
three thousand dollars," said El-Soo. "Take it, Tommy, for the Company.
And here are four old men, Tommy. You know them. And here is one
thousand dollars. Take it, and see that the old men are never hungry and
never without tobacco."

Tommy scooped the gold into separate sacks. Six thousand dollars
remained on the table. El-Soo thrust the scoop into the heap, and with a
sudden turn whirled the contents out and down