it will! If I didn't know more about gold-mining than you do
about courtin'--"

Corliss sprang at him, but Del dodged to one side and put up his fists.
Then he ducked a wild right and left swing and side-stepped his way
into firmer footing on the hard trail.

"Hold on a moment," he cried, as Corliss made to come at him again.
"Just a second. If I lick you, will you come up the hillside with me?"

"Yes."

"And if I don't, you can fire me. That's fair. Come on."

Vance had no show whatever, as Del well knew, who played with him,
feinting, attacking, retreating, dazzling, and disappearing every now
and again out of his field of vision in a most exasperating way. As
Vance speedily discovered, he possessed very little correlation between
mind and body, and the next thing he discovered was that he was lying
in the snow and slowly coming back to his senses.

"How--how did you do it?" he stammered to the pocket-miner, who had his
head on his knee and was rubbing his forehead with snow.

"Oh, you'll do!" Del laughed, helping him limply to his feet. "You're
the right stuff. I'll show you some time. You've got lots to learn
yet what you won't find in books. But not now. We've got to wade in
and make camp, then you're comin' up the hill with me."

"Hee! hee!" he chuckled later, as they fitted the pipe of the Yukon
stove. "Slow sighted and short. Couldn't follow me, eh? But I'll
show you some time, oh, I'll show you all right, all right!"

"Grab an axe an' come on," he commanded when the camp was completed.

He led the way up Eldorado, borrowed a pick, shovel, and pan at a
cabin, and headed up among the benches near the mouth of French Creek.
Vance, though feeling somewhat sore, was laughing at himself by this
time and enjoying the situation. He exaggerated the humility with
which he walked at the heel of his conqueror, while the extravagant
servility which marked his obedience to his hired man made that
individual grin.

"You'll do. You've got the makin's in you!" Del threw down the tools
and scanned the run of the snow-surface carefully. "Here, take the
axe, shinny up the hill, and lug me down some _skookum_ dry wood."

By the time Corliss returned with the last load of wood, the
pocket-miner had cleared away the snow and moss in divers spots, and
formed, in general design, a rude cross.

"Cuttin' her both ways," he explained. "Mebbe I'll hit her here, or
over there, or up above; but if there's any