t?" No answer. "Where
does it _go_?" she repeated severely, like a schoolmarm to a class of
backward boys.

"That's what everybody'd like to know."

"Then let 'em ask Pitcairn."

"What's Pitcairn say?"

She got up briskly, moved to another log almost at the Colonel's feet,
and sat looking at him a moment as if making up her mind about
something serious. The Colonel stood, fists at his sides, arrested by
that name Pitcairn.

"You know Pitcairn's the best all-round man we got here," she asserted
rather than asked.

The Colonel nodded.

"He's an Idaho miner, Pitcairn is!"

"I know."

"Well, he's been out lookin' at the place where the gold gives out on
Little Minook. There's a pup just there above No. 10--remember?"

"Perfectly."

"And above the pup, on the right, there's a bed of gravel."

"Couldn't see much of that for the snow."

"Well, sir, that bed o' gravel's an old channel."

"No!"

She nodded. "Pitcairn's sunk a prospect, and found colours in his first
pan."

"Oh, colours!"

"But the deeper he went, the better prospects he got." She stood up
now, close to the Colonel. The Boy stopped work and leaned on the wood
pile, listening. "Pitcairn told Charlie and me (on the strict q. t.)
that the gold channel crossed the divide at No. 10, and the only gold
on Little Minookust what spilt down on those six claims as the gold
went crossin' the gulch. The real placer is that old channel above the
pup, and boys"--in her enthusiasm she even included the Colonel's
objectionable pardner--"boys, it's rich as blazes!"

"I wonder----" drawled the Colonel, recovering a little from his first
thrill.

"I wouldn't advise you to waste much time wonderin'," she said with
fire. "What I'm tellin' you is scientific. Pitcairn is straight as a
string. You won't get any hymns out o' Pitcairn, but you'll get fair
and square. His news is worth a lot. If you got any natchral gumption
anywhere about you, you can have a claim worth anything from ten to
fifty thousand dollars this time to-morrow."

"Well, well! Good Lord! Hey, Boy, what we goin' to do?"

"Well, you don't want to get excited," admonished the queer little
Arctic animal, jumping up suddenly; "but you can bunk early and get a
four a.m. wiggle on. Charlie and me'll meet you on the Minookl. Ta-ta!"
tad she whisked away as suddenly as a chipmunk.

They couldn't sleep. Some minutes before the time named they were
quietly leaving Keith's shack. Out on the trail t