of
this woman of his kind. In dim and fiery ways a feeling of possession
mastered him. It seemed that all that was necessary was for him to walk
up to this Joy Gastell, take her hand in his, and say "Come."

It was in this mood that he discovered something that made him forget
empery over the white feet of woman. At the valley rim he blazed no
corner-stake. He did not reach the valley rim, but, instead, he found
himself confronted by another stream. He lined up with his eye a blasted
willow tree and a big and recognizable spruce. He returned to the stream
where were the center-stakes. He followed the bed of the creek around a
wide horseshoe bend through the flat and found that the two creeks were
the same creek. Next, he floundered twice through the snow from valley
rim to valley rim, running the first line from the lower stake of
'twenty-seven,' the second from the upper stake of 'twenty-eight,' and
he found that THE UPPER STAKE OF THE LATTER WAS LOWER THAN THE LOWER
STAKE OF THE FORMER. In the gray twilight and half-darkness Shorty had
located their two claims on the horseshoe.

Smoke plodded back to the little camp. Shorty, at the end of washing a
pan of gravel, exploded at sight of him.

"We got it!" Shorty cried, holding out the pan. "Look at it! A nasty
mess of gold. Two hundred right there if it's a cent. She runs rich
from the top of the wash-gravel. I've churned around placers some, but I
never got butter like what's in this pan."

Smoke cast an incurious glance at the coarse gold, poured himself a
cup of coffee at the fire, and sat down. Joy sensed something wrong
and looked at him with eagerly solicitous eyes. Shorty, however, was
disgruntled by his partner's lack of delight in the discovery.

"Why don't you kick in an' get excited?" he demanded. "We got our pile
right here, unless you're stickin' up your nose at two-hundred-dollar
pans."

Smoke took a swallow of coffee before replying. "Shorty, why are our two
claims here like the Panama Canal?"

"What's the answer?"

"Well, the eastern entrance of the Panama Canal is west of the western
entrance, that's all."

"Go on," Shorty said. "I ain't seen the joke yet."

"In short, Shorty, you staked our two claims on a big horseshoe bend."

Shorty set the gold pan down in the snow and stood up. "Go on," he
repeated.

"The upper stake of 'twenty-eight' is ten feet below the lower stake of
'twenty-seven.'"

"You mean we ain't got nothin', Smoke?"