“Gone!” Tommy’s voice rang out.  “To Porportuk, for twenty-six thousand dollars.”

Porportuk glanced uneasily at Akoon.  All eyes were centred upon Akoon, but he did nothing.

“Let the scales be brought,” said El-Soo.

“I shall make payment at my house,” said Porportuk.

“Let the scales be brought,” El-Soo repeated.  “Payment shall be made here where all can see.”

So the gold scales were brought from the trading post, while Porportuk went away and came back with a man at his heels, on whose shoulders was a weight of gold-dust in moose-hide sacks.  Also, at Porportuk’s back, walked another man with a rifle, who had eyes only for Akoon.

“Here are the notes and mortgages,” said Porportuk, “for fifteen thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents.”

El-Soo received them into her hands and said to Tommy, “Let them be reckoned as sixteen thousand.”

“There remains ten thousand dollars to be paid in gold,” Tommy said.

Porportuk nodded, and untied the mouths of the sacks.  El-Soo, standing at the edge of the bank, tore the papers to shreds and sent them fluttering out over the Yukon.  The weighing began, but halted.

“Of course, at seventeen dollars,” Porportuk had said to Tommy, as he adjusted the scales.

“At sixteen dollars,” El-Soo said sharply.

“It is the custom of all the land to reckon gold at seventeen dollars for each ounce,” Porportuk replied.  “And this is a business transaction.”

El-Soo laughed.  “It is a new custom,” she said.  “It began this spring.  Last year, and the years before, it was sixteen dollars an ounce.  When my father’s debt was made, it was sixteen dollars.  When he spent at the store the money he got from you, for one ounce he was given sixteen dollars’ worth of flour, not seventeen.  Wherefore, shall you pay for me at sixteen, and not at seventeen.”  Porportuk grunted and allowed the weighing to proceed.

“Weigh it in three piles, Tommy,” she said.  “A thousand dollars here, three thousand here, and here six thousand.”

It was slow work, and, while the weighing went on, Akoon was closely watched by all.

“He but waits till the money is paid,” one said; and the word went around and was accepted, and they waited for what Akoon should do when the money was paid.  And Porportuk’s man with the rifle waited and watched Akoon.

The weighing was finished, and the gold-dust lay on the table in three dark-yellow heaps.  “There is a debt of my father to the Company for three thousand dollars,” said El-Soo.  “Take it, Tommy, for the Company.  And here are four old men, Tommy.  You know them.  And here is one thousand dollars.  Take it, and see that the old men are never hungry and never without tobacco.”

Tommy scooped the gold into separate sacks.  Six thousand dollars remained on the table.  El-Soo thrust the scoop into the heap, and with a sudden turn whirled the contents out and down to the Yukon in a golden shower.  Porportuk seized her wrist as she thrust the scoop a second time into the heap.