"Oh! That's all right. I'll buy some warm clothes. I've got money. Eight dollars!" exclaimed the boy, proudly producing a worn leather pocketbook in which were a few tightly wadded bills.
Eight dollars! In Alaska! And yet not a man laughed. Waseche Bill placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and smiled:
"Well, now, sonny, that's a right sma't lot o' money, back in the States, but it don't stack up very high in Alaska." He noticed the look of disappointment with which the boy eyed his hoard, and hastened to proceed: "But don't yo' fret none. It's lucky yo' chanced 'long heah, 'cause I happen to be owin' Sam Mo'gan a hund'ed, an' it's right handy fo' to pay it now." Hardly had he ceased speaking when Dick Colton stepped forward:
"I owe Sam fifty." "An' me!" "An' me, too!" "An' me, I'd most forgot it!" The others had taken their cue, and it seemed to the bewildered boy as though these men owed his father all the money in the world.
"But I don't understand," he gasped. "Is father rich? Has he made a strike, at last?"
"No, son," answered Dick, "your father is not rich—in gold. He never made a strike. In fact, he is counted the most unlucky man in the North—in some ways." He turned his head. "But just the same, boy, there's not a man in Alaska but owes Sam Morgan more than he can pay."
"Tell me about him," cried the boy, his eyes alight. "Did my father do some great thing?" The silence was broken by old Scotty McCollough:
"Na', laddie, Sam Morgan never done no great thing. He di' na' ha' to. He was great!" And by the emphasis which the bluff old Scotchman placed upon the word "was," of a sudden the boy knew!
"My father is dead!" he moaned, and buried his face in his hands, while the men looked on in silent sympathy. Only for a moment did the boy remain so, then the little shoulders stiffened under the thin overcoat, the hands dropped to his side and clenched, and the square jaw set firm—as Sam Morgan's had set, that day he faced big "British Kronk" on the snow-packed street of Candle. As the boy faced the men of the North, he spoke, and his voice trembled.