"Over beyond the Mackenzie. In the Coppermine River country."
"Beyond the Mackenzie!" cried Reeves, "Man are you crazy!"
"No, not crazy, only, at the moment, comfortably drunk. But that has nothing whatever to do with my journey to the Coppermine. I will be cold sober when I hit the trail."
"And when will that be? How do you expect to finance the trip?"
"Ah, there's the rub," grinned Brent, "I have not the least idea in the world of how I am going to finance it. When that detail is arranged, I shall hit the trail within twenty-four hours."
Reeves was thinking rapidly. He did not believe that there was any gold beyond the Mackenzie. To the best of his knowledge there was nothing beyond the Mackenzie. Nothing—no towns—no booze! If Brent would be willing to go into a country for six months or a year in which booze was not obtainable—"There's no booze over there," he said aloud, "How much would you have to take with you?"
"Not a damned drop!"
"What!"
Brent rose suddenly to his feet and stood before Reeves. "I have been fooling myself," he said, in a low tense voice, "Do you know what my shibboleth has been? What I have been telling myself and telling others—and expecting them to believe? I began to say it, and honestly enough, when I first started to get soft, and I kept it up stubbornly when the softness turned to flabbiness, and I maintained it doggedly when the flabbiness gave way to pouchiness: 'I am as good a man as I ever was!' That's the damned lie I've been telling myself! I nearly told it at your table, and before your wife, but thank God I was spared that humiliation. Just between friends, I'll tell the truth—I'm a damned worthless, hooch-guzzling good-for-naught! And the hell of it is, I haven't got the guts to quit!" He seized the bottle from the table and drank three or four swallows in rapid succession, "See that—what did I tell you?" He glared at Reeves as if challenging a denial. "But, I've got one chance."
He straightened up and pointed toward the eastward. "Over beyond the Mackenzie there is no hooch. If I can get away from it for six months I can beat it. If I can get my nerve back—get my health back, By God, I will beat it! If there's enough of a Brent left in me, for that girl, your wife, to recognize through this disguise of rags and hair and dirt, there's enough of a Brent, sir, to put up one hell of a fight against booze!"