So
long. Say!" He threw his jaw to one side and seemed to stiffen the
muscles of his ear as he listened intently. "That's the Laura's
whistle. She's startin' soon. Goin' to see her off? Come along."
Jacob Welse pulled on his bearskin coat and mittens, and they passed
through the outer offices into the main store. So large was it, that
the tenscore purchasers before the counters made no apparent crowd.
Many were serious-faced, and more than one looked darkly at the head of
the company as he passed. The clerks were selling everything except
grub, and it was grub that was in demand. "Holding it for a rise.
Famine prices," a red-whiskered miner sneered. Jacob Welse heard it,
but took no notice. He expected to hear it many times and more
unpleasantly ere the scare was over.
On the sidewalk he stopped to glance over the public bulletins posted
against the side of the building. Dogs lost, found, and for sale
occupied some space, but the rest was devoted to notices of sales of
outfits. The timid were already growing frightened. Outfits of five
hundred pounds were offering at a dollar a pound, without flour;
others, with flour, at a dollar and a half. Jacob Welse saw Melton
talking with an anxious-faced newcomer, and the satisfaction displayed
by the Bonanzo king told that he had succeeded in filling his winter's
cache.
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