midnight
Slapjack inhaled deeply , spat with disgust , and looked over his boss incredulously . `` Well , of all the different kinds of damn fools , '' he snorted , `` you are the kindest . '' He marched past the marshal and his deputies down to the cut , put on his coat , and vanished down the trail towards town , not deigning a backward glance either at the mine or at the man unfit to fight for . Late in July it grows dark as midnight approaches , so that the many lights from doorway and window seem less garish and strange than they do a month earlier . In the Northern there was good business doing . The new bar fixtures , which had cost a king 's ransom , or represented the one night 's losings of a Klondike millionaire , shone rich , dark , and enticing , while the cut glass sparkled with iridescent hues , reflecting , in a measure , the prismatic moods , the dancing spirits of the crowd that crushed past , halting at the gambling games , or patronizing the theatre in the rear . The old bar furniture , brought down by dog team from `` Up River , '' was established at the rear extremity of the long building , just inside the entrance to the dancehall , where patrons of the drama might , with a modicum of delay and inconvenience , quaff as deeply of the beaker as of the ballet .