ld coast song, made
of three languages, with its verses rhymed on each year since the first
beginning. Tradition laid it heavy upon each singer in his turn to keep
the pot a-boiling by memory or by new invention, and the chant went
forward with hypnotic cadence to a tune of larkish, ripping gayety. He
who had read over his old stained letters in the homesick afternoon had
waked from such dreaming and now sang:

"Once jes' onced in the year o' 49,
I met a fancy thing by the name o' Keroline;
I never could persuade her for to leave me be;
She went and she took and she married me."

His neighbor was ready with an original contribution:

"Once, once again in the year o' '64,
By the city of Whatcom down along the shore--
I never could persuade them for to leave me be--
A Siwash squaw went and took and married me."

"What was you doin' between all them years?" called Half-past Full.

"Shut yer mouth," said the next singer:

"Once, once again in the year o' 71
('Twas the suddenest deed that I ever done)--
I never could persuade them for to leave me be--
A rich banker's daughter she took and married me."

"This is looking better," said Bolles to Drake.

"Don't you believe it," said the boy.

Ten or a dozen years were thus sung.

"I never could persuade them for to leave me be" tempestuously brought
down the chorus and the fists, until the drunkards could sit no more,
but stood up to sing, tramping the tune heavily together. Then, just as
the turn came round to Drake himself, they dashed their chairs down and
herded out of the room behind Half-past Full, slamming the door.

Drake sat a moment at the head of his Christmas dinner, the fallen
chairs, the lumpy wreck. Blood charged his face from his hair to his
collar. "Let's smoke," said he. They went from the dinner through the
room of the great fireplace to his office beyond.

"Have a mild one?" he said to the schoolmaster.

"No, a strong one to-night, if you please." And Bolles gave his mild
smile.

"You do me good now and then," said Drake.

"Dear me," said the teacher, "I have found it the other way."

All the rooms fronted on the road with doors--the old-time agency doors,
where the hostiles had drawn their pictures in the days before peace had
come to reign over this country. Drake looked out, because the singing
had stopped and they were very quiet in the bunk-house. He saw the
Chinaman steal