Captain McGregor strode in and remained standing before his employer.
The rough hand of the New World had been laid upon the Scotsman from his boyhood; but sterling honesty was written 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 business with the owner of the jaw. This warning was backed up by the nose, side-twisted and broken, and by a long scar which ran up the forehead and disappeared in the gray-grizzled hair.
"We throw off the lines in an hour, sir; so I"ve come for the last word."
"Good." Jacob Welse whirled his chair about. "Captain McGregor."
"Ay."
"I had other work cut out for you this winter; but I have changed my mind and chosen you to go down with the Laura. Can you guess why?"
Captain McGregor swayed his weight from one leg to the other, and a shrewd chuckle of a smile wrinkled the corners of his eyes. "Going to be trouble," he grunted.
"And I couldn"t have picked a better man. Mr. Bally will give you detailed instructions as you go aboard. But let me say this: If we can"t scare enough men out of the country, there"ll be need for every pound of grub at Fort Yukon. Understand?"
"Ay."
"So no extravagance. You are taking three hundred men down with you.
The chances are that twice as many more will go down as soon as the river freezes. You"ll have a thousand to feed through the winter. Put them on rations,--working rations,--and see that they work. Cordwood, six dollars per cord, and piled on the bank where steamers can make a landing. No work, no rations. Understand?"
"Ay."
"A thousand men can get ugly, if they are idle. They can get ugly anyway. Watch out they don"t rush the caches. If they do,--do your duty."
The other nodded grimly. His hands gripped unconsciously, while the scar on his forehead took on a livid hue.
"There are five steamers in the ice. Make them safe against the spring break-up. But first transfer all their cargoes to one big cache. You can defend it better, and make the cache impregnable. Send a messenger 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 them. There"ll be gun-fighters in plenty to deal with. Be stiff. Keep things in check from the start. Remember, the man who shoots first comes off with the whole hide. And keep a constant eye on the grub."
"And on the forty-five-nineties," Captain McGregor rumbled back as he pa.s.sed out the door.
"John Melton--Mr. Melton, sir. Can he see you?"
"See here, Welse, what"s this mean?" John Melton followed wrathfully on the heels of the clerk, and he almost walked over him as he flourished a paper before the head of the company. "Read that! What"s it stand for?"
Jacob Welse glanced over it and looked up coolly. "One thousand pounds of grub."
"That"s what I say, but that fellow you"ve got in the warehouse says no,--five hundred"s all it"s good for."
"He spoke the truth."
"But--"
"It stands for one thousand pounds, but in the warehouse it is only good for five hundred."
"That your signature?" thrusting the receipt again into the other"s line of vision.
"Yes."
"Then what are you going to do about it?"
"Give you five hundred. What are you going to do about it?"
"Refuse to take it."
"Very good. There is no further discussion."
"Yes there is. I propose to have no further dealings with you. I"m rich enough to freight my own stuff in over the Pa.s.ses, and I will next year. Our business stops right now and for all time."
"I cannot object to that. You have three hundred thousand dollars in dust deposited with me. Go to Mr. Atsheler and draw it at once."
The man fumed impotently up and down. "Can"t I get that other five hundred? Great G.o.d, man! I"ve paid for it! You don"t intend me to starve?"
"Look here, Melton." Jacob Welse paused to knock the ash from his cigar. "At this very moment what are you working for? What are you trying to get?"
"A thousand pounds of grub."
"For your own stomach?"
The Bonanzo king nodded his head.
"Just so." The lines showed more sharply on Jacob Welse"s forehead.
"You are working for your own stomach. I am working for the stomachs of twenty thousand."
"But you filled Tim McReady"s thousand pounds yesterday all right."
"The scale-down did not go into effect until to-day."
"But why am I the one to get it in the neck hard?"
"Why didn"t you come yesterday, and Tim McReady to-day?"
Melton"s face went blank, and Jacob Welse answered his own question with shrugging shoulders.
"That"s the way it stands, Melton. No favoritism. If you hold me responsible for Tim McReady, I shall hold you responsible for not coming yesterday. Better we both throw it upon Providence. You went through the Forty Mile Famine. You are a white man. A Bonanzo property, or a block of Bonanzo properties, does not ent.i.tle you to a pound more than the oldest penniless "sour-dough" or the newest baby born. Trust me. As long as I have a pound of grub you shall not starve. Stiffen up. Shake hands. Get a smile on your face and make the best of it."
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."
"h.e.l.lo, 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."