tion. I was quite sure that my two claims
contained a hundred times as much gold as I had taken out--all I had
to do was to find its location.

"What Mordaunt said to you about me was true--my sudden good fortune
had turned my head; I flung my earnings right and left, spending them
on the most foolish extravagances, and still remained avaricious. I
developed a mania for asserting my power and getting myself talked
about. You know that in those days a new 'millionaire' in the Klondike
was expected to do some of that; if, when he came to Dawson, he was
sparing, and refused to treat the town to half-dollar drinks till
everyone was drunk, they'd take him by his legs and arms and batter
him against a wall until he gave in and cried, 'Yes.' Why, I've seen
men set to and pan out from the sawdust on the floor of a saloon the
gold which I had scattered. I performed such follies as made
Swiftwater Bill famous when, after he had squabbled with his
'lady-friend,' and he saw her ordering eggs, of which she happened to
be fond, he bought up every egg in town at a dollar a piece, nine
hundred in all, and smashed them, to spite her, against the side of
her house. I was a confounded fool; if I hadn't been, I shouldn't have
quarrelled with you, and we shouldn't have been here now--we might
have been in El Dorado, perhaps.

"Well, when I'd blown a good part of my money over stupidities for
which I scarcely received even pleasure in return, I awoke to the fact
that my workings had ceased to bear. Already the Sleeping River had
got a bad name and was deserted; it was a commonplace that 'Drunkman's
Shallows was played out.' I wouldn't acknowledge it. I took pride in
the Shallows because I had discovered them; I wasted the remainder of
my money in buying up other men's useless claims, and in engaging men
to work them. Towards the end, even I had to own to myself that the
streaks had pinched out and the Shallows were barren; but out of
desperate bravado I kept on until my money was at an end. Then, when I
was clean broke, I chose out a partner and went prospecting once
again.

"At first we found nothing, for, as I say, when you left me my luck
departed. For months we wandered, finding only pay and colours, till
we entered the Squaw River and discovered what we wanted at Gold Bug
Bend. We stayed there working and testing the dirt till well into
January; then one day we drifted into a streak which panned out
twenty dollars to the pan, and so