It's the
only thing'll save you; and even then, mebbe, it won't. I ought 'a'
done it years ago. I might 'a' made something of myself if I had.
Jerusalem! the jobs I've jumped and the good things chucked in my time,
just because of pockets! Say, Corliss, you want to get married, you
do, and right off. I'm tellin' you straight. Take warnin' from me and
don't stay single any longer than God'll let you, sure!"
Corliss laughed.
"Sure, I mean it. I'm older'n you, and know what I'm talkin'. Now
there's a bit of a thing down in Dawson I'd like to see you get your
hands on. You was made for each other, both of you."
Corliss was past the stage when he would have treated Bishop's meddling
as an impertinence. The trail, which turns men into the same blankets
and makes them brothers, was the great leveller of distinctions, as he
had come to learn. So he flopped a flapjack and held his tongue.
"Why don't you waltz in and win?" Del demanded, insistently. "Don't
you cotton to her? I know you do, or you wouldn't come back to cabin,
after bein' with her, a-walkin'-like on air. Better waltz in while you
got a chance. Why, there was Emmy, a tidy bit of flesh as women go,
and we took to each other on the jump. But I kept a-chasin' pockets
and chasin' pockets, and delayin'. And then a big black lumberman, a
Kanuck, began sidlin' up to her, and I made up my mind to speak--only I
went off after one more pocket, just one more, and when I got back she
was Mrs.
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