“Rank.”

“No fun, hey?”

“That’s right.”  He restored the pipe, and drew gently.

“And yet to hear the General chirp—­”

“He’s got plenty o’ grit, the General has.”

“Has he got gold?”

Dillon nodded.  “Or will have.”

“Out of Minook?”

“Out of Minook.”

“In a sort of a kind of a way.  I think I understand.”  Benham wagged his head.  “He’s talkin’ for a market.”

Dillon smoked.

“Goin’ out to stir up a boom, and sell his claim to some sucker.”

The General reappeared with the whisky, stamping the snow off his feet before he joined the group at the table, where the Christmas-tree was seasonably cheek by jowl with the punch-bowl between the low-burnt candles.  Mixing the new brew did not interrupt the General’s ecstatic references to Minook.

“Look here!” he shouted across to Mac, “I’ll give you a lay on my best claim for two thousand down and a small royalty.”

Mac stuck out his jaw.

“I’d like to take a look at the country before I deal.”

“Well, see here.  When will you go?”

“We got no dogs.”

“We have!” exclaimed Salmon P. and Scruff with one voice.

“Well, I can offer you fellows—­”

“How many miles did you travel a day?”

“Sixty,” said the General promptly.

“Oh Lord!” ejaculated Benham, and hurriedly he made his good-byes.

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded the General with dignity.

“I’m only surprised to hear Minook’s twenty-four hundred miles away.”

“More like six hundred,” says the Colonel.

“And you’ve been forty days coming, and you cover sixty miles a day—­Good-bye,” he laughed, and was gone.

“Well—­a—­” The General looked round.

“Travelin’ depends on the weather.”  Dillon helped him out.

“Exactly.  Depends on the weather,” echoed the General.  “You don’t get an old Sour-dough like Dillon to travel at forty degrees.”

“How are you to know?” whispered Schiff.

“Tie a little bottle o’ quick to your sled,” answered Dillon.

“Bottle o’ what?” asked the Boy.

“Quicksilver—­mercury,” interpreted the General.

“No dog-puncher who knows what he’s about travels when his quick goes dead.”

“If the stuff’s like lead in your bottle—­” The General stopped to sample the new brew.  In the pause, from the far side of the cabin Dillon spat straight and clean into the heart of the coals.

“Well, what do you do when the mercury freezes?” asked the Boy.

“Camp,” said Dillon impassively, resuming his pipe.

“I suppose,” the Boy went on wistfully—­“I suppose you met men all the way making straight for Minook?”

“Only on this last lap.”

“They don’t get far, most of ’em.”

“But... but it’s worth trying!” the Boy hurried to bridge the chasm.