e said, "it's cheap at the price just to find out that
it wasn't a system." His face began to work, and then he broke into
laughter and slapped Smoke on the shoulder. "Smoke, you had us going for
a while, and we patting ourselves on the back because you were letting
our tables alone! Say, I've got some real fizz I'll open if you'll all
come over to the Tivoli with me."

Later, back in the cabin, Shorty silently overhauled and hefted the
various bulging gold-sacks. He finally piled them on the table, sat down
on the edge of his bunk, and began taking off his moccasins.

"Seventy thousan'," he calculated. "It weighs three hundred and fifty
pounds. And all out of a warped wheel an' a quick eye. Smoke, you
eat'm raw, you eat'm alive, you work under water, you've given me the
jim-jams; but just the same I know it's a dream. It's only in dreams
that the good things comes true. I'm almighty unanxious to wake up. I
hope I never wake up."

"Cheer up," Smoke answered. "You won't. There are a lot of philosophy
sharps that think men are sleep-walkers. You're in good company."

Shorty got up, went to the table, selected the heaviest sack, and
cuddled it in his arms as if it were a baby. "I may be sleep-walkin',"
he said, "but as you say, I'm sure in mighty good company."

V. THE MAN ON THE OTHER BANK.

It was before Smoke Bellew staked the farcical town-site of Tra-Lee,
made the historic corner of eggs that nearly broke Swiftwater Bill's
bank account, or won the dog-team race down the Yukon for an even
million dollars, that he and Shorty parted company on the Upper
Klondike. Shorty's task was to return down the Klondike to Dawson to
record some claims they had staked.

Smoke, with the dog-team, turned south. His quest was Surprise Lake and
the mythical Two Cabins. His traverse was to cut the headwaters of the
Indian River and cross the unknown region over the mountains to the
Stewart River. Here, somewhere, rumour persisted, was Surprise Lake,
surrounded by jagged mountains and glaciers, its bottom paved with raw
gold. Old-timers, it was said, whose very names were forgotten in the
frosts of earlier years, had dived into the icy waters of Surprise Lake
and fetched lump-gold to the surface in both hands. At different times,
parties of old-timers had penetrated the forbidding fastness and sampled
the lake's golden bottom. But the water was too cold. Some died in the
water, being pulled up dead. Others died later of cons