Part 46 (2/2)
”No, you don't stay--as a rule;”--Mac remembered Caribou--”get used to this kind o' thing, and miss it. Miss it so you--”
”You came back,” says Salmon P., impatient of generalities.
”And won this time,” whispered Schiff.
For that is how every story must end. The popular taste in fiction is universal.
”A friend at home grub-staked me, and I came in again--came down on the high water in June. Prospected as long as my stuff lasted, and then--well, I didn't care about starving, I became an A. C. Trader.”
A long pause. This was no climax; everybody waited.
”And now I'm on my own. I often make more money in a day trading with the Indians in furs, fish, and cord-wood, than I made in my whole experience as a prospector and miner.”
A frost had fallen on the genial company.
”But even if _you_ hadn't any luck,” the Boy suggested, ”you must have seen others--”
”Oh, I saw some was.h.i.+ng gravel that kept body and soul together, and I saw some ... that didn't.”
In the pause he added, remorseless:
”I helped to bury some of them.”
”Your experience was unusual, or why do men come back year after year?”
”Did you ever hear of a thing called Hope?”
They moved uneasily on their stools, and some rubbed stubbly chins with perplexed, uncertain fingers, and they all glowered at the speaker. He was uncomfortable, this fellow.
”Well, there mayn't be as much gold up here as men think, but there's more hope than anywhere on earth.”
”To h.e.l.l with hope; give me certainty,” says Salmon P.
”Exactly. So you shuffle the cards, and laugh down the five-cent limit.
You'll play one last big game, and it'll be for life this time as well as fortune.”
”Cheerful cuss, ain't he?” whispered Schiff.
”They say we're a nation of gamblers. Well, sir, the biggest game we play is the game that goes on near the Arctic Circle.”
”What's the matter with Wall Street?”
”'Tisn't such a pretty game, and they don't play for their lives. I tell you it's love of gambling brings men here, and it's the splendid stiff game they find going on that keeps them. There's nothing like it on earth.”
His belated enthusiasm deceived n.o.body.
”It don't seem to have excited you much,” said Mac.
<script>