. It is a thing of
words and words and words, yet every word is Berna, Berna. Feel the
heartache behind it all. Read between the lines, Berna, Berna.

Often in the evenings we went to the Forks, which was a lively place
indeed. Here was all the recklessness and revel of Dawson on a smaller
scale, and infinitely more gross. Here were the dance-hall girls, not
the dazzling creatures in diamonds and Paris gowns, the belles of the
Monte Carlo and the Tivoli, but drabs self-convicted by their coarse,
puffy faces. Here the men, fresh from their day's work, the mud of the
claim hardly dry on their boot-tops, were buying wine with nuggets they
had filched from sluice-box, dump and drift.

There was wholesale robbery going on in the gold-camp. On many claims
where the owners were known to be unsuspicious, men would work for small
wages because of the gold they were able to filch. On the other hand,
many of the operators were paying their men in trade-dust valued at
sixteen dollars an ounce, yet so adulterated with black sand as to be
really worth about fourteen. All these things contributed to the low
morale of the camp. Easy come, easy go with money, a wild intoxication
of success in the air; gold gouged in glittering heaps from the ground
during the day, and at night squandered in a carnival of lust and sin.

The Prodigal was always "snooping" around and gleaning information from
most mysterious sources. One evening he came to us.

"Boys, get ready, quick. There's a rumour of a stampede for a new creek,
Ophir Creek they call it, away on the other side of the divide
somewhere. A prospector went down ten feet and got fifty-cent dirt.
We've got to get in on this. There's a mob coming from Dawson, but we'll
get there before the rush."

Quickly we got together blankets and a little grub, and, keeping out of
sight, we crawled up the hill under cover of the brush. Soon we came to
a place from which we could command a full view of the valley. Here we
lay down, awaiting developments.

It was at the hour of dusk. Scarfs of smoke wavered over the cabins down
in the valley. On the far slope of Eldorado I saw a hawk soar upwards.
Surely a man was moving amid the brush, two men, a dozen men, moving in
single file very stealthily. I pointed them out.

"It's the stampede," whispered Jim. "We've got to get on to the trail of
that crowd. Travel like blazes. We can cut them off at the head of the
valley."

So we struck into the stampede