on, I'm gin' to bed. What's the matter
with the camp, anyway? Everybody dead?"

Bates did not even trouble to reply, but went on moodily rolling a
cigarette. Dan MacDonald, pioneer saloonman and gambler on the upper
Yukon, owner and proprietor of the Tivoli and all its games, wandered
forlornly across the great vacant space of floor and joined the two at
the stove.

"Anybody dead?" the Virgin asked him.

"Looks like it," was the answer.

"Then it must be the whole camp," she said with an air of finality and
with another yawn.

MacDonald grinned and nodded, and opened his mouth to speak, when the
front door swung wide and a man appeared in the light. A rush of
frost, turned to vapor by the heat of the room, swirled about him to
his knees and poured on across the floor, growing thinner and thinner,
and perishing a dozen feet from the stove. Taking the wisp broom from
its nail inside the door, the newcomer brushed the snow from his
moccasins and high German socks. He would have appeared a large man
had not a huge French-Canadian stepped up to him from the bar and
gripped his hand.

"Hello, Daylight!" was his greeting. "By Gar, you good for sore eyes!"

"Hello, Louis, when did you-all blow in?" returned the newcomer. "Come
up and have a drink and tell us all about Bone Creek. Why, dog-gone
you-all, shake again. Where's that pardner of yours? I'm looking for
him."

Another huge man detached himself from the bar to shake hands. Olaf
Henderson and French Louis, partners together on Bone Creek, were the
two largest men in the country, and though they were but half a head
taller than the newcomer, between them he was dwarfed completely.

"Hello, Olaf, you're my meat, savvee that," said the one called
Daylight. "To-morrow's my birthday, and I'm going to put you-all on
your back--savvee? And you, too, Louis. I can put you-all on your
back on my birthday--savvee? Come up and drink, Olaf, and I'll tell
you-all about it."

The arrival of the newcomer seemed to send a flood of warmth through
the place. "It's Burning Daylight," the Virgin cried, the first to
recognize him as he came into the light. Charley Bates' tight features
relaxed at the sight, and MacDonald went over and joined the three at
the bar. With the advent of Burning Daylight the whole place became
suddenly brighter and cheerier. The barkeepers were active. Voices
were raised. Somebody laughed. And when the fiddler, peering into the
front