"Why not? Anybody can come up on the Moosehide, and everybody's doin'
it. I'm goin' to make way for some of 'em."

"Did she see you?"

"Well, she's seen Potts, anyhow."

"You're right about Dawson," said the Colonel suddenly; "it's too rich
for my blood."

They pinned a piece of paper on the tent-flap to say they were "Gone
prospecting: future movements uncertain."

Each with a small pack, and sticking out above it the Klondyke shovel
that had come all the way from San Francisco, Nig behind with
provisions in his little saddle-bags, and tongue farther out than ever,
they turned their backs on Dawson, crossed the lower corner of Lot 6,
behind the Government Reserve, stared with fresh surprise at the young
market-garden flourishing there, down to the many-islanded Klondyke,
across in the scow-ferry, over the Corduroy, that cheers and deceives
the new-comer for that first mile of the Bonanza Trail, on through pool
and morass to the thicket of white birches, where the Colonel thought
it well to rest awhile.

"Yes, he felt the heat," he said, as he passed the time of day with
other men going by with packs, pack-horses, or draught-dogs, cursing at
the trail and at the Government that taxed the miners so cruelly and
then did nothing for them, not even making a decent highway to the
Dominion's source of revenue. But out of the direct rays of the sun the
traveller found refreshment, and the mosquitoes were blown away by the
keen breeze that seemed to come from off some glacier. And the birds
sang loud, and the wild-flowers starred the birch-grove, and the
briar-roses wove a tangle on either side the swampy trail.

On again, dipping to a little valley--Bonanza Creek! They stood and
looked.

"Well, here we are."

"Yes, this is what we came for."

And it was because of "this" that so vast a machinery of ships,
engines, and complicated human lives had been set in motion. What was
it? A dip in the hills where a little stream was caught up into
sluices. On either side of every line of boxes, heaps and windrows of
gravel. Above, high on log-cabin staging, windlasses. Stretching away
on either side, gentle slopes, mossed and flower starred. Here and
there upon this ancient moose pasture, tents and cabins set at random.
In the bed of the creek, up and down in every direction, squads of men
sweating in the sun--here, where for untold centuries herds of
leisurely and majestic moose had come to quench their thirst. In the
old