They knew it was his way of saying “She’s told me.”  They all sat and looked at the floor.  Nothing happened for a long time.  At last:  “Well, you all know what my next move is; what’s yours?”

There was another silence, but not nearly so long.

“What prospects, pardners?” he repeated.

The Boy looked at Maudie.  She made a little gesture of “I’ve done all the fightin’ I’m good for.”  The Colonel’s eyes, clear again and tranquil, travelled from face to face.

O’Flynn cleared his throat, but it was Mac who spoke.

“Yes—­a—­we would like to hold a last—­hold a counsel o’ war.  We’ve always kind o’ followed your notions—­at least”—­veracity pared down the compliment—­“at least, you can’t say but what we’ve always listened to you.”

“Yes, you might just—­a—­start us as well as you can,” says Potts.

The Colonel smiled a little.  Each man still “starting”—­forever starting for somewhere or something, until he should come to this place where the Colonel was.  Even he, why, he was “starting” too.  For him this was no end other than a chapter’s ending.  But these men he had lived and suffered with, they all wanted to talk the next move over—­not his, theirs—­all except the Boy, it seemed.

Mac was in the act of changing his place to be nearer the Colonel, when Potts adroitly forestalled him.  The others drew off a little and made desultory talk, while Potts in an undertone told how he’d had a run of bad luck.  No doubt it would turn, but if ever he got enough again to pay his passage home, he’d put it in the bank and never risk it.

“I swear I wouldn’t!  I’ve got to go out in the fall—­goin’ to get myself married Christmas; and, if she’s willing, we’ll come up here on the first boat in the spring—­with backing this time.”

He showed a picture.  The Colonel studied it.

“I believe she’ll come,” he said.

And Potts was so far from clairvoyance that he laughed, awkwardly flattered; then anxiously:  “Wish I was sure o’ my passage money.”

When Potts, before he meant to, had yielded place to O’Flynn, the Colonel was sworn to secrecy, and listened to excited whispers of gold in the sand off yonder on the coast of the Behring Sea.  The world in general wouldn’t know the authenticity of the new strike till next season.  He and Mrs. O’Flynn would take the first boat sailing out of San Francisco in the spring.

“Oh, you’re going outside too?”

“In the fahll—­yes, yes.  Ye see, I ain’t like the rest.  I’ve got Mrs. O’Flynn to consider.  Dawson’s great, but it ain’t the place to start a famully.”

“Where you goin’, Mac?” said the Colonel to the irate one, who was making for the door.  “I want a little talk with you.”

Mac turned back, and consented to express his opinion of the money there was to be made out of tailings by means of a new hydraulic process.  He was going to lend Kaviak to Sister Winifred again on the old terms.  She’d take him along when she returned to Holy Cross, and Mac would go outside, raise a little capital, return, and make a fortune.  For the moment he was broke—­hadn’t even passage money.  Did the Colonel think he could——­