breaks up
and a few billion tons of ice go out, jamming and milling and grinding.
Just in the thick of it, when the Stewart went out, rumbling and roaring,
we sighted Spot out in the middle. He'd got caught as he was trying to
cross up above somewhere. Steve and I yelled and shouted and ran up and
down the bank, tossing our hats in the air. Sometimes we'd stop and hug
each other, we were that boisterous, for we saw Spot's finish. He didn't
have a chance in a million. He didn't have any chance at all. After the
ice-run, we got into a canoe and paddled down to the Yukon, and down the
Yukon to Dawson, stopping to feed up for a week at the cabins at the
mouth of Henderson Creek. And as we came in to the bank at Dawson, there
sat that Spot, waiting for us, his ears pricked up, his tail wagging, his
mouth smiling, extending a hearty welcome to us. Now how did he get out
of that ice? How did he know we were coming to Dawson, to the very hour
and minute, to be out there on the bank waiting for us?

The more I think of that Spot, the more I am convinced that there are
things in this world that go beyond science. On no scientific grounds
can that Spot be explained. It's psychic phenomena, or mysticism, or
something of that sort, I guess, with a lot of Theosophy thrown in. The
Klondike is a good country. I might have been there yet, and become a
millionaire, if it hadn't been for Spot. He got on my nerves. I stood
him for two years altogether, and then I guess my stamina broke. It was
the summer of 1899 when I pulled out. I didn't say anything to Steve. I
just sneaked. But I fixed it up all right. I wrote Steve a note, and
enclosed a package of "rough-on-rats," telling him what to do with it. I
was worn down to skin and bone by that Spot, and I was that nervous that
I'd jump and look around when there wasn't anybody within hailing
distance. But it was astonishing the way I recuperated when I got quit
of him. I got back twenty pounds before I arrived in San Francisco, and
by the time I'd crossed the ferry to Oakland I was my old self again, so
that even my wife looked in vain for any change in me.

Steve wrote to me once, and his letter seemed irritated. He took it kind
of hard because I'd left him with Spot. Also, he said he'd used the
"rough-on-rats," per directions, and that there was nothing doing. A
year went by. I was back in the office and prospering in all ways--even
getting a bit fat. And then