Ophir Creek claim, whereupon he proceeded to auction off his plant
and sneak out of town without so much as making me a social call.

They were cleaning up one string of sluice-boxes the first time I went
to "15"; the water-gate in the ditch, into which a portion of the creek
had been diverted, allowed only a gentle stream to flow through the huge
boa-constrictor hose into the boxes and down over the riffles where the
bronze-colored gold shone forth distinctly. The work of the day shift
had ceased; the men were at dinner; and Shaw and one of the shift bosses
were carefully sweeping the result of a day's "run" into a gold-pan.
This finished, I accompanied him and his burden to the little cabin
which he and the bookkeeper occupied; and there found Billy West,
looking sturdier after his winter sojourn in Alaska, and engaged in
"blowing out" a pan of gold-dust--that is, eliminating the fine black
sand. In reply to my query, he said that they tried to average five
thousand dollars every twenty-four hours.

Old Jim, the excellent darky cook, gave me a cordial reception, which
was even more effusive when I gave him a cigar. He chuckled when I asked
him if he missed Mr. Sunnyside, his assistant of last season. I think
that the way Jim expressed his feelings toward Sunnyside is worth
recording. Sunnyside was a big, strapping Californian who had come up on
the _Lane_ the year before, by profession a lawyer, and doubtless
regarded by the fond inhabitants of his native town as a future Daniel
Webster. He aired a deep bass voice on the ship, and presented a very
noble and manly figure as he held up his end of the quartet. As already
observed, on the arrival of the fortune-hunters at Nome in 1900 there
were no loose nuggets lying about waiting to be picked up, and,
consequently, many of the confident newcomers were obliged to "come
right down to hard-pan." And so it happened that Sunnyside abandoned the
idea of practising law, and, later in the season, found himself
assistant-general-utility man to old Jim at 15 Ophir. He soon developed
into probably the most mournful, cheerless, pessimistic individual in
the country, and gave vent to his feelings accordingly. The country was
"God-forsaken" (as indeed it is); he suffered from several complaints on
account of the miserable climate and the lack of a feather bed; and the
days until his escape in the autumn seemed each one of a year's
duration. One day, at dinner-time, when Sunnyside ha