Jacob Welse laughed when the correspondent told him. "Just his way,"
he said; "for his ways are like his looks,--unusual. He's an
unsociable beast. Been in the country more years than he can number
acquaintances. Truth to say, I don't think he has a friend in all
Alaska, not even among the Indians, and he's chummed thick with them
off and on. 'Johnny Sorehead,' they call him, but it might as well be
'Johnny Break-um-head,' for he's got a quick temper and a rough hand.
Temper! Some little misunderstanding popped up between him and the
agent at Arctic City. He was in the right, too,--agent's mistake,--but
he tabooed the Company on the spot and lived on straight meat for a
year. Then I happened to run across him at Tanana Station, and after
due explanations he consented to buy from us again."
"Got the girl from up the head-waters of the White," Bill Brown told
St. Vincent. "Welse thinks he's pioneering in that direction, but Borg
could give him cards and spades on it and then win out. He's been over
the ground years ago. Yes, strange sort of a chap. Wouldn't hanker to
be bunk-mates with him."
But St. Vincent did not mind the eccentricities of the man, for he
spent most of his time on Split-up Island with Frona and the Baron.
One day, however, and innocently, he ran foul of him. Two Swedes,
hunting tree-squirrels from the other end of Roubeau Island, had
stopped to ask for matches and to yarn a while in the warm sunshine of
the clearing.
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