Eyes centered on him, and silence began to fall.  He tried to speak, pulled off his mittens (which fell dangling from their cords), and clawed at the frozen moisture of his breath which had formed in fifty miles of running.  He halted irresolutely, then went over and leaned his elbow on the end of the bar.

Only the man at the craps-table, without turning his head, continued to roll the dice and to cry:  “Oh! you Joe!  Come on, you Joe!” The gamekeeper’s gaze, fixed on Smoke, caught the player’s attention, and he, too, with suspended dice, turned and looked.

“What’s up, Smoke?” Matson, the owner of the Annie Mine, demanded.

With a last effort, Smoke clawed his mouth free.  “I got some dogs out there—­dead beat,” he said huskily.  “Somebody go and take care of them, and I’ll tell you what’s the matter.”

In a dozen brief sentences, he outlined the situation.  The craps-player, his money still lying on the table and his slippery Joe Cotton still uncaptured, had come over to Smoke, and was now the first to speak.

“We gotta do something.  That’s straight.  But what?  You’ve had time to think.  What’s your plan?  Spit it out.”

“Sure,” Smoke assented.  “Here’s what I’ve been thinking.  We’ve got to hustle light sleds on the jump.  Say a hundred pounds of grub on each sled.  The driver’s outfit and dog-grub will fetch it up fifty more.  But they can make time.  Say we start five of these sleds pronto—­best running teams, best mushers and trail-eaters.  On the soft trail the sleds can take the lead turn about.  They’ve got to start at once.  At the best, by the time they can get there, all those Indians won’t have had a scrap to eat for three days.  And then, as soon as we’ve got those sleds off we’ll have to follow up with heavy sleds.  Figure it out yourself.  Two pounds a day is the very least we can decently keep those Indians traveling on.  That’s four hundred pounds a day, and, with the old people and the children, five days is the quickest time we can bring them into Mucluc.  Now what are you going to do?”

“Take up a collection to buy all the grub,” said the craps-player.

“I’ll stand for the grub,” Smoke began impatiently.

“Nope,” the other interrupted.  “This ain’t your treat.  We’re all in.  Fetch a wash-basin somebody.  It won’t take a minute.  An’ here’s a starter.”

He pulled a heavy gold-sack from his pocket, untied the mouth, and poured a stream of coarse dust and nuggets into the basin.  A man beside him caught his hand up with a jerk and an oath, elevating the mouth of the sack so as to stop the run of the dust.  To a casual eye, six or eight ounces had already run into the basin.

“Don’t be a hawg,” cried the second man.  “You ain’t the only one with a poke.  Gimme a chance at it.”

“Huh!” sneered the craps-player.  “You’d think it was a stampede, you’re so goshdanged eager about it.”