The gangways had been secured in place, and while the crew
were feverishly opening the vessel's hatches the few passengers who had
made the journey under John Dunne's watchful care hustled down the
high-angled gangway to the quay, glad enough to set foot on the
slush-laden land.

The days of the wild rush of gold-mad incompetents were long since
past. The human freight of John Dunne's vessel, with the exception of
John Kars, was commercial. They were mostly men whose whole work was
this new great trade with the north.

Kars was one of the first to land, and he swiftly searched the faces of
the crowd of longshoremen.

It was a desolate quay-side of a disreputable town. But though all
picturesqueness was given over to utility, there was a sense of
homeliness to the traveler after the stormy passage of the North
Pacific. Blackrock crouched under the frowning ramparts of hills which
barred the progress of the waters. It was dwarfed, and rendered even
more desolate, by the sterile snow-laden crags with which it was
crowded. But these first impressions were quickly lost in the life
that strove on every hand. In the familiar clang of the locomotive
bell, and the movement of railroad wagons which were engaged in haulage
for Leaping Horse.

Kars' search ended in a smile of greeting, as a tall, lean American
detached himself from the crowd and came towards him. He greeted the
arrival with the easy casualness of the northlander.

"Glad to see you, Chief," he said, shaking hands. "Stuff aboard?
Good," as the other nodded. "Guess the gang'll ship it right away jest
as soon as they haul it out o' the guts of the old tub. You goin' on
up with the mail? She's due to get busy in two hours, if she don't get
colic or some other fool trouble."

Abe Dodds refused to respond to his friend and chief's smile of
greeting. He rarely shed smiles on anything or any one. He was a
mining engineer of unusual gifts, in a country where mining engineers
and flies vied with each other for preponderance. He was a man who
bristled with a steady energy which never seemed to tire, and he had
been in the service of John Kars from the very early days.

Kars indicated the snub-nosed vessel he had just left.

"The stuff's all there," he said. "Nearly fifty tons of it. You need
to hustle it up to Leaping Horse, and on to the camp right away. Guess
we break camp in two weeks."

The man nodded.

"Sure. That's all fixed. Anything el