“That’s a pleasant way to look at it, Mr. Marling, and now,” said Jack, “we want you to tell us which of these stores here is the best place to buy our outfit.”
“They’re all all right. But you ought to go and make the acquaintance of Jack McQuesten over there at the N. C. (Northern Commercial Company’s) store. He is the daddy of Circle for he set up a tradin’ post here as soon as the pioneer prospectors begin to come in. Jack’s a man that seventeen dog-sleds loaded with moosehide sacks of gold couldn’t budge from the straight and unerrin’ path of rectitude, is Jack, and he’ll fix you lads up bully and O. K.,” he told them.
So the boys went over to the N. C., and while Jack McQuesten’s fame had reached them down as far as Skagway, Bill Adams’ fame had preceded them that morning from the hotel. The old trader was sitting on a box when they came in and they saw right away that he was a pioneer of the old school. A low, broad brimmed hat, without a dent or crease in it, set squarely on his head, and a pair of keen gray eyes, about half closed as if he didn’t want to see too much at a time, was boring holes through them.
He was full-faced, his nose was broad and his mustache gray; it was plain to be seen why he had been entrusted with hundreds of thousands of dollars by the various companies whose trading posts were famous all over Alaska. He was, as Doc Marling had said, as straight as a die and he knew character, even as characters knew him. He was dressed like a miner and the only outstanding feature of his rig that the boys caught sight of was a magnificent gold watch chain and charm—and he had a watch to match them in his pocket—which had been presented to him by the Order of Pioneers, for of the first of the hardy pioneers of Alaska, he was the very first.
“Mr. McQuesten,” began Jack, “we came over to get a winter’s supply of grub and an outfit fit for an arctic expedition.”
Jack McQuesten took a good look at Bill and said with a twinkle in his eye, “so you are the young chap that whipped Black Pete—well I’ll be dog-goned. But let me give you a pointer, be careful how you handle him for his ways are not our ways—and we can’t be responsible for them. It’s the first time in the history of Circle he has not done up his man and he isn’t any too particular how he does it, so watch out he doesn’t knife you.”
“We’ll be careful all right, from now on, Mr. McQuesten, believe me,” returned Bill.
“He’s out of his latitude,” put in Jack—that is Jack Heaton; “he ought to be ashamed of himself living up here on the Arctic Circle with white people instead of being down there on the Tropic of Cancer with the rest of the greasers.”
“If he pulls any of that Chilili Mex stuff on me to-night I’ll send him so far he’ll need a weegie board to get back to earth on, but I’m thankin’ you Mister McQuesten for tellin’ me as how I should be careful, sir,” Bill said in an apologetic voice, perhaps because he had let Black Pete off so easily the night before.
“Now to get down to business, Mr. McQuesten,” began Jack who was anxious to get things a-moving. “What we want is an outfit of clothes, mess-gear and grub that will carry us through the winter. We’re not going so far away but what we expect to get back before the last ice and first water but we might want to keep on going and we must have an outfit so that we can pull through if needs be.”