But too many of these men had put everything they had on earth into getting here; too many had abandoned costly outfits on the awful Pass, or in the boiling eddies of the White Horse Rapids, paying any price in money or in pain to get to the goldfields before navigation closed.  And now! here was Hansen, with all the authority of the A. C., shouting wildly:  “Quick, quick! go up or down.  It’s a race for life!”

Windy went on to tell how the horror of the thing dulled the men, how they stood about the Dawson streets helpless as cattle, paralysed by the misery that had overtaken them.  All very well for Hansen to try to relieve the congestion at the Klondyke—­the poor devils knew that to go either way, up or down, as late as this meant death.  Then it was whispered how Captain Constantine of the Mounted Police was getting ready to drive every man out of the Klondyke, at the point of the bayonet, who couldn’t show a thousand pounds of provisions.  Yet most of the Klondykers still stood about dazed, silent, waiting for the final stroke.

A few went up, over the way they had come, to die after all on the Pass, and some went down, their white, despairing faces disappearing round the Klondyke bend as they drifted with the grinding ice towards the Arctic Circle, where the food was caught in the floes.  And how one came back, going by without ever turning his head, caring not a jot for Golden Dawson, serene as a king in his capital, solitary, stark on a little island of ice.

“Lord! it was better, after all, at the Big Chimney.”

“Oh, it wasn’t so bad,” said Windy cheerfully.  “About the time one o’ the big companies announced they was sold out o’ everything but sugar and axe-handles, a couple o’ steamers pushed their way in through the ice.  After all, just as old J. J. Healy said, it was only a question of rations and proper distribution.  Why, flour’s fell from one hundred and twenty dollars a sack to fifty!  And there’s a big new strike on the island opposite Ensley Creek.  They call it Monte Cristo; pay runs eight dollars to the pan.  Lord!  Dawson’s the greatest gold camp on the globe.”

But no matter what befell at Dawson, business must be kept brisk at Minook.  The pianola started up, and Buckin’ Billy, who called the dances, began to bawl invitations to the company to come and waltz.

Windy interrupted his own music for further refreshment, pausing an instant, with his mouth full of dried-apple pie to say: 

“Congress has sent out a relief expedition to Dawson.”

“No!”

“Fact!  Reindeer.”

“Ye mean peacocks.”

“Mean reindeer!  It’s all in the last paper come over the Pass.  A
Reindeer Relief Expedition to save them poor starvin’ Klondykers.”

“Haw, haw!  Good old Congress!”

“Well, did you find any o’ them reindeer doin’ any relievin’ round Dawson?”

“Naw!  What do you think?  Takes more’n Congress to git over the Dalton Trail”; and Windy returned to his pie.