rom me. Tell her I'm well and
happy, and that I'll make a fortune, sure. Tell her, too, that there
won't be any mail out of here till spring.'

"Now, I don't claim no second sight in the matter of female features:
I ain't had no coachin'; not even as much as the ordinary, being
raised on a bottle, but I've studied the ornery imprints of men's
thoughts, over green tables and gun bar'ls, till I can about guess
whether they've drawed four aces or an invite to a funeral. I got
another flash from that man I didn't like, though his words were
hearty. He left, soon after, on the last boat.

"Soon as ever the ground froze we began to sink. In those days steam
thawers wasn't dreamed of, so we slid wood down from the hills, and
burned the ground with fires. It's slow work, and we didn't catch
bed-rock till December, but when we did we struck it right. Four
feet of ten-cent dirt was what she averaged. Big? Well, I wonder!
It near drove Morrow crazy.

"'Billy, old boy, this means I'll see her next summer!'

"Whenever he mentioned her name, he spoke like a man in church or out
of breath. Somehow it made me feel like takin' off my cap--forty
below at that, and my ears freeze terrible willing since that winter
on the Porcupine.

"That evening, when I wasn't looking, he sneaked the locket out of
his shirt and stared at it, famished. Then he kissed it, if you
might rehabilitate such a scandalous, hold-fast-for-the-corner
performance by that name.

"'I must let her know right away,' says he. 'How can I do it?'

"'We can hire a messenger, and send him to Dawson,' says I.
'Everybody in camp will pay five dollars a letter, and he can bring
back the outside mail. They have monthly service from there to the
coast. He'll make the trip in ninety days, so you'll get news from
home by the first of March. Windy Jim will go. He'd leave a good
job and a warm camp any time to hit the trail. Just hitch up the
dogs, crack a whip, and yell 'Mush on!' and he'll get the snow-shoe
itch, and water at the mouth for hardship.'

"Not being house-broke and tame myself, I ain't authority on the joys
of getting mail from home, but, next to it, I judge, comes writing to
your family. Anyhow, the boy shined up like new money, and there was
from one to four million pages in his hurried note. I don't mean to
say that he was grouchy at any time. No, sir! He was the
nickel-plated sunbeam of the whole creek. Why, I've knowed him to do
the