They went indoors. The cabin wore an unwonted and a rakish air. The stools seemed to have tried to dance the lancers and have fallen out about the figure. Two were overturned. The unwashed dishes were tossed helter-skelter. A tipsy Christmas tree leaned in drunken fashion against the wall, and under its boughs lay a forgotten child asleep. On the other side of the cabin an empty whisky bottle caught a ray of light from the fire, and glinted feebly back. Among the ashes on the hearth was a screw of paper, charred at one end, and thrown there after lighting someone's pipe. The Boy opened it. The famous programme of the Yukon Symposium!
"It's been a different sort of Christmas from what we planned," observed the Colonel, not quite as gaily as you might expect.
"Begob!" says O'Flynn, stretching out his interminable legs; "ye can't say we haven't hearrd Glad Tidings of gr-reat j'y—"
"Colonel," interrupts the Boy, throwing the Programme in the fire, "let's look at your nugget again."
And they all took turns. Except Potts. He was busy digging the remaining gold-grains out of the crack and the knothole.
CHAPTER IX
A CHRISTIAN AGNOSTIC
"—giver mig Rum!
Himlen bar Stjerner Natten er stum."
It was a good many days before they got the dazzle of that gold out of their eyes. They found their tongues again, and talked "Minóok" from morning till night among themselves and with the rare passer up or down the trail.