d.

"Do you know what I'm thinking about?" the sick man said suddenly.

"About--that lady down at home?"

"Guess again."

"About--those fellas at Holy Cross?"

"No, I never was as taken up with the Jesuits as you were. No, Sah, I'm
thinkin' about the Czar." (Poor old Colonel! he was wandering again.)
"Did I ever tell you I saw him once?"

"No."

"Did--had a good look at him. Knew a fella in Petersburg, too, that--"
He rested a moment. "That Czar's all right. Only he sends the wrong
people to Siberia. Ought to go himself, and take his Ministers, for a
winter on the Trail." On his face suddenly the old half-smiling,
half-shrewd look. "But, Lord bless you! 'tisn't only the Czar. We all
have times o' thinkin' we're some punkins. Specially Kentuckians. I
reckon most men have their days when they're twelve feet high, and
wouldn't stoop to say 'Thank ye' to a King. Let 'em go on the Winter
Trail."

"Yes," agreed the Boy, "they'd find out--" And he stopped.

"Plenty o' use for Head Men, though." The faint voice rang with an echo
of the old authority. "No foolishness, but just plain: 'I'm the one
that's doin' the leadin'--like Nig here--and it's my business to lick
the hind dog if he shirks.'" He held out his hand and closed it over
his friend's. "I was Boss o' the Big Chimney, Boy, but you were Boss o'
the Trail."

* * * * *

The Colonel was buried in the old moose pasture, with people standing
by who knew that the world had worn a friendlier face because he had
been in it. That much was clear, even before it was found that he had
left to each of the Big Chimney men five hundred dollars, not to be
drawn except for the purpose of going home.

They thought it was the sense of that security that made them put off
the day. They would "play the game up to the last moment, and see--"

September's end brought no great change in fortune, but a change withal
of deep significance. The ice had begun to run in the Yukon. No man
needed telling it would "be a tuhble wintah, and dey'd better move down
Souf." All the late boats by both routes had been packed. Those men who
had failed, and yet, most tenacious, were hanging on for some last
lucky turn of the wheel, knew the risk they ran. And now to-day the
final boat of the year was going down the long way to the Behring Sea,
and by the Canadian route, open a little longer, the Big Chimney men,
by grace of that one left behind, would be on the last