“I’ll have six dogs, and dad’s well. He’ll be home in a few minutes. It’s nearly time for supper. Swing off your pack. Yes, dad’s still figuring on his boiler.” Her face clouded for a moment. “And I’m afraid he’s got almost dust enough saved up to get it.” Enright laughed: “Afraid? Why, you talk like you ain’t got no faith in the b’iler to put Myrtle on the map agin.” She made a gesture of impatience. “And neither have you, nor anyone else but dad. He’s thought and thought about that old boiler until he can’t think or talk about anything else.” She was silent for a moment, and a smile parted her lips as she continued: “I don’t mean what I said. That is, of course I want him to have the boiler because I know he will never be happy until he gets it. But--it seems like an awful lot of money just thrown away.” Enright nodded: “Yup, Miss Lou, that’s jist what it is--throw’d away. An’ no chanct of gittin’ it back. It’s too bad, but he’s that set on havin’ it they ain’t no mortal use tryin’ to auger him out of it, I s’pose.” The girl shook her head: “Not the slightest. Anyway it’s his money.” She smiled and drew a step closer. “Do you know that I am making almost as much as he is. He don’t know it. He never thinks of me as grown up, and really doing anything that’s of any use. ‘Putterin’ wi’ the dogs,’ he calls it, and he never pays any attention to them. I’ve got quite a lot of money saved up, and maybe it’s mean, when he’s so set on getting his boiler, but I have never let him know I have it. You see, if he does put everything he’s got into the boiler, an’ then finds it won’t make him rich right away, it’s going to almost kill him. He’s not as young as he was, and I don’t think he’d have the heart to start all over again. So, when it comes to that, I’ll have the dog money for us to live on.” Pete Enright’s mittened hand patted the girl’s shoulder and his big voice rumbled with approbation: “Don’t you never figger fer a minute that it’s mean. It’s good common sense, that’s what it is. You’ve got the head fer the two of you. You’re the only one on the Koyukuk that seen they was any money in raisin’ an’ breakin’ good dogs, an’ the result is you get twict as much fer your dogs as anyone else does, an’ they’re worth it. Most everyone thinks a dog is just a chunk of the devil wropped up in fur an’ put into the world to be kicked an’ pounded, and swore at, an’ starved, an’ worked till he can’t stand up no longer, an’ then to be cut out of the traces an’ left to die, an’ his place filled in with another chunk of the devil. You seen how dogs was mighty near human, an’ you treat ’em human, an’ results is, your dogs is _dogs_! An’ that’s what I come down to see about, in a way--is dogs.” “Do you want to buy a team?”