"Well, gentlemen, I do not disguise from you that, when I heard of the large amount of whiskey, the small amount of food, and the low type of manners brought in by these gold-seekers, I felt my fears justified.  Such men don’t work, don’t contribute anything to the decent social life of the community, don’t build cabins like this.  When I came down on the ice the first time after you’d camped, and I looked up and saw your solid stone chimney" (he glanced at Mac), "I didn’t know what a House-Warming it would make; but already, from far off across the ice and snow, that chimney warmed my heart.  Gentlemen, the fame of it has gone up the river and down the river.  Father Orloff is coming to see it next week, and so are the white traders from Anvik and Andreiefsky, for they’ve heard there’s nothing like it in the Yukon.  Of course, I know that you gentlemen have not come to settle permanently.  I know that when the Great White Silence, as they call the long winter up here, is broken by the thunder of the ice rushing down to the sea, you, like the rest, will exchange the snow-fields for the gold-fields, and pass out of our ken.  Now, I’m not usually prone to try my hand at prophecy; but I am tempted to say, even on our short acquaintance, that I am tolerably sure that, while we shall be willing enough to spare most of the new-comers to the Klondyke, we shall grudge to the gold-fields the men who built this camp and warmed this cabin." (His eye rested reflectively on Mac.) "I don’t wish to sit down leaving an impression of speaking with entire lack of sympathy of the impulse that brings men up here for gold.  I believe that, even with the sort in the two camps below Ikogimeut—­drinking, quarrelling, and making trouble with the natives at the Russian mission—­I believe that even with them, the gold they came up here for is a symbol—­a fetich, some of us may think.  When such men have it in their hands, they feel dimly that they are laying tangible hold at last on some elusive vision of happiness that has hitherto escaped them.  Behind each man braving the Arctic winter up here, is some hope, not all ignoble; some devotion, not all unsanctified.  Behind most of these men I seem to see a wife or child, a parent, or some dear dream that gives that man his share in the Eternal Hope.  Friends, we call that thing we look for by different names; but we are all seekers after treasure, all here have turned our backs on home and comfort, hunting for the Great Reward—­each man a new Columbus looking for the New World.  Some of us looking north, some south, some"—­he hesitated the briefest moment, and then with a faint smile, half sad, half triumphant, made a little motion of his head—­"some of us ... looking upwards."

But quickly, as though conscious that, if he had raised the moral tone of the company, he had not raised its spirits, he hurried on: