"And a hundred for my clothes and personal outfit," he went on
happily; "that leaves a margin of five hundred for emergencies.
And what possible emergencies can arise?"
Alma shrugged her shoulders and elevated her brows. If that vast
Northland was capable of swallowing up a man and a thousand dozen
eggs, surely there was room and to spare for whatever else he might
happen to possess. So she thought, but she said nothing. She knew
David Rasmunsen too well to say anything.
"Doubling the time because of chance delays, I should make the trip
in two months. Think of it, Alma! Four thousand in two months!
Beats the paltry hundred a month I'm getting now. Why, we'll build
further out where we'll have more space, gas in every room, and a
view, and the rent of the cottage'll pay taxes, insurance, and
water, and leave something over. And then there's always the
chance of my striking it and coming out a millionaire. Now tell
me, Alma, don't you think I'm very moderate?"
And Alma could hardly think otherwise. Besides, had not her own
cousin,--though a remote and distant one to be sure, the black
sheep, the harum-scarum, the ne'er-do-well,--had not he come down
out of that weird North country with a hundred thousand in yellow
dust, to say nothing of a half-ownership in the hole from which it
came?
David Rasmunsen's grocer was surprised when he found him weighing
eggs in the scales at the end of the counter, and Rasmunsen himself
was more surprised when he found that a dozen eggs weighed a pound
and a half--fifteen hundred pounds for his thousand dozen! There
would be no weight left for his clothes, blankets, and cooking
utensils, to say nothing of the grub he must necessarily consume by
the way.
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