ancisco, and by the time I'd crossed the ferry to Oakland I was my old
self again, so that even my wife looked in vain for any change in me.

Steve wrote to me once, and his letter seemed irritated. He took it kind
of hard because I'd left him with Spot. Also, he said he'd used the
"rough-on-rats," per directions, and that there was nothing doing. A
year went by. I was back in the office and prospering in all ways--even
getting a bit fat. And then Steve arrived. He didn't look me up. I read
his name in the steamer list, and wondered why. But I didn't wonder
long. I got up one morning and found that Spot chained to the gatepost
and holding up the milkman. Steve went north to Seattle, I learned, that
very morning. I didn't put on any more weight. My wife made me buy him a
collar and tag, and within an hour he showed his gratitude by killing
her pet Persian cat. There is no getting rid of that Spot. He will be
with me until I die, for he'll never die. My appetite is not so good
since he arrived, and my wife says I am looking peaked. Last night that
Spot got into Mr. Harvey's hen-house (Harvey is my next door neighbor)
and killed nineteen of his fancy-bred chickens. I shall have to pay for
them. My neighbors on the other side quarreled with my wife and then
moved out. Spot was the cause of it. And that is why I am disappointed
in Stephen Mackaye. I had no idea he was so mean a man.

[Illustration]

TRUST

All lines had been cast off, and the _Seattle No. 4_ was pulling slowly
out from the shore. Her decks were piled high with freight and baggage,
and swarmed with a heterogeneous company of Indians, dogs, and
dog-mushers, prospectors, traders, and homeward-bound gold-seekers. A
goodly portion of Dawson was lined up on the bank, saying good-by. As
the gang-plank came in and the steamer nosed into the stream, the clamor
of farewell became deafening. Also, in that eleventh moment, everybody
began to remember final farewell messages and to shout them back and
forth across the widening stretch of water. Louis Bondell, curling his
yellow mustache with one hand and languidly waving the other hand to his
friends on shore, suddenly remembered something and sprang to the rail.

"Oh, Fred!" he bawled. "Oh, Fred!"

The "Fred" desired thrust a strapping pair of shoulders through the
forefront of the crowd on the bank and tried to catch Louis Bondell's
message. The latter grew red in the face with vain vociferation. Still
th