“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 friend.  “Never say die!  This gen’l’man’s been at it twelve years—­tried more ’n one camp, but now—­well, he’s so well fixed he don’t care a cuss about the Klondyke.”

Schiff lit up and pulled hard at the cutty.

O’Flynn had taken Kaviak to the fire, and was showing him how to roast half a petaty in wood ashes; but he was listening to the story and putting in “Be the Siven!” at appropriate moments.