“Three ain’t too many fur twenty-eight people.”
“Twenty-eight! What are you doing with so many?”
“Takin’ ’em to Nome.” Had the destination been the nether regions, he couldn’t have said it more as one who had left hope behind.
“Bless my soul!” said Mrs. Mar, with a vision of the crowded train she’d come by, and the yet more crowded streets she’d hunted through for this same Blumpitty. “What are they all going to do there?”
Blumpitty smiled a faint world-weary smile. “They kind o’ think they’d jest natchrully like to get a share o’ this gold that’s layin’ around up there.”
“Oh, you’re a prospecting party.”
“I guess we’ll do some lookin’ around.”
“Twenty-eight of you!” exclaimed Hildegarde under her breath. “In three rooms!”
The man nodded slowly, and his yellow-gray eyes seemed to have a vision of them. “Layin’ in rows,” he said sadly.