Still savage of spirit, though rapidly toning down, the king shook hands and flung out of the room.  Before the door could close on his heels, a loose-jointed Yankee shambled in, thrust a moccasined foot to the side and hooked a chair under him, and sat down.

“Say,” he opened up, confidentially, “people’s gittin’ scairt over the grub proposition, I guess some.”

“Hello, Dave.  That you?”

“S’pose so.  But ez I was saying there’ll be a lively stampede fer the Outside soon as the river freezes.”

“Think so?”

“Unh huh.”

“Then I’m glad to hear it.  It’s what the country needs.  Going to join them?”

“Not in a thousand years.”  Dave Harney threw his head back with smug complacency.  “Freighted my truck up to the mine yesterday.  Wa’n’t a bit too soon about it, either.  But say . . .  Suthin’ happened to the sugar.  Had it all on the last sled, an’ jest where the trail turns off the Klondike into Bonanzo, what does that sled do but break through the ice!  I never seen the beat of it—­the last sled of all, an’ all the sugar!  So I jest thought I’d drop in to-day an’ git a hundred pounds or so.  White or brown, I ain’t pertickler.”

Jacob Welse shook his head and smiled, but Harney hitched his chair closer.

“The clerk of yourn said he didn’t know, an’ ez there wa’n’t no call to pester him, I said I’d jest drop round an’ see you.  I don’t care what it’s wuth.  Make it a hundred even; that’ll do me handy.

“Say,” he went on easily, noting the decidedly negative poise of the other’s head.  “I’ve got a tolerable sweet tooth, I have.  Recollect the taffy I made over on Preacher Creek that time?  I declare! how time does fly!  That was all of six years ago if it’s a day.  More’n that, surely.  Seven, by the Jimcracky!  But ez I was sayin’, I’d ruther do without my plug of ‘Star’ than sugar.  An’ about that sugar?  Got my dogs outside.  Better go round to the warehouse an’ git it, eh?  Pretty good idea.”

But he saw the “No” shaping on Jacob Welse’s lips, and hurried on before it could be uttered.

“Now, I don’t want to hog it.  Wouldn’t do that fer the world.  So if yer short, I can put up with seventy-five—­” (he studied the other’s face), “an’ I might do with fifty.  I ‘preciate your position, an’ I ain’t low-down critter enough to pester—­”

“What’s the good of spilling words, Dave?  We haven’t a pound of sugar to spare—­”

“Ez I was sayin’, I ain’t no hog; an’ seein’ ’s it’s you, Welse, I’ll make to scrimp along on twenty-five—­”

“Not an ounce!”

“Not the least leetle mite?  Well, well, don’t git het up.  We’ll jest fergit I ast you fer any, an’ I’ll drop round some likelier time.  So long.  Say!” He threw his jaw to one side and seemed to stiffen the muscles of his ear as he listened intently.  “That’s the Laura’s whistle.  She’s startin’ soon.  Goin’ to see her off?  Come along.”