st boat was abreast of the
men on the bank. Its occupants did not cease poling while greetings were
exchanged, and, though its progress was slow, a half-hour saw it out of
sight up river.

Still they came from below, boat after boat, in endless procession. The
uneasiness of Bill and Kink increased. They stole speculative, tentative
glances at each other, and when their eyes met looked away in
embarrassment. Finally, however, their eyes met and neither looked away.

Kink opened his mouth to speak, but words failed him and his mouth
remained open while he continued to gaze at his partner.

"Just what I was thinken', Kink," said Bill.

They grinned sheepishly at each other, and by tacit consent started to
walk away. Their pace quickened, and by the time they arrived at their
cabin they were on the run.

"Can't lose no time with all that multitude a-rushin' by," Kink
spluttered, as he jabbed the sour-dough can into the beanpot with one
hand and with the other gathered in the frying-pan and coffee-pot.

"Should say not," gasped Bill, his head and shoulders buried in a clothes-
sack wherein were stored winter socks and underwear. "I say, Kink, don't
forget the saleratus on the corner shelf back of the stove."

Half-an-hour later they were launching the canoe and loading up, while
the storekeeper made jocular remarks about poor, weak mortals and the
contagiousness of "stampedin' fever." But when Bill and Kink thrust
their long poles to bottom and started the canoe against the current, he
called after them:-

"Well, so-long and good luck! And don't forget to blaze a stake or two
for me!"

They nodded their heads vigorously and felt sorry for the poor wretch who
remained perforce behind.

* * * * *

Kink and Bill were sweating hard. According to the revised Northland
Scripture, the stampede is to the swift, the blazing of stakes to the
strong, and the Crown in royalties, gathers to itself the fulness
thereof. Kink and Bill were both swift and strong. They took the soggy
trail at a long, swinging gait that broke the hearts of a couple of
tender-feet who tried to keep up with them. Behind, strung out between
them and Dawson (where the boats were discarded and land travel began),
was the vanguard of the Circle City outfit. In the race from Forty Mile
the partners had passed every boat, winning from the leading boat by a
length in the Dawson eddy, and leaving its occupants sadly behind the
moment their fee