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The General reappeared with the whisky, stamping the snow off his feet before he joined the group at the table, where the Christmas-tree was seasonably cheek by jowl with the punch-bowl between the low-burnt candles. Mixing the new brew did not interrupt the General's ecstatic references to Minóok.
"I'm told," said the Captain rather severely, "that Minóok's a busted camp." "Oh, is it?" returned the ragged one cheerfully. Then he remembered that this Captain Rainey had grub-staked a man in the autumn a man who was reported to know where to look for the Mother Lode, the mighty parent of the Yukon placers. "I can tell you the facts about Minóok."
Rampart had one fat year, 1898, when many hundreds of gold seekers, approaching the Klondike by Saint Michael and the lower Yukon were attracted and halted by the gold discoveries on Big and Little Minook, and spent the winter here.
"Yes, sir, and sailed for the Klondyke from Seattle last July." And now at Christmas they were hoping that, with luck, they might reach the new Minóok Diggings, seven hundred miles this side of the Klondyke, before the spring rush. During this recital O'Flynn kept rolling his eyes absently. "Theyse a quare noise without." "It's the wind knockin' down yer chimbly," says Mr. Hardy encouragingly.
Having disposed of their letters, the miners crowded round the courier to hear how the black business ended matter of special interest to Minóok, for the population here was composed chiefly of men who, by the Canadian route, had managed to get to Dawson in the autumn, in the early days of the famine scare, and who, after someone's panic-proposal to raid the great Stores, were given free passage down the river on the last two steamers to run.
The talk quickly became general, and the news of the Upper and Lower Countries was swapped equitably back and forth. But the little the newcomers had was soon over with, for they had wintered at Minook, a thousand miles below, where nothing was doing.
They had heard a great deal about the dark, keen-looking young Oregon lawyer, for Salaman was the most envied man in Minóok. "Come over to my dump and get some nuggets," says Mr. Salaman, as in other parts of the world a man will say, "Come into the smoking-room and have a cigar."
Wound about one of his seal-skin mittens was the rope of the new hand-sled he'd been fashioning so busily of nights by the camp fire. His two blankets were strapped on the sled, Indian fashion, along with a gunny sack and his rifle. The two men stood looking angrily at each other a moment, and then the Colonel politely inquired: "What in hell are you doing?" "Goin' to Minóok."
From end to end of the settlement the cry was taken up. People darted out of cabins like beavers out of their burrows. Three little half-breed Indian boys, yelling with excitement, tore past the Gold Nugget, crying now in their mother's Minóok, now in their father's English, "The ice is going out!"
"Been refusin' 'em right along." Then, as if reproached by the look in the wild young face, "We thought you were in trouble." "So I am if you won't " "I tell you we got every ounce we can carry." "Oh, take me back to Minóok, anyway!" He said a few words about fare to the Captain's back.