Steve arrived. He didn't look me up. I
read his name in the steamer list, and wondered why. But I didn't wonder
long. I got up one morning and found that Spot chained to the gate-post
and holding up the milkman. Steve went north to Seattle, I learned, that
very morning. I didn't put on any more weight. My wife made me buy him
a collar and tag, and within an hour he showed his gratitude by killing
her pet Persian cat. There is no getting rid of that Spot. He will be
with me until I die, for he'll never die. My appetite is not so good
since he arrived, and my wife says I am looking peaked. Last night that
Spot got into Mr. Harvey's hen-house (Harvey is my next-door neighbour)
and killed nineteen of his fancy-bred chickens. I shall have to pay for
them. My neighbours on the other side quarrelled with my wife and then
moved out. Spot was the cause of it. And that is why I am disappointed
in Stephen Mackaye. I had no idea he was so mean a man.

FLUSH OF GOLD

Lon McFane was a bit grumpy, what of losing his tobacco pouch, or else he
might have told me, before we got to it, something about the cabin at
Surprise Lake. All day, turn and turn about, we had spelled each other
at going to the fore and breaking trail for the dogs. It was heavy
snowshoe work, and did not tend to make a man voluble, yet Lon McFane
might have found breath enough at noon, when we stopped to boil coffee,
with which to tell me. But he didn't. Surprise Lake? it was Surprise
Cabin to me. I had never heard of it before. I confess I was a bit
tired. I had been looking for Lon to stop and make camp any time for an
hour; but I had too much pride to suggest making camp or to ask him his
intentions; and yet he was my man, lured at a handsome wage to mush my
dogs for me and to obey my commands. I guess I was a bit grumpy myself.
He said nothing, and I was resolved to ask nothing, even if we tramped on
all night.

We came upon the cabin abruptly. For a week of trail we had met no one,
and, in my mind, there had been little likelihood of meeting any one for
a week to come. And yet there it was, right before my eyes, a cabin,
with a dim light in the window and smoke curling up from the chimney.

"Why didn't you tell me--" I began, but was interrupted by Lon, who
muttered--

"Surprise Lake--it lies up a small feeder half a mile on. It's only a
pond."

"Yes, but the cabin--who lives in it?"

"A woman," was the answer, and the