e she'll come," he said.

And Potts was so far from clairvoyance that he laughed, awkwardly
flattered; then anxiously: "Wish I was sure o' my passage money."

When Potts, before he meant to, had yielded place to O'Flynn, the
Colonel was sworn to secrecy, and listened to excited whispers of gold
in the sand off yonder on the coast of the Behring Sea. The world in
general wouldn't know the authenticity of the new strike till next
season. He and Mrs. O'Flynn would take the first boat sailing out of
San Francisco in the spring.

"Oh, you're going outside too?"

"In the fahll--yes, yes. Ye see, I ain't like the rest. I've got Mrs.
O'Flynn to consider. Dawson's great, but it ain't the place to start a
famully."

"Where you goin', Mac?" said the Colonel to the irate one, who was
making for the door. "I want a little talk with you."

Mac turned back, and consented to express his opinion of the money
there was to be made out of tailings by means of a new hydraulic
process. He was going to lend Kaviak to Sister Winifred again on the
old terms. She'd take him along when she returned to Holy Cross, and
Mac would go outside, raise a little capital, return, and make a
fortune. For the moment he was broke--hadn't even passage money. Did
the Colonel think he could----

The Colonel seemed absorbed in that eternal interrogation of the
tent-top.

"Mine, you know"--Mac drew nearer still, and went on in the lowered
voice--"mine's a special case. A man's bound to do all he can for his
boys."

"I didn't know you had boys."

Mac jerked "Yes" with his square head. "Bobbie's goin' on six now."

"The others older?"

"Others?" Mac stared an instant. "Oh, there's only one more." He
grinned with embarrassment, and hitched his head towards Kaviak.

"I guess you've jawed enough," said Maudie, leaving the others and
coming to the foot of the bed.

"And Maudie's goin' back, too," said the sick man.

She nodded.

"And you're never goin' to leave her again?"

"No."

"Maudie's a little bit of All Right," said the patient. The Big Chimney
men assented, but with sudden misgiving.

"What was that job ye said ye were wantin' me forr?"

"Oh, Maudie's got a friend of hers to fix it up."

"Fix what up?" demanded Potts.

"Little postscript to my will."

Mac jerked his head at the nurse. With that clear sight of dying eyes
the Colonel understood. A meaner spirit would have been galled at the
part those "Louisville Instructions" had b