nt almost as
quickly as his brother. There was a crowd in the roadway outside, but
they quickly forced a passage through, and ran for the steamer dock. A
large number of outfits were spread here, there, and everywhere, but the
spot where they had left those belonging to their own party was vacant.

CHAPTER X.

UP THE LYNN CANAL.

Randy and Earl gazed about them in hopeless bewilderment. The outfits
belonging to themselves, their uncle, and to Captain Zoss were gone. Who
had taken them, and was there any chance of recovery?

"We should have looked after them," said Earl, bitterly. "It was
foolishness to leave the stuff, especially after Uncle Foster had warned
us."

"I wonder if any of those miners who lost their outfits from the steamer
are guilty," said Randy, as they started on another tour of the Juneau
wharf. "I remember one fellow with a red beard and a scar on his nose
who looked at the stuff rather closely when we came ashore."

"Let us start to make inquiries, Randy. We must get our outfits back. If
we don't, Uncle Foster will never forgive us."

"Yes, and we'll be in a pickle besides," groaned the younger brother.
"By the look of things in this settlement mining outfits are rather
scarce."

"Yes, I heard one man saying that about everything worth having had been
gobbled up several weeks ago and the storekeepers were awaiting new
consignments from San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle."

With anxious hearts they walked around the wharf and along a side road,
also piled high with miners' goods and steamer freight. Presently a man
joined them. It was Captain Zoss.

"Well, whar's our packs?" he questioned, and looked glum when told of
what had occurred. "By the boots, lads, we must find 'em--ain't no two
ways about that! Why, to go to the mines without tools would be wuss nor
a hen sittin' on a nest without eggs. Been all over the dock, yer say?"
He paused an instant. "I'll make a round o' the saloons. If the things
was stolen, like as not the thieves would want to git 'em out of sight
in quick order, eh?"

He was about to leave them, when they were hailed by a man standing near
the entrance to a new store that was going up on the opposite side of
the way. It was the doctor who had so kindly come to Fred Dobson's
assistance.

"What's up?" he called out. "Looking for your traps? They're all right.
I had them brought up here for safe keeping when you went off with the
sick lad. I knew they woul