_(Warms his hands over stove and glares ferociously at Miner.)_ _(Dave Harney enters from right, brushes snow from moccasins, and walks across to stove. He is tall and lean, has a loose-jointed, shambling gait, and listens interestedly to Clerk and Miner. He evinces a desire to speak, but his mustached mouth is so iced-up that he cannot open it. He bends over stove to thaw the ice.)_ MINER _(To Clerk, with growing anger.)_ It's all very well for your playing the high an' lofty, you sneakin' little counter-jumper. But we all know what your damned Company is up to. You're holdin' grub for a rise, that's what you're doin'. Famine prices is your game. CLERK Look at the shelves, man! Look at them! MINER How about the warehouses, eh? Stacked to the roof with grub! CLERK They're not. MINER I suppose you'll say they're empty. CLERK They're not. But what little grub's in them belongs to the sour-doughs who filed their orders last spring and summer before ever you thought of coming into the country. And even the sourdoughs are scaled down, cut clean in half. Now shut up. I don't want to hear any more from you. You newcomers needn't think you're going to run this country, because you ain't. _(Turning his hack on Miner.)_ Damned cheechawker! MINER _(Breaking down and showing fear, not of Clerk, but of famine.)_ But good heavens, man, what am I to do? I haven't fifty pounds of flour for the whole winter. I can pay for my grub if you'll sell it to me. You can't leave me starve! DAVE HARNEY _(Tearing the last chunk oj ice from mustache and sending it rattling to the floor. He speaks with a drawl.)_ Aw, you tenderfeet make me tired. I never seen the beat of you critters. Better men than you have starved in this country, an' they didn't make no bones about it neither--they was all bones I calkilate. What do you think this is? A Sunday picnic? Jes' come in, eh? An' you're clean scairt. Look at me--old-timer, sir, a sour-dough, an' proud of it! I come into this country before there was any blamed Company, fished for my breakfast, an' hunted my supper. An' when the fish didn't bite an' they wa'n't any game, jes' cinched my belt tighter an' hiked along, livin' on salmon-bellies and rabbit tracks an' eatin' my moccasins. _(Jubilantly.)_ Oh, I tell you this is the country that'll take the saleratus out of you! _(Miner, awed by being face to face with an old-timer, withers up during harangue, and at finish shrinks behind other miners, and from there makes exit to right.)_ _(Drawing paper from pocket and presenting it.)_ Now lookee here, Mister Clerk, what'd you call that? CLERK _(Glancing perfunctorily at paper.)_ Grub contract. DAVE HARNEY What's it stand for? CLERK _(Wearily.)_ One thousand pounds of grub. DAVE HARNEY An' how much sugar? CLERK One thousand pounds of grub. DAVE HARNEY Say it again. CLERK _(Looking for item on paper and reading.)_ Seventy-five pounds. DAVE HARNEY _(Triumphantly.)_