r fortunes.

The Halfbreed lost no time in coming to the point.

"I like you boys. You're square and above-board. You're workers, and you
don't drink--that's the main thing.

"Well, to get right down to cases. I'm a bit of a mining man. I've mined
at Cassiar and Caribou, and I know something of the business. Now I've
got next to a good thing.--I don't know how good yet, but I'll swear to
you it's a tidy bit. There may be only ten thousand in it, and there may
be one hundred and ten. It's a gambling proposition, and I want
pardners, pardners that'll work like blazes and keep their faces shut.
Are you on?"

"That's got us kodaked," said the Prodigal. "We're that sort, and if the
proposition looks good to us we're with you. Anyway, we're clams at
keeping our food-traps tight."

"All right; listen. You know the Arctic Transportation Co. have claims
on upper Bonanza--well, a month back I was working for them. We were
down about twenty feet and were drifting in. They set me to work in the
drift. The roof kept sloughing in on me, and it was mighty dangerous. So
far we hadn't got pay-dirt, but their mining manager wanted us to drift
in a little further. If we didn't strike good pay in a few more feet we
were to quit.

"Well, one morning I went down and cleaned away the ash of my fire. The
first stroke of my pick on the thawed face made me jump, stare, stand
stock-still, thinking hard. For there, right in the hole I had made, was
the richest pocket I ever seen."

"You don't say! Are you sure?"

"Why, boys, as I'm alive there was nuggets in it as thick as raisins in
a Christmas plum-duff. I could see the yellow gleam where the pick had
grazed them, and the longer I looked the more could I see."

"Good Lord! What did you do?"

"What did I do! I just stepped back and picked at the roof for all I was
worth. A big bunch of muck came down, covering up the face. Then, like a
crazy man, I picked wherever the dirt seemed loose all the way down the
drift. Great heaps of dirt caved in on me. I was stunned, nearly buried,
but I did the trick. There were tons of dirt between me and my find."

We gasped with amazement.

"The rest was easy. I went up the shaft groaning and cursing. I
pretended to faint. I told them the roof of the drift had fallen in on
me. It was rotten stuff, anyway, and they knew it. They didn't mind me
risking my life. I cursed them, said I would sue the Company, and went
off looking too sore for words. The