s of the river, still resolutely followed, and
both times he gave up and returned to the Dawson shore. Straight down
Main Street he trudged, crossing the ice of Klondike River to Klondike
City and again retracing to Dawson. At eight o'clock, as gray dawn began
to show, he led his weary gang to Slavovitch's restaurant, where tables
were at a premium for breakfast.

"Good-night fellows," he said, as he paid his reckoning.

And again he said good-night, as he took the climb of the hill. In the
clear light of day they did not follow him, contenting themselves with
watching him up the hill to his cabin.

For two days Smoke lingered about town, continually under vigilant
espionage. Shorty, with the sled and dogs, had disappeared. Neither
travelers up and down the Yukon, nor from Bonanza, Eldorado, nor the
Klondike, had seen him. Remained only Smoke, who, soon or late, was
certain to try to connect with his missing partner; and upon Smoke
everybody's attention was centered. On the second night he did not leave
his cabin, putting out the lamp at nine in the evening and setting the
alarm for two next morning. The watch outside heard the alarm go off,
so that when, half an hour later, he emerged from the cabin, he found
waiting for him a band, not of sixty men, but of at least three hundred.
A flaming aurora borealis lighted the scene, and, thus hugely
escorted, he walked down to town and entered the Elkhorn. The place was
immediately packed and jammed by an anxious and irritated multitude that
bought drinks, and for four weary hours watched Smoke play cribbage
with his old friend Breck. Shortly after six in the morning, with an
expression on his face of commingled hatred and gloom, seeing no one,
recognizing no one, Smoke left the Elkhorn and went up Main Street,
behind him the three hundred, formed in disorderly ranks, chanting:
"Hay-foot! Straw-foot! Hep! Hep! Hep!"

"Good-night, fellows," he said bitterly, at the edge of the Yukon bank
where the winter trail dipped down. "I'm going to get breakfast and then
go to bed."

The three hundred shouted that they were with him, and followed him out
upon the frozen river on the direct path he took for Tra-Lee. At seven
in the morning he led his stampeding cohort up the zigzag trail, across
the face of the slide, that led to Dwight Sanderson's cabin. The light
of a candle showed through the parchment-paper window, and smoke curled
from the chimney. Shorty threw open the door.

"