as concealed in the future, he was destined, not long after,
to pay one hundred and fifty thousand for a fourth claim on the creek
that had been the least liked of all the creeks.

In the meantime, and from the day he washed seven hundred dollars from
a single pan and squatted over it and thought a long thought, he never
again touched hand to pick and shovel. As he said to Joe Ladue the
night of that wonderful washing:--

"Joe, I ain't never going to work hard again. Here's where I begin to
use my brains. I'm going to farm gold. Gold will grow gold if you-all
have the savvee and can get hold of some for seed. When I seen them
seven hundred dollars in the bottom of the pan, I knew I had the seed
at last."

"Where are you going to plant it?" Joe Ladue had asked.

And Daylight, with a wave of his hand, definitely indicated the whole
landscape and the creeks that lay beyond the divides.

"There she is," he said, "and you-all just watch my smoke. There's
millions here for the man who can see them. And I seen all them
millions this afternoon when them seven hundred dollars peeped up at me
from the bottom of the pan and chirruped, 'Well, if here ain't Burning
Daylight come at last.'"

CHAPTER XI

The hero of the Yukon in the younger days before the Carmack strike,
Burning Daylight now became the hero of the strike. The story of his
hunch and how he rode it was told up and down the land. Certainly he
had ridden it far and away beyond the boldest, for no five of the
luckiest held the value in claims that he held. And, furthermore, he
was still riding the hunch, and with no diminution of daring. The wise
ones shook their heads and prophesied that he would lose every ounce he
had won. He was speculating, they contended, as if the whole country
was made of gold, and no man could win who played a placer strike in
that fashion.

On the other hand, his holdings were reckoned as worth millions, and
there were men so sanguine that they held the man a fool who
coppered[6] any bet Daylight laid. Behind his magnificent
free-handedness and careless disregard for money were hard, practical
judgment, imagination and vision, and the daring of the big gambler.
He foresaw what with his own eyes he had never seen, and he played to
win much or lose all.

"There's too much gold here in Bonanza to be just a pocket," he argued.
"It's sure come from a mother-lode somewhere, and other creeks will
show up. You-all keep your e