wasn't much to choose from,
then--an' begins to pan again. But the luck had turned, an' I didn't
strike nothin' rich.

"I stayed at Forty-Mile that winter, buildin' fires at night on the
frozen dirt to thaw it, an', next day, shovelin' an' haulin' it up to
the top o' my little shaft on the windlass I'd made myself. The pile
o' pay dirt had to be left till the spring thaws for cleanin' up.

"Ten years I stayed inside, goin' from one placer on the Yukon to
another, makin' a livin', an' that's about all. Now an' again, when I
gets a bit ahead, I sends a bag o' dust to Bull's little gal.

"In '98, I joins the rush to Nome, an' there's a roarin' wild town!
But luck ain't runnin' my way. Like the rest, I starts to wash the
sand o' the sea-beach, the last place a prospector'd ever look. I
clean up thirty a day, maybe, jest enough to keep goin'. I'm no
richer'n no poorer'n I was ten years afore, but I got Bull's little
gal to work for, an' that keeps me pluggin'.

"Then, sudden, I gets a letter from the gal, enclosin' a note she's
received. It's short:

"'Rich pay gravel here.' It's signed with a circle, an' a cross. On
the back, there's a map.

"I figures this is the Road-Agent o' Circle, an' he's dyin' an' wants
to make restitootion. It's my dooty to Bull's little gal to go an'
find the place. I've jest about money enough to go there, an' the lay
is right. There's a bank of pay gravel more'n two miles long, an' a
hundred feet deep, maybe more. It's frozen, summer'n' winter, an' too
hard for thawin' with wood fires."

Jim halted for emphasis and looked keenly at the mine-owner.

"I was thawin' it out wi' coal, when I was there," he said, slowly,
"soft, smudgy coal, brown an' sticky-like."

"What!" cried Owens in amazement. "Lignite coal?"

"Not a mile away from the gravel."

"But why, man--?" Owens stopped.

"A bunch o' Russian seal-poachers come up an' chased me off, sayin' it
was Russian territory. I believed 'em, at first. I didn't say nothin'
about the gold, but made believe I was huntin' coal. But that lignite,
as you call it, was so sure low-grade that they jest laughed at me.

"It ain't in Russian territory. It's in the United States, I've found
out that much. But minin' men don't take much stock in what I tell
'em, an' coal men say it's too long a haul. But a man wi' money what
knows coal an' knows gold, an' could do some steam thawin' an'
hydraulickin' would make good."

Owens looked at him thoughtfu