The repetition of this statement made not the smallest impression upon the hearer.
"You'll have one soon enough," he replied. Then with a touch of spirit, "Do you think I'd work for this four-flusher if you were in the country?"
"Hush!" O'Neil cast a glance over his shoulder. "By the way, how do you happen to be here? I thought you were in Dawson."
"I finished that job. I was working back toward ma and the children. I haven't seen them for two years."
"You think Gordon is a false alarm?"
"Happy Tom" spat with unerring accuracy at a crack, then said:
"He's talking railroads! Railroads! Why, I've got a boy back in the state of Maine, fourteen years old—"
"Willie?"
"Yes. My son Willie could skin Curtis Gordon at railroad-building—and Willie is the sickly one of the outfit. But I'll hand it to Gordon for one thing; he's a money-getter and a money-spender. He knows where the loose stone in the hearth is laid, and he knows just which lilac bush the family savings are buried under. Those penurious Pilgrim Fathers in my part of the country come up and drop their bankbooks through the slot in his door every morning. He's the first easy money I ever had; I'd get rich off of him, but"—Slater sighed—"of course you had to come along and wrench me away from the till."
"Don't quit on my account," urged his former chief. "I'm up here on coal matters. I can't take time to explain now, but I'll see you later."