“What’s the value of a coat like that little one?” interrupted Mac.

“Oh, about twenty dollars.”

“The Shageluks ask that much?”

Benham laughed.  “If you asked the Shageluks, they’d say forty.”

“You’ve been some time in this part of the world, I understand,” said the Colonel.

“Twelve years.”

“Without going home?”

“Been home twice.  Only stayed a month.  Couldn’t stand it.”

“I’ll give you twenty-two dollars for that coat,” said Mac.

“I’ve only got that one, and as I think I said—­”

“I’ll give you twenty-four.”

“It’s an order, you see.  Rainey—­”

“I’ll give you twenty-six.”

Benham shook his head.

“Sorry.  Yes, it’s queer about the hold this country gets on you.  The first year is hell, the second is purgatory, with glimpses ... of something else.  The third—­well, more and more, forever after, you realise the North’s taken away any taste you ever had for civilisation.  That’s when you’ve got the hang of things up here, when you’ve learned not to stay in your cabin all the time, and how to take care of yourself on the trail.  But as for going back to the boredom of cities—­no, thank you.”

Mac couldn’t keep his eyes off the little coat.  Finally, to enable him to forget it, as it seemed, he got up and opened Father Wills’ letter, devoured its contents in silence, and flung it down on the table.  The Colonel took it up, and read aloud the Father’s thanks for all the white camp’s kindness to Kaviak, and now that the sickness was about gone from Holy Cross, how the Fathers felt that they must relieve their neighbours of further trouble with the little native.

“I’ve said I’d take him back with me when I come up river about Christmas.”

“We’d be kind o’ lost, now, without the little beggar,” said the Boy, glancing sideways at Mac.

“There’s nothin’ to be got by luggin’ him off to Holy Cross,” answered that gentleman severely.

“Unless it’s clo’es,” said Potts.

“He’s all right in the clo’es he’s got,” said Mac, with the air of one who closes an argument.  He stood up, worn and tired, and looked at his watch.

“You ain’t goin’ to bed this early?” said Potts, quite lively and recovered from his cold bath.  That was the worst of sleeping in the Little Cabin.  Bedtime broke the circle; you left interesting visitors behind, and sometimes the talk was better as the night wore on.

“Well, someone ought to wood up down yonder.  O’Flynn, will you go?”

O’Flynn was in the act of declining the honour.  But Benham, who had been saying, “It takes a year in the Yukon for a man to get on to himself,” interrupted his favourite theme to ask:  “Your other cabin like this?”

Whereon, O’Flynn, shameless of the contrast in cabins, jumped up, and said:  “Come and see, while I wood up.”