out afterwards?"

"We will find a way into Siberia or China where we can enjoy our
hard-earned gold," with a sarcastic emphasis upon the three last words
of his sentence, but laughing lightly.

"There is no reason you should not do this," was the reply, "but with me
it is different. I am ill, and daily growing weaker. This isolation and
enforced inaction takes the life out of me; my head grows dizzy from
much thinking, and I see forms, spectres, and hobgoblins in all shapes
and colors," this was said complainingly and in a weakened voice.

"My dreams are so horrible that I dread the prospect of night."

"You're a fool to worry. Keep a stiff upper lip, and all will be well.
See, I'm making a checker-board with which we can kill time when we
like."

"I'd like to kill the whole of it before it kills me," was the response.
"If I only had something to read or something to do. I'm sick of this
infernal hole!"

"Ditto here, but what can we do? If we push on eastward now we will
probably be without shelter, and it is a long and tedious job to build
a log cabin. With the thermometer at sixty degrees below zero as it is
we will freeze to death on the trail."

"Much loss it would be," growled Dunbar.

"Then if we went back to the Koyukuk," continued Gibbs, "we would be
sure to run into the arms of some of our numerous mining partners from
Midas, which we are in no hurry to do. We are now about half way between
the headwaters of the Koyukuk and the Canadian boundary line, and as we
are fairly comfortable here, with plenty of game and firewood, and as we
are not sure of finding a shelter for our heads if we move now, I think
it wise to stay right here for two months longer at least. With our
hunting, eating, sleeping and checkers, the time will pass if we wait
long enough," and the speaker resumed a lighter tone while trying to
encourage the other.

"I suppose you are right, boy, but I detest this kind of a life."

"It's a heap better than being behind bars for a lifetime or feeding
buzzards while dangling from the limb of a tree." Then seeing the
horror on his partner's face, he said with a mockingly polite bow, "A
thousand pardons, old fellow, for such unpleasant allusions, but I was
only seeking to make you more contented for your own good as well as
mine."

"I'm tired of it all," sighed the older man wearily.

"Oh, _no_, we're not tired of this, Dunbar," seizing a gold sack from
among a heap of them upon the groun