“Cheerful cuss, ain’t he?” whispered Schiff.

“They say we’re a nation of gamblers.  Well, sir, the biggest game we play is the game that goes on near the Arctic Circle.”

“What’s the matter with Wall Street?”

“’Tisn’t such a pretty game, and they don’t play for their lives.  I tell you it’s love of gambling brings men here, and it’s the splendid stiff game they find going on that keeps them.  There’s nothing like it on earth.”

His belated enthusiasm deceived nobody.

“It don’t seem to have excited you much,” said Mac.

“Oh, I’ve had my turn at it.  And just by luck I found I could play another—­a safer game, and not bad fun either.”  He sat up straight and shot his hands down deep in the pockets of his mackinaws.  “I’ve got a good thing, and I’m willing to stay with it.”

The company looked at him coldly.

“Well,” drawled Potts, “you can look after the fur trade; give me a modest little claim in the Klondyke.”

“Oh, Klondyke!  Klondyke!” Benham got up and stepped over Kaviak on his way to the fire.  He lit a short briarwood with a flaming stick and turned about.  “Shall I tell you fellows a little secret about the Klondyke?” He held up the burning brand in the dim room with telling emphasis.  The smoke and flame blew black and orange across his face as he said: 

“Every dollar that’s taken out of the Klondyke in gold-dust will cost three dollars in coin.”

A sense of distinct dislike to Benham had spread through the company—­a fellow who called American enterprise love of gambling, for whom heroism was foolhardy, and hope insane.  Where was a pioneer so bold he could get up now and toast the Klondyke?  Who, now, without grim misgiving, could forecast a rosy future for each man at the board?  And that, in brief, had been the programme.

“Oh, 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.