"How long have you been coming from Skagway?"
"Three weeks—a week here, and two weeks getting over the Pass. Contracted with a fellow to put through our stuff at thirty cents a pound, but finally had to buy dogs and haul it ourselves. And then the storms have been something fearful up to the last few days: sort of Dakota blizzard every day almost, after which trails was mighty bad hauling. This sort of weather comes hard on a fellow who was reared in California."
"I guess it would come hard on a fellow reared at the North Pole! You fellows will have your boat built in lots of time."
"Yes, if we don't take to quarrelling like the rest of the blame fools around here."
"What are those fellows doing here?" Hugh nodded to the great array of tents spread over the sand hills that lie between Lake Bennett and Lake Lindeman.
"Most of them don't know what they are doing; but I guess they put in their time quarrelling. Old Moss-backs from the East, who have lived neighbours all their lives, and been best of friends, have come up here partners, and before they got through the Passes were calling each other the names they heard used by the old-timers to their dogs! It takes the police all their time settling disputes. The habit seems to have took all round, now that they are through their troubles and have only straight hard work, whip-sawing lumber, ahead of them. Why, say! I saw two fellows the other day dividing their outfit. They took a two-faced axe and drove it into a log, and with the face sticking up and a hammer they cut a whip-saw in two, making it no good for either, and swearing at each other all the time till you could smell sulphur. They cut stoves in two, and boats, after working hard to build them. It seems a new kind of bughouse that has got hold of them."
The strangers were now washing up their dishes and packing them away. "Here, take this, hand me a plate," and one of them poured some stewed prunes out of a pot, and from another emptied into a second plate beans and bacon.
"But you fellows could take these along!" protested Hugh.
"No, we couldn't; they'd get spilled; besides, we have some beef-steak for supper. Some fellows down near the lake killed an ox this morning, and you can get steak for six bits per pound—if it ain't all gone. Good-bye!"
The strangers went off down the hill to the lake.