"No brains at all, y' understand, boys, nor need for 'em. If I depended on the gray stuff under my hat for my three daily squares, I'd have to worry along with a stomach no bigger than a walnut. But me and luck are the best of tillicums. He has helped me get away with a stake in every placer camp in Alaska. Fact!" "Did you get very far with any of 'em?" sneered Chenoa Pete, a man with pig's eyes and a hanging lower lip. The crowd laughed at this sally, but no one louder than Lucky Jim himself. "I did not," he replied with a wry face. "I never tried to. But one of these days I'll be makin' a little trip to Frisco." "Why don't you go out and make a strike in this district?" Mike Haggart wanted to know. "We surely need one." "I never try to make a strike within a hundred miles of a'gin mill. Hootch and work don't mix." This statement riled Pinleg Scoddy, the proprietor of the Red Fox. An ugly, domineering, soulless brute he was. "The sooner yuh goes out and makes a stake the better I'll like yuh," he growled. "Yuh owes me ten ounces now." The tin clock back of the bar had it all to itself for a full ten seconds, which it made the most of. [Illustration] "Ain't it awful, fellas?" Lucky Jim asked the group of parka clad men who stood about the big stove, "Ain't it hell? The man behind the bar says I owe him ten ounces!" Nonchalantly he rolled a cigarette, lighted it and took a deep pull, then turned and faced Pinleg Scoddy. "I owe you ten ounces, you say." He blew a cloud of smoke from his mouth. "I don't doubt you. I take a man's word every time. 'Cause if you can't take that, he ain't got nothin' else wuth a hoot." He took another leisurely pull at his smoke. "I owe you ten ounces, and since last fall I've shoved over three hundred ounces across your spruce planks. Ain't that right?" "It don't matter a damn what you've spent!" Pinleg shot back. "You'll decorate the bar next time yuh invites the bunch to drink." "I'm invitin' them right now!" Lucky Jim cried in a voice that caused Pinleg Scoddy to start. "Have a drink with me, boys!" he shouted. To Pinleg he added, "I'll be in town but two days more, but I mean to have my drink when I want it and where I spent my money. Set 'em up!" Out of the corner of his eye the proprietor of the Red Fox got a glimpse of the hard looks that were being directed at him. "This will be the last one," he growled sullenly as he set out the glasses. By ones and twos--and an embarrassed lot they were--the men strolled up to the bar. Dad Manslow was the only one that made no move. Lucky Jim did not notice this until after the glasses were filled. "What's the matter, Dad?" he inquired. "I'll tell yuh what!" wrathfully shouted the old man. "After such an uncalled-for bawl-out I'll never again lift another glass of hootch off'n Pinleg Scoddy's bar! He's the cheapest skate that ever struck Totatla City--which has always been my opinion of him."