ife, and I think it a poor time to
begin," said Smithson. "If it isn't done right all hands may go to the
bottom. You better get someone else to do it."

"There is nobody but me to do it unless we pay ten dollars a day, and we
can't afford that. I've done most of the work so far, and I think you
might take hold now like a man if you never do again," argued Roberts.

The words "like a man" nettled Smithson. He resented the inference that
he was not manly. Seizing his hat he shambled off toward the beach where
the boat was in process of construction.

His heart was filled with anger. He began fairly to hate Roberts. He had
no right to order him around, and he hated to leave that quartz ledge.
If Roberts were only out of his way the hidden ledge would all be his
own. He had pondered this many times when his working partner supposed
him sleeping. Only for Roberts he could sell the boat and supplies for
double their cost, return to Skagway, and build a cabin near the quartz
ledge, thus escaping the long and dangerous trip down the lakes and
rivers as well as the awful Arctic winter which he more and more dreaded
in the Klondyke. On the south side of the mountains the weather would be
more mild; he would have no difficulty in finding another partner, if
not of his own sex, then the other--why not? he asked himself. The owner
of a ledge like that one might afford luxuries beyond those of the
common people. In this way he ruminated, standing with his hands in
pockets alongside the boat he was expected to finish by caulking.

Smithson hated work. Why should he work? There was enough gold in the
big ledge on the other side of the summit to keep him as long as he
lived if he could have the whole and manage it to suit himself. Could a
boat be caulked lightly in spots, he wondered, so that such weak places
might be plugged at the proper moment afterwards, making it fill with
water and sink with its freight?

It might be done, but that would be bad policy, for freight landed even
this far had cost large sums of money; farther on it would be worth more
and could be sold for many times what they had paid for it at starting;
but men were far too plenty. One man would not be missed. It might be
managed, perhaps, and he decided to do the caulking as requested by
Roberts.

An hour later a fair beginning had been made. A fire was built over
which the smoke of melting pitch ascended, while oakum was filling the
seams of the boat's side