“When did you come to town?” asked the Colonel mendaciously.

“Why, nearly three weeks ago, on the Weare.  Heard you had skipped out to Sulphur with MacCann.  I had some business out that way, so that’s where I been.”

“Have some breakfast, won’t you—­dinner, I mean?”

“I put that job through at the Road House.  Got to rustle around now and get my tent up.  Where’s a good place?”

“Well, I—­I hardly know.  Goin’ to stay some time?”

“Depends.”

The Boy slipped off his pack.

“They’ve got rooms at the Gold Belt,” he said.

“You mean that Dance Hall up at the Forks?”

“Oh, it ain’t so far.  I remember you can walk.”

“I can do one or two other things.  Take care you don’t hurt yourself worryin’ about me.”

“Hurt myself?”

“Yes.  Bein’ so hospittable.  The way you’re pressin’ me to settle right down here, near’s possible—­why, it’s real touchin’.”

He laughed, and went to the entrance to tic back the door-flap, which was whipping and snapping in the breeze.  Heaven be praised! the night was cooler.  Nig had been perplexed when he saw the pack pushed under the table.  He followed his master to the door, and stood looking at the flap-tying, ears very pointed, critical eye cocked, asking as plain as could be, “You wake me up and drag me out here into the heat and mosquitoes just to watch you doin’ that?  Well, I’ve my opinion of you.”

“Colonel gone down?” inquired the Silesian, passing by.

“Not yet.”

“Anything I can do?” the gentleman inside was saying with a sound of effort in his voice.  The lady was not even at the pains to notice the perfunctory civility.

“Well, Colonel, now you’re here, what do you think o’ the Klondyke?”

“Think?  Well, there’s no doubt they’ve taken a lot o’ gold out o’ here.”

“Reg’lar old Has Been, hey?”

“Oh, I don’t say it hasn’t got a future.”

“What!  Don’t you know the boom’s busted?”

“Well, no.”

“Has.  Tax begun it.  Too many cheechalkos are finishing it.  Klondyke?” She laughed.  “The Klondyke’s goin’ to hell down-grade in a hand-car.”

Scowl Austin was up, ready, as usual, to relieve Seymour of half the superintending, but never letting him off duty till he had seen the new shift at work.  As the Boy limped by with the German, Austin turned his scowl significantly towards the Colonel’s tent.

“Good-mornin’—­good-night, I mean,” laughed the lame man, just as if his tongue had not run away with him the last time the two had met.  It was not often that anyone spoke so pleasantly to the owner of No. 0.  Perhaps the circumstance weighed with him; at all events, he stopped short.  When the German had gone on, “Foot’s better,” Austin asserted.

“Perhaps it is a little,” though the lame man had no reason to think so.

“Lucky you heal quick.  Most people don’t up here—­livin’ on the stale stuff we get in this——­country.  Seymour said anything to you about a job?”