A Daughter of the Snows

serious, but that it may not become more serious. Both you and I have handled famines before. We must frighten them, and frighten them now, before it is too late. Take five thousand me

nd rested his hand on the door-knob. "I see already, thanks to you, the newcomers are beginning to sell their outfits and buy dogs. Lord! won't there be a stampede out over the ice as so

red grubless men aboard. Would

the way, when does

arracks. I don't know all their names, but just the same extend the invitation as though from me personally. I haven't cultivated the social sid

e guard-rail of the stove. For one half-minute a girlish vision wavered in th

er sent me to find out if he is to go

them down by half. If a man holds an order

and tilted back a

egor wants to

d hi

n in every line of his bitter-seamed face, while a prognathous jaw proclaimed to the onlooker that honesty was the best policy,-for the onlooker at any rate, should he wish to do busi

in an hour, sir; so I've

hirled his chair abou

A

; but I have changed my mind and chosen you t

other, and a shrewd chuckle of a smile wrinkled the c

ctions as you go aboard. But let me say this: If we can't scare enough men out of

A

as the river freezes. You'll have a thousand to feed through the winter. Put them on rations,-working rations,-and see that they

A

. They can get ugly anyway. Watch out they don

ripped unconsciously, while the scar

essenger down to Fort Burr, asking Mr. Carter for three of his men. He doesn't need them. Nothing much is doing at Circle City. Stop in on the way down and take half of Mr. Burdwell's men. You'll need t

s," Captain McGregor rumbled b

. Melton, sir.

the heels of the clerk, and he almost walked over him as he flourished a

t and looked up coolly. "O

you've got in the warehouse says n

ke the

ut

unds, but in the warehouse it

sting the receipt again int

es

e you going t

red. What are you g

e to t

ere is no furt

'm rich enough to freight my own stuff in over the Passes, and I

dred thousand dollars in dust deposited with

get that other five hundred? Great God, man! I'

the ash from his cigar. "At this very moment what

nd pounds

ur own

king nodde

lse's forehead. "You are working for your own stomac

Ready's thousand pound

id not go into ef

e one to get it

me yesterday, and

acob Welse answered his own que

idence. You went through the Forty Mile Famine. You are a white man. A Bonanzo property, or a block of Bonanzo properties, does not entitle you to a pound more than the oldest pennil

of the room. Before the door could close on his heels, a loose-jointed Yankee shamble

y, "people's gittin' scairt over t

Dave. Th

s saying there'll be a

n as the ri

ink

h h

. It's what the country n

. . . 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

d and smiled, but Harney

all to pester him, I said I'd jest drop round an' see you. I don'

eacher 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

Jacob Welse's lips, and hurried

can put up with seventy-five-" (he studied the other's face), "an' I might do wit

ng words, Dave? We haven't

n' seein' 's it's you, Welse, I'll

an ou

und some likelier time. So long. Say!" He threw his jaw to one side and seemed to stiffen the muscles of his ea

arent crowd. Many were serious-faced, and more than one looked darkly at the head of the company as he passed. The clerks were selling everything except grub, and it was grub that was in demand

notices of sales of outfits. The timid were already growing frightened. Outfits of five hundred pounds were offering at a dollar a pound, without flour; others, with flour, at a dollar

sugar, Dave?" Jacob Welse ask

llin'. I've clean wore my dogs out chasin' round from Klondike Ci

waiting huskies curled up in wolfish comfort in the snow. It was for this snow, the first

two five-hundred-foot Eldorado claims an' a fraction, wuth five millions if I'm wuth a cent, an' no sweetenin' fer my coffee

o say nothing of going through two famines; and you haven't turned your back on the country yet. And you never will. And you'll die here as sure as that's the Laura's spring being hauled aboard. And

Those who knew him were mainly old-timers and he knew them all by name,

Paris in 1900," the Eldo

ore filled the air with good-luck farewells and last advice, but the three hundred grubless ones, turning their backs on the golden dream, were moody and dispirite

ve Harney forgot to curse the country for its sugar shortage, and waxed facetious over the newcomers,-chechaquos, he called them, having recourse to the Siwash tongue. In the

edge of which they drifted, waiting for an opening. Opposite the channel cut out by the steamer, they drove their paddles deep and darte

. As for the men, so frosted were they, and so numb with the cold, that they could hardly stand. Dave Harney propos

've got despatches for you, but I'll see you later. Got to get something into me first." Turning to go w

him and his mate. "Tell 'm it's on me, double dose, an' je

ove aboard was sending up a trailing pillar of blue smoke, and, as the boat drew closer, they could see a woman in the stern working the long steering-sweep. At sight of this there was a snap and sparkle in Jacob Welse's eyes. It was the first omen, and it wa

he nose of the boat sheered out under the pressure of a heavy cake, so that he came up at the stern. The woman's arm flashed over the side to his collar, and at the same instant, sharp and authoritative, her voice rang out to the Indian oarsmen to back water. Still holding the man's head abo

twenty, added unto the girl of seventeen, made a sum more prodigious than he had imagined. He did not know whether to bear-hug the radiant young creature or to take her hand an

ter." There was a gr

mile, and each man felt that for an inst