ent employment when the Yukon "rush" came. In the meantime he was
on the spot. Mr. Zachary Smith chiefly listened. He could eat and
watch his guests. He could study them. And he seemed in no way
inclined to waste his time on words when he could do the other two
things. He said little about himself, and was mainly contented with
comprehensive nods and grunts, whilst he devoured huge portions of
tinned tongue and swallowed bumpers of scalding tea.

After dinner the travellers produced their pipes. Grey offered his
tobacco to their host. Mr. Zachary Smith shook his head.

"Given up tobacco--mostly," he said, glancing in the direction of the
door, which groaned under a sudden attack from the storm which was now
howling with terrible force outside. "It isn't that I don't like it.
But when a man gets cooped up in these hills he's like to run out of
it, and then it's uncomfortable. I've taken on a native weed which
does me for smoking when I need it--which isn't often. It grows
hereabouts and isn't likely to give out. Guess I won't smoke now."

Grey shrugged and lit his pipe. If any man could be fool enough to
reject tobacco, Leslie Grey was not the sort of man to press him. He
was intolerant of ideas in any one but himself. Chillingwood sucked
luxuriously at his pipe and thought big things.

The blue smoke clouds curled insinuatingly about the heads of the
smokers, and rose heavily upon the dense atmosphere of the hut. The
two men stretched themselves indolently upon the ground, sometimes
speaking, but, for the most part, silent. These wayfarers thought
little of time. They had a certain task to perform which, the elements
permitting, they would carry out in due course. In the meantime it was
storming, and they had been fortunate in finding shelter in these
wastes of snow and ice; they were glad to accept what comfort came
their way. This enforced delay would find a simple record in Leslie
Grey's report to his superiors. "Owing to a heavy storm, etc." They
were Government servants. The routine of these men's lives was all
very monotonous, but they were used to it, and use is a wonderful
thing. It so closely borders on content.

Cards were produced later on. Mr. Zachary Smith resisted the
blandishments of "cut-throat" euchre. He had no money to spare for
gambling, he informed his guests; he would look on. He sat over the
stove whilst the others played. Later on the cards were put away, and
the travellers, curling themselv