rail up the canyon--that is, in
going up and down he had stepped always in his previous tracks. As a
result, in the midst of soft snow, and veiled under later snow falls,
was a line of irregular hummocks. If one's foot missed a hummock, he
plunged down through unpacked snow and usually to a fall. Also, the
moose-hunter had been an exceptionally long-legged individual. Joy, who
was eager now that the two men should stake, and fearing that they were
slackening their pace on account of her evident weariness, insisted
on taking her turn in the lead. The speed and manner in which she
negotiated the precarious footing called out Shorty's unqualified
approval.

"Look at her!" he cried. "She's the real goods an' the red meat. Look at
them moccasins swing along. No high-heels there. She uses the legs God
gave her. She's the right squaw for any bear-hunter."

She flashed back a smile of acknowledgment that included Smoke. He
caught a feeling of chumminess, though at the same time he was bitingly
aware that it was very much of a woman who embraced him in that
comradely smile.

Looking back, as they came to the bank of Squaw Creek, they could see
the stampede, strung out irregularly, struggling along the descent of
the divide.

They slipped down the bank to the creek bed. The stream, frozen solidly
to bottom, was from twenty to thirty feet wide and ran between six- and
eight-foot earth banks of alluvial wash. No recent feet had disturbed
the snow that lay upon its ice, and they knew they were above the
Discovery claim and the last stakes of the Sea Lion stampeders.

"Look out for springs," Joy warned, as Smoke led the way down the creek.
"At seventy below you'll lose your feet if you break through."

These springs, common to most Klondike streams, never cease at the
lowest temperatures. The water flows out from the banks and lies in
pools which are cuddled from the cold by later surface-freezings and
snow falls. Thus, a man, stepping on dry snow, might break through half
an inch of ice-skin and find himself up to the knees in water. In five
minutes, unless able to remove the wet gear, the loss of one's foot was
the penalty.

Though only three in the afternoon, the long grey twilight of the Arctic
had settled down. They watched for a blazed tree on either bank, which
would show the center-stake of the last claim located. Joy, impulsively
eager, was the first to find it. She darted ahead of Smoke, crying:
"Somebody's been he