There was a door from the shed to the main building, and they passed through this, to find themselves in a well-heated apartment, piled high with stores of various kinds. Around a pot stove sat several men, smoking and drinking. All nodded pleasantly to the newcomers and made room for them, that they might warm up.
They soon learned that the proprietor of the place was Abram Monkey and that he had with him three younger brothers,—which state of affairs had given the trading camp the name of the Four Monkeys. The Monkeys were from Chicago and had come over the Rockies with a heavy pack train during the past summer. Two of the brothers were running the trading place while the other two had thrown in their fortunes with the miners and prospectors.
"Come over with your whole family, eh?" said Abram Monkey to Josiah Socket. "Well, you're a pretty brave fellow, I must say. Hope your wife likes it."
"She will, after she gets acquainted," was the answer. "But there ain't none of us likes the winter."
To be sociable, he treated all of the men present, and then began to do his trading. All of the commodities to be had were high in price, flour being fifty dollars per barrel, beans two dollars a quart, bacon and pork a dollar a pound, and even tallow candles fetching "two bits," twenty-five cents, each. But little in the way of clothing was to be had, flannel shirts bringing five dollars apiece and army blankets ten dollars each. The only vegetables were turnips and cabbages, the former worth a dollar a peck and the latter fifty cents a head, and rather wormy at that.
"I am afraid my money won't go far," said Mark. He had twelve dollars belonging to Bob, Si, and himself, and ten dollars that had come from Maybe Dixon.
"Never mind, I'll stake you for fifty dollars," answered Josiah Socket. "You can pay me back when you make your first haul o' nuggets."
"Thank you," answered Mark, gratefully. "You are very kind, Mr. Socket."
"I want to be neighborly, lad. Besides, you boys and Dixon have done us many favors an' I ain't forgetting them."
Josiah Dixon and Mark spent the best part of the evening in picking out the things they wished to take along, including some coffee, tea, sugar and spices, besides the things mentioned above. They also got some cough mixture for one of the Socket children and a bottle of liquor for medicinal purposes. As luck would have it, not one of the men in camp at Four Monkeys was a hard drinker, for which both Mark and Josiah Socket were thankful.