country in a Peterborough, and gave him shelter
for the night in their storm-bound camp. Next morning they departed, but
he elected to stay by his eggs. And thereafter the name and fame of the
man with the thousand dozen eggs began to spread through the land. Gold-
seekers who made in before the freeze-up carried the news of his coming.
Grizzled old-timers of Forty Mile and Circle City, sour doughs with
leathern jaws and bean-calloused stomachs, called up dream memories of
chickens and green things at mention of his name. Dyea and Skaguay took
an interest in his being, and questioned his progress from every man who
came over the passes, while Dawson--golden, omeletless Dawson--fretted
and worried, and way-laid every chance arrival for word of him.

But of this Rasmunsen knew nothing. The day after the wreck he patched
up the _Alma_ and pulled out. A cruel east wind blew in his teeth from
Tagish, but he got the oars over the side and bucked manfully into it,
though half the time he was drifting backward and chopping ice from the
blades. According to the custom of the country, he was driven ashore at
Windy Arm; three times on Tagish saw him swamped and beached; and Lake
Marsh held him at the freeze-up. The _Alma_ was crushed in the jamming
of the floes, but the eggs were intact. These he back-tripped two miles
across the ice to the shore, where he built a cache, which stood for
years after and was pointed out by men who knew.

Half a thousand frozen miles stretched between him and Dawson, and the
waterway was closed. But Rasmunsen, with a peculiar tense look in his
face, struck back up the lakes on foot. What he suffered on that lone
trip, with nought but a single blanket, an axe, and a handful of beans,
is not given to ordinary mortals to know. Only the Arctic adventurer may
understand. Suffice that he was caught in a blizzard on Chilkoot and
left two of his toes with the surgeon at Sheep Camp. Yet he stood on his
feet and washed dishes in the scullery of the _Pawona_ to the Puget
Sound, and from there passed coal on a P. S. boat to San Francisco.

It was a haggard, unkempt man who limped across the shining office floor
to raise a second mortgage from the bank people. His hollow cheeks
betrayed themselves through the scraggy beard, and his eyes seemed to
have retired into deep caverns where they burned with cold fires. His
hands were grained from exposure and hard work, and the nails were rimmed
with ti