or my money.

"The more I thought of it, the less I liked the notion o' goin' back
over the Chilkoot Pass. Savin' for the first climb, the out trail was
worse'n the in. All the rapids'd have to be portaged.

"What was more, the news o' the Forty-Mile strike had reached the
outside, an' the human buzzards was a-flockin' in. The Canadian
authorities held the camps in a tight grip, but the trail was a
No-Man's-Land. A sour-dough comin' out from a strike stood a good
chance o' bein' plugged for his gold an' no one the wiser.

"A few weeks after the Forty-Mile strike, a rich placer had been
located at Circle, a hundred miles lower down on the Yukon an' across
the Alaskan Boundary jest above where Circle City is now. Nothin' was
easier'n to buy a small row-boat an' float down the Yukon to Circle.
The rapids wasn't worth speakin' about. At Circle we'd take the river
craft runnin' to Fort Yukon, an' then ship on board the steamer for
St. Michael, Skagway an' 'Frisco.

"No weary miles o' hoofin' it on the trail, no portages, no work, jest
sit in a boat an' take it easy! That hundred thousand made me feel too
lazy to move.

"We got the boat, bein' willin' to pay whatever fancy price was asked.
While she was still tied up at Forty-Mile, one o' the North West
Mounted Police come up an' asked us where we was headin'. We told him.
He wanted to know how many were goin'. There was my pardner, Bull
Evans, me, an' four more. He shakes his head.

"'That's about twenty too few,' says he. 'Are you takin' the dust
along?'

"'Right with us, Johnny,' says we.

"'You've got more gold'n you have sense,' he comes back, cheerfully.
'Better wait a month or so. We're goin' to convoy a party through the
White Pass to Skagway, takin' the express an' the bank gold, an' you
can come along, safe.'

"'It's too long a trail for millionaires,' says we.

"'A dead millionaire ain't worth much,' he says. 'You'll have your
bones picked clean by the crows if you get across the border that
a-way. Alaska ain't the Dominion, not by a long shot.'

"That hit us wrong. We thought he was jest bluffin', tryin' to make
out that Canada was the only country that could run things right. Most
of us was from the U. S., an' we grouched at his pokin' in.

"'Law an' order's as good 'tother side o' the line as it is here!'
says Bull.

"'Have it your own way! I'll send the patrol boat with you as far as
the border. I can't do no more.'

"We didn't want the patro