e than thankful for
the comforting warmth of the great wood stove they were standing over.

"Guess it looks like bein' our last real cold snap," Alroy said, by way
of making talk with a man who was always difficult. "We'll be running
into May in a week. 'Tain't as easy with your folks. We git the warm
wind of this darn old bay, with all that means, which," he added with a
laugh, "is mostly rain. You'll be runnin' into cold right up to July."

The man from the trail was unrolling a bundle of notes for the
settlement of the bill Alroy had presented. He glanced up with a smiling
amusement in his eyes.

"Guess that's as may be," he said indifferently. "We get fancy patterns
where I come from."

He passed the account and a number of bills to the other, and returned
his roll to his pocket.

"And wher' may that be?" enquired the saloon-keeper, with as much
indifference as his curiosity would permit.

"Just north," returned the other. "Guess you'll find that right.
Twenty-five fifty. I'll take a receipt."

Alroy turned hastily to the table supporting the hotel register, and,
producing an ornate fountain pen, forthwith prepared to scratch a
receipt, which was rarely enough demanded by his customers amongst the
trail men.

"Sure," Brand went on, while the other bent over his unaccustomed work.
"We get all sorts. You can't figger anything this time of year, except
it'll be a hell of a sight more cussed than when winter's shut down
tight. I once knew a red hot chinook that turned the whole darn country
into a swamp in April, and never let it freeze up again. I once broke
trail at Fort Duggan at the start of May on open water with the skitters
running, like midsummer."

Alroy looked up.

"Duggan?" he questioned sharply. "That's the place Lorson opened up last
spring. It's right on the edge of a territory they call Unaga, ain't it?
The boys were full of it last summer and were guessing what sort of
murder lay behind his play."

Brand took the receipt the other handed him and folded it. He thrust it
into a pocket inside his fur-lined tunic.

"Why?" he demanded, in the curt fashion that seemed so natural to him.

"Why?" Alroy laughed. "Well, the boys around here guess they know Lorson
Harris, and ain't impressed with his virtues. You see, Fort Duggan, they
reckon, is a bum sort of location, eaten up by bugs an' a poor sort of
neche race. There's an old fort there, ain't there? One o' them places
where a hundred an' mor