“You let the kid alone.”

“Well, it’s mesilf that’ll take the liberty o’ mintionin’ that I ain’t goin’ to stand furr another minyit an Esquimer’s cuttin’ down my rations.  Sure it’s a fool I’ve been!”

“You can’t help that,” Mac chopped out.

“Say Mac,” said Potts in a drunken voice, “I’m talkin’ to you like a friend.  You want to get a move on that kid.”

“Kaviak’s goin’ won’t make any more difference than a fly’s.”

The other two grumbled incoherently.

“But I tell you what would make a difference:  if you two would quit eatin’ on the sly—­out o’ meal-times.”

“Be the Siven!”

“You lie!” A movement, a stool overturned, and the two men in the bunks were struck broad awake by the smart concussion of a gun-shot.  Nobody was hurt, and between them they disarmed Potts, and turned the Irishman out to cool off in his own cabin.  It was all over in a minute.  Kaviak, reassured, curled down to sleep again.  Mac and Potts stretched themselves on the buffalo-robe half under the table, and speedily fell to snoring.  The Boy put on some logs.  He and the Colonel sat and watched the sparks.

“It’s a bad business.”

“It can’t go on,” says the Colonel; “but Mac’s right:  Kaviak’s being here isn’t to blame.  They—­we, too—­are like a lot of powder-cans.”

The Boy nodded.  “Any day a spark, and biff! some of us are in a blaze, and wh-tt! bang! and some of us are in Kingdom Come.”

“I begin to be afraid to open my lips,” said the Colonel.  “We all are; don’t you notice?”

“Yes.  I wonder why we came.”

“You had no excuse,” said the elder man almost angrily.

“Same excuse as you.”

The Colonel shook his head.

“Exactly,” maintained the Boy.  “Tired of towns and desk-work, and—­and—­” The Boy shifted about on his wooden stool, and held up his hands to the reviving blaze.  “Life owes us steady fellows one year of freedom, anyhow—­one year to make ducks and drakes of.  Besides, we’ve all come to make our fortunes.  Doesn’t every mother’s son of us mean to find a gold-mine in the spring when we get to the Klondyke—­eh?” And he laughed again, and presently he yawned, and tumbled back into his bunk.  But he put his head out in a moment.  “Aren’t you going to bed?”

“Yes.”  The Colonel stood up.

“Did you know Father Wills went by, last night, when those fellows began to row about getting out the whisky?”

“No.”

“He says there’s another stampede on.”

“Where to?”

“Koyukuk this time.”

“Why didn’t he come in?”

“Awful hurry to get to somebody that sent for him.  Funny fellas these Jesuits.  They believe all those odd things they teach.”

“So do other men,” said the Colonel, curtly.

“Well, I’ve lived in a Christian country all my life, but I don’t know that I ever saw Christianity practised till I went up the Yukon to Holy Cross.”