What was there left but etchings and
pictures and fans? Was it my fault that I never had to sweat?"

The older man looked at his nephew with unconcealed disgust. He had no
patience with levity from the lips of softness.

"Well, I'm going to take another one of those what-you-call masculine
vacations. Suppose I asked you to come along?"

"Rather belated, I must say. Where is it?"

"Hal and Robert are going in to Klondike, and I'm going to see them
across the Pass and down to the Lakes, then return--"

He got no further, for the young man had sprung forward and gripped his
hand.

"My preserver!"

John Bellew was immediately suspicious. He had not dreamed the
invitation would be accepted.

"You don't mean it?" he said.

"When do we start?"

"It will be a hard trip. You'll be in the way."

"No, I won't. I'll work. I've learned to work since I went on The
Billow."

"Each man has to take a year's supplies in with him. There'll be such a
jam the Indian packers won't be able to handle it. Hal and Robert will
have to pack their outfits across themselves. That's what I'm going
along for--to help them pack. If you come you'll have to do the same."

"Watch me."

"You can't pack," was the objection.

"When do we start?"

"To-morrow."

"You needn't take it to yourself that your lecture on the hard has done
it," Kit said, at parting. "I just had to get away, somewhere, anywhere,
from O'Hara."

"Who is O'Hara? A Jap?"

"No; he's an Irishman, and a slave-driver, and my best friend. He's the
editor and proprietor and all-round big squeeze of The Billow. What he
says goes. He can make ghosts walk."

That night Kit Bellew wrote a note to O'Hara. "It's only a several
weeks' vacation," he explained. "You'll have to get some gink to dope
out instalments for that serial. Sorry, old man, but my health demands
it. I'll kick in twice as hard when I get back."

Kit Bellew landed through the madness of the Dyea beach, congested with
thousand-pound outfits of thousands of men. This immense mass of luggage
and food, flung ashore in mountains by the steamers, was beginning
slowly to dribble up the Dyea Valley and across Chilkoot. It was a
portage of twenty-eight miles, and could be accomplished only on the
backs of men. Despite the fact that the Indian packers had jumped the
freight from eight cents a pound to forty, they were swamped with the
work, and it was plain that winter would catch the major portion of the
outf