umption. And one
who had gone down never did come up. All survivors had planned to return
and drain the lake, yet none had ever gone back. Disaster always smote
them. One man fell into an air-hole below Forty Mile; another was killed
and eaten by his dogs; a third was crushed by a falling tree. And so the
tale ran. Surprise Lake was a hoodoo; its location was unremembered; and
the gold still paved its undrained bottom.

Two Cabins, no less mythical, was more definitely located. "Five
sleeps," up the McQuestion River from the Stewart, stood two ancient
cabins. So ancient were they that they must have been built before
ever the first known gold-hunter had entered the Yukon Basin. Wandering
moose-hunters, whom even Smoke had met and talked with, claimed to have
found the two cabins in the old days, but to have sought vainly for the
mine which those early adventurers must have worked.

"I wish you was goin' with me," Shorty said wistfully, at parting. "Just
because you got the Indian bug ain't no reason for to go pokin' into
trouble. They's no gettin' away from it, that's loco country you're
bound for. The hoodoo's sure on it, from the first flip to the last
call, judgin' from all you an' me has hearn tell about it."

"It's all right, Shorty," replied Smoke. "I'll make the round trip and
be back in Dawson in six weeks. The Yukon trail is packed, and the first
hundred miles or so of the Stewart ought to be packed. Old-timers from
Henderson have told me a number of outfits went up last fall after the
freeze-up. When I strike their trail I ought to hit her up forty or
fifty miles a day. I'm likely to be back inside a month, once I get
across."

"Yep, once you get acrost. But it's the gettin' acrost that worries me.
Well, so long, Smoke. Keep your eyes open for that hoodoo, that's all.
An' don't be ashamed to turn back if you don't kill any meat."

A week later, Smoke found himself among the jumbled ranges south of
Indian River. On the divide from the Klondike he had abandoned the sled
and packed his wolf-dogs. The six big huskies each carried fifty pounds,
and on his own back was an equal burden. Through the soft snow he led
the way, packing it down under his snow-shoes, and behind, in single
file, toiled the dogs.

He loved the life, the deep arctic winter, the silent wilderness,
the unending snow-surface unpressed by the foot of any man. About him
towered icy peaks unnamed and uncharted. No hunter's camp-smoke, risin