“Boy,” demanded the Pilot, “where’s your money?”
The young lumber-jack said that it was in the safe-keeping of the bartender.
“How much you got left?”
“Oh, I got lots yet,” was the happy reply.
Presently the boy went away, and presently he reeled back again, and put a hand on the Pilot’s shoulder.
“Near all in?” asked the Pilot.
“I came here yesterday morning with a hundred and twenty-three dollars,” said the boy, very drunkenly, “and I give it to the bartender to keep for me, and I’m told I got two-thirty left.”
He was quite content; but Higgins knew that the money of which they were robbing him was needed at his home, a day’s journey to the east of Deer River.
There is no pleasure thereabout (they say) but the spree, and the end of the spree is the snake-room for by far the most of the merry-makers–r a penniless condition for all–pneumonia for many–and for the survivors a beggared, reeling return to the hard work of the woods.