"Neat as garters!"
These were some of the comments from the appreciative assembly.
Last of all, the prospectus came to Jim Laurance. At the top of the sheet, in large typing, was the name, "Yukon Dredging Company." Underneath that reposed the list of directors, picked, apparently, from the group invited to supper. Jarmand's name appeared, and Fripps's, Bonneaves's, and the names of the three C's.
Laurance quietly read the sheets through, with their significance vitally impressing itself on him, and when he finished, he saw that he held the kind of thing which is circulated by thousands through the mails for the catching of suckers. It was the universally familiar, folded sheet that expounded the virtues of the greatest dredging proposition in the world.
"By gad," he cried, angrily shaking the prospectus in the air, "so this is what you've hauled me over here to back up, eh? A cussed, dirty, widow-an'-orphan robbin' swindle, if you ast me! An', gents, I give it to you straight: you're a pack of low faro dealers, a bunch of thimbleriggers, a handful of flimflammers if you put through that there deal. You're a ring of thieves and d–d blacklegs, gents!"
"Hold on there, sport!" yelled Bonneaves. "You go it too strong. We won't stand for all that."
"I can go lots stronger yet, young cocky-neck," warned Lawrence. "Why, I ain't half goin'. You should see me fizz some time, me son, an' you'd run your feet off for fear of bein' blowed up." He regarded the youthful profligate grimly, shaking his stubby scalp and gray beard aggressively, but in the corners of his eyes there lurked a humorous expression.
"Aren't you in on this?" asked Jarmand, rolling a wave of his oily insolence down the table to Laurance. "Aren't you taking hold? There's money in it!"
The Alaskan eyed him squarely.
"Not the kind of money I want," he said severely. "Not me own kind, by a thousand yard shot! I don't want no widow's mites or orphan's pennies; I don't steal no wimmen's savin's nor the hard-earned dollars of some poor laborin' cuss as thinks the Yukon is one whoppin' lump of gold an' all we got to do here is to file up our finger-nails and claw it off in pieces. No, sir, count me out! An' I'll see some law-sharp an' have you gents counted out, too. You don't work this here game so easy. I'm certainly certain of that! You can't rob people so d–d bare-faced. No, sir, you truly can't. Why, this here would be wors'n jumpin' all the claims on Samson Creek!"