"I don't know."
"You'd better find out mighty quick," retorted the young man, with rising temper at the other's discourtesy.
"Try the next place below," said the watchman, hurriedly, slamming the door in their faces and bolting it. Once secure behind his barricade, he added: "If he won't let you in, maybe the priest can take care of you at the Mission."
"This here town of Kalvik is certainly overjoyed at our arrival," said
Fraser, "ain't it?"
But his irate companion made no comment, whereat, sensing the anger behind his silence, the speaker, for once, failed to extemporize an answer to his own remark.
At the next stop they encountered the same gruff show of inhospitality, and all they could elicit from the shock-headed proprietor was another direction, in broken English, to try the Russian priest.
"I'll make one more try," said Emerson, between his teeth, gratingly, as they swung out into the darkness a second time. "If that doesn't succeed, then I'll take possession again. I won't be passed on all night this way."
"The 'buck' will certainly show us to the straw," said "Fingerless"
Fraser.
"The what?"
"The 'buck'—the sky-dog—oh, the priest!"