"Eight and a half," from the Captain.
"Eight and a half," from the pilot-house.
"Concentrates, eh?"
Something arresting, rich-sounding, in the news—a triple essence of the perfume of riches.
With the incantation of technical phrase over the witch-brew of adventure, gambling, and romance, that simmers in the mind when men tell of finding gold in the ground, with the addition of this salt of science comes a savour of homely virtue, an aroma promising sustenance and strength. It confounds suspicion and sees unbelief, first weaken, and at last do reverence. There is something hypnotic in the terminology. Enthusiasm, even backed by fact, will scare off your practical man, who yet will turn to listen to the theory of "the mechanics of erosion" and one of its proofs—"up there before our eyes, the striation of the Ramparts."
But Rainey was what he called "an old bird." His squinted pilot-eye came back from the glacier track and fell on the outlandish figure of his passenger. And with an inward admiration of his quality of extreme old-birdness, the Captain struggled against the trance.
"Didn't I hear you say something about going to Dawson?"
"Y-yes. I think Dawson'll be worth seeing."
"Holy Moses, yes! There's never been anything like Dawson before."
"And I want to talk to the big business men there. I'm not a miner myself. I mean to put my property on the market." As he said the words it occurred to him unpleasantly how very like McGinty they sounded. But he went on: "I didn't dream of spending so much time up here as I've put in already. I've got to get back to the States."