IN SEARCH OF EL DORADO

THREE BOOKS OF

TRAVEL AND DESCRIPTION

Siberia. A Record of Travel, Climbing and Exploration.

By Samuel Turner, F.R.G.S. With about 100 Illustrations and 2 Maps. Demy 8vo, cloth, 21s. net.

Travels of a Naturalist in Northern Europe.

By J. A. Harvie-Brown, F.R.S.E., F.Z.S., Author of "Fauna of the Moray Basin," "A Vertebrate Fauna of Orkney," &c.,&c. With 4 Maps and many Illustrations. 2 vols. Royal 8vo, cloth, £3 3s. net.

Russia Under the Great Shadow.

By Luigi Villari, Author of "Giovanni Segantini," "Italian Life in Town and Country," &c. With 85 Illustrations. Demy 8vo, cloth, 10s. 6d. net.

[Introduction]

"Good wine needs no bush," but because a man does not always himself see the full scope of what he has written, an introduction may have its uses for author and readers alike. And to me—the adventure of whose own career has reached the inexorable Finis—these true stories of gold and gem seeking have an interest beyond the mere record of peril and achievement, though, in the words of Sir Philip Sidney, it "stirs the heart like a trumpet-blast" when brave men come to grips with dangers which (like the treasure-guarding dragons of fairy-tales) yield not only their hoard, but their own strength, as reward to the conqueror.

And these are true romances—no fiction with its Deus ex machina at the psychological moment, but the unadorned risks, escapes, and failures of adventurers on the quest of those strange commodities, seemingly haunted by death and fear, from their secrecy in the recesses of the earth till they shine with a sinister light in the crowns of kings or make rough, for better handling, the sword-grips of warriors.

The quest of "El Dorado" begins with the history of man, and in pursuit of the glittering phantom have "many souls of heroes gone down into Hades," only that others might step into their empty places in the ranks. For whatever is found, always just beyond reach flits what is not found—what never will be, be it the golden city of Manoa, with its palace of the Inca, "all the vessels of whose house and kitchen are of gold, and in his wardrobe statues of gold which seemed giants, and ropes, budgets, chests and troughs of gold," or the mysterious jewels of the wisdom of Solomon, or the genie-guarded gems of the Arabian Nights.

The instinct of delight in this adventure which has dazzled the mind of man from time immemorial is universal: it is a relish of youth which persists into the old age of the world; it warms the coldest blood; and our author, who has himself followed the mirage and felt the fascination so keenly, is able to transmit the magic of the search to his readers. Whether toiling over the Chilcoot Pass, hunger-pinched, and desperate with cold and exhaustion, or thirst-tormented in the burning deserts of Central Australia, the indomitable desire that drives him forward with his comrades, drives us also on this modern Odyssey, where the Siren sings on beaches of dead men's bones, and perils as terrible as any man-devouring Cyclops lie in wait for the wanderers.

The author, leaving his book to the verdict of the public, is once more an explorer in the Australian deserts, collecting who knows what strange experiences for future use, so I may, in his absence, characterise him as a born leader of men, a very prudent Odysseus; for what lesser qualities could have held together so strangely assorted a band as the rough-hewn Mac and Stewart and the gentleman adventurer Phil Morris? Reticence is perhaps unavoidable, but one would willingly see and hear more of the central figure than his own modesty allows him to give us.

Yet, as I said before, it is not only the adventure which gives a charm to these studies of wild life. They are little epics of comradeship—impressions of men to whom gold and jewels are much, but to whom loyalty is the one thing better. It is good to see the yellow gleam in the washings, and the milky fire of the Australian opal is worth the perils endured, but there is also the abiding knowledge that quite other and less elusive treasures reward the quest—courage, endurance, and above all—"the manly love of comrades."

And to me—to whom some of these studies recall in keenest remembrance scenes which I shall never behold again with my living eyes—there is another point of view and one of wider interest. Such men, in working out their own destiny, are evolving also the imperial destiny of the Mother-Country. They break the path, and other feet follow. There is the march of an army behind them, for they are the vanguard of civilisation—the first spray of the tide that, however slowly it flows, does not ebb. It is well, since the change must come, that these men, of good home-spun stuff, honest and kindly in thought and deed, should be among the forerunners of the race that will abide where it has set its feet. Scotland need not be ashamed of her sons as they stand before us in these true stories of daring and endurance, and speak with their enemies in the gate.

The inexhaustible mineral and gem deposits of New Guinea are only glanced at, but the description of those marvellous tropical forests, through whose deep ravines rush the gold-bearing torrents, from which "Mac" was able to wash out thirty pounds worth in one day, proves what possibilities England possesses in that great island, and sheds light on the policy of a time, now happily past, when I had hoisted the Flag, in 1872, and thus taken formal possession of Eastern New Guinea. I reported to my chief, and his reply has a curious interest in view of many later developments.

"Have we not enough tropical possessions, without requiring more? Enough issues to sap the strength of our Englishmen, without giving Government patronage to the infliction of new wounds on our body? Enough circumstances in which there must be a subjected race alongside of our English proprietors, without putting the Government stamp on a new scheme which will help to demoralise us, and weaken our moral sense as a nation?"

Such were the views of the Little Englanders thirty years ago. Such seem strangely out of date when explorers of the Alexander Macdonald type are tapping the remotest sources of commerce in the interests of the old country.

So I leave the little band to the reader—very human, compound of great generosities and small failings, travellers, like ourselves, on "the Great Trail" that leads to the Mountains of the Moon, and beyond, but always men, and knit together by so strong a bond that each might well say of the other, with Walt Whitman—

[Preface]

I desire to assure all readers of this book that the scenes here depicted, and the events described, may be taken as faithful representations from life. I would also add that the geographical descriptions throughout are accurate in detail; my knowledge is borne of long and varied experience in the countries of which I write.

A friendly critic, on reviewing my MSS., said that the book might be misunderstood because of its containing the remarks and conversations of my companions, which he considered could not very well have been remembered by the writer. On this point, however, I beg to differ, and I feel that I shall have the sympathy of my fellow-wanderers on my side. When a man has travelled for many years with the same companions, and has shared danger and sorrow and gladness with them, surely it is not too much to assume that he must ultimately know their temperaments well, and would scarcely need to draw upon his imagination when recalling their various remarks on striking incidents.

At the conclusion of our Western Australian journey the outbreak of the South African war caused a temporary disbandment of my party, all of whose members served at the Front with the Australian Contingents during the campaign. As a result it will be observed that in the third part of this volume the narratives partake somewhat of a general nature, and are also more or less disconnected.

Finally let me say in extenuation of any brusqueness or crudity of expression which may be noticeable, that I write as a traveller whose hand has more often gripped the rifle and sextant than the pen.

[Contents]

[List of Illustrations]

UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE
WHITE PASS

I have stumbled upon a few "tough" corners of the globe during my wanderings beyond the outposts of civilisation, but I think the most outrageously lawless quarter I ever struck was Skagway in the days of its early infancy. Now, I am told, Skagway is a flourishing township, boasting of the orthodox amount of "broad" streets and "palatial" buildings for an American "boom" camp. This may be, though—unless the geographical features of the district have altered—I can hardly credit it. When I was there the embryo city balanced itself precariously along the lower slopes of the White Pass, and a good percentage of the population had to be content with huts built on piles within the tidal limit of the Lynn Canal. In short, there was no room to build anything, and Skagway existed simply because it marked the entry to the Yukon's frozen treasure. Its permanent residents were, for the most part, sharpers of the worst type; indeed, it seemed as if the scum of the earth had hastened here to fleece and rob, or, failing those gentle arts, to murder the unwary voyagers to or from the Golden North. There was no law whatsoever; might was right, the dead shot only was immune from danger.

It was late autumn in the year when the first news of Klondike riches burst upon the world, when I, with my companion Mac, arrived at the head of the Lynn inlet, en route for the land of snows and nuggets. Our ship, the Rosalie, carried a goodly number of passengers, but they were mainly of the ruffian "store and saloon-keeper" variety, and few, if any, of them ever got beyond the pass. The true gold-miner is proverbially poor, and as yet his kind had not been numerous on the trail. As for myself, I was enterprising if nothing else, and my companion made up for my deficiencies in other respects. He was a ferocious individual without a doubt, my worthy henchman; without him my early journeyings would have ended before they had well begun, but, being a hardened traveller, he knew how to adapt himself to circumstances, and how to come off best in a scrimmage, both of which traits were brought fully out before we had been long in the villainous little camp of Skagway. Our first twenty-four hours' experiences may be worth relating.

We were the only representatives of Old England in these uncouth parts at this period, a fact which had not made us any more beloved by the aggressively hostile Yankees on board the Rosalie. Times without number they told me how the "great American nation" could wipe the British Isles off the face of the earth at a moment's notice, and how a "free-born American" was equal to a dozen Britishers, and how we two would be swallowed alive by these same men should we dare say a word to the contrary. We bore a good deal of this sort of thing in silence, though occasionally throughout the protracted voyage my fiery aide-de-camp retaliated angrily, and did considerable damage among his tormentors, who proved to be warlike only in their speech. But this is a digression, and though I could write pages on that momentous cruise—we ran aground five times, and were practically wrecked twice—I must desist and continue my narrative.

The first man we saw after being dumped on the muddy shores of Skagway Bay was a short, red-headed individual, with ruddy countenance to match, who fairly bristled with weapons of the most bloodthirsty description. He approached Mac and me as we stood hesitatingly by the water's edge looking around for some habitation wherein we might find refuge for the first night of our sojourn in a strange land.

"Hallo, stranger!" he saluted, affably, firing a huge revolver unpleasantly close to my ear in a most nonchalant manner.

"Hallo!" I said without enthusiasm, feeling cautiously in the rear of my nether garments to make sure that my own gun was where it ought to be.

He seemed somewhat hurt at the stiffness of my rejoinder, and toyed suggestively with his revolver for some moments without speaking. Meanwhile Mac proceeded unconcernedly along the beach to where a huge hulk lay moored, whose broad beam bore the legend in giant letters—"Skagit Hotel. Recently of San Francisco. Finest accommodation in town."

I was preparing to follow in my comrade's footsteps, marvelling at the enterprise which had brought the old dismasted schooner so opportunely to such a region; but my friend with the gun was not to be put off.

"Say, stranger," he growled, stepping before me, "you don't know who I am, I reckon——"

"I don't," I interrupted, shortly, "and I am not over anxious to make your acquaintance either."

He glared at me savagely for an instant, then broke out into a hearty laugh. "For a darned Englisher you are mighty pert," he said, "an' I won't slaughter you—just yet. Still, for your future benefit I may tell you that my handle is Soapy Sam, an' I've planted considerable men like you in my time. I'm a bad man, I is, but your ignorance saves ye."

The conversation was being uncomfortably prolonged; yet I dared not make any movement. "What's the damage, Soapy?" I asked contritely. "I suppose you are collecting toll in your polite way?"

He lowered his weapon and grinned. "Every tenderfoot as lands in this here city has to play poker with me or fight," he acknowledged smilingly.

I realised my position at once. It was painfully clear to me that the "fight" would be all on one side, and could only end in one way so long as Soapy held the "drop," and it was also clear that the alternative was to submit to wholesale robbery. A loud shout at our back made us both turn with alacrity, and behold there stood Mac with his long Winchester repeater levelled fairly at Soapy Samuel's head. The wily individual had scented danger, and had made a détour expressly for my benefit.

"Say when," he murmured calmly, from behind his artillery, "and I'll blow the deevil into vulgar fractions."

I stepped out of range of fire without delay. Soapy's fingers twitched on the stock of his lowered revolver as his ferret-like eyes blinked down the muzzle of the deadly tube, which never wavered a hair's breadth. Then his weapon dropped from his nerveless hand, and slowly his arms were upraised towards the sky, and he smiled an exceedingly sickly smile.

"You've got the pull on me this time, partner," he said. "I caves."

At this moment a hoarse chorus of cheers rang out from the vicinity of the Skagit Hotel. The inmates had assembled on the upper deck to witness the discomfiture of their common enemy.

"Shoot him!" they roared; "he killed old Smith."

But Mac was not disposed to make himself public executioner. "Ye'd better vanish, Soapy," he grunted.

"Never mind the cannon ye dropped; it'll just suit me. Quick, fur I'm getting nervish."

Soapy fled, slipping and stumbling through the snow in his intense haste. But when he had placed a good hundred yards between him and his conqueror, he turned and waved his hand cheerily.

"I bear no ill-will, boys," he shouted; "I was clean bested. But," and he turned towards the Skagit, "I'll have it out with you afore long, and don't forgit it."

A yell of derision greeted him in return. Apparently the Skagit dwellers meant to take all chances with a light heart. Mac grounded his rifle with a grunt of satisfaction.

"This is the deevil's ain country we've struck," he grumbled. "It's a blessed thing I got insured afore I left auld Scotland." I agreed with him heartily, and together we sought the hospitable shelter of the stranded hotel, where we were welcomed effusively by the proprietor thereof, a merry-faced Irishman of the name of O'Connor.

"We're chock full up, but we'll gladly make room for you, boys," he said. "It wouldn't be safe to allow you to go up among Soapy's gang."

I expressed my gratitude for his tender solicitude, then made sundry inquiries as to the prospects of crossing the pass within the next day or so.

"You want to cross the pass?" he echoed, in amazement. "Why, you won't be able to do that until next spring. The snows are on, and the trail is blocked with hundreds of dead horses anyhow."

I had heard this statement so often of late that I was in nowise taken aback. "We certainly did not come here for the good of our health," I said. "We'll try the Chilcoot Pass if the Skagway route is impossible. Dyea is not very far from here, I think?"

"Only about four miles round about," he replied. "It is at the head of the inlet you would see before your ship branched in here. A mighty miserable place it is, for the winds sweep right down from the sea almost constantly."

"We didn't expect to find roses growing on the track," snorted Mac, impatiently. "We'll try and get round to Dyea in the morning."

But now another difficulty arose. There were no boats to be had stout enough to withstand the heavy gales which, as we had just been told, blew ceaselessly up the funnel-like entrance to the Chilcoot Valley, and even if there had been, our outfit of flour and miscellaneous foodstuffs was rather an unwieldy factor to be considered.

"It's a maist ungodly country," commented Mac gloomily. "There seems to be nae room for anybody but thieves an' murderers, and it' very funny that there's no' an honest gold-miner among the lot."

Our fellow-passengers nearly all had found congenial quarters further back in the city, and one or two had erected their tents on the beach, forgetting in their haste to found a home that the tide would wash over their camp site about twelve o'clock that same night. Yet no one cared to inform them on the matter, and Mac watched their progress with undisguised joy, and howled with delight when one of his old enemies began to haul timber from the hillside for the purpose of building a substantial edifice on the sinking sands.

"They might know that the old Skagit couldn't have walked up here," laughed our host. "But they'll find out their mistake soon enough, I reckon," and he chuckled, long and loudly.

Having partaken of dinner, Mac and I sallied forth to visit the scattered array of huts and tents which constituted the town.

"Look out for Soapy Sam," warned a swarthy-visaged man in picturesque attire. "He's a nasty sort of skunk to meet, even in the daytime, as you already know. If ye get into trouble just yell on me—Black Harry is my handle—and I'll be with you in a couple of shakes."

I thanked the dusky warrior, who indeed looked as if he could give a very good account of himself when necessary, and with the butt of my revolver clutched tightly in my hand, I walked citywards with Mac, who gravely whistled selections from a hymn entitled, "There is a Happy Land." On our arrival in Klondike Avenue, as the main thoroughfare was elegantly styled, not a solitary individual was to be seen. The weather was bitterly cold, and the denizens of the camp, with commendable good sense, avoided all danger of frostbite by keeping within the shelter of their wigwams. The deserted avenue was therefore a most dreary spectacle, and the gathering shadows of night hanging over the grim pass in the background did not tend to enliven the gloom of the scene.

"And to think that for the last fortnight I hae heard nothing but stories o' American grit, American hardiness, American—everything," soliloquised Mac, sarcastically; "yet every deevil o' them is frichtened o' catchin' cold—but hallo! what's this?"

He directed my gaze towards a flaring poster nailed to a tree. We approached, and read the rude notice. "In the Skagit Hall to-night. Grand concert. Miss Caprice, of New York, the world-famed variety actress, will hold the camp in thrall. Leave your guns at home, and come early to avoid the rush. N.B.—Poker tables have been fixed up for the convenience of the audience."

The last clause gave the key to the whole concern. Miss Caprice—whoever that might be—was merely an extra attraction. Appended was a weird diagram purporting to be a sketch of the aforesaid Miss Caprice in the intricacies of one of her dance specialities. Mac shuddered and looked pained.

"This is maist decidedly no place for a white man," he asserted, with a sigh. Then we turned and headed back for the Skagit, where in the later hours the world-famed artiste was billed to disport herself. As we passed by a large log structure set back among the trees, I was surprised to hear a husky voice call out to us, and while we hesitated the door of the hut swung open, and Soapy Sam appeared and beckoned mysteriously. He apparently had discarded his armoury, but I was not disposed to trust much to appearances, at which our old enemy looked considerably aggrieved.

"I bear no grudge, boys," he said. "No man can say that Soapy Sam went back on his word. You downed me fair."

"Then what is it?" I inquired suspiciously.

"Ye must admit, Soapy, ma man," added Mac drily, "that your reputation even among yer ain folk is no' just rosy."

But Soapy was evidently determined not to be offended by anything we might say. He approached with hands extended in token of good faith, and, noting this, we stayed our progress and waited wonderingly to hear what he wished to speak. He did not enlighten us much, however.

"I say, boys," he whispered when he came near, "can you both swim?"

Mac nodded. "But it wouldna be a pleasant diversion in this weather," he remarked, with a shudder.

"Then don't go near the Skagit to-night," said Soapy impressively. "There's a storm rising, and I shouldn't wonder if the old barge bursts her moorings before morning."

He was gone in an instant, and Mac and I gazed at each other in dismay. "What can he mean?" I said.

"Heaven knows," growled Mac; "but we'll likely find out before very long. He's a gey slippery customer, is Soapy, an' no' easily understood, I'm thinkin'."

We continued on our course meditating deeply, but, no solution of the mysterious warning presenting itself, it escaped our minds utterly in the noisy excitement that prevailed on our return to the Skagit. O'Connor, the proprietor, was all agog with the importance of his position as master of ceremonies; he was busily superintending the placing of a rickety old piano when we made our appearance, and he immediately seized on Mac for a song during the evening, a favour which was most promptly refused.

"Miss Caprice an' me wouldna suit on the same programme," was the worthy diplomatist's excuse. "Get Black Harry an' Soapy Sam—"

"Soapy Sam is barred this circus," sternly interrupted O'Connor. "I'm running a concert to-night, not a funeral undertaking establishment." Assuredly Soapy Sam's prowess was no mean factor to be considered.

At 7 p.m. prompt—as advertised—the entertainment began. The room was crowded with truly all sorts and conditions of men, and the air reeked with tobacco smoke. The piano manipulator—a bewhiskered and groggy-looking personage in top-boots—took his place with stately grace as befitted the dignity of his office. He ran his fingers clumsily over the keys as if seeking for some lost chord or combination, which, however, he did not find, and then he rattled out an ear-shattering melody in which the audience, after a moment's pause, joined lustily. In the midst of the uproar thus let loose a gaudily-bedecked creature of the female persuasion, wearing a grin that almost obliterated her features, appeared on the raised stage at the end of the saloon, and joined in the pandemonium, her shrill voice screaming out the touching information that there would be "a hot time in the old town to-night," which coincided with the item on the programme.

This was Miss Caprice—a type of the "noble and enduring" women whom recent "Klondike" novelists have portrayed so tenderly in their "realistic" romances. Heaven forbid that the respectable British public should be thus deceived. There was no woman with any claim to the name on the long trail in these days.

It would be impossible to describe the course of that memorable "concert." It continued in spasms—or turns, which I believe is the correct term to use—far into the night, with occasional interruptions in the shape of fights and wordy altercations among the poker players, diversions which lent pleasurable variety to the entertainment, though now and again it seemed as if a funeral or two would surely result therefrom. But all smoothed off harmoniously under the influence of Miss Caprice's moving melodies, which always were turned on at opportune moments. Mac said that her voice was like unto the buzzing of a steam saw in cross-grained wood, but perhaps he was prejudiced, or his artistic senses a trifle too fine. Anyhow, she pleased the multitude mightily, and they roared out their appreciation boisterously at the conclusion of each of her vocal exercises, and implored her to continue her soothing ditties unendingly. The too free use of the flowing bowl was probably accountable for the warmth of their approval; but Miss Caprice, having indulged in equal degree with her admirers, was getting less and less able to trill forth sweet sounds for their edification, and matters were fast beginning to assume a by no means inviting aspect.

Several times during the progress of events Mac and I endeavoured to make an unobtrusive exit, but all to no purpose.

Slowly the time dragged on its weary course, then suddenly I became aware that the old Skagit was rising with the incoming tide. She swayed cumbrously once or twice, and her rotten timbers creaked and groaned dismally under the strain, but no one seemed to consider these indications worthy of attention, and the roystering chorus went on without interruption. At intervals I could hear vague voices calling excitedly without, and I guessed that the men who had built their homes in the sand were having a bad time.

Another half-hour passed. By this time the taste of the audience had reached the sentimental stage, and they loudly clamoured for a song suited to their altered temperament. The accompanist, however, persisted in playing the "hot time" tune to everything, so he was discharged with ignominy by the scornful prima donna, who announced in broken accents that she would give a rendering of "Ashtore" without musical assistance, which was most unwise on her part. Still, she persisted at her task, and got to the end of the first verse without mishap; but as she screamed out the last wailing notes of the chorus the old Skagit gave a sudden lurch, and sent her reeling head foremost into the centre of the room.

"What's the matter with the darned barge?" howled several indignant voices among the crowd, but no answer was forthcoming. The Skagit at that moment was seized with convulsions, and rolled and pitched in a most unaccountable manner.

"Howlin' blazes!" yelled Black Harry. "The happy home must have broken loose."

The rush that followed is beyond description. Mac and I, being less affected by the motion of the hulk than the majority, reached the deck first. Away far back to the right the lights of Skagway shimmered out over the smooth waters of Skagway Bay. To the left the faint illuminations of Healy's Store at Dyea shone at the head of the Chilcoot Inlet, along which great seas were rolling in from the main channel. We had drifted out with the ebbing tide, and we were now being borne onwards by the uninterrupted ocean gales. If we escaped being dashed to pieces against the rocky bluffs of the peninsula, we might be driven ashore on the mud banks at Dyea; but it was certain that the Skagit could not return to her wonted anchorage that night.

Loud and deep were the curses that now arose from all on board.

"It's Soapy Sam's work," howled O'Connor. "He must have cut the moorings. He said he would do it."

Then I remembered Soapy's warning, but held my peace, and while the men raved, and threatened, and prayed in turn, the old Skagit dashed on her new course, buffeted by the great seething rollers crowding in from the sea, and spinning like a top in the swirling waters. Crash! At last we had struck, and the surging waves swept over the deck in a copious flood, and the night was filled with the shrieks of the frenzied band, who feared the worst; but it was only a sand bar after all, the first of a series of similar obstacles that bar the Dyea Channel at high water.

"We could never have got round here ourselves," muttered Mac, as we stood watching the slowly-receding waves. "It is a fact that it's a gey ill wind that blaws naebody good."

In a short space the Skagit lay high and dry where she had been deposited, and for the first time we learned that the Dyea Bar stretches out three miles from the village. But I was satisfied. As Mac had implied, the Skagit had unconsciously done us a service of no mean order in transporting our outfit nearer the Chilcoot Pass. With calm contentment he and I sought peaceful slumber in the humble quarters allotted to us earlier in the day, while the rest of the ship's company—including Miss Caprice—started to climb the dividing mountain ridge to Skagway on the trail of the elusive Soapy.

[SHOOTING THE WHITE HORSE RAPIDS]

It was a month later when we reached the shores of Lake Linderman en route for the frozen North. The Chilcoot Pass had presented an almost impassable barrier to our advance; a light film of snow clung to the bare rocks and filled the numberless crevices of the "Summit"—that last grim climb, where the Dyea trail mounts all but perpendicularly upwards to the blizzard-swept glacier cap of the pass—and no room for foothold could be traced. It would be impossible to describe that frightful climb. When we reached the top and saw far below the twisting line of Indian "packers," who seemed to stick like flies to the white wall, we could not understand how the ascent had been accomplished.

Crater Lake, on the "other" side, was covered with a broad sheet of ice which was not sufficiently strong to bear our sleighs, or weak enough to allow of a passage being broken for our portable canvas boat. Here we were delayed many days, laboriously dragging our outfit to a less lofty and more congenial climate.

Long Lake, Deep Lake, and Mud Lake were successfully negotiated in turn; their waters glistened cold and cheerless, surrounded by the great snowy peaks that were rapidly opening out into the magnificent Yukon valley. Far down in the hollow, seemingly in a sunnier and well-timbered spot, nestled Lake Linderman, and beyond, the Yukon channel could be traced between the ever-widening mountain ranges. We had packed sleighs in our outfit, not expecting to use them until we reached the Klondike river, and how successful they might prove should it be necessary to force a trail across the frozen waters was a matter for conjecture.

At this time Linderman's shores were the scene of much bustle; many intending voyagers were building their boats in feverish haste, for they knew that the elements must soon lay firm grip on the waters, and render their work useless.

Major Walsh, the Canadian Administrator of the Yukon Territory, had just made his appearance from over the Skagway trail, and he was all eagerness to proceed. He immediately bought—at fabulous prices—the boats that were built, and, without a day's delay, set sail northwards with his staff.

Two days after the Major's departure, I succeeded in purchasing a twenty-feet "Dorie" from a disheartened miner who had decided to return to Dyea, and wait for the ensuing spring.

I need not detail our journeyings for the next few days. Linderman was sailed over within two hours, then the half-mile porterage between it and Lake Bennet was accomplished after much labour. This latter lake is twenty-eight miles in length, its northern extremity narrowing down to a deep and swift-flowing channel, which extends but a few hundred yards before expanding into a broad, shallow lake or lagoon, colloquially known as "Caribou Crossing." The current here is sluggish, and the water abounds in shoals and sandbanks, which at that time were a sore trial to the adventuresome navigator with his precious freight of flour and other necessaries.

Tagash Lake forms the next link in the great lake chain of the Yukon, and it stretches full twenty-nine miles, then contracting to a fierce-flowing stream by which the Canadian Customs Offices are now stationed.

Beyond this is Marsh Lake, and here it was that our troubles began.

Not a breath of wind stirred the waters of the lake, and our crudely-built dorie, containing 1,000 pounds of flour and 1,000 pounds of miscellaneous foodstuffs, ploughed slowly through the wide expanse to the accompaniment of much wheezing and groaning of oars, and an endless string of forcible expletives that burst from the lips of my stalwart companions, who provided the motive power of the ungainly craft. The favouring wind had died away, and, unaided by the sails, we could make but little headway over the still water. The weather had become strangely cold considering the earliness of the season, and I was almost benumbed as I sat in the steersman's perch, directing the course by sundry sweeps of a great-bladed Indian paddle, which I wielded with both hands.

"Keep it up, boys," I encouraged. "We are more than half-way through the lake."

"Twa miles an 'oor," grunted Mac between his efforts. "This is the worst boat I ever pulled."

Stewart, his companion, another brawny Scot who had joined me at Dyea, rested his oar for a moment to breathe a sympathetic swear word of much intensity; then together they bent to their labours, and the rasp of the oars, and the brief swish of the eddying pools created, alone broke the deadly quiet.

Towards nightfall I was surprised to notice here and there large sheets of ice on the lake surface, and occasionally our heavily-laden boat would grind against these obstacles, shouldering them off with much effort: then my oarsmen's long sweeps would rend and split them as they passed alongside.

It was very plain that the Yukon headwaters were fast freezing over.

"We'll have to keep going all night, boys," I said, "for we'll be ice jammed if we camp anywhere around here."

The fierce torrent issuing from the end of the lake and rushing towards the dread White Horse Rapids would in all probability be free from ice—if we could reach that far.

Strenuously my companions pulled at their oars. The gloom deepened, then the stars came out, and by their feeble light I could distinguish far ahead a scintillating field of ice.

The sight caused me almost to despair—we had been sailing since early morning, and were tired and very hungry.

Before I could get the head of our boat turned inshore, it had crashed through several flaking sheets, and immediately after I realised that we were hopelessly in an ice maze from which there seemed no exit.

"We'll gang straight on," said Mac, with determination, and he levered powerfully with his oar against the frosted masses.

A quarter of an hour passed, then the up-turning stem of the dorie went thud against an immovable barrier, and I knew that we were indeed ice-jammed beyond the possibility of forcing a passage with the oars. Nor could we return, for the ice-pack we had negotiated for miles was now seemingly welded together in one solid mass.

Cautiously Mac put his moccasined foot over the prow and bore heavily on the glittering ice; it neither strained nor yielded.

With a fervent malediction he jumped on "shore," and felt the edge of the sheet.

"It's mair than twa inches," he said sorrowfully. "Hoo can we get through this?"

Very sadly we got out of our boat, and, taking the cooking utensils, the tent, and some flour and coffee, sought a sheltered spot among the dense timber on the lake side. Soon we had almost forgotten our woes, and were regaling ourselves with copious draughts of coffee and much hard damper.

From our tent door we could see our boat stuck fast amid the ice. How we were to get it free I could not well imagine. In the morning, however, we awoke with renewed energy and more hopeful hearts.

"We cannot have far to go, boys," I said. "We'll cut down a couple of trees and use them to break a passage."

After breakfast we lost no time in making the effort. Armed with the heavy logs, we re-embarked, and soon the ponderous hammers had begun their work and a passage was slowly made towards the Yukon. With great reluctance our boat moved ahead, leaving a trail of glittering ice boulders. Mac leaned over the bow and opened the channel, while Stewart and I belaboured the masses that closed in on either side.

About midday we neared the end of the lake, and the channel beyond appeared a rippling, crackling flood of jagged ice-floes.

We felt the suction of the current long before we had reached the limit of the ice-field. The sheets became thinner and broke away readily, so that the oars came again into play, and we crashed onward impetuously on the bosom of an irresistible stream.

At last we were free, and our boat dashed madly into the narrow egress, bumping, grinding, and rocking against the detached fragments of ice that appeared everywhere.

With a great effort we managed to slow our craft before coming into contact with a sharp jutting rock that reared high in the middle of the stream, and then we found that it required all our energies to evade the miniature icebergs that rushed alongside. These floating dangers looked harmless enough, yet they were fully six inches deep in the water, and contact with them would result in much damage to the planks of our dorie. Several times, indeed, we were almost overturned by colliding with unusually large floes.

In another hour we had nearly navigated the extent of Miles's canyon, and only several hundred yards ahead I noticed Major Walsh's flotilla, buffetting the seething waters cumbrously, while the men at the oars strained every muscle to escape the perils that abounded in their course.

"We're not far away from the White Horse, boys," I said to my sturdy henchmen, who were working away like galley slaves. They ceased their labours for a moment to look round, and at once our vessel swung about and drifted dangerously near the rocky river steeps.

"We maun keep a way on her," said Stewart.

"Let's ken when we're through," said Mac, and their oars cleft the water like the paddle floats of a fast river steamer.

The current was flowing at the rate of ten miles an hour, and to keep a steering way on our unwieldy barge was, as may be understood, no easy matter.

Frantically I swung my paddle and strove my utmost to avert the calamity that every moment seemed to threaten us.

We were rapidly gaining on Major Walsh's outfit. He had four boats in all, three of them being clumsy barges laden entirely with provisions. These latter were manned by several members of the North-West Mounted Police, who worked their oars from difficult-looking perches among the flour sacks.

The police boats, however, steered a very erratic course, sometimes being carried forward almost on their beam ends. I guessed that the heavily freighted craft had become unmanageable; certainly the steersmen seemed to have no control. Yet I had little time to notice those ahead, for our own "clipper" required every attention.

"Keep her going, boys," I yelled, as I worked my steering paddle with a will, evading rocks, boulders, and ice floes in turn.

Suddenly the white dashing surf of the Rapids came into view, the river narrowed to a fraction of its former width, and over the cataract a jagged sea of the dangerous floes crackled and roared into the abyss beyond.

I saw the Major's first boat fly like an arrow from the bow into the heart of the boiling foam; it careened dangerously on taking the sweep, then righted itself and disappeared into the flying mists.

"Steady, Mac!" I cried, as our craft entered the race. The dense spray almost obscured the great deflecting rock, and we rushed seemingly to destruction.

Then, before my eyes, there appeared an awful spectacle. Faster than I can write the words—one, two, three—each of Major Walsh's three boats reared high in the sleety mist and overturned one after the other as they took the curve.

"Let her go, boys," I bellowed. "Bend to it." The crucial moment had arrived; we were enveloped in foam, and were dashing straight towards the torrent-deflecting bluff. I leaned far back over the stern of our half-submerged boat, and with a mighty stroke of the paddle swung her head round, and we grazed death by barely half a dozen inches.

A moment more and we were floating in almost placid waters. Beside us bobbed three smashed boats. Major Walsh stood sorrowfully on shore assisting dripping men from the water.

"It's all over, boys," I said to my crew; "you can ease off now," and I steered for the beach and lent my aid in the work of rescue.

The half-drowned Canadians were dragged ashore gasping and almost senseless, and while we scanned the grim waters anxiously for a trace of one still missing, his body was tossed at our feet by the relentless waves. Soon after, the sand was littered with sacks of flour, and beans, and miscellaneous foodstuffs.

Several camps were in evidence around this melancholy spot, erected by men who had lost their all in the rapids, and were only waiting a chance to return to civilisation. They eagerly accepted the Major's offer to purchase their scanty outfits, and without loss of time that intrepid old Indian fighter had embarked again for the north. To him it was a race with the elements, but the elements won after all, and compelled him to make his winter camp at Big Salmon River, forty miles further north, where we overtook him a few days later.

"It's no use my lads, you can't do it!" he said, on my reiterating my intention of proceeding onwards. "Why, the river's frozen solid from here to St. Michael's."

"Then we'll put skids under the old boat and make her into a sledge," quoth Mac, drily, and I hailed the suggestion with encouragement.

We duly arrived at Dawson City after many days and weeks of ceaseless struggle with the elements on that long and terrible icy trail, and our coming was received with rejoicings by the few half-starved miners who at that time peopled the "City." We had proved the feasibility of an over-ice route to Dyea.

[THE LAND OF THE THRON-DIUCKS]

The Klondike Valley in that winter was the scene of many stirring incidents. Owing to the non-arrival of the Canadian Government Commissioner and his police no law or order prevailed. To make matters worse the utmost bitterness existed between the Canadian and American sections of the community, each of whom claimed the rich gold-bearing territory as being within their country's boundary. Quarrels more or less serious were consequently of every-day occurrence. However, the following incident involves no harrowing description of these fierce skirmishes—though it might have led to a most sanguinary encounter with the true owners of the land.

Accompanied by "Cap." Campbell and "Alf" Mackay, two well-known miners, my party set out on a prospecting expedition into the mountains flanking the upper reaches of the Klondike River. We had one dog, a powerful mastiff, named Dave, which had proved an invaluable companion to me on our earlier prospecting journeys. Previous to this we had been very successful in our quest for the yellow metal, having located three creeks rich in the precious golden sand. But our eagerness seemed likely to cost us dear, for our store of foodstuffs had become wonderfully small, and we were many days' journey from our camp on Skookum Gulch, where were our headquarters.

The return journey proved to be more difficult than we had anticipated; the weather had been very severe for the last few days, and the snow on the hillside was hard and dangerously slippery.

"We'll try a short cut over the mountains, boys," said Mackay, as we strove vainly to reach the frozen river far beneath.

The Klondike takes many twists in its erratic course, and it so happened that if we could cross a mountain spur we should strike the trail only a few miles from Eldorado Creek.

"We'll make the attempt," I said, and Mac and Stewart concurred with emphatic ejaculations. One sleigh carried the possessions of the whole party, and it was tugged along by our combined efforts, including the assistance of Dave, who struggled in his harness in the leader's position. At last we surmounted the great glacier-capped ridge and gingerly made a trail through a narrow ice-bound gulch issuing from the crystal dome and marking a long line of gigantic ice boulders far into the wooded slopes beyond.

We slid, and clambered, and buffeted with the snow wreaths and intervening ice fields for over an hour, and then the gully led us across a thickly-timbered flat well sheltered from the elements by the surrounding mountains. At this stage we were, to judge by the lay of the country, but a few miles from the main channel; but the afternoon was far advanced and darkness was quickly closing over the valley, so that further progress was rendered difficult. We were looking about for a suitable camping ground when Mac, who had been closely examining the landscape, gave a howl of delight. "Injuns!" he roared, "I see Injun hooses!" Sure enough there appeared, nestling among the drooping pines, a straggling array of Indian huts and several totem poles. Before I could restrain them, my henchmen dropped their sleigh ropes and rushed impetuously towards the supposed settlement, but their moccasined feet stuck deeply in the soft snow under the trees, and, using my snowshoes to good effect, I succeeded in rounding up the doughty pair before they had gone far.

"It's an Indian village," I explained, "and not a circus."

"I ken weel what it is," indignantly howled Mac. "Hiv I no seen Injuns afore? When I wis oot on the pampas o' Sooth America—"

But I listened no further, and Stewart condoled with his comrade in well chosen words of sympathy.

"This is nae country for us, Mac," said he. "A lot o' Injun hooses, wi'—wi' chunks o' caribou hangin' inside, an' we maunna touch them!" He almost wept at the thought.

"Howlin' blazes, boys!" shouted the Captain, "them Injuns'd make ye into mince pies at oncet; ye wur committin' sooicide!"

But Mackay smiled broadly and winked reassuringly at Mac, whereupon that gentleman began to chuckle audibly.

"We've nae floor, an' nae bacon, an' nae beans—nae naething," he said meaningly. "If you have no 'jeckshuns,'" added Mackay, addressing me with much deliberation, "we'll camp a leetle furrer down."

I had no objections whatever. If I had, it might not have mattered much, for my warlike retainers seemed on the verge of mutiny. So we proceeded on our way, cautiously and silently, keeping in the densest shadows, and as far distant from the village as we could conveniently get.

Ten minutes later our tent was fixed and our camp fire blazing brightly; and Stewart, with a lugubrious countenance, busied himself preparing the last of our hoarded stores. Our fare was certainly meagre and unsatisfying, and unfortunately the keen air had given us extremely healthy appetites. I am inclined to think, when I recall the matter, that my share, as doled out by Stewart, with many a sigh at its diminutive proportions, was unnecessarily meagre, and purposely served so by that wily individual in order to destroy any conscientious scruples I might have. If that was his purpose it succeeded admirably, for when my humble repast was finished I felt hungrier than ever, and had not the ghost of a scruple left.

"Talkin' about Injun villages," began Mackay, when the cooking utensils had been cleared away, "I've niver seen wan yet that hadn't a winter storehouse of dried salmon and cariboo somewheres handy."

"Ye're a man efter ma ain heart," beamingly interrupted Mac, and Stewart murmured: "Dried cariboo!" and smacked his lips.

"As I was discoursin'," continued Mackay, "them Injuns hiv always got rations hid away in their wigwams."

"Likewise a few tommy-hawks an' an assortment o' clubs," grimly edged in the Captain.

No one seemed anxious to say anything in a direct sort of way, although the general meaning was plain enough.

"To cut it short, boys," I ventured to remark, "you are in favour of visiting the village to-night?"

"Fur reasons which it ain't necessary to shout out loud—precisely," answered Mackay.

After that further speech was superfluous, and we made hurried preparations for our marauding journey. The Indians at this time were very hostile towards the white invaders of their country, and there was little reason to hope that they would either barter or sell any of their stores to us. There is a proverb which states that "necessity knows no law," and as we were in rather a sad plight we agreed with it to the letter; there may have been room for some slight condonation of our errors of reason at such a time. About eight o'clock that night we sallied out, leaving Mac with the dog in charge of the sleigh, with instructions to clear out lively should he hear a revolver shot. The worthy Mac was much disgusted with his lot, and gave vent to his annoyance in no stinted terms.

"It wis ma idee at first," he grumbled, "an' it's gey hard fur a man tae be sacrifeeced tae wait here a' the time."

"You've got the healthiest job, my friend," said the Captain, "an' you ought to be durned well pleased."

The moon shone brilliantly, illuminating the open snow patches and shooting down through the heavy foliage myriad rays of dancing light. I remember well how we had hoped for darkness, and how nervously we crept along seeking the shelter of the deepest shadows. A death-like stillness reigned; the thermometer in camp had registered 37 degrees below zero, and we knew that the mercury would keep falling till midnight. Our faces were quickly framed in icicles, and a thin dazzling frost draped us from head to foot. We presented truly ghost-like figures, but we were too much engrossed with other matters to notice our strange appearance. Soon we arrived within sight of the village, and stealthily we manœuvred from tree to tree until we were but a few yards distant from the largest logged structure. And still not a sound was heard; the frosted edifices showed no sign of life within.

"Seems to me we're in luck," chuckled Mackay, gazing on the desolate scene with evident enjoyment. "The population has evidently gone out huntin' bear or moose deer, or some sich quodroo-ped, and thar shid therefore be no call fur any skirmish. Put up your guns, boys," he added, "there's nary soul in the village."

We were all greatly relieved at this, yet it was with a feeling of deep humiliation that I approached the most imposing of the houses and began to investigate the best and surest means of forcing an entry. I had seen a few Indian buildings in my travels, but this one was unlike any design I had ever witnessed. There appeared to be two heavily-barricaded wooden windows in the usual places, but search as we might, no door could be found.

"We'll try another," said Mackay, loath to acknowledge that the peculiar structure was beyond his comprehension. We examined each one—there were six in all—but they were alike in every particular, save that the one which had first received our attention was larger than the others, and had a very imposing totem pole in its foreground.

"The first was the most likely, boys," I said, "we'll go back to it." And back we went.

Stewart was now working up something approaching a righteous wrath against the "heathen sort o' buildin's." "I'll shin mak' a door," he said, with emphasis, bracing his shoulders; then something caught his eye on the rough planking walls, and he beckoned to me mysteriously before applying his energy towards their demolition.

"What is it?" asked Mackay impatiently.

"Come and hold a match," I said. He did so, while I laboriously spelled out a series of Chinook characters which had evidently been cut deep into the wood through the agency of some sharp instrument, most probably a tomahawk. The result was rather mystifying, for, translating into English, I read twelve names ending with the words, "Chief of the Thron-Diucks." Eleven of the names were simply unpronounceable, but the last entry had a decidedly English appearance; it required no translation, and read: "King James the First, Chief of the Thron-Diucks."

"We've struck the King's house," said Mackay with a laugh. "The old skunk and I hev niver agreed, so I hope he doesn't come along now."

"I thought he called himself 'James the Second,'" said the Captain slowly.

But Stewart would wait no longer. "Staun clear, a'm comin'!" he cried, and his voice rang with shivering distinctness through the air. With a short rush he threw himself against the wooden barrier; the stout timbers bent and quivered, but resisted the shock, and from within came a harsh, tearing sound, terminating in a muffled crash, as of something falling heavily. Again and again Stewart acted as a battering ram, but only vague echoes rewarded his efforts; the logs were evidently unusually firmly founded. The noises created by these various onslaughts—and ultimately we had simultaneously applied all our energies without avail—had a most demoralising effect upon us, and after each attack we waited breathlessly until the echoes had died away. Assuredly, if the Indians were within several miles of us, they could not fail to hear the diabolical din we were creating.

We had been over an hour at our depredating labours, and I was beginning to wish I had never sanctioned the expedition; then the indefatigable Stewart made a discovery. We had hitherto neglected to examine the barricaded holes which seemingly served as windows, deeming them too securely fastened for our nefarious purpose; they were closed from the inside, and were too high in any case to be within reach of Stewart's impetuous shoulder, but now our strong man had but lightly pressed the window-guard, and behold! it swung open. His hearty "hurroo" drew my attention.

"For heaven's sake shut up!" I whispered angrily. But Mackay made even more noise by exploding into a loud laugh, which resounded weirdly over the tree-tops.

"Good fur you, Stewart!" he cried; "now we're right."

The Captain, like myself, was not very enthusiastic over our night's exploit. "Let's get it over quickly, boys," he said. "Give me a lift-up, Stewart." But Stewart had reserved to himself the honour of first entry, and was even then dangling midway through the aperture, and squirming his way forward vigorously. The opening was very small, not more than two feet square, and as I watched my companion scrambling in, I thought that if the level of the floor was lower than the surface without, which is usually the case with Indian huts, considerable difficulty might be experienced in making an exit! Stewart, however, was apparently troubled by no unpleasant anticipations, and soon a crash, followed by an ejaculation of much fervour, heralded his arrival on the other side of the stoutly-timbered wall.

"Are you there?" cried Mackay, preparing to follow.

"Whaur did ye think a wis?" came the somewhat surly reply, and the doughty warrior's voice sounded almost sepulchral as it floated out of the darkness. Then he added enticingly, "Come in, ma man, come in, an' bring a licht wi' ye, fur it's pitch dark, an' an' awfu' smelliferous." To me the insinuating tone of my comrade's voice sounded suspicious, but neither Mackay nor the Captain noticed anything unusual.

"I'll be with you in a jiff, Stewart, old man," said the former gentleman, vainly striving to get his head and shoulders through the aperture. But his body was somewhat rotund and made rather a tight fit in the narrow entrance. "Push, ye beggars!" he gasped, and the Captain and I went to his assistance, only to see him jerk suddenly forward and disappear with a clatter inside, while Stewart's voice spluttered out in firm protest, "Come awa' in, ma man, an' dinna block up the ventilator." For some minutes longer I waited in suspense, while Mackay struck match after match and spoke never a word, and Stewart kept up a continual flow of mysterious grunts and sundry forcible expletives. I had a small piece of candle in my pocket, and this I lit; then, with the Captain's aid, I thrust my head through the window and surveyed the interior. Mackay quickly seized the piece of tallow from my hand, and held it aloft, and then I saw what had baffled the usually fluent descriptive powers of the worthy Stewart and his fiery companion. The room was bare save for the presence of several shelves roughly built up in the centre of the floor and reaching almost to the roof, and on each of these shelves a massive oblong box rested, the sides of which were heavily inlaid with silver or some similar metal. The whole structure presented an appearance not unlike a Chinese pagoda in miniature; the meaning of the arrangement was more than I could understand. The noises which we had at first heard had evidently been occasioned by the uppermost cases falling from their resting-places, for Stewart was examining with much interest one of several of the strange receptacles which were lying on the heavily-logged floorway. As I gazed in mute wonder on the extraordinary scene, I was quickly made aware that a wonderfully-powerful odour pervaded the room. It assailed my nostrils and my eyes, causing me to choke and blink, and finally withdraw my head into the pure air.

"It's the thickest perfume I've iver struck," groaned Mackay, and he staggered against the weird-looking pagoda.

I heard a shuffling rattle, and looking in a second time, saw the spidery monument sway, then fall with a dull hollow crash, scattering its curious freight in all directions. At the same time a yell from Stewart all but shattered my little remaining nerve, and he came leaping wildly across the fallen boxes towards the narrow egress.

"A'm comin' oot!" he bellowed; then Mackay, forcing up behind, and making strenuous endeavours to preserve his usual sangfroid, said weakly, "I guess I need a breath of air also, boys."

To make matters worse, the Captain, who had been warily prospecting around, now came rushing back, gesticulating energetically. "The whole tribe is quite close, and comin' fur us!" he announced in a loud whisper when he came near. Here was a predicament. The two eager individuals whose heads were thrust appealingly out of the window, groaned in anguish, for they could not get out without assistance, struggle as they might.

"You had better stay right where you are, boys, and we'll come in too," I said to them hurriedly, for the shuffling of many snowshoes now reached my ears, and there was no time to effect a rescue.

"Heaven knows what's goin' to be the end o' this," muttered the Captain as he swung his lank frame through the opening. It took some time for him to wriggle inside, and then I attempted the acrobatic performance necessary to make an entry. I was just a little late, for, looking around before making the final duck inwards I saw a number of wild-looking figures approaching quickly over the snow. The moon then encountered a belt of dense, fleecy clouds, and a welcome darkness enveloped the landscape just as Stewart, with a grunt of satisfaction, tugged me ingloriously into the odoriferous realms from which he had been so desperately anxious to escape, and shut the heavy barricade. A few minutes passed, during which time we were all but stifled by the pungent air; then our miseries were forgotten in the danger that threatened. Snowshoes hissed and skidded around our shelter, and deep, guttural exclamations in the Chinook tongue sounded on every side. And as I pieced together the various monosyllabic utterances, I refrained from translating them to my companions, although I had a dim idea that both Stewart and Mackay had fully decided that, whatever it might be, the strange structure in which they were was certainly no storehouse for dried caribou or salmon.

We had been barely five minutes in the dismal room, yet the time seemed an age. The Indians contented themselves with circling round each house in turn, keeping several yards distant from them, for a reason which was now painfully apparent to me. I could stand it no longer. "Boys," I said, "we've got to get out of this, lively, for the Indians will probably patrol about till sunrise, and half an hour will just about finish me."

"An' me," groaned Mackay.

The Captain, however, was not satisfied. "Look here, boys," he said, "I don't hitch on to yer meaning a bit. Are the Injuns afraid to go into their houses, or—I'm hanged if I can make out thish yer circus. Is this an Injun village, or is it not?" he demanded.

There was no need to hide it from him further. "No, Captain," I replied, "it's not."

"Then what place is this?" he asked slowly; and Stewart answered him in dolorous tones—

"A graveyaird, Cap'n—an Injun graveyaird."

So it was. The cases contained but the dust of long-deceased warriors, wrapped in blankets which were impregnated with a sickly-smelling scent made by the Indians from the roots of certain plants. In the darkness I could not see the Captain's face, and for some moments he said nothing, then he spoke, musingly: "James the First" said he, "yes, I might have known, for it is James the Second who is now Chief of the Thron-Diucks."

The swishing of snowshoes again sounded ominously near. We waited till the Indians had passed; then Stewart, swinging open the barricade, Mackay scrambled up, and was shot forward into the snow with our combined effort. "Hurry up, boys," he cried, when he had recovered himself; "they are at the end, and are just turning to come back." Breathing heavily, Stewart was next propelled into the open; then came my turn, the Captain being the tallest, waiting to the last; but tall as he was he could only reach his head and a part of his shoulder through the window, for the floorway was sunk considerably. No time was to be lost. With a howl, Stewart gripped the outstretched arm, Mackay the exposed shoulder, and both pulled as if for dear life. Despite the need for silence, the Captain was but human.

"Howlin' tarnation, you're twistin' my neck off!" he yelled, as he was yanked like a sportive fish on to the glistening snow.

"Run, ye deevils, run!" roared Stewart, himself setting the example. There was much need. Scarcely twenty yards away fully a score of tall, bemuffled warriors were speeding towards us, silent and grim, like a raging Nemesis. On the impulse of the moment I discharged my revolver as a signal to Mac to move ahead; then with a wholesome fear in our hearts we set a course for the camp, where Dave, aroused by the revolver shot, was baying loud and fiercely, and skipped over the intervening snow-wreaths at an uncommonly lively rate.

Whether the Indians followed us, or whether they remained to make good the work of our desecrating hands, we never learned, but I rather think they waited to rebuild the tombs of their ancestors. They were certainly not in evidence when we overtook Mac, and we gave a simultaneous shout of relief.

"Whaur's the cariboo ye wis gaun tae fetch?" asked that gentleman in an outburst of righteous indignation.

"Say nae mair, Mac. Say nae mair," eloquently pleaded Stewart, gripping a rope and feverishly assisting the sleigh on its onward progress. "If you had suffered what I hae suffered this nicht——" His voice failed him, and Mac simmered down at once.

"Was it as bad's that?" said he commiseratingly.

"We'd better keep going all night, boys," Mackay hastily remarked, with a furtive glance behind. "And to-morrow," he added, more cheerfully, "we'll have a good blow-out at Skookum Gulch." And so it came to pass.

[THE FINDING OF "GOLD BOTTOM" CREEK]

As the season advanced the ground hardened so that with our primitive fire-burning methods we could barely thaw more than eighteen inches of gravel in the short day, and even this occasioned tedious labour. The depth of bedrock was sixteen feet, and the frost had penetrated far beyond this level, so that our tunnelling operations along the line of the wash proceeded very slowly indeed. The miners around had begun to flock into Dawson to frequent the saloons and gamble away their hardly-earned gold, all declaring that it was too cold to work—the thermometer registered 25 degrees below zero—and soon Skookum Gulch was almost deserted. "Cap." Campbell and "Alf" Mackay alone remained to keep us company.

My knowledge of the Chinook tongue had been of considerable service to me, and the Indians inhabiting the upper Thron-Diuck valley occasionally visited our camp, bringing many presents of dried salmon and caribou, all of which Mac and Stewart accepted with voluble thanks. Then one day "King James," the chief of the tribe, paid us the honour of a call.

"Why you dig, Mis'r Mac?" he interrogated, apparently much mystified to see us excavating the ground.

"Fur GOLD, ye heathen," howled Stewart, popping his head above the shaft.

King James did not understand the full significance of the remark, but smiled indulgently when I translated it, and solemnly inclined his head towards the speaker.

"You squaw," he said, "you squaw to Mis'r Mac." Which meant that he considered Stewart somewhat presumptuous in addressing a chief of the Thron-Diucks.

After much talk had been indulged in, King James appeared to realise that we were really searching for gold, and had no idea of carrying away or shifting the course of his river; and his dry old face spread out in a broad grin when I explained that much gold, in our country, was equivalent to many squaws. Suddenly he turned and strode solemnly towards his sleigh, which was guarded by several richly-robed squaws and half a dozen youthful warriors; and after groping among the bearskin rugs for some time he came back to me, displaying in his greasy palm a beautiful specimen of alluvial gold: it was large and flat, with smooth surface and water-worn edges; it must have weighed at least three ounces. I gazed in bewilderment; the Indians rarely looked for gold, which to them was not even so valuable as silver, and the latter metal they used only for making ornaments. Mac and Stewart were soon by my side, and while we examined the specimen with undisguised interest, King James lit his pipe—a former present from myself—and puffed leisurely, eyeing me the while with a half-amused expression.

"What think o' that, Mis'r Mac?" he asked at length.

"It's good stuff, King James," I strove to answer in his language, and with a sigh I offered it back. My surprise was great when he waved it aside right royally, and placing his grimy hand on my shoulder in quite a fatherly manner, he spoke out several sentences rapidly.

"Hold hard, King James," I cried. "I cannot follow you if you talk in that fashion. Come into my tent and have some 'baccy."

He smiled benignly, and spoke a few words to the sleigh attendants, who immediately unhitched the dogs and proceeded to build a fire near at hand; then he followed me to my camp and ensconced himself by the stove. I still carried the nugget in my hand, but obeying the old chief's directions, I now placed it in a bottle with my other specimens and sat down beside him. Stewart meanwhile turned his attention to culinary matters, and while the billies boiled, King James and I conversed earnestly on matters dear to the Indian heart.

He was no lover of the white men who had invaded his domain and driven his people to seek the refuge of the mountain fastnesses, and he intimated plainly enough that he should not be sorry to see Dawson City speedily deserted by the white intruders. As for gold, the idea of grown men seeking for the yellow metal aroused his keen amusement, and he was very incredulous about my statements as to its value in the wigwams of the white people. After the subject of his woes had been gone into at great length, and our hearty sympathies enlisted, he remained silent for a time as if absorbed in thought. Then his eyes surveyed the mining implements and firearms in the tent, and finally rested upon my nugget collection with a newly-awakened sparkle of interest.

"You come wi' me, Mis'r Mac," he said thoughtfully, after a long pause, "Heap big bear on Thron-Diuck; you come wi' King James——"

I shook my head vigorously; we were not very anxious to shoot big game at that time, but his hospitality would not be denied.

"Me show you whar big gold come from. Me show you Gold Bottom," he hastened to add: "too much gold for white men in Dawson—me show you, Mis'r Mac."

Stewart was so astounded at the old chief's last words, spoken in broken English, that he nearly chopped his fingers with the axe instead of the solidified flour he was preparing to bake.

"I'll gang," he bellowed.

"An' me," growled Mac, who, like his comrade, had only understood the last sentence.

King James smoked stolidly for a few moments, then patted Stewart patronisingly on the back. "You good squaw," he said, gazing at the half-baked flour with much approval, "you come wi' me."

The appellation "squaw" by no means pleased the fiery Stewart, and he would have burst out angrily had I not restrained him.

"Yes, I guess we'll go with you, King James," I replied. "I want to see Gold Bottom Creek badly, and I don't anticipate any evil effects from too much gold." And so the compact was made, and old "Leatherskin," as Stewart promptly dubbed him, smiled softly when I explained to him the workings of my big game rifle, and went into a transport of delight on being presented with a serviceable Colt revolver and a box of cartridges. Suddenly his face clouded, and he said anxiously—

"Only you come, Mis'r Mac; only you an' squaws."

I restrained my companions with difficulty from rushing at him to choke back the objectionable epithet; then an idea struck me. I wanted "Cap" Campbell and Mackay, my adjoining burrowers in the frozen gravel, to accompany me; they had shared with us the plodding uncertainty of things at Skookum Gulch, and I wanted them to reap some of the benefits attached to the discovery of the mysteriously-famed "Gold Bottom" before the district was rushed. I could hardly doubt that King James's information was correct, and the specimen given me was sufficient for even the most incredulous-minded person. The inducement was very real indeed, but the chief would only allow Mis'r Mac an' squaws.

"All right, King James," I said, "but I have two more squaws." He eyed me with a look that was fast changing from one of mere friendliness to one of much respect.

"You great man, Mis'r Mac," he grunted. "Four squaws? Ugh!"

When he saw the brawny giants that Mac hastily called in, his surprise was unbounded. "Good squaws," he chuckled.

"What in tarnation does the old skunk mean?" said Mackay, and Campbell's anger was rising visibly.

"Look here, boys," I said. "King James has told me of a creek that is lined with gold, and this is a sample"—I showed them the specimen received. "He asks me to go and take charge of the lot, but only myself and squaws. You had better be squaws for once in your lives. Savez?"

They did "savez," and made every effort to show their cordiality to the King, who appreciated their advances with tolerant grace, but grinned expansively when he saw their well-filled cartridge-belts.

Stewart made a triumphant success of his cooking that day, and in honour of the occasion he filled the little "doughboys" with pieces of dried apricots and peaches, and, indeed, everything in that line our larder afforded. So luxurious a repast did he provide that King James sighed regretfully when he rose to go.

"You come to-morra', Mis'r Mac!" he cried when he was rolled up in his sleigh blankets, like, as Mac said, an Egyptian mummy.

"Right!" I answered, waving him goodbye. But he had not finished.

"Be sure bring cook squaw," he murmured contentedly.

The long whips cracked and the dogs bounded forward; the shriek of the sleigh-runners effectually drowned Stewart's vehement curses; and the King departed.

Next morning we started out for the Indian camp. Mac and Stewart had the tents struck, and it with the blankets packed in neat rolls on our sleigh soon after sunrise. Our rather small store of flour and other necessaries found ample space on the same conveyance, and to this load Dave was harnessed. Campbell and Mackay did not delay us; they were up betimes and had their dog-sleigh ready with ours. The temperature this morning registered 30 degrees below zero, and even while we were engaged tying the sleigh ropes, long icicles formed at our chins and dripped from our eyelashes.

"Are you ready, boys?" I cried to my freshly-acquired squaws.

"Right!" they responded with one voice.

"Gee up, Dave," said Mac, and with a bound and a shriek our sleigh led the way towards the Klondike's unknown source. We were not much concerned about leaving our properties on Skookum Gulch; it was not likely that any one would "jump" our claims; the weather was too cold for the tender feet of Dawson to venture out around the creeks. Soon we left the Dome in the distance behind, and swiftly we crashed through the powdered snow and blown ice on the main river. No white man, at this time, had explored the head waters of the Klondike. In the earlier season I had attempted the task, but was repelled by the deep gorges and grim cañons that marked the river's channel for many miles when near an outlying spur of the "Rockies." Now we forced a trail far beyond my furthest travel, tracing here and there the track of the old chief's sleigh where the runners had cut deep through the blistered ice. Our visages were soon framed in icicles, and our cheeks rendered stiff by a thin film, as of glass, which caused us much pain. Mac and Stewart ambled beside the staggering dogs, occasionally helping them over obstacles and badly-blown patches. For once they were forced to march in silence, for their mouths were sealed as if by iron bands.

The Grand Cañon was entered soon after midday, and the majestic powers of old King Frost had so metamorphosed the dark gorge that we made our trail over the frozen torrent almost nervously. The great stalactites and dripping ice cones shut out the sky completely, and we forged ahead in a vague eerie shadow reflected from the translucent pillars. Here and there the roar of the flood echoed from giant clefts in the ice, and caused the glassy walls to quiver and crackle; then again came the oppressive calm, broken only by the dull rumble of the rushing torrent full fifty feet below.

It is impossible to picture the grandeur of an Alaskan cañon when the elements hold it in thrall; there is nothing like it in the whole world. Nevertheless, we were not sorry when we emerged into the comparatively open country beyond, and picked up afresh the track of King James's sleigh which we had been unable to trace in the gorge. Our destination could not now be far distant, for the frowning peaks of the Rockies loomed directly ahead, and the valley was rapidly becoming lost in the minor ranges that appeared; we were surely near the mystic source of the golden Klondike. The dogs never slackened their trot, though now and then they staggered and stumbled over large ridges of blistered ice, which cut their paws cruelly. Our moccasins were being quickly reduced to shreds, and our clothing generally had become stiff with the frost and rent in great holes by contact with the brittle, flaking ice. Few white men would have dreamed of making such a journey on such a day. I contented myself with that reflection, though probably the miners in their snug huts at Dawson would have dubbed us colossal fools for venturing so far back into the Indian territory; but gold was always an irresistible incentive.

"I reckon," said Campbell, coming up from behind, and grimacing frightfully as he spoke, while the ice shivered on his face with the effort, "this is not much of a picnic, is it?"

It was some minutes before I could reply, and while I strove to coax the muscles of my mouth to relax without doing serious injury to my features, Stewart's hoary visage shook itself clear of its icy sheath with a crackling, splintering sound, and his voice rang out—

"I see the Injun camp! Hurroo! D——!" The last expression was given in a most sorrowful tone as he felt the blood trickle on his cheeks and freeze into icy appendages.

"You've got to think a lot before speaking in this country," I sympathised, but he would not open his mouth again.

Rounding a bluff, we saw, nestling in the shadow of a great pine-forest, an array of mud huts and tepees covered with caribou skins. Many fires were blazing in the vicinity, fed lavishly with logs drawn from the wooded slope behind. A number of King James's subjects superintended operations with unmoved faces; it was a routine to which they had long become accustomed—for bear-fires were very necessary indeed in these parts; Bruin had not yet reconciled himself to his winter slumber, and, as I have noted, the Klondike valley was infested with various species of his kind.

With a sigh of thankfulness I signalled to Mac to draw up alongside the largest fire, and he needed no second bidding. A few moments more and we were all eagerly thawing ourselves before the blaze. Even the dogs crept as close as the burning logs allowed, and warmed their poor frozen bodies on all sides, turning continually, as if on a revolving toast-rack. From the most imposing hut now came rushing towards us King James, with numerous squaws; and while the King congratulated me effusively on my safe arrival, the squaws beamed coquettishly on my companions, who felt in no wise complimented by their attentions.

"They tak' us fur squaws, Stewart!" howled Mac, more in sorrow than in anger; then I heard them both with much deliberation calculate out the value of the Queen squaw's dress as she stood by them, speaking words of welcome in a tongue they could not understand.

"It's a rale guid beaver," I heard Mac say.

"An' what a bonny silver-tip cloak," burst in Stewart.

"An' the moccasins," continued the first speaker, "are faur ow'r guid fur an Injun tae wear."

At this juncture I turned anxiously; I thought it very necessary.

"For heaven's sake, Mac," I said, "leave the squaw's beavers and moccasins alone. We'll get murdered if old King James——"

"Wha's touchin' their belangin's?" interrupted Mac indignantly; but despite his righteous outburst, I knew that he and his doughty comrade would have had little qualms about appropriating the bonny beavers and moccasins also. Their logic was vague, but conclusive enough to satisfy themselves. However, with much grumbling they unharnessed Dave, and started to erect the tent in a sheltered spot, Campbell and Mackay having already got their smaller canvas home fixed up.

"It's fair disgracefu'," muttered Mac, as he pulled on the guy-rope, "tae think o' livin' near Injuns! We're comin' faur doon in the world surely."

"Ye're richt there," spoke Stewart mournfully; "bit, man, did ye ever see sic a bonnie beaver?"

Next morning, when the dim grey light was beginning to appear, we set out to explore the creek containing "too much gold." King James's sleigh led the trail, for which I was truly thankful. The dangerous nature of the route from the Indian camp was all too apparent. Miniature glaciers hung perilously over each mountain ridge, and formed a sight well fitted to unnerve any man but an Indian; and when we crawled over their glassy surfaces, and slid down on the "other" side, it seemed to me that we were running risks enough for all the gold in Klondike. We had not gone very far, however, before King James drew up his dogs in the bed of a deep chasm that traced directly from an enormous ice-field overhead. I looked around and saw the frozen channel of the Thron-Diuck about a hundred yards below; the King had taken us by a "short cut" over the mountains rather than follow the much easier route by way of the main river. For a moment I thought that he had purposely meant us to lose our bearings, but he soon dispelled that fear.

"Gold Bottom here, Mis'r Mac," he said. "You dig." He measured about a four-feet length on the snow, meaning, I suppose, that we should find bedrock at that level. "You find much gold, Mis'r Mac, too much gold——"

"Hold hard!" I interrupted; "I guess we'll deserve all we get. This is the devil's own part of the world we've struck."

King James grinned incredulously, but kept silence; and arranging his sleigh rugs, he whipped up his long line of dags and sped back over the trail we had just traversed. We watched him till his sleigh, careering dangerously, rushed down into the valley beyond. The mining instincts of Campbell and Mackay now overcame their dislike of our chill and uncompromising surroundings.

"It looks likely country," said Campbell, "and I shouldn't wonder if that glacier has worn down quite a lot of gold."

We were not long in pitching our tents and building several fires to thaw off the icicles that clung to our faces; then we felt much more enthusiastic over our prospects. The timber was plentiful, and close at hand; we were far indeed from the madding crowd.

"We'll make a start, boys," I said; "we'll see whether old Leather-skin spoke correctly."

My two companions were rather disconsolately surveying the scene.

"Too much gold!" muttered Mac in derision. "No vera likely. It wad tak' hundreds o' thoosands o' pounds tae pey me fur ma sufferin's in this God-forsaken country."

All day long we kept great logs burning over the frozen gravel silted up on the edge of the channel. Slowly we excavated the "dirt" in fragments, picking energetically at it after each fire had been cleared away. The icy body of the creek had evidently long since been formed, for not a drop of water flowed beneath; and after sinking a few feet we came to a level where the frozen mass contracted from the old river-bed, leaving a clear dry space in which a man could almost stand upright. We at once abandoned our shaft, and crawled into the strange cavern formed. The gravel over which the torrent had flowed was dry, and hard as flint. We had reached bedrock on the true channel of the stream, and with water still flowing overhead! A yet unfrozen fluid gurgled in the heart of the great ice column above; the effect was wonderfully beautiful.

"I guess we'll stick to the shaft, boys," said Mackay; "this looks uncanny," and he scrambled out; the idea of working underneath the flowing stream was too much for him, though he was a veteran miner. Campbell and I soon followed his example, leaving Mac and Stewart, who were not easily daunted, to survey the wonders of Nature at their leisure. They at once commenced picking the frozen channel, and the thud! thud! of the blows came to our ears, as we stood by the fire above, as the sonorous notes of a deep-toned bell. Already the murky gloom of an Alaskan night was fast closing over, though it was yet but two o'clock in the afternoon. Thud! thud! thud! went the pickaxes below, and I marvelled at the persistence of my companions, for I knew they could make little impression on the flinty sands.

Suddenly the echoes ceased, and the sounds of a wordy altercation rumbled up towards us; a few minutes later Mac popped his head out of the shaft and beckoned me mysteriously, then disappeared again. Wonderingly I let myself down through the narrow aperture and wriggled into the cavern. A strange sight met my gaze. A lighted stump of candle was stuck in the ground, and its pale light, reflected against the glistening roof, gave the scene a somewhat unearthly appearance. Stewart was kneeling on the gravel, examining carefully a flat, pebble-shaped stone; beside him was heaped quite a number of similar fragments, and these were evidently the results of my companions' labours, for many hollows in the channel showed where the pebbles had been extracted. When I entered, Mac was feverishly rubbing one of the pieces against his moccasined leg.

"What kind o' stane dae ye ca' that?" he asked eagerly, handing his prize to me.

"I've tell't him it's ironstane," broke in Stewart in a convinced tone of voice, "but Mac aye likes tae be contrairy."

The specimen given me was a rough and rusty-looking pebble, very much water-worn. At first glance it certainly looked like ironstone, and its weight proved it to be either of that nature or—I dared not hoped the alternative. I took my sheath knife and endeavoured to scrape the edges, but they were hard as flint.

"A kent it was ironstane," grumbled Stewart, yet I was not satisfied. I held the specimen close to the candle-flame for several minutes until it was heated throughout, then I again tried my knife on the edges. The effect was astounding; the rusty iron coat peeled off as mud, and lo! a nugget of shining gold was brought to view.

With a howl of delight Stewart started up, cracking his head against the crystal ceiling in his haste. " Gold!" he shouted, and grabbed at the handful of stones he had collected. "Mak' some mair," he said.

But there was no need to doubt further; every rusty-coloured pebble unearthed was in truth a fine alluvial specimen of the precious metal, and when scraped each tallied in every characteristic with King James's nugget. The iron coating was but a frozen mud cement which had formed over the irregularities of surface with vice-like tenacity. The bed of the creek was indeed gold bottomed; the King had not stated wrongly.

Campbell and Mackay soon joined us; they had become alarmed at my prolonged absence.

"This beats Bonanza and El Dorado hollow," was the first individual's comment.

"Well, I'm jiggered!" feebly murmured Mackay, gazing blinkingly around.

The light danced and shone on the yellow fragments, and sparkled on the crystal dome. The sight was truly gorgeous. Even the fabled Aladdin's cave could hardly have surpassed the splendours of that Alaskan icy vault.

It was plain to us that the depth of "pay gravel" could not be more than a few inches at most; the steep declivity of the channel was a sure proof of that fact, and our "find" would not, therefore, take long to work out. It promised, however, to be the richest strike in the Klondike valley. The gold being so close to the mother lode, which was, unfortunately, covered by the glacier, was all of a coarse nature; none of the pieces collected came under the pennyweight limit, and one specimen we computed to be at least five ounces....

Such is the record of one of our prospecting trips to the glacier streams of the Upper Klondike, and "Gold Bottom Creek" from that time occupied an honoured place in every miner's reference book.

[THE PERILS OF THE TRAIL]

All through that dread winter no news reached civilisation from the frozen El Dorado, no communication had been established with the great mushroom city of the far Nor'-West, and only the wildest sort of speculation could be indulged in as to the fate of the pioneer inhabitants of the Klondike valley. Only too late was the knowledge forced upon the almost fanatical gold-seekers that the iron grip of an Arctic winter was upon them, effectually barring retreat and sealing the narrow gates of the country against all further expeditions from the outside. They had lived on in the steadfast belief that the "Great American nation" would send in supplies in good time to prevent any likelihood of starvation. But so ignorant was the world regarding the nature of the northern land that many companies continued even at that time in Seattle and San Francisco to outline in the press their plans for sending stores to Dawson in the "coming" winter—this in November, when the elements had already a vice-like grip of the country.

Several expeditions really started, but so ludicrous were their equipments that they without exception failed to penetrate beyond the coastal barriers—the grim old Chilcoot and the murderous Skagway trail.

And so in the "promised land" the chill November blasts were hushed and the deadly quiet of a December frost reigned supreme. The majority of the miners worked out on the creeks, but when the intense cold forced them to cease their labours they flocked into Dawson and idly frequented the saloons, bragging of their riches to their less favoured comrades, and cursing the ungodly nature of the country in forcible language.

At this time very few had more than three months' provisions, and the majority were at their last bag of flour. The stores would sell nothing unless at fabulous prices. Everything commanded one dollar a pound. Even salt, that cheap but necessary commodity, had the same value. Baking powder was unpurchasable—there being none. Before long one hundred dollars was offered and refused for a sack of rolled oats. The restaurants for a time supplied "meals" at exorbitant charges, yet one by one they had to give out for want of supplies. The end came when seven dollars was asked and given freely for a meagre portion of bacon and beans—the staple food of the Arctics. Only a few days did this establishment—"Dawson's Last Hope"—hold out, and then the familiar legend, "No supplies," was posted on the logged doorway. It was only then that the real state of affairs was impressed upon the unthinking people.

Many tragedies were enacted in that northern mining camp during the weeks that followed. A kind of panic prevailed. Short rations was the rule, and starvation only too frequent. There seemed nothing but death ahead for all. On short rations, with the thermometer averaging forty-five below zero! who could view such a prospect with equanimity? Thefts of goods were often attempted, and almost invariably death by revolver bullet was the end of the poor hungry would-be thief's career, for the necessaries of life were more strictly guarded than gold. Gold could not buy them. Many would have given their all gladly for a sack of flour. Long before Christmas all work was suspended. The population took to their log-huts, and barricaded every nook and cranny in vain endeavour to keep out the cold. Daylight appeared at ten o'clock in the morning, and night closed over the camp soon after three. The "city" seemed deserted, all but for the presence of a few dog-sleighs, which were constantly employed in carrying timber from the mountain-side. The strong men who had dared the elements and dragged the gold from the unwilling soil now gave way utterly. The keen air whetting their appetites rendered their existence on short rations a long-drawn-out agony. The weaker element soon fell ill, and then a reign of terror began. Fever became prevalent, and the little cemetery soon had to be extended to accommodate the many victims to its fury.

A "roll-up" of the miners was by unanimous consent held to reason out the dangerous situation, and it was decided as a last desperate resource to attempt the long overland route to Dyea across the treacherous Chilcoot Pass. Until the arrival of my party over the ice none had dreamed that such a journey was practicable. During the heart of an Arctic winter, to march seven hundred miles over ice and unfathomed snows! The idea seemed absurd, yet it now became the only hope of life to all. That "roll-up" is pictured clearly before me now, and never again do I expect to be present at a more cruelly dramatic gathering. Starvation showed plainly on every face; each white frosted visage was seamed and furrowed as if by a load of care. They were indeed a motley crowd, comprising representatives of all nationalities. To me fell the questionable honour of leadership. I was supposed to know the valley of the Yukon better than any present, nearly all of whom had entered by way of St. Michael's.

"All right, boys," I said, in answer to their request, "my party will make the trail for you as far as Big Salmon River. Then Major Walsh may be able to advise us what to do."

And so the strange company began its long and deadly march. Half a dozen dog teams headed the column, after which came men pulling their own sleighs, and at the rear wearily trudged the multitude who carried their all in packs bound with straps to their shoulders. It was a strange and pitiable spectacle at the start; what would it be at the finish?

The Stewart River was reached in four days, and here the "blown" ice was almost insurmountable. It piled up in great blistering sheets, the elevations in some places exceeding a height of twenty feet. Over these obstacles the dog-sleighs crashed, breaking a way for the long trailing human caravan. Moccasins were cut into shreds, and clothing soon became tattered and torn. The thermometer had now dropped to fifty degrees below zero, and many became frost-bitten. Not a few lost the use of their arms, and marble-hued noses were common indeed.

Sometimes I would get well ahead of the main party, and from a convenient point watched them approach and pass. A stranger sight could not be imagined. The staggering line of dogs came first; over their lowered heads the long whips cracked, and the poor brutes bounded forward with nerve and life in every motion. Then the weary sleigh-pullers passed in solemn array, shoulders bent and bodies leaning forward. Their sleighs were pulled along to the accompaniment of the harsh grinding sound emitted from the iron runners on the frozen snow. Lastly, the "packers" straggled in Indian file, and they were surely a sight to be viewed with mingled feelings. Tall men, short men, stout men—and they were few—and thin men followed in miscellaneous order. Some were lame, and limped painfully; some had their heads bandaged, many wore nose coverings, and a few were minus the nose altogether. Strange it was to see at intervals, when this almost weird procession lagged to the rear, how strenuously they would endeavour to recover ground, and when with one accord they broke into a run the spectacle offered would have been laughable had it not been so seriously, so truly a race for life.

Salmon River was reached at last. Five men had died on the trail and two were seriously ill, though they dragged themselves along, helped occasionally by the dog-sleighs. Here I formally gave over my responsible charge to Campbell and Mackay, and having been entrusted with mails and despatches for the coast, with barely a halt pushed on ahead with Mac and Stewart. Our stores had diminished greatly beyond my calculations, and it was evident that an extreme effort must be made to increase our rate of travel. Yet despite our utmost endeavours, when we entered upon the snowy wastes of Marsh Lake we pulled a sleigh on which reposed a few furs, a bag of mineral specimens, and about as much flour as would make one good square meal.

For the last several days our progress had been severely hampered by the increasing depth and softness of the snow filling the valley of the Yukon as we approached nearer the dreaded pass. Our daily march since leaving the northern capital had rarely fallen below twenty-eight miles, until the unfrozen White Horse Rapids had stayed our advance and caused us to make a wide détour; but now, do what we might in our semi-famished condition, we could barely travel twenty miles in as many hours, and full eighty miles yet intervened between us and the sea. On this day we had been on the trail since sunrise, and the darkening shadows of night were already beginning to creep over the billowy wastes, though it was but two hours after noon.

"We are near the end of the lake, boys," I shouted encouragingly, as I noticed the failing efforts of my companions. "We must try and reach Tagash River to-night."

Mac groaned dismally, and Dave emitted a plaintive howl as he struggled in his harness. Then Stewart, who had grown wofully cadaverous of late, stopped and addressed his compatriot.

"I mind, Mac," said he, "that there used to be an Injun village aboot here."

"I hae a disteenct recollection o' the place," returned Mac shortly, bending to his labours afresh.

"We are passing that same village now," I cried cheerily. "That makes ten miles since our last halt."

The sleigh stopped with a jerk; half a dozen log-huts with a like amount of totem poles, were plainly observable among the dense timber on shore.

"Them Injuns must have something for eating in they houses," spoke Mac thoughtfully, gazing at the rude structures intently.

"But we have nothing to barter, and we know they won't sell," I broke in impatiently.

He made no reply to my remark, but turned to Stewart, who was evidently in a fit of deep mental abstraction: "What's your idea, Stewart, ma man?" he asked insinuatingly, and that individual responded promptly.

"I am wi' ye, Mac, every time, but I hope it's no' a graveyard like the last we tackled." They threw down their sleigh-ropes simultaneously, and were half-way to the village before I had recovered myself.

"Hold hard!" I roared. "What——"

Mac's substantial figure spun round at once. "We'll be back in a meenit," he whispered mysteriously.

I loosened Dave from his harness, and hastened after the doughty pair, expecting every instant to hear sounds of deadly strife, but all remained silent as a tomb, and I shuddered with painful recollections. I found them cavorting around the largest edifice in the group in a manner that under different circumstances would have seemed ludicrous.

"There's naebody in the hooses," cried Stewart gleefully. "The whole tribe must have gone out moose-hunting."

Not infrequently a village is entirely deserted in this way, and I heaved a sigh of relief. "But they may be back at any time," I said, glancing fearfully round.

Mac shrugged his shoulders; "I think, Stewart," he remarked in a most matter-of-fact tone, "I think the door is the weakest place after all."

I swallowed my scruples at a gulp, and became interested in the proceedings at once. Strangely enough, for the moment we all seemed to have forgotten how very similarly our first escapade of the kind had opened.

Crash! Mac's broad shoulder butted the barricaded doorway right ponderously, but though the heavy logs quivered and bent, they resisted the shock. And now Stewart braced himself for the attack, and together they hurled themselves against the wavering supports. There was a resounding echo as the entire structure gave way, and with many chuckles of delight the adventurous couple disappeared within, while I remained outside, my rifle at full cock, listening for the tramp of moccasined feet that would herald the Indians' return. I heard Mac strike match after match, muttering discontentedly the while, and Stewart's dissatisfied grunts filled me with dismay. Was our depredating raid to go unrewarded?

"There's jist the sma'est bit o' caribou ye could imagine in the hale hoose," snorted Mac indignantly. "It wis high time the deevils went huntin', I'm thinkin'."

"Let's try the other hooses," counselled Stewart.

At that moment Dave gave a long, low growl, and immediately an indescribable chorus of yells issued from the forest near at hand. Then, to my horror, I perceived numerous dark forms speeding towards me. Instinctively I levelled my rifle, then by an extreme effort of will lowered it again. We were surely in the wrong. "Come on, boys," I cried, "we must run for it."

"Haud on till I get that bit o' caribou," murmured Mac desperately.

A moment more, and we made a wild burst in the direction of the sleighs, pursued by a number of stalwart warriors, whose vengeful shouts inspired our failing steps with an unwonted activity.

"Let's stop and fecht the deevils," implored Mac, as we grabbed the ropes of our sadly-light conveyance, and even at that juncture he examined his stolen piece of caribou with critical interest. "It's no' fit for human use," he protested angrily. "I'm no' goin' to run for nothing."

But the yelling horde at our heels made him think better of it, and muttering sundry maledictions he hitched on to the rushing sleigh, and lumbered manfully alongside his gloomy compatriot. Fear did certainly lend wings to our flight, and by the time we had reached the outlet leading to Tagash Lake, our pursuers were far in the rear, the obscuring darkness probably being much in our favour. And then, as we hastened over the shelving ice on the connecting river, we beheld a sight that drew from us ejaculations of sheer chagrin. A great fire blazed on the shores of the frozen stream, illuminating in the background a solidly-built logged erection, and showing clearly the outlines of a giant Union Jack fastened to a tree close by. Not a soul was in sight, but I could fancy the comfortable group inside the generous dwelling whiling away the time before a glowing stove or indulging in a luxurious dinner.

"It's a Government station," I said drearily. "It must have been put here just before the ice closed in."

We halted for an instant, and gazed wistfully at the snug police camp. Here surely we might obtain some little stores for our urgent needs, but how dared we ask? The Indians were British subjects, and would indeed be treated with more consideration than we might expect, for it is the policy of the Canadian authorities to protect, even to the outside extreme, the rights of their dusky subjects. Then, again, we had been long on the trail, and our clothing was rent and ragged. The police might judge us by appearances, and then—I did not care to think what might happen. Many thoughts flitted through my mind as we stood there hesitatingly, and my worthy companions, by their silence, showed that they too were thinking deeply. The unmusical cries of our pursuers jarred on our meditations with seemingly awakening vigour.

"They've got our trail," I said sadly. "We'd better get along."

"Civilisashun be d—— d," fervently, if ambiguously, muttered Mac and Stewart almost with one voice, and we staggered out into the bleak, snowy plains of Tagash Lake, and pursued a dogged course southward.

[THE TENT AT CARIBOU CROSSING]

It was midnight before we halted, and then we camped on the middle of the frozen lake, and near the entrance to the Big Windy Arm; and here, after a most miserable night, we were forced to abandon the greater part of the stolen venison as being in itself but little satisfying to our urgent needs. We started again before daybreak, steering by compass in the darkness. Indeed, it was absolutely necessary that we should keep moving if we would prevent the blood from freezing in our veins. Our plight was surely an unenviable one, and as we stumbled on through the ever-deepening snow, Mac and Stewart cursed the country endlessly in choice vernacular; and even Dave, struggling desperately in his harness, found opportunity to give his verdict in hoarse, muffled growls of deep displeasure.

"We'll bile the first Injun we meet," said Stewart solemnly, after several hours had passed in silence, and he shook his head clear of its encompassing deposits of frosted snow and ice, and gazed at our meagre sleigh-load with pensive eyes.

"I'm no sae sure that Injun is guid for eatin' ony mair than mummy caribou," rejoined Mac after much thought. "I mind," he continued ruminatively, "o' eatin' snake sausages in Sooth America, an' they were wonderfu' paleetable, but Injun?" He shook his ice-enclustered head doubtfully. The day was already drawing to a close; the sun had risen at ten o'clock, and its short arc in the heavens was almost completed. The time at which one usually expects to fortify the inner man had passed in grim silence, and the darkening shadows were creeping over the billowy white waste.

"We must reach Caribou Crossing to-night, boys," I said. "We dare not camp again on the open lake in case a blizzard gets up and wipes us out."

The blackness of night enveloped us completely, and the tingling sensation in our cheeks warned us that the frost intensity was far below the zero scale. Our moccasins sunk through a powdery fleece so crisp, that it crushed like tinder beneath us, and the steel sleigh-runners whistled harshly over the sparkling beady surface. The stars twinkled and shone brilliantly, and great streaks of dazzling light shot at intervals across the northern sky; the night effects were indeed splendid beyond description, yet we were too much engrossed with more practical matters to wax enthusiastic over astronomical glories. Suddenly the sharp hiss-s of a sleigh reached our ears, then out of the darkness came the sound of laboured breathing and smothered growls, as of dogs straining under an undue load. Obeying a common impulse our sorely-tried caravan came to a halt, Dave whining piteously and pawing the ground impatiently, while my companions peered into the night earnestly, then turned and gazed at me in silence. The hurrying sleigh was fast approaching on a course that would lead it but a few yards to our left. I was on the point of stepping forward to intercept the advancing dog-team which was now showing dimly in the starlight, when one of the two men who accompanied it spoke, and his voice sounded distinctly in the still air.

"I thought I heard something," said he.

"What could you hear?" answered his companion gruffly. "There can't be any one nearer than the station at Tagash, and it's far enough off yet, worse luck."

"All the same," reiterated the first speaker, "I'm sure I heard sleigh-runners skidding over the snow. It's mebbe some poor devils coming out from Dawson."

They were almost beside us now, and I wondered that we had not been noticed.

"You'll remember, Corporal," came the tones of the doubtful one in hard, official accents, "that on no account can I give out any supplies. I have my own men to provide for."

For the same reason that we had hurried past the station at Tagash River, I had no desire to bring my party to official notice now; so, inwardly cursing the niggardly captain, I decided to let the team pass without soliciting relief. It was clearly a Government "outfit" for the benefit of the men at Tagash. At a jerky trot the four leading dogs swept by us, swaying wildly as they pulled in their traces. Four more dogs followed, then a heavily-laden sleigh came creaking and groaning through the snow, the runners sunk deep and churning up clouds of vapour which almost hid from view the plump sacks of flour on board. The men came after at an amble, their faces muffled so that they, apparently, could neither turn to the right nor left. I could scarcely restrain my companions at this point from breaking into a vehement denunciation of the police captain and his corporal. They would, indeed, have stormed the sleigh cheerfully, and meted out no gentle treatment to the owners thereof. With energetic pantomimic gestures I implored them to be calm; the team was fast being swallowed up in the gloom, but before it had disappeared from our penetrating gaze a broken sentence floated back to our ears: "Pity ... had to leave so much ... Caribou Crossing ... back to-morrow.... D—— d Klondikers."

For five minutes more we waited in silence, during which time Mac and Stewart were effervescing to an alarming climax, then we gave full vent to our joy. "Ho! ho! ho!" laughed my companions. "Pity left so much at Caribou! D—— d Klondikers! Ho! ho! ho!" Dave, too, seemed to understand the situation, and promptly proceeded to bark out his appreciation; but his exuberance was too noisy, so it was hurriedly checked.

"Get under way, boys," I said, when my henchmen had recovered their equanimity, "for we'll need to look lively before the trail is blotted out." We had not spoken a word about the matter, yet there existed a perfect understanding between us. If anything edible had been left at Caribou Crossing we were determined to commandeer it.

The well-weighted sleigh had made an easily-observable trail; in the dim starlight the twin furrows formed by the runners glittered and shone like the yeasty foam from a ship's propeller. We carefully directed the prow of our snow-ship into these well-padded channels, and with renewed energy forged ahead, thinking longingly of what might await us at Caribou. Soon the shadows on either side of the lake drew nearer and nearer, and the steep, wooded shores of the dreary waterway narrowed inwards, so that the feathery fronds of the stately pine-trees were plainly discernible; we were approaching the entrance to Caribou Crossing. Five minutes later we had passed through the narrow channel—it was barely twenty yards across—and were speeding silently over the deep drifts of snow which were wreathed in giant masses on the surface of the frozen lagoon. The hitherto heavily-marked trail now appeared blurred and indistinct, and the dense forests lining the "crossing" threw a shadow on the track which effectually neutralised the vague glimmer of the stars, so that we had literally to feel for the deep sleigh channels.

"If I'm spared to come oot o' this, groaned Mac, as he crawled gingerly on all fours across the drifts, "I'll never speak o' ma sufferin's, for naebody could believe what I hae endured."

"I hae traivelled faur," supplemented Stewart, lifting up his voice in pathetic appeal, "but I've never been sae afflicted."

Having now introduced the subject of their woes they proceeded to comfort one another in well-chosen words of sympathy. "You'll suffer a considerable amount more if you don't find the trail soon," I broke in by way of getting their attention more concentrated on the very urgent matter on hand. But Stewart would have one word more:

"I'll mak' a fine moniment tae ye, Mac, ma man," he said with a sigh, adding lugubriously, "puir, puir Mac."

"I'll hae yer life for that, ye deevil," roared that irate gentleman, getting to his feet suddenly, and in consequence floundering to the waist in the chilly wreaths.

Again I essayed to interfere. "Seems to me, boys," I said, "that you'd better reserve your energy——" A loud bark interrupted my further speech, and Mac immediately bellowed,

"Dave has got the trail; come on, Stewart, an' we'll hae a glorious feast o' Government stores very soon."

I thought he was anticipating over-much, but I took care to say nothing to discourage the pair, who now, side by side, were crawling rapidly over the snow, tracing a new series of markings which led into the heart of the thick foliage on shore. I followed after my comrades with alacrity, but the drifts were very wide and deep, and I sunk to the neck in their icy folds, and was almost frozen before I managed to extricate myself.

"Are you following the trail, boys?" I cried, "or is it a bear track you are tracing up?" They were too much engrossed in their sleuth-hound operations to notice my inquiry, but as I had reached the shelter of the timber where the snow was but thinly laid, I now groped my way more quickly forward, and overtook the keen-eyed couple as they stopped short and emitted a simultaneous howl of delight.

"Got it! Got it!" they yelled in unison, and Dave made the wooded slopes resound with his deep-mouthed bark.

"Got what?" I interrogated, when opportunity offered, for nothing but absolute blackness surrounded us.

"Licht a match," joyously spoke Mac.

Somewhat mystified I struck a sulphur match and held it aloft, and by its sputtering flame I saw before me a 10 × 12 tent, on the roof of which was painted in huge black letters, "N.W.M.P."

"We certainly have got it," I said with much satisfaction, "and we'll see what's inside without delay."

"Scotland yet!" roared Stewart, in an ecstasy of delight, performing a few steps of the Highland fling as delicately as his heavily-padded moccasins would permit. Mac was more practical; he proceeded to execute what appeared in the gloom to be a solemn ghost dance, but in reality he was searching for the "door" end of the tent.

"Haud yer noise, ye gomeril!" he said shortly, addressing his pirouetting companion, "an' when ye've feenished capering ye'll mebbe get a candle off the sleigh."

The candle was quickly forthcoming, and the flap of the tent discovered; it was laced tightly with long strips of caribou hide, and so was not easily located in the darkness. We were not long in forcing an entry, the board-like canvas was rooted up from the snow where it had frozen fast, several hoary branches were pushed away from the inside wall, then we boldly took possession. At first survey our "find" seemed disappointing, the tent was almost empty; only a few very dilapidated-looking sacks were piled within, and the dripping icicles from the ridge gave a most frigid aspect to a dismal enough scene. Mac, however, was not discouraged. "There maun be something for eatin' in they bags," he said cheerfully, which was logic of the clearest nature; then he proceeded to explore their contents, and while thus engaged Stewart gathered together some branches and started a bright blaze at the doorway.

"There's flour in this ane!" announced Mac joyfully, "an' beans in anither!" he supplemented; then his delighted cries were frequent. "We've got a wee thing o' maist everything that's guid," he summed up finally, issuing out into the ruddy glow of the fire, where the billies, filled with rapidly-melting snow, were fizzling away merrily.

The good news affected Stewart visibly. "A'll mak' a gorgeous re-past the nicht, ye deevils," said he, "A'll mak' a rale sumshus feast."

The keen edge of our appetite was dulled as a preliminary by copious draughts of coffee and the remnants of the morning's damper, then operations were begun for the "gorgeous feast." Mac obligingly acted as cook's assistant, and chopped off from the solidified contents of the sacks the requisite amount of flour and other ingredients necessary—and I fear many that were not altogether necessary in the strict sense of the word, for beans, and flour, and rolled oats, and rice did not seem to me to be a correct combination. But I was a novice in these arts and feared to speak, and the manufacture of the "sumshus repast" went on apace.

The night was far advanced, yet for once on the long dreary march from Dawson we were in no hurry to court slumber, although we had travelled over thirty miles that day. I think Stewart sized up my own thoughts rather clearly when he said, during a lull in his artistic labours, "What fur should we gang awa' early the morn'? It wad be a rael pity tae leave this mag-nificent camp."

"We might wait just a little too long, Stewart," I replied, and visions of an angry captain and his stalwart followers floated unpleasantly before my eyes.

It was near midnight when the gurgling billy was lifted from its perch amid the glowing logs, and Stewart gingerly fished from its interior a round steaming mass, neatly enclosed in an old oatmeal sack and tied at the top. With deft fingers its author undid the wrappings, and lo! a rubicund pudding of cannon-ball-like aspect greeted our expectant visions, and was hailed with loud acclamation.

"Ever see a puddin' like that, Mac?" demanded Stewart, gazing at it tenderly, and his cautious compatriot somewhat sadly replied—

"Only aince, Stewart, an' that wis when we found Gold Bottom Creek, an' ye nearly killed King Jamie o' the Thronducks wi' indegestion."

The compliment was just a trifle vague, and was regarded with suspicion by the prime conspirator, but he said no more, and we attacked the "puddin'" in silence, and with a vigour borne of many days' travel on short rations.

Despite its heterogeneous nature, Stewart's culinary creation proved a veritable triumph to his art; at any rate it quickly disappeared from view, even Dave's share being rather grudgingly given. Never, since we had entered the country, had we fared so well, and when coiled up in our blankets close to the blazing fire, we felt indeed at peace with all mankind—including the police captain. All night long we kept the flames replenished, and dreamily gazed at each other through the curling smoke, for our unusual surfeit had banished sleep from our eyes. And but a few yards away from the burning logs the air was filled with dancing frost particles that seemed to form a white wall around us, for our thermometer, hung on a branch near by, registered forty-two degrees below zero. The long hours of darkness dragged slowly on, and it was nearly eleven o'clock in the morning before the faint light of day gradually dispelled the murky gloom, yet still we lolled laggard-like by the fire, starvation did not force us on this morning, and we had not rested these last six hundred miles. About noon, however, we decided to get up and have breakfast, and after many abortive attempts we succeeded in unwinding our bodies from the blankets in which they were swathed like Egyptian mummies.

"It wis a gorgeous banquet," ruminated Mac, as he busied himself with the sleigh and made fast thereon various little sacks appropriated from the tent.

"There's nae man," responded Stewart with eloquence, "kin teach me onything aboot cooking—especially puddens."

I now thought it advisable to examine the markings on the snow where the trail had given us so much trouble on the night before. I could not yet understand why a tent and stores should have been left at Caribou Crossing, one of the most gloomy spots throughout the whole course of the Yukon. "Be lively with the breakfast, boys," I said, "for I am inclined to think the climate thirty miles further south will be healthier for us to-night." And I made my way out to the edge of the forest.

I reached the lakeside without difficulty; the keen frost of the preceding hours had given a thick crust to the deep snow-drifts intervening; I then made a careful scrutiny of the various sleigh-runner channels which were plainly evident, and which united at the point where we had to diverge into the wood. A double trail led southward towards Lake Bennet, but a single one only continued its course to Tagash station. At once the meaning was plain. Two sleighs had started from Bennet station, and the drifts on Caribou proving unduly deterrent, one sleigh load had been temporarily abandoned. I remembered the two teams of dogs in the sleigh we had met. Everything was clear in an instant. "Yes, we'll certainly be healthier in a more southerly latitude to-night," I said to myself as I turned to go back to my companions. The enticing odour of an unusually appetising breakfast greeted my nostrils, and brought back a feeling of serene contentment. But my happiness was shortlived. I had barely reached the camp fire when I became vaguely conscious of some disturbing element in the air. I listened intently, then faintly sounded the tinkle of sleigh bells in the distance, and now and again the sharp crack of a dog-whip smote the keen air. There was no need to explain matters; even Dave whined knowingly, and backed voluntarily into his harness.

"Jist oor luck," grumbled Stewart, grabbing the cooked bacon and thrusting it into one of the billies.

"It's a blessed thing," quoth Mac, philosophically, "that we had such a magnee——"

"Are you ready, boys?" I interrupted. The bells sounded sharply now, and I could hear the irascible captain cursing on the dogs.

"I'm staunin' by the ingines," grunted Mac.

"There's naething left," said Stewart, "unless we tak' the tent."

"Then full speed ahead," I cried; "we'll camp somewhere near the head of Lake Bennet, to-night."

With a sharp jerk the sleigh bounded forward, keeping the shelter of the timber for the first few hundred yards, then sweeping into the open at the entrance to Lake Bennet, we forced a trail towards Lake Linderman at an unusually rapid rate.

[ACROSS THE CHILCOOT PASS]

The snow was falling in thick, blinding sheets when we reached Lake Linderman, and struggled up the first precipitous climb leading to the dreaded Chilcoot.

A death-like stillness lingered in the valley; the towering mountain peaks enclosing the chain of lakes had formed ample protection from the elements; but soon we ascended into a different atmosphere, where the wind burst upon us with dire force, and dashed the snow in clouds against our faces. In vain we laboured on; my comrades sank at times to their necks in the snow, even the sleigh was half buried in the seething masses, and rolled over continuously. I alone had snow-shoes, and for the first time in the seven hundred miles' trail we had traversed I strapped the long Indian "runners" to my moccasins, and endeavoured to pad a track for the following train, but the attempt proved futile. Two hours after leaving the lake we had barely progressed a mile, and the air was becoming dark and heavy with the increasing fury of the gale, which tossed the white clouds aloft, and showered them over our sorely-tried caravan. Never had we dreamed of encountering such weather. We had come from the silent Klondike valley, where the tempests were hushed by the Frost King, who reigned with iron hand.

At two in the afternoon we reached timber limit, and here a few stunted trees showed their tips above the snow, but beyond the bleak surfaces of Deep and Long Lakes appeared bare and forbidding, and the loud shriek of the gathering gale warned us to venture no further that day. We hurriedly scooped a hole in the snow, and lined it with our furs; then the sleigh was mounted as a bulwark against the drifts, and we lay down in our strange excavation, exhausted and utterly disheartened. Mac at length broke the silence. "We might have a fire o' some sort," he said, looking round. Very gingerly he and his companion crawled towards the tree-tops, and broke off the tough green branches. After much coaxing the unwilling wood ignited, and we clustered joyfully round the pungent smoke—for there was little else—and endeavoured to infuse some warmth into our frozen bodies. The thick blackness of night was rapidly closing over, and the storm showed no signs of diminishing; so we obtained what timber we could from the tree-tops, and stored it in our shelter to feed the feeble fire through the long dreary night. Then we thawed some snow, and boiled a "billy" of coffee, and the warm fluid helped to sustain us greatly; but still the wind howled and the snow pattered down on our faces with relentless force, and the drifts from the edge of our pit ever and anon deluged us. How we passed that night is beyond description. We huddled near to each other for warmth, while our dog beside us groaned and shivered violently despite all our efforts to protect him from the icy blasts.

Morning at last arrived, but no welcome light appeared; the air continued murky and dense with flying snow. Ten o'clock, eleven, and twelve passed, and we were beginning to despair of getting a start that day. Then the gloom merged into a dull grey haze, and we could distinguish faintly through the driving mists the glacier peaks flanking Long Lake. We had thawed snow and made coffee for breakfast, but notwithstanding that fortification we felt ill-prepared to renew our battle with the elements.

"We'll make another try, boys," I said, after a brief survey around. "We may reach the summit to-day, but the chances are against it."

Dave was again harnessed to the sleigh, and with three separate ropes attached we straggled forward on different tracks, and pulled as if for dear life. Slowly we forged ahead over Deep Lake, staggering, stumbling, and floundering wildly. Even Dave sank in the yielding track, and his efforts to extricate himself would have been amusing—under different circumstances. As we proceeded the gale increased, and almost hurled us back, and I noted with alarm the heavy gathering clouds that seemed to hang between us and the pass; they spread rapidly, and with them came fresh blasts that whistled across the white lake surface, and tore it into heaving swells even as we looked. I prayed for light, but the gloom deepened and the snow fell thicker and faster. At length we reached the cañon leading to Crater Lake, and with every nerve strained we fought our way forward literally foot by foot. The snow-wreaths here were of extraordinary depths, and several times my companions would disappear altogether, actually swimming again to the surface, for only such a motion would sustain the body on the broken snow.

At three o'clock we had travelled but two and a half miles, and the storm was yet rising. Had we been provided with food our position would not have caused us much alarm, but coffee had been our lot for forty-eight hours, and now raw coffee alone must be our portion, for we were above timber limit, and so could have no fire. Starvation from cold and hunger combined promised to be rather a miserable finish to our labours. The deep breathing of my companions betrayed their sufferings; their weakened frames could ill endure such buffetings. At every other step they would sink in the vapoury snow, while poor Dave's muffled howls were pitiful to hear.

"We'll have to camp again, boys," I shouted. But where could we camp, and preserve our already freezing bodies? As I have said, we were beyond timber limit; only the dull, drifting snow appeared on every side, and the darkness was quickly hiding even that from view. I relinquished my sleigh rope, and battled forward against the blizzard alone. My snow-shoes skimmed rapidly over the treacherous drifts, but the extreme exertion was too much for me, and I had to come to a halt. The air in such a latitude, and at a 3,500-feet altitude, is keen enough even when there is no blizzard raging. In the few hundred yards I had sped ahead I had left my comrades hopelessly behind; they were blotted from my sight as if by an impenetrable pall. Suddenly, through a cleft in the driving sleet, I caught a glimpse of a blue glistening mass close before me. I remembered that I was in the vicinity of the large glacier at "Happy Camp," but the glacier had evidently "calved," for it was formerly well up the mountain side. I staggered over to it, and felt its glassy sides with interest; then I noticed a great cavity between the giant mass and the mountain-ledge. It was indeed a calved glacier, and in its fall it had formed a truly acceptable place of shelter. I cried loudly to my companions, but only the shriek of the blizzard was my reply. I was afraid to leave my "find" in case I might not discover it again, so I drew my Colt Navy and fired rapidly into the air. The sound seemed dull and insignificant in the howling storm, but a feeble bark near at hand answered back, and through the mists loomed my doughty henchmen with their sleigh-ropes over their shoulders, and crawling on all fours beside the dog. They had been forced to divide their weight over the snow in this strange fashion, and even as it was they sank at intervals with many a gasp and splutter into the great white depths. "Happy Camp!" I cried.

"This is an end o' us a' noo," Mac wearily groaned, staggering into the ice cavern.

"Happy Camp" was the name derisively applied to the vicinity in the summer. It was then the first halting stage after crossing the pass, and as no timber existed near, no fires could be made, and hence the name. But what it was like at this time, in midwinter, is beyond my powers to describe. Imagine a vast glittering field of ice stretching from the peaks above to the frozen stream below, and a small idea of its miseries as a camping-ground is at once apparent. Yet it was a welcome shelter to us at such a time, and we dragged the sleigh into the dark aperture thankfully, and, wrapping ourselves in our blankets, listened to the moaning of the storm outside. At each great rush of wind the walls of our cave would quiver and crackle, and far overhead a deep rumbling broke at intervals upon our ears. Our glacier home was certainly no safe retreat, for it was gradually, yet surely, moving downwards. My companions recognised their perilous position immediately they heard the well-known grinding sound, but they said nothing—they were evidently of opinion that we were as safe inside as out, and, as Stewart afterwards grimly said, "It would hae been an easier death onywey."

The cold was very intense, and we shivered in the darkness for hours without a word being spoken. To such an extremity had we been reduced that Mac and Stewart assiduously chewed the greasy strips of caribou hide which did duty as moccasin laces, while I endeavoured, but with little success, to swallow some dry coffee. If we could only have a fire, I reasoned, we might live to see the morning, but without it there seemed little hope.

We had all grown apathetic, and indeed were quite resigned to a horrible fate. I was aroused from a lethargic reverie by the piteous cries of Dave, who remained still harnessed. I patted his great shaggy head, and pulling my sheath-knife, cut the traces that bound him. As I did so my hand came in contact with the sleigh, and at once a new idea flashed over me.

"Get up, boys!" I cried. "We've forgotten that the sleigh will burn."

In an instant they were on their feet. One thought was common to us all—we must have a fire, no matter the cost. Mac lighted a piece of candle, and stuck it on the hard ground. Then he and Stewart attacked the sleigh energetically, and in a few moments the snow-ship that had borne our all for seven hundred miles was reduced to splinters. Eagerly we clustered round as the match was applied, and fanned the laggard flame with our breaths until it burst out cheerily, crackling and glowing, illuminating the trembling walls of the cavern, and causing the crystal roof to scintillate with a hundred varying hues. Sparingly Mac fed the flame; if we could only keep it alive till morning the blizzard might have abated. Piece by piece the wood was applied, and the feeble fire was maintained with anxious care. Hour after hour passed, and still the blizzard howled, and the swirling snow-drifts swept to our feet as we bent over our one frail comfort, and protected the wavering flame from the smothering sleet.

At various times throughout the weary hours I fancied I could hear a faint moaning without our shelter, but the inky blackness of the night obscured all vision, and after aimlessly groping in the snow for some minutes after each alarm, I had to crawl back benumbed and helpless.

"It must have been the wind," said Stewart.

"There's nae man could cross the pass last night," spoke Mac.

Dave lay coiled up on my blanket apparently fast asleep. The noble animal had had nothing to eat for two days, and I feared he would not wake again. Suddenly, however, he started up, growling hoarsely. The moaning sound again reached our ears, prolonged and plaintive. Then came the sharp whistle of the blizzard, clear, decisive. There could be no mistake. Assuredly some unfortunate was out in the cruel storm. Our four-footed companion struggled to his feet with an effort, and swaying erratically, he rushed from the cave whining dolefully. We gazed at each other in silence; we dreaded the discovery we were about to make.

"Keep the fire alight as a guide to us, Mac," I said, and Stewart and I went out into the storm. And now Dave's deep-mouthed barks penetrated the dense mists, and we crawled towards the cañon in the direction of the sound; but we had not far to go. A few yards from our retreat I felt Dave's furry body at my knees, and then my hand came in contact with a human form half buried in the drifts.

"It's a man, Stewart," I said, and he answered with a groan of sympathy. We extricated the stiff, frozen body from the engulfing snow and dragged it tenderly towards the light we had left; and there, in that miserable spot, we strove to bring back the life that had all but fled.

"We have nothing to gie him," said Mac hopelessly; "an' the fire's gone oot."

"There should be some coffee," I answered, "and the furs and my long boots will burn."

Soon our treasured possessions smouldered and flamed; boots, moccasins, silver-tipped furs—all that we had that would simmer or burn was sacrificed, and a piece of ice from the wall was thawed and slowly boiled. When the hot fluid was forced between his lips the rescued man opened his eyes and looked around. Soon he had recovered sufficiently to speak a few words. He had ventured across the Chilcoot, despite all warnings from the miners at Sheep Camp. He had wandered over Crater Lake all day, not knowing where the valley lay owing to the dense mists prevailing. "The blizzard has been blowing on the pass for two days," said he; "your light attracted me last night, but I could not reach it." Such was the tale of the poor victim of the pass; he died before morning, despite our struggles to save him, and we felt that we could not survive him long.

No light appeared at ten o'clock, nor was there any promise of the blinding storm abating. Our fire had gone out, and we sat in darkness beside the lifeless body we had saved from the snows.

"We'll make another try, boys," I said. "We may as well go under trying, if it has to be."

Our load was small enough now; the pity was we had not lightened it sooner. I strapped the small mail-bag to my shoulders; my comrades carried all further impedimenta, and, leaving the dead man in his icy vault we staggered into the darkness and forced an erratic track towards the Chilcoot Pass. Crater Lake was reached in two hours; I could only guess we had arrived at it by the evenness of the surface, the air was so dense that objects could not be distinguished even a few feet distant. I tried to fix a bearing by compass, but the attempt was futile, the needle swaying to all points in turn, owing to the magnetic influences around. Then we felt for the mountain-side on the left, and staggered over the blast-blown rocks and glaciers along its precipitous steeps.

As we neared the summit the howl of the blizzard increased to a shrill, piercing whistle, but we now were sheltered by the pass, and the fierce blast passed overhead. All this time we forced onward through a murky gloom with our bodies joined with ropes that we might not lose one another. At three in the afternoon I calculated that we were near the crucial point at which the final ascent can be negotiated, and we left the white shores of Crater Lake and clambered up into the rushing mists where the blizzard shrieked and moaned alternately, and hurled huge blocks of glacier ice and frozen snow down into the Crater valley. The top was reached at last, and no words of mine can describe the inferno that raged on that dread summit. We lay flat on our faces and writhed our way forward through a bubbling, foaming mass of snow and ice. Our bodies were cut and bruised with the flying débris, and our clothing was torn to rags. The blizzard had now attained an extraordinary pitch, the mountain seemed to rock and tremble with its fury, and inch by inch we crawled towards the perpendicular declivity leading to the "Scales"—full eight hundred feet of almost sheer descent. Cautiously we manœuvred across the great glacier that rests in the Devil's Cauldron—a cup-shaped hollow in the top of the notorious pass—and at once the blaze of a fire burst before our eyes, illuminating the apparently bottomless depths beyond.

The ice-field on which we lay overhung the rocks to a dangerous degree, and I realised that we must make the descent from some other part of the semicircular ridge. We crept back hurriedly, and as we stood gasping in the "cauldron" before making a détour to find a possible trail, a mighty rumbling shook the pass, and we clutched at the snow around, which flew upwards in great geyser-like columns, almost smothering us in its descending showers. The overlapping ice had plunged into the valley, carrying with it hundreds of tons of accumulated snow; we escaped the powerful suction by a few yards only.

When we approached the edge a second time a smooth, unbroken snowsteep marked the trail of the glacier, and to it we consigned ourselves, literally sliding down into the black depths. We were precipitated into an immense wreath of snow covering the scales for over a hundred feet. The fire had been blotted out with the icy deluge, but luckily, as we learned later, the fire-feeders had abandoned their post long before the avalanche had come down. Three hours later we arrived at Sheep Camp, and entered the Mascotte saloon, where the assembled miners were clustered round a huge stove in the centre of the room, listening to the ominous shriek of the gale outside.

No one dared venture out that night, but in the morning the four days' blizzard had spent itself, and we formed a party to explore the damage done. A light railway that had been laid to the Scales was completely demolished, and half down to Sheep Camp the channel of the Chilcoot River was filled with enormous ice boulders. An avalanche had also fallen on Crater Lake during the night, and when we had painfully climbed the now bare summit the frozen plateau beyond was rent for nearly a mile with enormous gashes over ten feet in width, and the ice cleavage showed down as far as the eye could reach.

[THE FIVE-MILE RUSH]

It was a very hot day in September when we arrived at Perth, Western Australia, and hastened to put up at the nearest hotel to the station, which happened to bear the common enough title of the "Royal."

We had come up with the mail train from Albany, where the P. & O. steamers then called, and even Westralia's most ardent admirers would hesitate to claim comfort as one of the features of the Colony's railway system. So we arrived, after a long night's misery, dusty and travel-stained. No one attempts to keep clean in the land of "Sand, sin, and sorrow," for the simple reason that, according to the nature of things there, such a luxurious state of æsthetic comfort can never be attained. The streets were sandy, and as a natural sequence the atmosphere was not of ethereal quality. The people were sandy and parched-looking, and we found the interior of the hotel little better than the outside, so far as the presence of the powdery yellow grains was concerned.

In the darkened bedrooms the hum of the festive mosquito was heard, and my companions chuckled at the sound.

"It's a lang time since I heard they deevils," said Mac; then he proceeded, "Noo, oot on the Pampas——"

"D—n the Pampas!" roared Stewart, as he clutched wildly at one of the pests that had been quietly resting on his cheek for full half a minute.

"Ye've pushioned that onfort'nate beast," Mac retorted, with unruffled serenity; "noo, can ye no let the puir thing dee in peace?"

We remained but a short time in Perth; it is a neatly-laid-out little city with streets running off at right angles to each other, and containing a fair sprinkling of fine buildings, among which may be mentioned the General Post Office and Lands Offices, and they are palatial edifices indeed. The Botanical Gardens are small, yet very pretty; and here, instead of the usual garden loafer, may be found many weary-eyed and parchment-skinned gold-diggers from the "fields," whose one idea of a holiday lies in a visit to Perth or Fremantle, where they stroll about or recline on the artificially-forced grass plots of these towns, and wile the weary hours away.

The Swan River at Perth forms an exquisite piece of scenery, which redeems the environs of the sandy city from utter ugliness. Innumerable black swans swim hither and thither on its placid waters, and by the sloping banks, well fringed with rushes, many notable yachting clubs have their pavilions. There is nothing in this Capital of the Western Colony to attract. Even to the casual observer it is plain that the bustling, Oriental-looking town is essentially a gateway to the goldfields, and little more. Fremantle, on the other hand, is the Port, and chief engineering and commercial centre.

At this period I was, like most erratic travellers, without a definite object in view. In a certain hazy way I thought that we should visit the mining districts at once, as we had done in other and more impracticable countries; yet I was aware that the known Westralian goldfields were by no means so new as the "finds" in North-West Canada, and in consequence the ground might be over-pegged or long since rushed.

"The countrie is big enuff," said Mac when I mentioned my doubts, "an' we'll mebbe find anither Gold Bottom Creek faurer oot than onybody has gaed."

"We're better diggin' holes, even if they are duffers," spoke Stewart, "than makin' oorsel's meeserable at hame." Which argument in a sense settled the matter, and I forthwith purchased tickets for Kalgoorlie, with the intention of penetrating thence towards the far interior.

It is a weary journey eastward from Perth, and one that cannot be too quickly passed over. The single narrow-gauge line has been laid without any attempt at previous levelling, and the snorting little engine puffs over switchback undulations ceaselessly, at a speed that averages nearly sixteen miles an hour. It is a fortunate circumstance for the fresh enthusiast from "home" that the "Kalgoorlie Mail" leaves Perth in the evening. The discomfort experienced in the midnight ride is bad enough, but he is mercifully spared from viewing the "scenery" along the route, which would assuredly have a most demoralising effect: Western Australia must be taken gradually.

The Coolgardie "rush" may be fresh in the minds of most people. The township now stands almost deserted, bearing little trace of former glory; and yet it is but a few years since the railway was pushed out to this remote settlement. Southern Cross, two hundred miles nearer the coast, was formerly the terminus of all traffic, and the hardy pioneers of Coolgardie daringly ventured on foot from this point, as did also the vast numbers who "followed the finds."

Very insidiously Kalgoorlie has risen to high eminence as a mining centre; it accomplished the eclipse of its sister camp some time ago, and by reason of its deep lodes it is likely to retain its supremacy indefinitely. To the individual miners a new strike or location is considered to be "played out" when limited liability companies begin to appear in their midst, as only in rare cases can fossickers succeed in competition with machinery. However, the flat sand formations around Kalgoorlie have proved one of the exceptions to this rule, and the alluvial digger may still sink his shallow shaft here with every hope of success, and even in the proved "deep" country surface indications are abundant.

When my little party stepped from the train at Kalgoorlie, we saw before us a scattered array of wooden and galvanised-iron houses, white-painted, and glistening dully in the sunlight through an extremely murky atmosphere. On closer acquaintance the heterogeneous erections resolved themselves into a wide principal thoroughfare, aptly named Hannan's Street, after the honoured prospector of the Camp's main reef, and a number of side paths that bore titles so imposing that my memory at once reverted to the fanciful names distinguishing the crude log shanties of Dawson, where there were: Yukon Avenue, Arctic Mansions, Arcadian Drive, and Eldorado Terrace. Here, in keeping with the latitude of the city, more salubrious, if equally fantastic, were the various designations of the alleys and byways.

In the near distance we could see the towering tappet heads of the widely-known Great Boulder mine, and the din created by the revolving hammers of the ever-active stamping machinery assailed our ears as an indescribable uproar. But beyond the dust and smoke of these Nature-combating engines of civilisation, the open desert, dotted with its stunted mulga and mallee growths, shimmered back into the horizon. Here and there a dump or mullock heap showed where the alluvial miner had staked his claim, but for the most part the landscape was unbroken by any sign of habitation.

"There's a lot of room in this country, boys," I said, as we stood unobserved in the middle of the street and took in the scene.

"It's a deevil o' a funny place," Mac ventured doubtfully.

"It's a rale bonnie place," reproved Stewart, whom the inexpressible gloom peculiar to the interior country had not yet affected. "I'm thinkin'," he continued, with asperity, "that ane or twa men o' pairts like oorsel's were jist needed at this corner o' the warld."

"In ony case," Mac now agreed, "it's better than being meeserable at hame."

Instead of seeking the hospitality of one of the numerous hotels close by, we decided to begin our campaign in earnest right away, and get under canvas as a proper commencement. So we prospected around for a good camping site, and that same night we slept in our tent, erected about a mile distant from the township.

There was no water in our vicinity, and next morning Stewart set out with two newly-purchased water-bags to obtain three gallons of the very precious fluid at a condensing establishment we had noticed on the previous night, where, at sixpence a gallon, a tepid brackish liquid was sparingly dispensed. It should be understood that water, in most parts of Western Australia, is more difficult to locate than gold, and when obtained it is usually as a dense solution, salt as the sea, and impregnated with multitudinous foreign elements extremely difficult to precipitate.

"There's aye something tae contend wi' in furrin countries," Mac philosophised, as he leisurely proceeded to build a fire for cooking operations. "In Alaska there wis snaw, an' Chilkoots, an' mony ither trifles; bit here there's naething much objeckshunable let alane the sand an' want o' watter."

I agreed with him if only for the sake of avoiding an argument. "There may be a few—insects along with the sand, Mac," I hazarded cheerfully, and then I went into the tent to arrange the breakfast utensils.

"Insecks!" cried he derisively after me. "Wha cares fur insecks, I shid like tae ken? What herm is there in a wheen innocent muskitties, fur instance? Insecks! Humph!"

The absurdity of my remark seemed to tickle him vastly, and as he broke the eucalyptus twigs preparatory to setting a match to the pile he had collected, he continued to chuckle audibly. Then suddenly there was silence, a silence so strange that I felt impelled to look out of the tent and see what had happened; but before I had time to set down the tinware cups I held in my hands, his voice broke out afresh. "Insecks!" I heard him mutter. "Noo A wunner——; bit no, that canna be, fur snakes hiv'na got feet, an' this deevil's weel supplied i' that direction. It's a bonnie beast, too. I wunner if it bites?" I gathered from these remarks that the valiant Mac had made the acquaintance of some unknown species of "insect" with which he was unduly interested. "If it's an inseck," came the voice again, "this countrie maun be an ex-tra-ord'nar'—— Haud aff! ye deevil. Haud off! I tell ye." I hastened outside just in time to see my companion ruthlessly slaughter a large-sized centipede, which had evidently refused to be propitiated by his advances.

"It's a vera re-markable thing," said he, looking up with a perfectly grave countenance, "hoo they—insecks—persist in bringin' destruckshun on themsel's. I wis just pokin' this onfort'nate beast wi' a stick—in a freen'ly wey, ye ken—an' the deevil made a rin at me, wi' malishus intent, I'm thinkin', an' noo he's peyed the penalty o' his misguided ackshun."

"In future, Mac," I warned, "you'd better not attempt to get on friendly terms with these—insects; a bite from a centipede might kill you."

"I'll gie ye best about the insecks," he returned thoughtfully, applying a match to the pile, "bit ye'll admit," he added, after some moments' pause, "that it's maist ex-tra-ord'nar' tae see insecks o' sich onnaitural descripshun rinnin' aboot on the face o' the earth."

I fully concurred, much to his satisfaction, and just then Stewart arrived, perspiring under his watery load.

"Dae ye mean tae tell me," howled the new-comer, addressing no one in particular, "that ye hiv'na got the fire ken'l'd yet?"

"Ca' canny, Stewart, ca' canny," sternly admonished the guilty one. "There's been a narrow escape here, ma man, a verra narrow escape."

Stewart's ruddy face blanched slightly, then slowly regained its colour when the slain centipede was pointed out. "Ye've raelly had a providenshul escape, Mac," said he. "Noo, staun aside an' let me get on wi' the cookin'."

Our first breakfast in camp was an unqualified success; it was not a very elegant repast, certainly, but the traveller must learn to forego all luxuries and enjoy rough fare, and we had already served our apprenticeship in that direction. Stewart, however, had lost none of his art in matters culinary, and, as he himself averred, could cook "onything frae a muskittie tae an Injun," so we had every reason to be contented.

"If we wur only camped aside a second Gold Bottom!" sighed Mac, getting his pipe into working order.

"It's a bonnie countrie," mused his companion, "wi' a bonnie blue sky abune, an' what mair could a man want?"

"I think we have had no cause to complain, so far, boys," was my addition to the conversation, "and I'll go into the township in an hour or so and make investigations as to the latest strikes. To-morrow we may make a definite camp."

And so the early day passed while we rested and smoked, and recalled our grim experiences in the land of snows.

"It's mebbe wrang tae mak' compairisons," grunted Mac, "bit gie me the sunshine an' the floo'ers——"

"An' the centipedes!" Stewart slyly interpolated.

"D—n centipedes!" roared Mac; then he recovered himself. "Mak' nae mair allushuns, ma man," said he with dignity. "An' hoo daur ye spile ma poetic inspirashun?"

The sun was now well overhead and shooting down intense burning rays; the sky was cloudless, and not a breath stirred the branches of the dwarfed eucalyptii on the plains.

"It's a g-glorious day," murmured Stewart, mopping his perspiring forehead.

Mac chuckled: "Wait till ye see some o' the insecks the sun'll bring out," said he, "ye'll be fairly bamfoozled."

At this moment I was surprised to notice a man, armed with pick and shovel, approaching rapidly in our direction. As he came near I saw that he bore, strapped to his shoulders, a bundle of wooden pegs which had evidently been hastily cut from the outlying timber. "Some energetic individual thinks we have made a find at this camp," I thought; but I was mistaken. The stranger made as if to pass a good way off our tent; then he hesitated, looked back, apprehensively, it seemed to me, and came quickly towards us.

"What in thunder does yer mean by campin' here, mates?" he demanded hurriedly, grounding his shovel impatiently and letting his eyes roam in an unseeing manner over the surrounding country.

I had barely time to explain that ours was only a temporary camp, when, without a word, he shouldered his shovel and sped onwards into the brush.

"Maist onmainnerly behaviour," Mac snorted wrathfully. "Noo, if I meet that man again, I'll——" He stopped suddenly. "Ho, ho!" he chuckled, "there's mair o' them comin'; I begin tae smell a rat." We now observed what had caused the sudden flight of our visitor. Rushing from every shanty near the township, and issuing from the main street in a chaotic mass, a perfect sea of men bearing axes and picks and shovels came surging down on us. As we looked the fleeter members of the "rush" forged quickly ahead, so that the spectacle soon appeared as a medley army advancing desperately at the double in Indian file.

There was no need to be in ignorance as to what it meant; we had seen the same thing often enough in Alaska when strikes on the Upper Klondike were frequent.

"Get the tent down, boys," I said, "and follow on when you're ready. I'll represent this camp and see that it is not last on the programme." Even before I had finished speaking, my companions were tugging wildly at the guy ropes, and loosening the wall pegs of the tent.

"We'll no be faur ahint," growled Mac from beneath the canvas folds which in his zeal he had brought down upon himself.

"Ye shid let me gang first," grumbled Stewart, "fur ye ken weel that I can sprint wi' ony man."

I seized an axe and shovel and awaited the approach of the van-leader of the struggling line of humanity, who was fast drawing near: not knowing the destination of the rush, it was necessary that I should follow some one who did. I had not long to wait. A lean, lanky true son of the bush, with nether garments held in position by an old cartridge belt, burst through the brushwood a few yards wide of us. His leathery face showed not the slightest trace of emotion, and though the heat was sweltering not a drop of perspiration beaded on his forehead. Heaven knows how often he may have taken part in a rush and been disappointed.

"Mornin', boys," he said genially. "Fust-class exercise, this," and he passed at a regular swinging pace, with eyes fixed straight ahead, steering a direct course.

"He gangs like clockwork," said Mac admiringly, gazing after him; "bit haud on. What's this comin'?"

The second runner was now coming forward at a rate that was rapidly annihilating distance; he had passed the bulk of the others since he had joined the race, and I had been much interested in watching his progress.

"Guid Lor'," ejaculated Stewart, stopping in his work of rolling up the tent, and gazing at the approaching runner in dismay. "Did ye ever see onything like that in a' yer born days?"

There was ample excuse for his astonishment. The fleeing figure was hatless, and otherwise ludicrously garbed—for Westralia. What Stewart called a "lang-tailie coat" spread out behind him like streamers in a breeze, a "biled" collar had, in the same gentleman's terse language, "burst its moorings" and projected in two miniature wings at the back of his ears, and a shirt that had once been white, bosomed out expansively through an open vest. Yet, notwithstanding his cumbrous habiliments, he had well outdistanced his nearest "hanger-on," and it was plain that the wiry sandgroper still in front would have to screw on more speed if he meant to keep his lead long.

With lengthy strides the strangely-garbed runner shot past; in his hand he gripped a spade, which tended to make his appearance the more wonderful, but that he meant business was very evident.

"Fur Heaven's sake, pit aff the coat!" howled Stewart, and Mac toned down the impertinence of the remark by adding stentoriously—

"Ye'll rin lichter withoot it, ma man."

The individual addressed slowed up at once. "Thanks for the idea, boys," said he good-naturedly, and he promptly discarded the objectionable emblem of civilised parts and threw it carelessly into a mulga bush. Then noting that he was a good way in advance of the main army, he mopped his streaming face and gave the information, "There's been a big strike at the Five Mile, boys, wherever that may be. I am letting the first man steer the way on purpose."

"Ye're a daisy tae rin," admiringly spoke Mac, seizing the tent and a packet of miscellaneous merchandise, while Stewart feverishly gathered up the remainder of our meagre belongings. He of the "biled shirt" now set down to work again, making a pace which I, who had joined in the chase, found hard indeed to emulate; and my companions, heavily laden as they were, hung into our rear like leeches.

Far behind we could hear the sand crunch under hundreds of feet, and the mallee shrubs crackling and breaking, but hardly a word was spoken. Mile after mile we crashed through the endless brush and over the monotonous iron-shot plains. Mac puffed and blowed like some huge grampus, and Stewart's deep breathing sounded like the exhaust expirations of an overworked steam engine.

"Keep her gaun, Mac; keep her gaun," this personage would splutter when his more portly comrade showed signs of flagging, which well he might, considering that he clutched in his arms a weight of nearly forty pounds.

"Wha's stoppin'? ye inseegneeficant broken-winded donkey engine!" retorted his aggravated compatriot, rolling along manfully.

But the race was nearly over. Half a mile further on the land dipped ever so slightly, and in the gentle hollow formed about a dozen men rushed madly about, pacing off prospectors' claims, and driving rude pegs at the boundary corners.

The sight had an exhilarating effect on Mac and Stewart, and with wild shouts they quickly drew up the little distance they had lost, and would have passed my white-shirted pacemaker and myself were we not compelled for very shame to keep our lead if we died for it.

"By Jove!" panted he of the strange garments, "these beggars behind can run."

And Mac at his heels chivalrously grunted between his breaths, "I've never had a harder tussle tae keep up ma deegnity—no never."

A few minutes more, and we reached the field of operations. The men there were too busy marking off their properties to give us much attention. I noticed swiftly that our first visitor of the few words had his claim neatly pegged, and was sitting in the middle of it, complacently smoking. He must have received special information of the find or he could not have got away so much before the others. Our second passing acquaintance—he of the emotionless countenance who had steered our quartet unknowingly—had got in a hundred yards ahead of us, and he was now coolly cutting pegs with which to mark his chosen area.

"It's a deep alluvial leader, mate," he said to me. Then he added obligingly, "I guess I knows the lie of the kintry, an' if ye hitch on at the end o' my boundaries, ye'll likely sink on it, plumb."

The advice of an experienced miner should always be accepted; and while Mac and Stewart were felling several small trees for use as marking-posts, I proceeded to line off the direction of our claim as suggested by the angle of my adviser's corner channels. I performed this work with much care, knowing how slim are one's chances of holding any gold-bearing area at a rush unless the holder's title is beyond dispute according to official regulations.

The straggling body of men was now beginning to appear on the crest of the undulation which marked the only visible natural boundary of the valley; in less than three minutes the madly-striving crowd would be upon us, and we should be assuredly swamped by its numbers so that no pegs could be driven. Then I noticed the man who had doffed his fashionable coat to oblige Stewart, standing dejectedly near by; his sleeves were rolled up, displaying splendidly-formed muscles, and he held his shovel loosely in his hand as if uncertain what to do with it.

"Better get your pegs fixed quickly," I advised.

But he shook his head rather sadly. "I haven't got an axe," he said, "and—and I'm new to this sort of thing."

Mac had by this time obtained the four blazed posts necessary to denote our "three-men square," and Stewart promptly began to smite them into position in their proper places.

"If ye'll alloo me," said Mac, "I'll get the bitties o' sticks fur ye; I'd be vera sorry tae a bonnie rinner like you left in the cauld."

But there was no time now.

"Shift out our posts instead, Mac," I instructed, "we'll make a four-men lot of it and divide afterwards."

Our white-shirted associate looked at me gratefully, and held out his hand. "My name is Philip Morris," he said. "I am an Englishman, just out from the old country."

A swaying mob of perspiring and fiery-eyed men of all nationalities now flooded the valley as a tumultuous sea of humanity, and scattered in twos and fours throughout its entire length.

"You've struck a circus for a start, Morris," I said. "I think we'll all remember the Five-Mile Rush."

[SINKING FOR GOLD]

Next morning the Five-Mile Flat was the scene of extraordinary activity. Tents sprung up like mushrooms in all directions, and the thud, thud of picks sounded incessantly. It was almost pitiful to witness the feverish eagerness with which most of the diggers tried to bottom on their claims. The depth of the Lead at Discovery shaft was given out to be only forty feet, but the strata encountered before that level was reached had been of a flinty impervious nature, necessitating the use of much giant powder.

At least the original prospectors, who were camped near to us, gave me that information in a fit of generosity when they learned that I had some little experience of geological formations. They even allowed me to descend their shaft—most unheard-of thing—and compute the angle and dip of the lode for the benefit of the general assembly; a privilege which was duly appreciated, as it enabled me to calculate the proper position in our own claim at which to sink. The lode, so called, proved to be an auriferous wash, or alluvial gutter, the bed of an extremely ancient watercourse, probably silted up long before the time of the Pharaohs.

Our newly-acquired companion, who had already won the good graces of both Mac and Stewart, astonished me greatly, while I was expounding my theories on these matters for his special edification, by making several courteous corrections to my statements, so that I was forced to tread more cautiously; and when I had finished, he capped my argument with a lucid technical discourse and much scientific addenda.

"You certainly know a fair-sized amount for an inexperienced man," I said, with some irritation; but he hastened to explain.

"My knowledge is purely theoretical," he replied. "Perhaps I should not have spoken."

His admirable good sense appealed to Mac's idea of fairness. "I'm thinkin'," began that gentleman, gazing at me reproachfully, "I'm thinkin' that oor freen Phil-ip is a vera modest man, a vera modest man indeed."

"I'm o' the opeenion," cried Stewart, from the interior of the tent, "that if he keeps awa' frae tailie coats, and dresses rashunal, he'll be a rale orniment tae ony camp."

The young man was much moved by these expressions of good-will; but when I asked him to mark off his allotment on our too large mining territory, he stubbornly refused. "If it had not been for your kindness I should have no claim to any corner of the ground," he said.

I explained, however, that Mac, Stewart, and myself would not be allowed by law to possess a four-men holding, and therefore there was no kindness on my part in giving him back his own. Yet still he hesitated.

"I am all alone, boys," he said at last, "and I don't think I could do much damage to the ground by myself. Might I come in with you?"

This was a dénoûement I had not anticipated, though in some unaccountable manner I felt drawn to the stranger; still, the vision of his coat-tails fluttering in the wind could not be dispelled.

"What do you say, Mac?" I asked, expecting a gruff rejoinder in the negative; but the answer agreeably surprised me.

"He's a man o' pairts like oorsel's, a modest man, an' a golologist forbye," replied Mac, grandiloquently; "it wud be sinfu' tae refuse him oor guid company."

Then Stewart, who had been paying great attention, rushed from the tent and added his testimony. "Tailie coat or no tailie coat," he shouted, "he's a guid man, as I kin testeefy, an' me an' Mac'll be prood tae hae him wi' us. Forbye," he continued, "he's a Breetisher, an' tho' he isna Scotch, me an' Mac'll look ower that fau't wi' muckle tolerashun."

"I wis aboot tae re-mark——" began Mac, but Stewart had not completed his peroration.

"Haud yer tongue, Mac," said he sternly; "ye ken weel yer nae speaker like me." Then he resumed the flow of his eloquence: "An' noo," he said, "on behauf o' Mac—wha is a man o' disteenction tho' he disna look it—an' in conformeety wi' ma ain incleenations, I hae pleesure in signifyin' oor muckle approval o' yer qualities."

The candidate for admission to our illustrious company looked gratified, as well he might, and straightening his tall form he endeavoured to make suitable reply to the expectant couple.

"Gentlemen!" said he, and at the word Mac hitched up his nether garments and looked solemn, while Stewart coughed discreetly. "Gentlemen," repeated "tailie coat" in a voice that seemed to issue from his boots, "it is with considerable feeling of elation that I have heard your extemporaneous——"

"Haud on!" howled Mac in horror; "ye'll dae, ma man, ye'll dae. Come on, Stewart." And as they walked sorrowfully apart Stewart's voice floated back plaintively,

"Noo, Mac, hoo am I gaun tae keep up oor digneety efter that—ex-tem-por-anee——! He's deceived us, Mac; he's a lamb in sheep's ooter gairments, he is."

"Well, Phil," I said, when they had disappeared within the tent, "I think we'll get along all right."

"I feel at home already," he replied, looking towards the tent in grim amusement, "and enthusiastic enough to swing a pick with either Mac or Stewart, and that means much, I think."

"It does," I agreed with significance, and we went off to mark the site of our prospective shaft.

It was nearly midday before we commenced to excavate the ground, and by that time most of the miners around had penetrated several feet of the top sandy formation in their various claims. But haste is not always advisable under such circumstances, and I preferred to make as sure as possible of the lode's position within our pegs before sinking, and so obviate any necessity for laborious "driving" when bedrock was reached. We were fortunately in the "shallowest" ground, being within a hundred yards of the forty-feet level strike, which meant, judging by the dip or inclination of the auriferous wash, that we should probably find bottom about fifty feet down. As for the numbers below us, they might have to sink over a hundred feet, and even then miss the golden leader, so elusive are these subterranean channels.

The usual size of prospectors' shafts on any goldfield is five feet six inches long, by two feet six inches wide, and this just permits of sufficient room for one man to wield a pick. The aim of every miner on an unproved field is to get down to bedrock with the least possible labour, which is also the speediest method. A shaft can be widened afterwards when it has been found worth while, but it is always well to refrain from shovelling out two or three tons of granite-like substance, as is done by most "new chums," merely for the sake of having more elbow-room during the trying process of sinking.

After our experience with the frozen gravel at Klondike, it almost seemed like child's play to dig out the comparatively loose sand conglomeration which formed the topmost layer in the line of our descent. There was no fire-burning necessary here, but Nature, nevertheless, had made the balance even, for the auriferous levels in Alaska were rarely half as deep as even the shallow gutter we were now searching for. And again, in frozen ground the surface formations are naturally the hardest, whereas in most other workings that order is reversed.

"It's a pleesure tae work i' this grund," was Mac's statement, when, after scarcely two hours' labour, he stood nearly waist deep in the new shaft. With much foresight, that wily individual had volunteered to sink the first few feet alone. "I'm just burstin' wi' surplush energy," he explained to Stewart, "an' you can dae twa or three fit o' the easy stuff when I'm feenished."

"It's rale conseederate o' ye, Mac," said Stewart feelingly, with thoughts on the nature of things at Skookum Gulch, and he went inside the tent to try if anything edible could be gathered together for lunch, a matter on which he said he had "graive doots."

Our new comrade, whom we had already begun to address as "Phil," quickly showed himself to be a very worthy addition to our party. After exploring the scrub for timber suitable for banking-up purposes, and drawing back a goodly load, he politely insisted on Mac taking a spell while he swung the pick. "I can see," he said diplomatically, "that you would soon work yourself to death out of sheer consideration for others."

"Dae ye think sae?" grunted he in the shaft cautiously, pausing in his labours.

"I do, indeed," reiterated Phil with much earnestness.

Then Mac laid down his weapon, and leaning back lazily in his excavation made further circuitous inquiry. "Ye've never dug holes afore, Phil?" said he; and receiving a negative answer, he supplemented, "An' ye ken that ironstane is a wee bit—weel, I'll say solid?"

"Yes, I can understand that much," admitted Phil wonderingly.

"Weel," continued Mac, lowering his voice, "I've come on a bed o' it the noo, an' I'm jist makin' the tap o't clean an' tidy fur Stewart when he comes. He thinks he can equal me at onything, an' I've got tae check that fause impreshun. Dae ye savy?"

"Mac," said Phil with decision, "he'll be a smart man that gets the better of you."

"I've traivelled a bit," returned the schemer shortly, "an' Stewart's sometimes ill tae pit up wi'. I'll gie ye a bonnie saft bit tae practeese on efterwards," he added after a pause.

A little later Stewart announced that he had got some rice and "tinned dog" cooked. "I houp ye'll excuse the rice," said he, "it's a bit podgy, fur there wis vera little watter tae bile it in."

"Ye're looking rale worried-like, Stewart," said Mac sympathetically, as he gulped down his portion of the roasted grains. "It's exerceese ye're needin', I'm thinkin'."

"Mebbe it is," sighed Stewart dolorously.

"Weel," spoke Mac again, "ye can try an' wear doon the shaft a bit in the efternoon, an' me an' Phil 'll gang into the city an' get some tasty bits o' provisions. I'm vera concerned aboot ye, ma man."

It was indeed very necessary that we should obtain supplies without delay, for our stores consisted only of the remnants carried so hurriedly from our previous camp. Already, the first flush of excitement having died away, representatives from the different claims were hurrying towards the township on a similar mission. Enthusiasm and an empty stomach seldom agree. But here a difficulty arose. Phil's wardrobe was painfully small; his once spotless shirt was now yellow with sand, and almost torn into shreds, and the rest of his limited apparel was in such a state of disrepair, owing to his scramble through the brush, that, as Mac said, he looked "hardly respeectable."

"Ye can hae ma jecket," said Stewart magnanimously, "seein' that it wis on ma account ye pit aff the tailie coat."

Phil accepted the offer promptly. "There's a wonderful change in my appearance since I left the Old Country a few short weeks ago," said he, surveying his dilapidated garb ruefully.

"I shid think sae," grinned Mac. "It wud be a rale treat tae see ye walk doon Peecadeely in they claes." And they departed.

"Dae ye tell me that Mac has gaun doon five fit?" asked Stewart, when we were alone.

"I believe he has," I replied, "but in this country it is easy to dig near the surface where the sand has not even solidified."

"Easy or no' easy," responded Stewart impressively, baring his strong right arm, "what Mac can dae, I'll dae. Wha pu'd harder than I did gaun tae Klonduk?" he demanded, making a digression, but I waived the question.

"Let me know when you have had enough of the shaft," I said, "and I'll relieve you."

"Umph!" he grunted, ignoring my remark in turn, "Five feet! Whaur's the pick?" And he strode off to emulate his comrade's achievement.

A few moments later a series of sharp metallic echoes issued from the shaft mouth, intimating that Stewart had attacked a hard unyielding substance. Then, not wishing to be present when he desisted from his labours, I made my way stealthily to the adjoining claim and entered into conversation with its owner; but still the unsympathetic ring of steel meeting some kindred element reached my ears, and I sorrowed for the unfortunate Stewart right deeply.

The wiry sandgroper whom I interviewed was not one of the bustling kind. I found him enjoying a siesta under the scant shade of the solitary mulga bush on his domain, and scaring the numberless flies away by his vigorous snores. It was almost impossible to realise that he was the valiant runner of the day before. "Mornin', mate," said he, rubbing his eyes, after I had hustled him gently. It was late afternoon, but that was a small matter, and I did not trouble to correct him; and we talked together on mining subjects for about an hour.

"I ain't wan o' them cusses," he said, "that tries to git disappinted early. My tactics is: git thar in the fust place—at which you'll allow I is no slouch, nuther?" I made the necessary allowance, and he proceeded. "In the second place, thar ain't no call to be desp'rit'ly excited; thishyer life won't change worse'n a muskitter whether we does git to bottom on a spec. three or four days sooner or later." I ventured to remark that his reasonings did him credit. "I does philosophise a bit, mate," he agreed languidly. Then there followed a long silence, during which I missed the regular thuds of Stewart's pick, and wondered where that persistent gentleman had gone.

Suddenly a noise as of thunder startled me; it was succeeded by an explosion that shook the ground under our feet. "By the Great Howlin' Billy!" ejaculated my leather-skinned companion, "somebody's fired your shaft." I looked in time to see great boulders of jagged ironstone, and a dense volume of sand, hurled from the mouth of the narrow pit where Stewart had been working.

Filled with a vague fear I rushed to the scene of the disturbance, where the sand-clouds were fast settling, and just as I arrived I beheld Stewart calmly coming out towards me from behind Phil's timber pile, where he had been sheltered. My surprise was so great that for the moment speech failed me, and I looked vacantly at the shaft and at my companion in turn. Then he took pity on me, and condescended to explain.

"It's a' richt. I'm nae pheenix," he announced cheerfully, and he led me to the mouth of the shaft, which no longer retained its oblong contour, but was ragged and rent with the upheaval. "I wis lookin' fur ye aboot an hour since," he continued further, "tae get yer opeenion concernin' a sort o' irin furmashun what wis gi'en me sair trouble, bit as I could'na see ye, I kent ye could rely on ma guid jidgement tae dae what I thocht best——"

"But I was not aware that we had any gelignite or giant powder in our possession," I interrupted.

"Nae mair we had," said he, "bit I kept ane or twa extra speecial cartreedges what we used fur burstin' glashiers oot in Alaskie—as samples, ye ken—an' I pit them a' in. They've made a vera bonnie hole," he wound up; "that's the best o' they labour-savin' devices."

On examination it was found that the ironstone bar had been completely shattered, and little trouble was experienced in removing the remaining fragments. The cavity wherein it had rested was fully five feet deep, so that Mac's plot for outwitting his rival had proved a signal failure.

It was six o'clock when we descried Mac and Phil returning from Kalgoorlie, laden with stores; darkness was rapidly closing over the valley, so that their forms could not be distinguished until they were quite close. Then Stewart uttered a howl of rage. "They've brocht back the tailie coat," he cried feebly, and in strutted Mac, wearing not only that hateful garment, but also having perched on his head at a rakish tilt a highly-burnished silk hat.

"We fund the hat a wee bit faurer on than the coatie," said he, doffing his glossy headgear and gazing at it admiringly.

"If ye've ony regaird fur ma feelin's, ye'll pit them baith awa' at aince," Stewart implored, much affected.

His compatriot gazed at him commiseratingly. "Ye've been workin' ow'er hard the day, ma man," said he, "yer nerves are in a gey bad state, I'm thinkin'. Hoosomever," he added sternly after brief thought, "it's ongratefu' on your pairt tae despise the gairment, fur I promised Phil that ye shid hae it, purvided ye had sunk aboot three feet the day. Which," he climaxed, nonchalantly, "I hae nae doot ye hae dune?"

Stewart beamed. "I apologeese, Mac," he said, "noo gie me the coatie."

"Hoo muckle hae ye sunk?" demanded the generous giver, much taken aback.

"Full five feet," came the smiling answer. "Mac, ma vera dear freen, ye've made a ser'us mistak' this time."

Mac stood as if transfixed, gazing appealingly at Phil, who seemed equally amazed; then he turned without a word and rushed out to the shaft. When he came back a moment later, he stripped off the coat and handed it to Stewart. "I'm prood o' ye, ma man," he said with an effort; "ye're an indiveedual o' muckle strategy."

Then Phil joined in with commendable tact. "You've still got the hat, Mac," laughed he, "it's a fair divide."

[WE "STRIKE" GOLD]

For over a week sinking operations on the Five-Mile Flat were continued with unabated vigour, and then a hush of expectation seemed to fall over the community, for the miners in the shallow ground at the head of the lead were nearing bottom, and the vast array who had pegged along the supposed course of the auriferous wash ceased their labours and waited in tremulous eagerness for reports from Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, below Discovery. There was good reason for anxiety. If these claims bottomed on pipe-clay deposits or other barren clayey formations, little hope could be entertained for those who had followed their line of guidance. The direction of the golden channel certainly could not be ascertained by judging the lie of the country on the surface, for it was almost absolutely flat, and bore not the slightest resemblance to the original country far beneath. Practical tracing from claim to claim was the only method by which a miner could safely calculate, and that meant that those a little way off the first proved shaft, and all following claim-holders, must either be possessed of a vast amount of hope and energy or an equal amount of patience. It is not unusual, also, to find a deep lead suddenly "fizzle" out with little warning; and again, it seldom fails to create consternation and disappointment at an anxious time by shooting off at right angles, or diverging into numerous infinitesimal leaderettes.

So it was that when the first flush of excitement had died away attention was turned to those claims mentioned, and for the time all work was suspended. We, at No. 7, were still several feet above the level at which we had calculated to find bottom. Since Stewart so peremptorily burst out the ironstone bar we had encountered nothing but a series of sand formations, which we managed to crash through at the rate of five feet each day, and now our shaft measured fully forty-one feet in depth.

My companions worked like Trojans in their efforts to reach gold-paying gravel before their neighbours. Neither Stewart nor Mac had the slightest fear of our shaft proving a duffer, and their extreme confidence was so infecting that Phil forswore many of his pet geological theories in order to fall into line with their ideas. "After all," he said to me, "geological rules seem to be flatly contradicted by the arrangement of the formations here, and only the old adage holds good, that an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory."

"It looks that way," I answered, "yet I do not like the look of these enormous bodies of sandstone. If I were to go by my experience in other countries, I should promptly forsake this ground and look for more promising tracts."

We were standing by the windlass pulling up the heavy buckets of conglomerate material which Mac was picking below with much gusto. The glare of the sun reached barely half-way down the shaft, and the solitary worker was beyond our gaze, but well within hearing, nevertheless, for his voice rumbled up from the depths in strong protest.

"I'll no hae mae idees corrupted wi' sich fulish argiment. Naitur has wyes o' her ain, an' whaur golologists think gold is, ye may be sure there's nane; bit whaur it raelly is, there ignorant golologists insist it insna. There's nae pleasin' some fouk."

We kept silence, and, after waiting vainly for our comment, Mac again attacked the solid sandstone with sullen ferocity.

The air was close and sultry, and the dumps thrown up from the many shafts around glistened in the intense light and crumbled off into the heat haze as filmy clouds of dust. The entire landscape seemed as a biographic picture, and affected the eyes in similar degree. It was a typical Westralian day. Thud! thud! went Mac's pick, and now and then came a grunt of annoyance from that perspiring individual as an unusually refractory substance would temporarily defy his strength.

We leaned against the windlass barrel, awaiting his call of "Bucket!" which would intimate that further material was accumulated below, and ready for discharge into the outer air. Few men were about, unless at No. 2 shaft, where there was much activity. On the adjoining lot our friend of the leathery skin—who rejoiced in the title of "Emu Bill"—dozed under the shade of a rudely-erected wigwam.

"It's a bit warm," ventured Phil. He was not quite sure of his ground, and did not wish to exaggerate.

"It's d—d hot!" rolled a well-known voice from the depths, and Stewart within the tent sang gaily an adaption from "Greenland's icy mountains."

When quiet was restored I looked again towards No. 2, and at that moment a red handkerchief fluttered to the top of a tiny flagpole surmounting the windlass, and hung limp. A moment later a long, hoarse cheer swept the flat from end to end, and, as if by magic, each claim appeared fully manned, and a sea of faces turned in our direction. No. 2 had signalled, "On Gold."

"Staun by the windlass! I'm comin' up!" roared Mac, who had vaguely heard the sound-waves pass overhead and was wondering what had happened.

"Gold struck on No. 2, Mac!" I shouted, and Phil, who had not quite understood, staggered in amazement, loosening with his feet a quantity of sand and rubble which descended with much force on Mac's upturned face, and interrupted a second passionate appeal to "Staun by the windlass!"

"I'll hae yer life fur that, ye deevil!" he spluttered. "Ye did it on purpose."

Then Stewart came upon the scene in great haste. "I tell't ye sae! I tell't ye sae!" he cried, and for the especial benefit of his isolated companion he bellowed down, "They've got gold at number twa, Mac! Oceans o't!"

Mac was then half-way to the surface, with one foot resting in the empty bucket attached to the cable, and both hands gripping the strong wire rope, which strained and rasped as it slowly coiled on the wooden drum. He was no light weight, and Phil and I felt our muscles twitch as we held against the windlass arm at each dead centre, for there was no ratchet arrangement attached to prevent a quick rush back, and our heavy bucket-load made the safety of his position somewhat doubtful by swaying the rope impatiently, and indulging in other restless antics.

However, when he came near the light and saw how matters stood he became quiet as a lamb; but the sight of his face smeared with the grime so recently deposited upon it, and wearing an intensely savage expression, was too much for our gravity, and our efforts faltered.

"Hang on, ye deevils!" pathetically implored he, as he felt himself tremble in the balance. Then seeing Stewart's face peering down upon him, he besought his aid. "Staun by the winlass, Stewart, ma man," he entreated, "or I'll never see auld Scotland again."

But Stewart was at that moment seized with a paroxysm of laughter. The appeal was vain, and his comrade, being now near terra firma, and comparatively safe, again addressed him.

"Git oot o' ma sicht, ye red-heided baboon!" said he. "Nae wuner they couldna work the winlass wi' you staunin' aside them."

It is an unwritten law on most goldfields throughout the world where the individual miner tries his luck that a flag be at once hoisted over every shaft that bottoms on paying gravel. It is a pretty custom, and a generous one to the less fortunate diggers, who judge by the progressing line of flags whether their own remote claims may have a chance of intercepting the golden channel. As it happened in this case, No. 2 shaft could hardly have failed to pick up the lead, which had been traced in its direction to the boundaries of Discovery claim. Still, there was much rejoicing when the red symbol went up, and for the rest of the day a renewed activity was in force to the uttermost end of the Flat. Even "Emu Bill," as our near neighbour was picturesquely styled, felt called upon to do a little work; but, as he took care to explain, he did it only to satisfy mining regulations, which demand that a certain amount of labour must be performed each day. "You'll notice," said he, "that 3, 4, and 5 hiv tacked on d'reckly in line—as they thought—an' you'll furrer notice thishyer propperty, No. 6, an' yer own, No. 7, hiv not exzactly played foller the leader." Which was true; for Emu Bill's claim had taken only a diagonal guidance from its predecessor, and ours continued the altered route, while those following varied considerably between the two angles thus given.

"When you sees a flag floatin' on No. 3, boys," continued he meditatively, "it's time to pack up your traps, an', as I said afore, I believe in waitin' events an' jedgin' accordin'."

"Hoo lang hae you been diggin' holes in this countrie, Leatherskin?" Stewart politely inquired. And he of the weary countenance chewed his quid reflectively for several minutes ere he made reply.

"I reckon over a dozen years," he said at length, "in which time I perspected Coolgardie an' Kalgoorlie wi' old Pat Hannan when there was nothin' but niggers within' a couple of hundred miles of us."

"A'm o' the opeenion," announced Mac, "that what Mr. Leatherskin disna ken aboot the vagaries o' his ain playgrun' is no worth menshun."

"Seven is supposed to be a lucky number," spoke Phil, "and I think it will prove so with us."

After which Emu Bill went back to slumber, and Phil went down to labour in the shaft. "You've got tae mind," instructed Mac, who manipulated his descent, "when you want the bucket jist lift up yer voice tae that effeck, and I'll drap it doon gently on the end o' the rope."

Phil promised, and was speedily lowered into the darkness, and Mac, neglecting his post at once, came round into the tent, where Stewart and myself were trying hard to find a half-hour's oblivion in the realms of dreamland, and the myriad flies buzzing everywhere were trying equally hard, and with greater success, to prevent our succumbing to the soft influence. Mac's entrance at this moment was particularly distasteful to his comrade, who was just on the verge of sweet unconsciousness, and whose essayed snores were beginning to alarm the flies besieging his face.

"Go awa' oot this meenit, Mac," said he, opening his eyes, "and tak' yer big feet aff ma stummick at aince."

Just then a far-away cry of "Bucket" was vaguely heard, and calmly ignored by the new-comer. "Stewart, ma man," he began, sitting down on a portion of the weary one's anatomy, "I wis wantin' tae get yer idees on one or twa maitters o' scienteefic interest."

"Get out, Mac!" I ordered. But he seemed not to hear, and another hoarse call for "Bucket" passed unobserved.

"I wis wantin', for instance," he continued earnestly, "tae speak wi' ye ser'usly on metapheesical quest-shuns——"

"Let me alane!" Stewart howled, writhing in torment. But his visitor was not to be shaken off.

Five minutes later a stentorian yell from the shaft intimated that Phil's patience was being unduly strained, and Mac reluctantly desisted from expounding further the intricacies of science, and rose to go. As may be understood, the bottom of a narrow and deep pit is not the most pleasant of places in which to idle away the time, and Phil, after digging as much as the limited area of operations would allow, was filled with wrath at the neglect of his associate, and cursed that worthy gentleman with fervour between his shouts. "Bucket!" he roared, for the twentieth time, and Mac, who was then scrambling towards the windlass, inwardly commented on the unusual savageness of the voice. "He's a wee bit annoyed," he murmured. "I'll better try an' propeetiate him." So he leaned his head over the shaft mouth and whispered in winning tones, "Are ye vera faur doon, Pheel-up?"

"Lower away the bucket, you flounder-faced mummy!" came the prompt reply, which penetrated the darkness in sharp staccato syllables.

Mac looked pained. "Noo, if that had been Stewart," he muttered grimly, "I wud a kent weel what tae dae, bit being the golologist——" He shook his head feebly, and reached for the hide bucket, which was lying near. Then, forgetting in the flurry of the moment to hitch it on to the rope, he let it descend at the fastest speed the law of gravity would permit.

"Staun frae under!" he yelled, realising too late what he had done; but in such a narrow space there was no room for dodging, and the leathern receptacle struck the unfortunate man below with more force than was agreeable. "Ye brocht it on yersel'," consolingly spoke Mac. "It's a veesitation o' Providence fur miscain' me sae sairly."

The words that greeted his ears were eloquent and emphatic, and he marched into the tent in high dudgeon. "Gang an' pull the golologist oot o' the shaft," said he to Stewart. "He's in the position o' a humourist, an' he canna see throo't."

Perhaps there are few who could have smiled and looked pleasant under similar circumstances; but the "golologist" was of a forgiving nature, and his enmity dissolved when he reached the surface.

"You'll admit, Mac," he said, after allowances had been made on both sides, "that I had some slight cause for grumbling, and in your magnanimity you might have spared me your last forcible addition to the argument."

"That wis a mistak'," Mac replied apologetically. "I had the baggie in ma haun, meanin' tae send it doon in orthodox manner; bit yer injudishus remarks made me nervish, and doon it drappit, sudden-like."

After these explanations peace reigned again; but Stewart's rest had been so rudely broken that he now thought to work off his lassitude by an hour's graft with the pick. We had arranged ourselves into shifts, which went on and off alternately, or otherwise, as we thought fit; but it was my plan to reach bedrock without delay, so the shaft was never allowed to remain long unoccupied. Leaving Mac and Phil to attend to culinary matters, I went out with Stewart, and, after lowering him into the Stygian gloom, kept watch by the windlass until the night closed over and Phil announced that tea was ready.

Two more days passed uneventfully. The hourly-expected bulletin of good news from No. 3 was being long deferred, and vague fears were beginning to be expressed that all was not satisfactory there. It was known that Nos. 3, 4, and 5 had put on extra shifts in the last few nights, and the depths of their sinkings must at this time have exceeded fifty feet. We at No. 7 awaited developments with keen interest. It was natural that we should hope for the worst at No. 3, for, as Emu Bill had said, we were on an entirely different tack, and might cease our labours when the gaudy emblem appeared over that claim. In these two days progress had been very slow with us, for a hard bar of conglomerate quartz had intervened at the 45-foot level, and we dared not use gelignite in case the heavy discharge might bring the upper walls inward and render our whole work useless.

It is always precarious to use blasting powder of any description at the deep levels of an alluvial shaft, and the more so when the upper formations have proved to be of non-cohesive nature. So we were compelled to laboriously pick the unyielding mass where we might, and otherwise drill and shatter it with hammers.

On the morning of the third day after the flag had been raised at No. 2 the Emu seemed to awake from his lethargy in earnest, and set to work with right good-will to make up for lost time.

"You wasn't wrong in takin' my advice arter all, mate," he said to me, when I appeared to inquire the reason of his unwonted activity.

"There's no flag up at No. 3 yet," I answered tentatively.

"No, nor won't be, nuther," he returned with evident satisfaction. "I tell you what, mate," he continued impressively, "the first flag that goes up will be at your own shaft, No. 7, so you'd better get your flagpole ready. The man what says I don't know this country is a liar, every time."

Yet still the men at the shafts in question continued to dig deeper and deeper. "We hasn't reached bottom yet," they said, in answer to all questions, and on that point they appeared decided.

"I'll go up and pint out the evil o' their ways," Emu Bill said, coming over to us after midday. "I don't believe in no man exartin' hissel' to no good." Then he addressed himself to Mac far below: "I say, Scottie, you're going to strike it first, and good luck to you, you hard-working sinner."

"Same to you, Leatherskin, an mony o' them," a voice from the depths replied gruffly, for the "hard-working sinner" had but imperfectly understood.

Leaving Phil in charge of the windlass, I accompanied Emu Bill to the shafts he now considered doomed. "Look at the stuff they're takin' out," said he, drawing my attention to a heap of white and yellow cement-like substance; "the beggars have gone clean through the bedrock and don't know it."

The men at the windlass eyed us savagely as we came near, and I experienced for a moment a malicious joy when I noticed our uncommunicative visitor among them. "We don't want no more opinions," one of their number cried; "we knows we hasn't struck bottom yet."

"Mates," said Emu Bill, with dignity, "I hiv sunk more duffers than thar be years in my life—an' I'm no chicken—an' I tells ye straight, you've not only struck bottom, but you've gone three or four feet past it. If you means to tunnel through to Ole England, that's your business, but if not, you'd better give it best."

Without further words, we retraced our steps, my companion fuming inwardly because of his brusque reception. Yet his advice must have had due effect, for that evening the unfortunately-placed shafts were being dismantled and late in the night the all too sanguine owners struck their camps and departed for other fields. Their disappointment was keen. They had missed fortune by only a few yards.

Next morning all the Flat knew that Nos. 3, 4, and 5 had duffered out, and, as a result, there was a great exodus of those who had been guided by these locations; but, on the other hand, rejoicings were the order of the day with the miners who believed Nos. 6 and 7 to mark the true continuation of the lead, which had last been proved at the second workings.

Our claim was then the cynosure of all eyes, for the Emu's shaft was yet barely six feet deep, and we were supposed to be close on the dreaded bottom. I was convinced that we should know our luck immediately the ironstone bar was penetrated, and that obstruction was not likely to hinder us much longer.

"I'll be the man that'll see gold first," Mac announced confidently, as he shouldered his pick after breakfast and prepared to take first shift.

"I've got a rale bonnie flag to pit up when ye're ready," said Stewart, displaying an imposing-looking Union Jack which had done service at Klondike, and which he had been surreptitiously repairing for some days past.

Phil was silent. "I sincerely hope we may not be disappointed," he said at length. Like me, he could not understand the presence of the refractory formation so close upon auriferous wash—if the latter really existed in our claim.

"Geological rules don't count in this country, Phil," I suggested hopefully; then Mac departed, grumbling loudly at what he was pleased to call my "Job's comfortings."

For the best part of the forenoon I listened to the thudding of the pick with an anxious interest, for any stroke now might penetrate to the mysterious compound known as the cement wash; but the blows still rung hard and clear, and I grew weary waiting. It was not necessary to send the bucket below often. Though Mac smote the flinty rock with all his strength, and a vigour which few could have sustained, the result of his labours was almost infinitesimal. Every half-hour Stewart would receive from his perspiring companion a blunted pick, hoisted up on the end of the cable, while a fresh one was provided to continue the onslaught. Mac seemed tireless, and Stewart above, at a blazing fire, practised all his smithy art to keep the sorely-used tools in order; while ever and anon a hoarse voice would bellow from the underground, "Mak' them hard, Stewart, ma man. Mind that it is no butter A'm diggin'."

"You must come up, Mac," I said, when one o'clock drew near, but he would not hear of it. "I ken I hivna faur tae gang noo," he cried. "I can hear the sound gettin' hollow."

Another ten minutes passed, and now I could distinctly note a difference in the tone of the echoes ringing upwards. Thud! Thud! Thud! went the pick, and Mac's breath came in long deep gasps, that made Stewart rave wildly at the severe nature of his comrade's exertions.

Then suddenly there was a crash, followed by a shout of joy. Mac had bottomed at last.

For several moments complete silence reigned; then a subdued scraping below indicated that Mac was collecting some of the newly-exposed stratum for analysis.

"What does it look like?" I whispered down. There are few indeed who could withstand a touch of the gold fever at such a critical time, and I was impatient to know the best or the worst; either report would have allayed the indescribable feeling that possessed me then. The most hardened goldseeker is not immune from the thrill created when bottom has been reached; at that moment he is at one with the veriest novice who eagerly expects to view gold in its rough state for the first time.

My companion did not at once gratify my longing for knowledge, and when he replied, Phil, Stewart, and myself were peering down into the shaft awaiting intelligence with breathless interest.

"I think," he muttered, in tones that struck upon our ears as a knell of doom, "I raelly think—ye micht keep yer heids oot o' the licht."

"Mac!" I admonished, "remember this is no time for pleasantries."

"Weel, weel," he responded apologetically, "I wis wantin' tae gie correct infurmashun, bit the glint aff Stewart's pow mak's a' thing coloured." Stewart promptly drew back his head with a howl of rage.

"Mak' nae mair refleckshuns!" he cried indignantly.

There came a creak at the windlass rope as Mac put his foot into the half-filled bucket and prepared to ascend; then his voice rolled up to us again. "Wha's makin' refleckshuns? I was only makin' menshun o' the bonnie auburn——"

"Shut up, Mac," Phil interrupted, and Mac obligingly cut short his soliloquy and roared—

"Staun by the windlass, ye deevils, I'm comin' up wi' specimens!"

If he had had cause at one time to comment on the slow and uncertain nature of his upward flight, he assuredly had no room for complaint in that direction on this occasion. All three of us went to the windlass and yanked our comrade to the surface at a rate that caused him much consternation. Then I seized the bucket, which contained a few pounds of an alarmingly white-looking deposit, and hurried with it into the tent, where the gold-pan, freshly scrubbed, lay waiting beside a kerosene tin half filled with muddy water. On closer examination the samples looked decidedly more promising; little granules of quartz were interspersed with the white cement, and a sprinkling of ironshot particles were also in evidence. We had struck an alluvial wash: that was clear enough, and now the question was—would it prove to be auriferous? Without speaking we commenced to crush the matrix into as fine a powder as possible, and when that operation was completed, the whole was emptied into the gold-pan.

"It looks just like sugar," Stewart broke out, "an' no near so dirty as Klonduk gravel."

"Get your flag ready," I said, "we'll know our luck in a few minutes." I now filled the pan with water, and began to give it that concentric motion so familiar to those who search for the yellow metal. Gradually, very gradually, the water was canted off, carrying with it the bulk of the lighter sands, and finally the residue was left in the form of some ounces of black ironstone powder, which, because of its weight, had remained, and about an equal amount of coarse quartz grains that had escaped crushing.

"But I don't see any gold," said Phil despondingly.

"Ye're faur too impatient," Mac reproved. "Ye didna expec' tae see it floatin' on tap o' a' that stuff surely?"

I tilted the pan obliquely several times in order to make the contents slide round in the circular groove provided, and as it slowly moved under the gentle pressure of the little water remaining, it left a glittering trail in its wake, which caused my three companions to break out in a whoop of delight.

Some sixty seconds later the Union Jack floated bravely above our windlass, and was hailed with a thunder of applause.

[CAMP-FIRE REMINISCENCES]

For many weeks work went on merrily. One after another the various claims reached paying gravel, and flags of all designs and colours soon marked the course of the lead for fully half a mile, after which distance the golden vein effectually eluded discovery; it had apparently disappeared into the bowels of the earth. For the first few days succeeding our location of the auriferous wash we contented ourselves in dollying the more easily disintegrated parts of the white conglomerate, and collecting the solid and cumbrous blocks excavated into sacks, each of which when filled weighed over a hundred pounds. These I meant to send to some crushing battery when several tons had been raised.

The water for dollying as well as for all other purposes was obtained from a deep shaft sunk near at hand by a speculative individual, who considered that water might ultimately pay him as generously as gold, and as he charged eightpence a gallon for the brackish fluid, and had an unlimited demand for it at that, he probably found it a less troublesome and much more lucrative commodity than even a moderately wealthy claim on the Five-Mile Lead. As it so happened, however, when other claims began to copy our tactics and dolly portions of their wash, it was made evident that the water bore was not equal to the strain, and once or twice it ran dry at a most critical time. After a careful computation of its capacity we saw that it could only be drawn upon for domestic purposes in future, and even then there was every probability of the supply giving out if a good rainfall did not soon occur to moisten the land and percolate to the impervious basin tapped by the bore in question.

At this time a public battery, owned by a limited company, was doing yeoman service to the dwellers on an alluvial field some five miles south of us; and after much consideration we, in common with the most of the miners, arranged to despatch our golden gravel thither, as being the only way out of a difficulty. Public batteries exist all over those goldfields, for, owing to the absence of water, a prospector can rarely do more than test samples of his find, and thereby estimate its value; and these public crushing plants are, therefore, a very necessary adjunct to his success.

The time passed pleasantly enough now that the trying uncertainty of the first fortnight was no longer with us, and the auriferous channel was being slowly and surely tunnelled and cut in every conceivable direction. Work was pursued in matter-of-fact fashion. The glamour of the goldseeker's life had departed with the risk.

Yet when the practical and perhaps sordid work of the day was done, and we gathered together around one or other of the numerous camp fires, it seemed as if a new world had descended upon us when daylight gave place to the mystic glimmer of the lesser stars and the steadfast radiance of the glorious Southern Cross. Only the world-wanderer who has slept beneath all skies can truly appreciate the grandeur of the southern constellations. The bushman has grown to love them from his infancy; they have been his companions on many a weary journey, and he regards them with an almost sacrilegious familiarity. But to the traveller from other lands these shining guide-posts in the heavens arouse a feeling akin to reverence, and later, when he ventures into his grim desert land and trusts his life to their constancy, his admiration, were it possible, increases tenfold. There is, of course, one great reason for the stranger's attachment to the sky sentinels of an Australian night other than their calm, clear brilliance. In no other country is the wanderer brought so close, as it were, to the luminaries of night. In Canada, Alaska, America, India, or China, or, indeed, in any portion of the globe, by reason of climatic or other conditions, one must perforce sleep under canvas, and in some cases where the cold is severe—as in Alaska—the shelter of a heavily-logged hut is almost a necessity. But in the inland parts of Australia, where rain seldom falls, and where no pestilence taints the atmosphere, the sky alone usually forms the traveller's roof. Many times have I gone to sleep in the great silent interior with only my coat for a pillow, and coaxed myself into slumber while watching for the advent of a favourite star, or tracing the gradual course of the Southern Cross.

To me the stars of the south have a peculiar significance. When I gazed at them, even while divided from civilisation by over a thousand miles of dreary arid sand plains, I felt comforted, for though compass and sextant may fail, the stars will still show the way.

I recall our evenings spent at the Five-Mile Camp with deepest pleasure. There only did I meet and talk with the typical men of the West, and the simple, true-hearted, restless spirits of the Island Continent who have pushed the outposts of their country far into the desert. It was my one experience of a Western Australian mining camp, and afterwards, during our weary wanderings in the far interior, we often longed for the company of the generous-minded men who used to gather round our fire and review their early experiences with such vivid effect.

Emu Bill, I have already mentioned, but there were several others whom we came to know during the later days of our sojourn at the golden flat, and they had all their own peculiar characteristics, with a sterling honesty of purpose as the keynote of their lives.

"Old Tom," I remember, possessed an interest in the claim next to ours; not much of an interest it was, either, for he was too old a man to have come in nearly first in the rush. He had simply been promised a percentage of returns in No. 8 for doing all the work thereon; and as at first the presence of gold there was much doubted, it was no great generosity on the part of the owner of the lot to promise slight reward and no wages for labour done. Yet for once Old Tom scored in a bargain, and his labours were not, as he cheerfully said they had ever been, wholly vain.

Old Tom must have been a splendid specimen of manhood in his day; now he was nearly seventy years of age, and his bent shoulders detracted somewhat from his great stature, while his slightly-bowed legs—whose deviation from the perpendicular, he insisted, had been caused by much walking—gave to him a more frail appearance than was justified.

His knowledge of his own country was extensive, but he had fallen into the strange belief that the world began at Australia, and that Europe, Asia, and other portions of the globe were merely remote colonies or dependencies of his own land. "I hiv walked all over Australia, mates," he used to say; "I know the world well."

"You ought to see London, Tom," I said, one night, after he had been recounting his travelling experiences; but he shook his head.

"It's too far to walk," he replied sadly; "Old Tom's walking days are nearly over. But," and he brightened considerably, "I've heard tell that Lunnon is full o' people, an' there wouldn't be no room for an old man like me to peg his claim."

It was one of his fixed ideas that the whole world was but a goldfield on which all men had to try their luck. And the sea had its terrors for him, as it has for nearly all bushmen, although most of them get accustomed to it sooner or later. With Old Tom it would be never. "I went on a ship once," he admitted, "when I was a young 'un, an' the mem'ry o't will never leave me." He shuddered at the recollection of his sufferings. "I kin walk 'bout as fast as a ship, anyway," he added with much satisfaction, "an' a hundred miles more or less don't make much difference when Old Tom is on the wallaby."

At another time, when news of Kitchener's brilliant successes in the Soudan had reached us, I read out to him from an old home newspaper details of the capture of Omdurman. There were many around the fire that night, and all listened eagerly to the thrilling narrative except Old Tom; he gazed listlessly into the glowing fire, and smoked his pipe unmoved.

"Have you no interest in these things, Tom?" I asked.

"It's a long time since I've been in the Eastern Colonies," he answered slowly, "an' I hiv lost my bearin's among them names. Soudan is in Queensland, isn't it? Or mebbe it is west'ard in Noo South Wales?" Poor Old Tom! he had fought the aborigines times without number, and taken his life in his hands on many a lone trail, yet he would have been surprised had anyone said that he was more than usually venturesome. He knew no fear, and acted his weary part in life nobly and well.

"Silent Ted" was another of our camp-fire comrades; he was, as his name implied, not a talkative individual. Long years spent in the bush had served to dry up the vials of his speech. Yet he was not morose or taciturn by nature; he simply seemed too tired to give expression to his thoughts. His eyes were ever fixed and emotionless as the desert sands—sure evidence of the bushman who has lived in the dreary wilderness beyond the Darling. He had been a long time in striking gold, and we all thought his shaft was likely to prove a duffer; but despite our gloomy prophecies he joined our evening circle night after night, and smoked his pipe cheerful as usual, though that was not saying much.

"I forgot to tell you, mates," he broke out one evening, to our great surprise, "that I struck bottom yesterday."

He meant to say more, but his mouth closed with a click in spite of himself, and in reply to our congratulations he handed round for examination two fine specimens of alluvial gold which he had taken from his first day's tests, and when they had been inspected by the community and returned to him, he passed them on to his neighbour with a sigh; he had apparently already forgotten their existence.

The devil-may-care fossicker, also, was well represented, and his species rejoiced in cognomens so euphonious and varied that I could never remember the correct titles to bestow upon their several owners, and only realised my mistakes when greeted with reproachful glances. Among our acquaintances were, "Dead Broke Sam," a proverbially unfortunate miner in a perpetual state of pecuniary embarrassment; "Lucky Dave," who always "came out on top;" "Happy Jack," who seemed to find much cause for merriment in his rather commonplace existence; and "Nuggety Dick," who at all times could unearth one or two specimens from some secret place in his meagre wardrobe, and describe minutely where they had been obtained—usually some place comprehensively indicated as "away out back."

These gaunt, bearded men had many strange stories to tell, and in the ruddy firelight they would trace on the sand intricate charts emblematic of their wanderings. They were those whose roving natures compelled them to follow up every gold rush, with the firm belief that extraordinary fortune would one day crown their efforts. "It's a durned hard life, boys," Dead Broke Sam, who worked with Old Tom on similar terms of remuneration, would often say, looking round for the sympathetic chorus that was always forthcoming, "but if we doesn't peg out, we is bound to strike it some day."

There is no blasphemy in the speech of the Australian miner. The most rugged-looking fossicker is gentle as a lamb, save when undue presumption on the part of some new chum, or "furriner," arouses his ire, and then he makes things hum generally; but his forcible words are merely forcible, and perhaps "picturesque," but nothing more; the inane profanity of the Yankee fortune-seeker finds no exponent in the Australian back-blocker.

Many were the tales "pitched" on these long starlit nights, and narratives of adventure in search of gold, and hairbreadth escapes from the aborigines succeeded each other until the evening was far spent, and the Southern Cross had sunk beyond the horizon. Then we would disperse with a monosyllabic "night, boys," all round, and seek our separate sandy couches.

My comrades, Mac and Stewart, were shining satellites at these meetings, and weird stories from the Pampas plains and the Klondike valley formed at intervals a pleasing change—from the miners' point of view—to the accounts of gold-finds, and rushes, and hostile natives, so fluently described by Nuggety Dick and Co. And now and then a whaling anecdote would lend zest to the gathering, faithfully told by Stewart with much dramatic effect; he was, indeed, a past master at the art, and never failed to hold his audience spellbound.

Emu Bill, though recognised by all as the most experienced miner present, rarely condescended to spin a yarn, and he listened to his confrères' tales with ill-concealed impatience, but showed a decided liking for my two warriors' romances. One evening, however, he broke his reserve and proceeded to give a rambling survey of his wanderings, and as he warmed to his subject his eyes began to glow, and his gestures became eloquent and impassioned.

"Yes, boys," said he, winding up a resumé of his exploits in various parts of Australia, "I calc'late I hev had a fair-sized experience o' gold mining in my time, an' as ye may guess, I hevn't allus come out right end up, nuther, else I shouldn't be here. Thank the Lord! I've struck something at last."

"I'm wi' ye thar, mate," grunted Old Tom in sympathy. "I guess this is Old Tom's last rise."

Then a silence fell over the little assembly, during which Emu Bill drew fanciful diagrams in the sand with an improvised camp poker, and Silent Ted almost went to sleep. The rest of us gazed at Emu Bill with a show of interest, expecting him to proceed with his reminiscences, and soon he started again.

"Yes, boys, I've had my disappintments, as we've all had, I opine, but I had an un-common disappintment at the time o' the Kalgoorlie Rush——"

"Kalgoorlie Rush, Bill?" I exclaimed. "Were you in that?"

"Wur I in that?" he echoed dismally. "I wur, an' I wurn't, which is not mebbe a very plain statement, but you kin jedge fur yourself if you care to hear my yarn."

"Let her go, Bill," said Nuggety Dick.

"I'm listenin' wi' vera great interest," Mac spoke slowly. "Ye've been a man o' pairts, Emoo."

After sundry expressions of approval had been elicited, Bill again picked up the thread of his narrative.

"You've heard o' old Hannan, of course," he began, "the diskiverer o' Kalgoorlie? The diskiverer o' Kalgoorlie!" he repeated, mimicking a general expression often heard on the fields. "Well, boys, I kin tell you how Kalgoorlie was diskivered.... Pat Hannan an' me had been mates for a considerable time. We walked from South'ron Cross together afore the railway, an' we 'specked around Coolgardie camp wi' fairish success. There was no township at Coolgardie then, boys, though that jumped up quick enough. One day we thought we'd jine a party as was going out eastward to 'speck for gold furrer back in the nigger country; an' after gettin' our water-bags filled an' provisions for a month rolled up in our swags, we all cleared out. In two days we camped at Kalgoorlie well. You know where that is, boys; but there was nary a shanty within twenty-five miles of it then, nothin' but sand an' black boys, an' hosts o' nigs. But we never thought o' lookin' for gold there, worse luck; at least, none o' the rest did; but old Hannan had a skirmish round' an' reported nary sign o't, so we struck camp at oncet. But jest as we wur movin' off, Hannan comes to me with a twist on his mug an' snickers, 'Bill, me bhoy, phwat can I do? Me water-bag's bust!' Now that wur a ser'us matter, for we needed all the water we could carry, not knowin' when another well might turn up, so I voted we shid all camp again until Pat's water-bag had been repaired, an' the rest o' the boys of course agreed, unan'mous. But that wouldn't suit old Hannan, 'Ye'd better go on, boys,' said he, 'an' I'll come after yez in half an hour.' So we went on; but though we went slow, and arterards waited fur half a day, no Hannan turned up, an' we had to continue our journey without him. Well, boys, we came back in less'n a fortnight, arter trampin' about in the durnedest country on God's earth in search o' water an' findin' none. We hadn't time to look fur gold, so ye kin guess we wur mighty miserable when we drew near to the place where old Hannan's water-bag had busted; but the appearance o' the camp sort o' mystified us, thar wur rows an' rows o' tents, an' the ground was pegged fur miles. 'Howlin' tarnation!' I yelled at the first man we came across. 'Is this a mir-adge, or what has we struck?' 'Nary mir-adge, mate,' said he, 'this is Hannan's Find, or Kalgoorlie if yous like that name better.' ... An' it wur a bitter fack, boys. Old Hannan must have notised an outcrop somewheres around, an' being allfired afeared that we, his mates, might get too much benefit, he had ripped the water-bag on purpose so as to get an excoose fur waitin' behind. Then, of course, he had gone back to Coolgardie an' got the Government diskivery reward, which otherwise would have been divided atween us. But we got nothin', boys, nary cent, an' nary square inch o' ground. The camp had been rushed when we wur sufferin' howlin' terrors out back.... There's wan favour I'd ask of you, boys, don't none of you start 'God blessin'' old Hannan for diskivering Kalgoorlie in my hearing. I can't stand it, boys, an' you know why."

Bill ceased, and a murmur of sympathy ran round the little group. The Kalgoorlie rush was fresh in the minds of nearly all present, many of whom had taken part in it. Every one knew Hannan, but who better than his one-time partner? and if his tale showed the much-honoured finder of Kalgoorlie in a less favourable light than that in which he was usually regarded, no one doubted Emu Bill's version of the story; yet it was hard to dispel from the mind the glamour of romance associated with the event from the first. One more illustration of the difference between the real and the ideal, but it seems almost a pity to destroy the illusions, they lend so much colour and interest to otherwise sordid episodes.

The night was unusually dark, fleeting clouds constantly obscured the feeble light of a slender crescent moon, and the myriad stars glimmered fitfully. Our fire was the only cheerful object in the darkness, and it blazed and crackled, lighting up the weather-beaten faces of the circle around it, and illuminating our tent in the background. For a long time no one spoke, every man seemed gloomily affected by Bill's story, and with chins resting on their hands they gazed into the vortex of the flaming logs long and earnestly.

Then a familiar voice interrupted their reveries. "When Stewart an' me discovered Gold Bottom Creek——"

"Go slow, Mac," I objected wearily; "it's getting late and we'd better turn in."

"It is wearin' on fur midnight," grunted Dead Broke Sam, surveying the heavens for the position of his favourite reckoning star.

"What was your last battery returns, mate?" asked Emu Bill, turning to me with a revival of practical interest.

"Fifty tons for 150 ounces," I replied.

"Not too bad," commented Nuggety Dick.

"I'm 20 tons fur 60 ounces," said my interrogator, "which is the same ratio. I guess Nos. 6 and 7 are the best properties on the Five Mile."

"I'm 25 for 51," announced Happy Jack cheerfully.

"Thank the Lord, we've all got somethin'," Old Tom muttered devoutly, as he rose to his feet. Then we went our several ways.

[THE "SACRED" NUGGET]

At this time much interest was aroused by the report that an extraordinarily large nugget had been found within a few miles of Kanowna, an outlying township, but as the days passed and no confirmation of the rumour was forthcoming, the miners throughout the whole district decided to hold a court of inquiry and elicit the facts, or at least the foundations on which the panic-creating statement had been based. As may be imagined, where gold is in question no rumour, however wild, is allowed to die a natural death. The miners will sift and probe into the matter to the bitter end—and usually the end is bitter indeed to those who have been too eager to join the inevitable rush, and sink the almost equally inevitable duffer shafts.

In the present case, however, the sifting process was speedily fruitful of results. Tangible evidence was obtained that two men had been seen early one morning carrying what seemed to be an enormous nugget in a blanket, some little distance from the settlement. Where the men came from with their find no one knew, and it was not likely that they would have given the information had it been asked; but where they had gone afterwards promised to be an equally mysterious question; they had vanished, leaving no trace or clue.

The warden of the district professed complete ignorance of the entire affair, and suggested that a practical joke had been played on the people; but this only served to make the miners unite in an outburst of genuine indignation. Already many shafts had been sunk in the most unlikely places by men who could ill afford to labour in vain. The mad enthusiasm created had had dire effect. Hundreds of men were flooding into the camp daily from every quarter; work on all the leads had ceased in anticipation of a rush. The joke, if joke it was, was indeed a cruel one, and its perpetrators deserved the wild denunciations that were heaped upon them. "We'll lynch them!" roared the miners, and they meant it; but despite the utmost searching, the nugget-carriers—whose names were known—could not be found.

Then just as excitement was dying out, when the people were all but convinced that they had been hoaxed, and were preparing to return to their various labours, confirmation of the rumour came from a most unexpected quarter. A Roman Catholic priest publicly stated that he was aware of the existence of the nugget, that he had been under a promise of secrecy to the finders not to reveal its location for ten days, but that owing to the extreme panic aroused he felt constrained to admit its authenticity, so that one doubt might be set at rest. As for the district in which the great find had been made, he would give full particulars on the following Tuesday. He further gave out that the nugget weighed something over a hundred pounds, and was a perfect specimen of true alluvial gold.

The state of affairs after that can be better imagined than written. There promised to be a rush unequalled in the annals of goldfields history. Men flocked into Kanowna in their thousands; excitement was raised to fever heat; and the whole country seemed to await the coming of Tuesday.

We, on the Five Mile, did not escape the prevalent craze. Our various properties were becoming worked out, and in any case who could resist being influenced by the mention of such a large nugget? The gold fever is, indeed, a rampant, raging disease which few can withstand.

"It'll be a bonnie run," said Stewart, "bit I can haud ma ain wi' ony man."

"I think Phil could gie ye a sair tussle," commented Mac, "an' as fur masel'—I alloo naebody's sooperiority."

But it was plain to all, long before the eventful day arrived, that the rush for the Sacred Nugget, as it was called, would be totally different from that in which we had taken part with so much success. And little wonder. Since Father Long's announcement, horses and bicycles and buggies of all descriptions were being held in readiness. No one had a notion how near or how far the rush might lead, but all seemed determined to have the speediest means of locomotion at their disposal. Under these circumstances my companions' running powers could avail little, and I was not disposed to favour their desire to try their luck in the stampede.

"We've had enough of gold-mining, boys," I said, "and after we have finished here I think we'll prospect further out." And the thought of journeying into the unknown back country pleased them mightily. It had long been my wish to explore the central parts of the great Western Colony, and I was seriously considering the feasibility of my plans towards that purpose when the Sacred Nugget excitement burst into prominence, and for the time being served to demoralise my schemes.

"I don't think we ought to trouble with any new strike about here," Phil said wearily. The monotony of the gold-seeker's life in Western Australia was beginning to affect even his usually buoyant nature.

"Don't go, boys," advised Emu Bill earnestly. "I is satisfied the thing isn't straight. Father Long or no Father Long, thar's been too much mystery about the consarn. Thar's a ser'us hoax somewheres."

It was a surprise to hear such advice from him. I thought of the time when I first saw him leading the rush to Five Mile, and unconsciously I smiled. "In spite of what you say, I believe you'll be there yourself, Bill," I said. "I'm sure it would break your heart to be absent from such an event."

"I'm not deny'n' but you're right," he replied soberly. "Wi' me it's a sort o' madness, but that don't affeck the honesty o' my remarks wan little bit."

"Weel," began Mac with emphasis, "if ye dinna want tae gang, ye'll no gang. Stewart and me'll see efter that. I'll dae ye a kindness fur aince, Emoo."

We decided at last that Phil and I should go and view the "circus"—not to join in it by any means, but simply that we should see, and have our curiosity gratified; and so the matter rested. But on Tuesday morning, when Emu Bill saw the eager throngs passing inwards in the direction of Kanowna, his resolutions began to waver, and when the Five-Mile Flat also began to show a deserted appearance, he came over to our tent with a mournful countenance.

"I is goin' with you arter all, mates," he said simply.

"Ye're gaun tae dae naething o' the sort, Emoo," roared Mac. "Did ye no promise tae wait wi' Stewart an' me? No, ma man, fur yer ain guid we'll keep ye here."

And after much eloquent argument Bill resigned himself to his fate, almost cheerful at last to find his own views resisted so strongly. But as Phil and I were starting out, he came to me with an eager light in his eyes. "If you does think it's goin' to be any good," he said, "mention my name to Tom Doyle. He'll give you anything you want. Goodbye, boys, an'—an' good luck." And he was led away to be regaled with stirring stories of other lands, by the masterful pair.

The momentous announcement had been advertised to take place on Tuesday, at 3.30 p.m., from the balcony of the Criterion Hotel, and when we reached the township about midday we found the main thoroughfare a jostling mass of boisterous humanity; while cyclists in hundreds, lightly garbed as if for a great race, waited patiently in the side street leading to the post-office, and in full view of the much-advertised balcony. The cyclist element was composed of strangers, for the most part, who had cycled from Kalgoorlie and other settlements within a radius of twenty miles; hence their early arrival on the scene; they had timed themselves to be well ahead, so as to be fully rested before the fateful signal was given.

As we forced our way through the crowd I could not help remarking that the majority had been imbibing over-freely to ensure rapidity of action later on. Indeed, it looked as if the Criterion Hotel, which formed the centre of interest, was to be most benefited by the rush. It had not been by any means the most popular rendezvous of the miners, but on this day it received a huge advertisement, and profited accordingly.

We walked to the end of the street, where the bustle was considerably less, and here we noticed a large wooden erection bearing the sign, "Tom Doyle, Kanowna Hotel."

"That is the name Bill mentioned," said Phil; "he seems a fairly important individual in his own way. Suppose we interview him, or at least have dinner in his mansion."

To the latter part of the suggestion I was agreeable, and so in we went. I had met Tom Doyle on several occasions since my arrival in the country; that gentleman was most ubiquitous in his habits, and had a keen scent for gold, so that his lanky figure might be expected anywhere where good prospects had recently been obtained. He was also future mayor of the camp, and so was, as Phil had put it, quite an important individual in his way; but how we could benefit by giving him Emu Bill's name and compliments was more than I could understand.

The hotel seemed to be completely empty; even the bar was deserted, which showed an extraordinary state of matters. "If Mac and Stewart were here," laughed Phil, "there would be a repetition of the Indian village raid I have heard so much about." Which I fear was only too true. However, we determined to give fair warning of our presence in the establishment, and halloed out lustily; and at last a heavy footstep sounded in the room above.

"Doyle!" I cried, "Sir Thomas Doyle!"

"Lord Doyle!" added Phil, in a voice that might have awakened the seven sleepers.

"Phwat the thunder'n' blazes is yez yellin' at!" roared the object of our inquiry, suddenly appearing on the stairway. Then he noticed the vacant bar. "Thunder'n' turf!" he muttered helplessly, "has all the shop cleared out after that d—— d nugget?"

"Looks like it, Tom," I suggested. "Have you been asleep?"

"Av coorse. It's me afternoon siesta I was having. I'll be in time for the rush all right, an' don't you forget it."

"We didn't come to warn you about that," I said. "Emu Bill of the Five Mile said you had a few good horses——"

"Emoo Bill!" he howled.

"Same man," I admitted; "do you know him?"

"Does I know Emoo Bill? Well, I should smile. Why, me an' him were with Hannan when that old skunk went back on us at the discovery ov Kalgoorlie. Howly Moses! Poor owld Emoo! Horses, boys? Surely. I'm goin' to use 'Prince' myself, but yez can have the two steeplechasers, 'Satan' an' 'Reprieve.' I'll do that much for the Emoo; an' d—— n the others who expect the horses."

Events had certainly developed much more rapidly than I had anticipated; neither Phil nor myself had entertained the idea of joining in the rush. I had mentioned Emu Bill's message idly, never dreaming it would produce such a prompt effect. Tom Doyle was a noted sporting man in the district, a second Harry Lorrequer in a small way, and provided he was not drunk, he could break in even the most unruly horse when all others had failed.

The noise on the street was now becoming terrific; small armies of miners bearing picks and stakes were arriving from the local diggings, and buggies and horses were being hurriedly equipped.

"We'll have a dhrop av the crater first," said Tom, noting the disturbance outside, "and then we'll saddle up."

Shortly afterwards we emerged from the hotel courtyard mounted on horses that were the pride of the countryside. Tom rode "Prince," a powerful-limbed, coal-black cob of sixteen hands; Phil bestrode "Satan," a fiery Australian brumby; and I clung to "Reprieve," an impetuous high-stepping bay. "Keep at my heels, boys," cried Tom, as he started off at a canter, and it was at once evident that if we could keep at his heels we should be in at the death without a doubt. It was slightly after three o'clock, and when we reached the scene of excitement we found the street absolutely blocked. There must have been several thousand men packed like sardines right across the broad passage, and on the outskirts of this vast crowd over a hundred cyclists stood ready; beyond them still, a line of horsemen were drawn up, in numbers exceeding a regimental squadron.

Scores of buggies and other spidery racing contrivances were scattered near at hand, and extended far down the side street leading towards the post-office. It was indeed an extraordinary sight. We formed up with the other horsemen, Tom's approach being hailed with loud cheers, for every one knew the dare-devil Irishman.

"You'll get a broken neck this time, Tom," cried one of his acquaintances cheerfully.

"I didn't know Prince was broken in to the saddle yet, Tom," said another.

"No more he isn't," replied Tom, "but he's broken enough for me. Stand clear, bhoys."

And then the black charger reared and bucked and curvetted wildly, while its rider kicked his feet out of the stirrups and kept his seat like a Centaur. Few of the horses present had been much used before, and they now became restive also, and pranced dangerously. Phil and I had a bad five minutes. We did not know the nature or temper of our mounts; and besides, neither of us cared to place much reliance on our stirrup leathers, they looked frayed and wofully fragile.

"If they go with yez, bhoys," advised Tom, "give 'em their heads. They'll get tired soon enough. Thar's lots o' room in this country."

"Oh, Lord!" groaned Phil, "what a comfortable prospect we have before us! My back is about broken with this kicking brute already."

The vast assembly was now becoming impatient. The stated time, 3.30, had been reached, and as yet there was no sign of the Reverend Father who had been the cause of the extraordinary meeting. Then just as threats and curses were being muttered, a pale-faced young man in clerical garb made his appearance on the balcony, and a deathlike stillness reigned in an instant. In a few words the priest explained his strange position, but he was rudely interrupted many times.

"It's gettin' late. Where did the nugget come from?" the rougher spirits roared. The young man hesitated for a moment.

"The nugget was found on the Lake Gwinne track," he said, "at a depth of three feet——"

With a long, indescribable roar the multitude scattered, and the speaker's concluding words were drowned in the din. "Hold on!" cried Tom, as Phil and I swung round to follow the main rush, "the d—— d idiots didn't wait to hear how far it was from Lake Gwinne." There was scarcely a dozen of us left; the breaking-up had been as the melting of summer snows.

"And the position is two miles from the lake," repeated the young man, wearily. Then Tom gave his horse a free rein and we followed suit.

Lake Gwinne was a salt-crusted depression in the sand surface, about five miles distant from the township, and in a very little frequented vicinity. The so-called track towards it was nothing more than a winding camel pad through the bush, and had the miners stopped to think, they would have at once realised how insufficient was the data given. With our additional information we were slightly better off; nevertheless I was not at all inclined to grow enthusiastic over our chances. The district mentioned had been very thoroughly prospected many months before, and with little success. "I think Father Long has been hoaxed after all," I said to Phil, as we crashed through scrub and over ironstone gullies in the wake of the main body, which we were rapidly overtaking. But he could not reply; his horse was clearing the brush in great bounds, and as it had the bit between its teeth, my companion evidently had his work cut out for him.

A few yards ahead Tom's great charger kept up a swinging gallop, and every now and then that jolly roysterer would turn in the saddle and encourage us by cheery shouts. We soon passed the men who were hurrying on foot, but the buggies and the cycles were still in front. The sand soil throughout was so tightly packed that it formed an ideal cycle path, but the sparse eucalypti dotting its surface were dangerous obstacles, and made careful steering a necessity. The goldfield cyclist, however, is a reckless individual, and rarely counts the cost of his adventurousness. Soon we came near to the cyclist army; the spokes of their wheels scintillated in the sunlight as they scudded over the open patches. But one by one they dropped out, the twisted wheels showing how they had tried conclusions with flinty boulders, or collided with one or other of the numberless mallee stumps protruding above the ground.

On one occasion Tom gave a warning shout, and I saw his horse take a flying leap over a struggling cyclist who had got mixed up in the parts of his machine. I had just time to swerve my steed to avoid a calamity, and then we crashed on again at a mad gallop, evading the bicycles as best we could, and sometimes clearing those which had come to grief at a bound. It was in truth a wild and desperate race.

When the last of the cyclists had been left behind, and the swaying, dust-enshrouded buggies and one or two solitary horsemen were still in front, Tom turned again.

"Let her go now, bhoys," he said, "there's a clear field ahead. Whoop la! Tally ho!"

For the remainder of that gallop I had little time to view my surroundings; I dug my heels into "Reprieve's" flanks, and he stretched out his long neck and shot forward like an arrow from the bow. Buggies and miscellaneous vehicles were overtaken and left in the rear. Various horsemen would sometimes range alongside for a trial of speed, but "Reprieve" outdistanced them all.

"It's Doyle's 'Reprieve,'" one of the disgusted riders cried; "an' there's 'Satan,' an', fire an' brimstone! here's Doyle hissel'."

Tom's weight was beginning to tell on his noble animal, which had given the lead to my horse who carried the lightest load; but with scarcely a dozen lengths between us we thundered past the foremost racing buggy, and were quickly dashing down towards Lake Gwinne, whose sands now shimmered in the near distance. We were first in the rush after all.

Suddenly we came upon a recently-excavated shaft with a dismantled windlass lying near, and with one accord we drew up and dismounted.

"If this is where the Sacred Nugget came out of, it looks d—— d bad that no one is about," growled Tom, throwing the reins of his horse over a mulga sapling and looking around doubtfully. It was clearly the vicinity indicated by Father Long, and we lost no time in marking off our lots in the direction we considered most promising. We had barely taken these preliminary precautions when horsemen and buggies began to arrive in mixed order, and in a short time the ground all the way down to the lake was swarming with excited gold-seekers.

"I'm blest if I like the look o' things at all, at all," mused Tom, and I was inclined to take a similar view of matters, for a more barren-looking stretch of country would have been hard to find. Then, again, by examining the strata exposed in the abandoned shaft we could form a fair estimate of the nature of the supposed gold-bearing formation; and after Phil and I had made a minute survey of all indications shown, we came to the conclusion that our ground, acquired after such a hard ride, was practically worthless and not likely to repay even the labour of sinking in it.

The hundreds of others who had pegged out beyond us were not so quickly convinced, and they announced their intention of sinking to bedrock if they "busted" in the attempt. About an hour after our arrival at the Sacred Nugget Patch, Phil and I started back for the Five-Mile Flat, satisfied to have taken part in so strange a rush, yet quite certain that the Sacred Nugget had been unearthed in some other district, or that the entire concern had been a stupendous hoax. Tom Doyle decided to camp on the so-called "Patch" all night, without any special reason for doing so beyond holding the ground in case some fool might want to buy it for flotation purposes, as had been done often before with useless properties.

When we reached home that evening we were tired indeed, and in spite of ourselves we felt rather disappointed at the unsuccessful issue of the much-advertised stampede.

"Ye've had a gran' time," said Mac regretfully, when Phil told of how he and "Satan" came in first after a most desperate race.

"I'm glad I didn't go with you," said Bill. "I hope I can resist temptation in the way o' rushes until I is ready to sail back homeward."

"It would certainly be better," I allowed, "than to give up a proved property for a miserable sham."

As it happened, the famous rush had indeed proved but a worthless demonstration. Not a grain of gold was discovered near the Sacred Patch; and after much labour had been expended there, the disgusted miners abandoned their shafts in a body.

The mystery connected with the alleged nugget was never explained. Every bank in the Colony denied having seen it, and its supposed finders did not again appear on the fields. Father Long must have been cruelly victimised, of that there was no doubt, for no one could for a moment believe that he had perjured himself. He was justly known as a thoroughly honourable man and a conscientious teacher. Even the most suspicious mind could not accuse him in any way. And he, the unfortunate dupe of a pair of unscrupulous rogues, did not long survive the severe shock given to an already feeble system. He died some months later, and with him went the secret, if any, of the Great Sacred Nugget.

[INTO THE "NEVER NEVER" LAND]

A few weeks after the Sacred Nugget rush had taken place we lowered our flag at the Five-Mile Flat, having come to an end of the auriferous workings within our boundaries. I had meanwhile succeeded in purchasing from an Afghan trader two powerful camels and five horses, with the intention of using them on our projected inland expedition. The horses, I feared, would prove of little service, but for the early part of the journey they might relieve the camels somewhat by carrying the various tinned foodstuffs necessary for a long sojourn in the desert. These "various" stores vary but little notwithstanding their distinguishing labels, and the bushman's vocabulary, always expressive, contains for them a general title, namely, "tinned dog."

Tinned dog and flour are, indeed, the sum total of the Australian explorer's needs. The traveller in the great "Never Never" land is not an epicure by any means, and should he be burdened by over-æsthetic tastes they quickly vanish when "snake sausage" or "bardie pie" has appeared on his menu for some days!

Phil had decided to accompany us, and as he had shared our fortunes since our entry into the country, I was by no means loath to accept of his services, knowing him to be a highly trustworthy comrade, and an invaluable addition to our little party he proved.

It was hard to say goodbye to our old associates of the camp fire; I knew they would not remain much longer at the same diggings, which were showing signs of playing out in almost every claim, and it was not likely we should ever meet again.

Old Tom was much affected; he had been our near neighbour so long, and under the happiest circumstances of his wandering life, so he said, and now we were going back into the "Never Never" country, and would never see him more. I was not quite certain whether Old Tom meant that we should most probably leave our bones in the central deserts, or whether his words were due to an extreme sentimentalism on his part, but I preferred to believe the latter.

"We'll call and see you at Adelaide some of these times, Tom," I said, while Stewart and Mac were bidding him an affectionate farewell, but he only shook his head mournfully, and would not be comforted.

As for Emu Bill, he had considerable faith in our enterprise, and would, I believe, have come with us had I said the word. He was, however, a true specimen of the independent bushman, and unwilling to demonstrate his wishes.

"Durn it all, boys," said he with vigour, "I is not an old man yet, an' tho' I knows you aire a big enuff party without me to get through the mallee country, I guess I'll coast it round to Derby in time to jine you in a Leopolds trip."

"I thought you were going home after this rise, Bill," I said quizzically, not surprised to find his early resolutions wavering.

"I'll mebbe see you 'cross the Leopolds first," he replied gravely. "I calc'late I knows that bit o' kintry better'n any white man."

"Goodbye, boys," roared Nuggety Dick and his satellites, waving their shovels from their distant claims, and the echoes were taken up from end to end of the lead, for where I was wholly unknown Mac and Stewart had endeared themselves by devices peculiar to that crafty pair. It was pleasant to receive such a genial send-off, and though I am not as a rule affected by farewell greetings, yet on this occasion I felt strangely moved. The camels and horses stood ready, laden with the great water-bags and unwieldy mining machinery, and Phil was stroking the mane of one of the horses in listless fashion.

"It's a fairly long trip for you to start on, Phil," I said, noting the far-away expression on his usually bright face.

"I was thinking of other things," he answered quietly.

"Gee up, Misery!" cried Mac, cracking his long whip.

"Gee up, Slavery!" echoed Stewart. And we started out, heading N.N.E., bound for the land where the pelican builds its nest.

For the first few miles we crossed the gridiron-like tracks connecting the numerous camps and settlements lying out from the main township of Kalgoorlie; but soon these signs of civilisation vanished, and in the early afternoon our course lay over a wildering scrubland, with iron-shot sand-patches here and there among the stunted shrubs. The camels, which we had named "Slavery" and "Misery," led the trail. They were, indeed, wiry animals, and as I paced beside them, noting their almost ludicrously leisurely tread, I could not help remarking on the vast amount of latent power indicated in every movement of their rubber-like bodies. "Slavery" was a patient and gentle animal, and marched along meekly under his load of full seven hundred pounds, but "Misery" soon displayed a somewhat fiery temper, and before our first day's journey was completed we were compelled to adopt stern measures with the recalcitrant brute.

The horses formed a sad-looking line behind the sturdier beasts of burden, and they would cheerfully have forced along at a speedier rate than the progress of the camels allowed. Among them were two high-spirited animals, which we named "Sir John" and "Reprieve," while the three others we dubbed simply "Sin," "Sand," and "Sorrow."

We camped that evening just twelve miles from our starting-point, and yet it seemed as if we were already beyond the reach of civilisation. Not a trace of a white man's presence was visible anywhere, and for the first night we missed the crashing rattle of the ever-working batteries. A deathlike stillness filled the air, broken only by the startled scream of the carrion crow or the weird double note of the mopoke.

"There's any amount of room for prospecting here," hazarded Phil, gazing around, after the horses and camels had been safely picketed. Which was true; yet who could have the heart to sink a proving shaft amid such inhospitable surroundings?

"If we locate an outcrop, boys," I said, "we may trace it up, but otherwise we can only test the surface sands with the dryblower."

It was but vaguely known what kind of country lay far to eastward of us. Many thousands of square miles had never been crossed by any traveller, and strange rumours were often circulated among the miners of the various outposts regarding the extraordinary riches of the vast "Never Never" land. It was even predicted that a great inland river flowed northwards towards the Gulf of Carpentaria; how far it flowed before sinking in the arid sands was a matter for conjecture, but it was confidently supposed to drain fertile valleys, and to be flanked by noble mountain ranges rich in gold and precious gems. It was a rosy enough picture, surely, but one which, unfortunately, no explorer had yet succeeded in bearing out.

"It's a gran' thing," said Mac thoughtfully, when supper was over, and we were reclining on our blankets gazing at the stars, and listening to the tinkling of the camel bells. "It's a vera gran' thing," he repeated, "tae be alane aince mair, an' wi' the bonnie stars shinin' brichtly abune——"

"Here's a centipede!" roared Stewart, interrupting his comrade's moralising.

"Then pit it in yer pocket, ma man," was the calm reply; and he resumed where he had left off: "Ay, it's a gran' thing, Phil, tae ken that ye're traivellin' in new country, breathin' the bonnie pure air. Noo if ye had been wi' me an' Stewart oot in Alaskie——"

"Spin me a yarn, Mac," said Phil, drawing his blanket closer, while Stewart started up in sheer amazement.

Mac was visibly affected; he took his pipe from his mouth and gazed at the camp fire blankly for some time without speaking. "Ye're a guid an' thochtfu' man, Phil," he said at length with great earnestness, "an' A'll gie ye a rale bonnie story...."

I will pass but briefly over the early days of our march. Our track at first led through the Murchison district, for I wished to make a mid-northerly latitude before steering east; but after leaving the Gascoyne Channel the country traversed was of the most dreary nature, and similar to that around the more desolate southern gold camps. Several soaks were found opportunely when the water-bags were becoming dangerously flat, and our progress continued uneventfully for over a week, but then the formation of the land-surface began to change rapidly for the worse. The dwarfed eucalypti became sparser and sparser, and in their room appeared bushy clumps of saltbush and tufts of spiky spinifex grass. The hard ironsand soil, too, gave place to a white yielding gravel which hindered our advance greatly. The camels, certainly, were not seriously inconvenienced, but the staggering horses sank over the fetlocks at each step, and stumbled forward painfully, while we floundered alongside, almost blinded by the rising iron dust which filled our ears and nostrils.

For two days we crossed this disheartening waste, fearing greatly for the safety of the horses, which showed signs of collapse. No water had been located for three days before entering upon this miserable tract, and assuredly none promised on its parched expanse. The horses—poor animals!—fared rather ill in consequence, for we dared not give them much of our rapidly-diminishing fluid supply. On the morning of the third day, however, our course led across slightly-improved country, so that better progress was made, and our chances of finding water were decidedly more encouraging.

At noon we entered a belt of scrub, and soon were crashing through a miniature forest of stunted mallee; but this state of affairs was not destined to last, for we could see in the distance, at a slightly higher altitude, the open plain extending back into the horizon. At this point Phil considered the indications very favourable for water, and we decided to make a temporary camp, and search the district thoroughly before proceeding. We were preparing to unload the camels, when Stewart, who had gone a little way ahead, came rushing back in great excitement. "Niggers!" he hoarsely whispered. Looking up I saw quite an assembly of stalwart bucks directly in our course, and scarcely two hundred yards in front. Some bushes partially hid them from our view, and they had evidently not yet observed us. They were well equipped with spears and waddies; probably they were out on a hunting expedition, and, if so, it boded well for the resources of the district.

While we hesitated, debating on our best plan of action, they saw us, and gave vent to a series of shrill yells, yet were apparently undecided whether to resent our presence or escape while they might. Then a shower of spears whizzed through the air, but fell short, and buried their heads in the sand at our feet. We were just out of range of these missiles, luckily enough. My companions were not disposed to tolerate such tactics, and Mac discharged his gun, loaded with small shot, at the hostile band. They waited no longer, but made a wild rush into the densest part of the scrub, and were quickly lost to sight. Then we proceeded onwards warily, whilst far in the distance the branches crackled and broke before the fleeing horde. The scene of their stand was littered with fragments of brushwood, and the dying embers of a fire smouldered in the centre of a small clearing close by. All around, shields, spears, and boomerangs lay scattered as they had been thrown when their owners took to flight. The sight was curiously strange and impressive.

My usually loquacious companions had been wonderfully silent during the last day or so, owing, perhaps, to the uninspiring nature of our environment, but now Mac succeeded in launching into a lengthy diatribe, in which he consigned the blacks generally to a very warm climate indeed.

"At the same time," said he, "we shidna forget that such inceedents serve a vera usefu' purpose."

"They seemed rale dacent black buddies," reflectively murmured Stewart.

"And they entertained the laudable desire of puncturing us with 'rale dacent' spears," Phil added shortly.

The camels stood patiently within the clearing, with their long necks outstretched, and their heads moving up and down with the regularity of automatons; the horses straggled behind, gasping feebly.

"We'd better make a halt right here, boys," I said; "the horses seem played out completely." So while Mac and Stewart were engaged in the work of unloading them, Phil and I made a minute survey of our surroundings. A huge breakwind guarded the circular space, and behind it a well-padded track led backwards into a richly-foliaged dell. Creeping plants and luxurious ferns grew in profession around the base of a single lime-tree which found root in the hollow, and a long wiry kind of grass flourished abundantly under its genial shade.

"I'll investigate the cause of such unusual vegetation," Phil said, stepping forward.

"Look out for snakes," I warned; then turned to assist Mac in raising poor "Sorrow," who had rolled over on the ground, pack-saddle and all.

"The puir beastie's feenished," Mac said sorrowfully, "an' nae wunner."

"Here's anither ane," wailed Stewart, and I looked up to see him wildly endeavouring to keep "Sin" from falling on the top of sundry cooking utensils. It was plain that two at least of the horses could go no further if fortune did not speedily favour us.

"This is the deevil's ain countrie," groaned Mac helplessly, and for the moment I felt utterly disheartened as I watched the poor animals convulsively gasping on the sand.

A shout from Phil drew my attention. "There's a spring here, boys," he cried gleefully from the lime-tree hollow.

It was a welcome discovery; I had almost despaired of finding water in the vicinity. "We'll camp for the day," I said, "and give our pack train a much-needed rest."

The spring was a small one and beautifully clear; its waters gurgled gently through a fissure in a white kaolin formation, and the surplus flow was absorbed by the spreading roots of the climbing growths mentioned. It was half hidden by an outjutting boulder, and further cunningly screened from view by a heavy clump of overhanging grass. Evidently the blacks were in the habit of camping here frequently; the breakwind might have been erected for one night's shelter, but the track towards the well had been long in use.

"I hope our landlords do not visit us to-night," Phil remarked, as we gazed at each other through the smoke of our camp fire some little time later.

"It wud be a vera onfort'nate happenin'," Mac grunted placidly, drawing his gun closer.

"They're mebbe cannibals," suggested Stewart uneasily.

"We'll keep a watch in case of accident," I said; "but I don't expect they'll give us any trouble."