An' when'll I have the pleasure of waitin' on ye? The waterhole's
a strikin' locality.' ''Tain't bad. Jest be there in an hour, and
you won't set long on my coming.' Both men mittened and left the
Post, their ears closed to the remonstrances of their comrades.
It was such a little thing; yet with such men, little things,
nourished by quick tempers and stubborn natures, soon blossomed
into big things.

Besides, the art of burning to bedrock still lay in the womb of
the future, and the men of Forty-Mile, shut in by the long Arctic
winter, grew high-stomached with overeating and enforced
idleness, and became as irritable as do the bees in the fall of
the year when the hives are overstocked with honey.

There was no law in the land. The mounted police was also a thing
of the future. Each man measured an offense, and meted out the
punishment inasmuch as it affected himself.

Rarely had combined action been necessary, and never in all the
dreary history of the camp had the eighth article of the
Decalogue been violated.

Big Jim Belden called an impromptu meeting. Scruff Mackenzie was
placed as temporary chairman, and a messenger dispatched to
solicit Father Roubeau's good offices. Their position was
paradoxical, and they knew it. By the right of might could they
interfere to prevent the duel; yet such action, while in direct
line with their wishes, went counter to their opinions. While
their rough-hewn, obsolete ethics recognized the individual
prerogative of wiping out blow with blow, they could not bear to