“I thought they were,” replied Jack.
“You thought they were?” and Bill looked at him as though he had caught him breaking the nth commandment. “Well don’t youse think again, Buddy, or youse might hurt yourself, see?”
CHAPTER V
OUTFITTING AT CIRCLE
In the great hall everything was as quiet as the faces on the totem poles that reared their ugliness into the air on either side of the Grand Palace Hotel. While the night before had been the most exciting of any that the oldest pioneers of Circle could remember since the days of ’94, in the broad light of the morning after, it seemed as though “the makin’s of it had just melted away,” as Bill expressed it.
The boys found Doc Marling in the ‘office’ of his hotel which meant that he was standing back of the register and ink-bottle. He greeted his paying guests mournfully and when Jack inquired what he had on his young mind that grieved him he pointed to the frame-work which had held the largest mirror north of Dawson so short a time before as yesterday. It only went to prove how fragile are mirrors and the mutability of things in general.
“My lookin’-glass is busted,” he said funeral-like, “and I’m out just three hundred cold dollars in gold.”
“I don’t see how you could blame us because a patron of yours thought he’d let daylight through me. Black Pete started it and it’s up to you to make him settle for it,” suggested Jack.
“He hasn’t got anything to settle with; that’s the worst part of it,” he replied, fishing.
“Then you orter take it gentle-like outen his hide.” This from Bill.
“Well, I kinda allowed that you about did that thing last night,” said Doc, “and bein’ somewhat of a philosopher I allowed too that while the glass was worth three hundred dollars it was worth well nigh that amount in gold dust to see him take his medicine.”