"Don't be a sucker all your life," admonished the rogue. "You stick to me, and I'll make you a lot of money. I like you--" Emerson, now seriously angry, wheeled and left him, realizing that the fellow was morally atrophied. He could not forget, however, that except for this impossible creature he himself would be lying at Petellin's store at Katmai with no faintest hope of completing his mission, wherefore he did his best to swallow his indignation. "Hey! What time do we leave?" Fraser called after him, but the young man would not answer, proceeding instead to his room, there to renew his touch with the world through strange clean garments, the feel of which awakened memories and spurred him on to feverish haste. When he had dressed he hurried to a telegraph office and dispatched two messages to Chicago, one addressed to his own tailor, the other to a number on Lake Shore Drive. Over the latter he pondered long, tearing up several drafts which did not suit him, finally giving one to the operator with an odd mingling of timidity and defiance. This done, he hastened to one of the leading banks, and two hours later returned to the hotel, jubilant. He found Big George in the lobby staring with fascinated eyes at his finger-nails, which were strangely purified and glossy. "Look at 'em!" the fisherman broke out, admiringly. "They're as clean as a hound's tooth. They shine so I dassent take hold of anything." "I have made my deal with the bank," Boyd exulted. "All I need to raise now is one hundred thousand dollars. The bank will advance the rest." "That's great," said Balt, without interrupting the contemplation of his digits. "That's certainly immense. Say! Don't they glisten?" "They look very nice--" "Stylish! I think." "That one hundred thousand dollars makes all the difference in the world. The task is easy, now. We will make it go, sure. These bankers know what that salmon business is. Why, I had no trouble at all. They say we can't lose if we have a good site on the Kalvik River." "They're wise, all right. I guess that girl took me for a Klondiker," George observed. "She charged me double. But she was a nice girl, though. I was kind of rattled when I walked in and sat down, and I couldn't think of nothing to talk about. I never opened my head all the time, but she didn't notice it. When I left she asked me to come back again and have another nice long visit. She's an _awful_ fine girl." "Look out!" laughed his companion. "Every Alaskan falls in love with a manicurist at some time or other. It seems to be in the blood. We are going to have no matrimony, mind you." "Lord! She wouldn't look at me," said the fisherman, suddenly, assuming a lobster pink.