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Porportuk looked perplexed, and loudly the laughter arose and shook the room. Klakee-Nah raised his hands. “Nay,” he cried. “It is not a joke. I but speak in fairness. It was for this I sent for you, Porportuk. Make out the note.”

“I have no dealings with the next world,” Porportuk made answer slowly.

“Have you no thought to meet me before the Great Father!” Klakee-Nah demanded. Then he added, “I shall surely be there.”

“I have no dealings with the next world,” Porportuk repeated sourly.

The dying man regarded him with frank amazement.

“I know naught of the next world,” Porportuk explained. “I do business in this world.”

Klakee-Nah’s face cleared. “This comes of sleeping cold of nights,” he laughed. He pondered for a space, then said, “It is in this world that you must be paid. There remains to me this house. Take it, and burn the debt in the candle there.”

“It is an old house and not worth the money,” Porportuk made answer.

“There are my mines on the Twisted Salmon.”

“They have never paid to work,” was the reply.

“There is my share in the steamer Koyokuk. I am half owner.”

“She is at the bottom of the Yukon.”

Klakee-Nah started. “True, I forgot. It was last spring when the ice went out.” He mused for a time while the glasses remained untasted, and all the company waited upon his utterance.

“Then it would seem I owe you a sum of money which I cannot pay . . . in this world?” Porportuk nodded and glanced down the table.

“Then it would seem that you, Porportuk, are a poor business man,” Klakee-Nah said slyly. And boldly Porportuk made answer, “No; there is security yet untouched.”

“What!” cried Klakee-Nah. “Have I still property? Name it, and it is yours, and the debt is no more.”

“There it is.” Porportuk pointed at El-Soo.

Klakee-Nah could not understand. He peered down the table, brushed his eyes, and peered again.

“Your daughter, El-Soo–her will I take and the debt be no more. I will burn the debt there in the candle.”

Klakee-Nah’s great chest began to heave. “Ho! ho!–a joke. Ho! ho! ho!” he laughed Homerically. “And with your cold bed and daughters old enough to be the mother of El-Soo! Ho! ho! ho!” He began to cough and strangle, and the old slaves smote him on the back. “Ho! ho!” he began again, and went off into another paroxysm.

Porportuk waited patiently, sipping from his glass and studying the double row of faces down the board. “It is no joke,” he said finally. “My speech is well meant.”

Klakee-Nah sobered and looked at him, then reached for his glass, but could not touch it. A slave passed it to him, and glass and liquor he flung into the face of Porportuk.

“Turn him out!” Klakee-Nah thundered to the waiting table that strained like a pack of hounds in leash. “And roll him in the snow!”

As the mad riot swept past him and out of doors, he signalled to the slaves, and the four tottering old men supported him on his feet as he met the returning revellers, upright, glass in hand, pledging them a toast to the short night when a man sleeps warm.

It did not take long to settle the estate of Klakee-Nah. Tommy, the little Englishman, clerk at the trading post, was called in by El-Soo to help. There was nothing but debts, notes overdue, mortgaged properties, and properties mortgaged but worthless. Notes and mortgages were held by Porportuk. Tommy called him a robber many times as he pondered the compounding of the interest.

“Is it a debt, Tommy?” El-Soo asked.

“It is a robbery,” Tommy answered.

“Nevertheless, it is a debt,” she persisted.

The winter wore away, and the early spring, and still the claims of Porportuk remained unpaid. He saw El-Soo often and explained to her at length, as he had explained to her father, the way the debt could be cancelled. Also, he brought with him old medicine-men, who elaborated to her the everlasting damnation of her father if the debt were not paid. One day, after such an elaboration, El-Soo made final announcement to Porportuk.