here the great Klondyke Expeditions lay fast
in the ice; along the white strip of the narrowing river, pent in now
between mountains black with scant, subarctic timber, or gray with
fantastic weather-worn rock--on and on, till they reached the bluffs of
the Lower Ramparts.

Here, at last, between the ranks of the many-gabled heights, Big Minook
Creek meets Father Yukon. Just below the junction, perched jauntily on
a long terrace, up above the frozen riverbed, high and dry, and out of
the coming trouble when river and creek should wake--here was the long,
log-built mining town, Minook, or Rampart, for the name was still
undetermined in the spring of 1898.

It was a great moment.

"Shake, pardner," said the Boy. The Colonel and he grasped hands. Only
towering good spirits prevented their being haughty, for they felt like
conquerors, and cared not a jot that they looked like gaol-birds.

It was two o'clock in the morning. The Gold Nugget Saloon was flaring
with light, and a pianola was perforating a tune. The travellers pushed
open a frosted door, and looked into a long, low, smoke-veiled room,
hung with many kerosene lamps, and heated by a great red-hot iron
stove.

"Hello!" said a middle-aged man in mackinaws, smoking near the door-end
of the bar.

"Hello! Is Blandford Keith here? There are some letters for him."

"Say, boys!" the man in mackinaws shouted above the pianola, "Windy
Jim's got in with the mail."

The miners lounging at the bar and sitting at the faro-tables looked up
laughing, and seeing the strangers through the smoke-haze, stopped
laughing to stare.

"Down from Dawson?" asked the bartender hurrying forward, a magnificent
creature in a check waistcoat, shirt-sleeves, four-in-hand tie, and a
diamond pin.

"No, t'other way about. Up from the Lower River."

"Oh! May West or Muckluck crew? Anyhow, I guess you got a thirst on
you," said the man in the mackinaws. "Come and licker up."

The bartender mixed the drinks in style, shooting the liquor from a
height into the small gin-sling glasses with the dexterity that had
made him famous.

When their tired eyes had got accustomed to the mingled smoke and
glare, the travellers could see that in the space beyond the card
tables, in those back regions where the pianola reigned, there were
several couples twirling about--the clumsily-dressed miners pirouetting
with an astonishing lightness on their moccasined feet. And women!
White women!

They stop