"'Twas the drink done it—and I cud ha' kept him from it," moaned Gelly, rocking and wringing her hands.
"Here, stop whining and make the sandwiches. Better git down behind the stove whar yer pop can't see yer!" Gumboot Annie gave the girl an ungentle but not unkindly push, and thrusting a carving-knife into her hand, bade her, as it might be the old man's last square feed upon this planet, not to spare the butter.
"Gents, I thankee hearty for these here evidences of popularity," cried the Bully, as they placed him at the head of the well-filled board inside the lunch-tent. "Gents, go thou an' do likewise, but don't git pinched! Ah, well, ef I'd got my deserts I guess I'd'a' bin strung up twenty years ago."
"Better late than nivver," politely remarked Barney, who, as an honored guest, by his gift of repartee was contributing greatly to the meal's hilarity.
"Mush, get up, there! Godam you, Teleglaph and Langel. Mush!" Thus Chilkat Jo might have been heard profanely to encourage to increase of speed on a pious errand the parson's dogs that now were drawing a sled beside which the parson and the trader were running on their snow-shoes toward Gumboot Annie's tent. For all this took place many miles from Perdu and Lost Shoe Creek, on the heights where the snow still lingered in heavy, frozen masses, though the valleys below were abloom with summer flowers. "Him velly damn sick," he pityingly added, indicating the bundle wrapped in furs, strapped to the sled.
"Very sick, indeed, I fear, my son; but not damn sick," the minister corrected. "Perhaps we can get succor here. Whoa, Telegraph, Wrangle, lads, whoa!" Halting opposite the tent, he read its legend with surprise, "TEMPERANCE SALOON. GUMBOOT ANNIE, PROPRIETOR."
"Why, my daughter," he accosted the hostess, who, hearing sleigh-bells and scenting custom, had come forth, "does this indicate a happy change of heart and saving grace? You are taking thought to save your soul?"
"Save my skin," retorted the Gumbooted one, spitting with an accurate estimate of distances. "That blamed Scarlett was making things hot for me, so I jest wheeled the hull outfit acrost the boundary!" She pointed to an old Russian landmark, protruding like a tiny headstone from the snow, and followed by a line of rude pickets, the records of a surveying party, that straggled, single file, downhill, dividing the United States from British North America. "Lasky's a prohibition proposition, y'know."
"Whatever the motive, the action is most praiseworthy," Maclane commended her, "since your income must be greatly decreased by foregoing the sale of intoxicants."