"Them's the kind that does freeze their lungs," he lamented. "If
Daylight pulls out before this snap breaks, he'll never get
through--an' him travelin' without tent or fly."

"It's a thousand miles to Dyea," Bettles announced, climbing on
the chair and supporting his swaying body by an arm passed around
Daylight's neck. "It's a thousand miles, I'm sayin' an' most of
the trail unbroke, but I bet any chechaquo--anything he
wants--that Daylight makes Dyea in thirty days."

"That's an average of over thirty-three miles a day," Doc Watson
warned, "and I've travelled some myself. A blizzard on Chilcoot
would tie him up for a week."

"Yep," Bettles retorted, "an' Daylight'll do the second thousand
back again on end in thirty days more, and I got five hundred
dollars that says so, and damn the blizzards."

To emphasize his remarks, he pulled out a gold-sack the size of a
bologna sausage and thumped it down on the bar. Doc Watson
thumped his own sack alongside.

"Hold on!" Daylight cried. "Bettles's right, and I want in on
this. I bet five hundred that sixty days from now I pull up at
the Tivoli door with the Dyea mail."

A sceptical roar went up, and a dozen men pulled out their sacks.

Jack Kearns crowded in close and caught Daylight's attention.