"Shake, pardner," said the Boy. The Colonel and he grasped hands. Only towering good spirits prevented their being haughty, for they felt like conquerors, and cared not a jot that they looked like gaol-birds.
It was two o'clock in the morning. The Gold Nugget Saloon was flaring with light, and a pianola was perforating a tune. The travellers pushed open a frosted door, and looked into a long, low, smoke-veiled room, hung with many kerosene lamps, and heated by a great red-hot iron stove.
"Hello!" said a middle-aged man in mackinaws, smoking near the door-end of the bar.
"Hello! Is Blandford Keith here? There are some letters for him."
"Say, boys!" the man in mackinaws shouted above the pianola, "Windy Jim's got in with the mail."
The miners lounging at the bar and sitting at the faro-tables looked up laughing, and seeing the strangers through the smoke-haze, stopped laughing to stare.
"Down from Dawson?" asked the bartender hurrying forward, a magnificent creature in a check waistcoat, shirt-sleeves, four-in-hand tie, and a diamond pin.
"No, t'other way about. Up from the Lower River."
"Oh! May West or Muckluck crew? Anyhow, I guess you got a thirst on you," said the man in the mackinaws. "Come and licker up."
The bartender mixed the drinks in style, shooting the liquor from a height into the small gin-sling glasses with the dexterity that had made him famous.