ey're all
fireflies--that one, an' that one. Look at 'em! Believe me, they is a
whole string of processions ahead."

It was a mile across the jams to the west bank of the Yukon, and candles
flickered the full length of the twisting trail. Behind them, clear to
the top of the bank they had descended, were more candles.

"Say, Smoke, this ain't no stampede. It's a exode-us. They must be a
thousand men ahead of us an' ten thousand behind. Now, you listen to
your uncle. My medicine's good. When I get a hunch it's sure right. An'
we're in wrong on this stampede. Let's turn back an' hit the sleep."

"You'd better save your breath if you intend to keep up," Smoke retorted
gruffly.

"Huh! My legs is short, but I slog along slack at the knees an' don't
worry my muscles none, an' I can sure walk every piker here off the
ice."

And Smoke knew he was right, for he had long since learned his comrade's
phenomenal walking powers.

"I've been holding back to give you a chance," Smoke jeered.

"An' I'm plum troddin' on your heels. If you can't do better, let me go
ahead and set pace."

Smoke quickened, and was soon at the rear of the nearest bunch of
stampeders.

"Hike along, you, Smoke," the other urged. "Walk over them unburied
dead. This ain't no funeral. Hit the frost like you was goin'
somewheres."

Smoke counted eight men and two women in this party, and before the
way across the jam-ice was won, he and Shorty had passed another party
twenty strong. Within a few feet of the west bank, the trail swerved to
the south, emerging from the jam upon smooth ice. The ice, however, was
buried under several feet of fine snow. Through this the sled-trail ran,
a narrow ribbon of packed footing barely two feet in width. On either
side one sank to his knees and deeper in the snow. The stampeders they
overtook were reluctant to give way, and often Smoke and Shorty had to
plunge into the deep snow and by supreme efforts flounder past.

Shorty was irrepressible and pessimistic. When the stampeders resented
being passed, he retorted in kind.

"What's your hurry?" one of them asked.

"What's yours?" he answered. "A stampede come down from Indian River
yesterday afternoon an' beat you to it. They ain't no claims left."

"That being so, I repeat, what's your hurry?"

"WHO? Me? I ain't no stampeder. I'm workin' for the government. I'm on
official business. I'm just traipsin' along to take the census of Squaw
Creek."

To another, wh