It was dark when he arrived at Minto, but this served him.  No one saw him arrive.  Besides, he knew he would have moonlight by which to return.  He climbed the bank and pushed open the saloon door.  The light dazzled him.  The source of it was several candles, but he had been living for long in an unlighted tent.  As his eyes adjusted themselves, he saw three men sitting around the stove.  They were trail-travellers—­he knew it at once; and since they had not passed in, they were evidently bound out.  They would go by his tent next morning.

The barkeeper emitted a long and marvelling whistle.

“I thought you was dead,” he said.

“Why?” Morganson asked in a faltering voice.

He had become unused to talking, and he was not acquainted with the sound of his own voice.  It seemed hoarse and strange.

“You’ve been dead for more’n two months, now,” the barkeeper explained.  “You left here going south, and you never arrived at Selkirk.  Where have you been?”

“Chopping wood for the steamboat company,” Morganson lied unsteadily.

He was still trying to become acquainted with his own voice.  He hobbled across the floor and leant against the bar.  He knew he must lie consistently; and while he maintained an appearance of careless indifference, his heart was beating and pounding furiously and irregularly, and he could not help looking hungrily at the three men by the stove.  They were the possessors of life—­his life.

“But where in hell you been keeping yourself all this time?” the barkeeper demanded.

“I located across the river,” he answered.  “I’ve got a mighty big stack of wood chopped.”

The barkeeper nodded.  His face beamed with understanding.

“I heard sounds of chopping several times,” he said.  “So that was you, eh?  Have a drink?”

Morganson clutched the bar tightly.  A drink!  He could have thrown his arms around the man’s legs and kissed his feet.  He tried vainly to utter his acceptance; but the barkeeper had not waited and was already passing out the bottle.

“But what did you do for grub?” the latter asked.  “You don’t look as if you could chop wood to keep yourself warm.  You look terribly bad, friend.”

Morganson yearned towards the delayed bottle and gulped dryly.

“I did the chopping before the scurvy got bad,” he said.  “Then I got a moose right at the start.  I’ve been living high all right.  It’s the scurvy that’s run me down.”

He filled the glass, and added, “But the spruce tea’s knocking it, I think.”

“Have another,” the barkeeper said.

The action of the two glasses of whisky on Morganson’s empty stomach and weak condition was rapid.  The next he knew he was sitting by the stove on a box, and it seemed as though ages had passed.  A tall, broad-shouldered, black-whiskered man was paying for drinks.  Morganson’s swimming eyes saw him drawing a greenback from a fat roll, and Morganson’s swimming eyes cleared on the instant.  They were hundred-dollar bills.  It was life!  His life!  He felt an almost irresistible impulse to snatch the money and dash madly out into the night.