ermometer registered fifteen below zero, and in
the Klondike winter fifteen below is esteemed very warm.

At a few minutes before midnight, leaving Shorty with the dogs five
hundred yards down the creek, Smoke joined the racers on Number Three.
There were forty-five of them waiting the start for the thousand
thousand dollars Cyrus Johnson had left lying in the frozen gravel.
Each man carried six stakes and a heavy wooden mallet, and was clad in a
smock-like parka of heavy cotton drill.

Lieutenant Pollock, in a big bearskin coat, looked at his watch by the
light of a fire. It lacked a minute of midnight. "Make ready," he said,
as he raised a revolver in his right hand and watched the second hand
tick. Lieutenant Pollock, in a big bearskin coat, looked at his watch by
the light of a fire. It lacked a minute of midnight. "Make ready," he
said, as he raised a revolver in his right hand and watched the second
hand tick around.

Forty-five hoods were thrown back from the parkas. Forty-five pairs of
hands unmittened, and forty-five pairs of moccasins pressed tensely into
the packed snow. Also, forty-five stakes were thrust into the snow, and
the same number of mallets lifted in the air.

The shot rang out, and the mallets fell. Cyrus Johnson's right to
the million had expired. To prevent confusion, Lieutenant Pollock
had insisted that the lower center-stake be driven first, next the
south-eastern; and so on around the four sides, including the upper
center-stake on the way.

Smoke drove in his stake and was away with the leading dozen. Fires had
been lighted at the corners, and by each fire stood a policeman, list in
hand, checking off the names of the runners. A man was supposed to call
out his name and show his face. There was to be no staking by proxy
while the real racer was off and away down the creek.

At the first corner, beside Smoke's stake, Von Schroeder placed his. The
mallets struck at the same instant. As they hammered, more arrived from
behind and with such impetuosity as to get in one another's way and
cause jostling and shoving. Squirming through the press and calling his
name to the policeman, Smoke saw the Baron, struck in collision by one
of the rushers, hurled clean off his feet into the snow. But Smoke did
not wait. Others were still ahead of him. By the light of the vanishing
fire, he was certain that he saw the back, hugely looming, of Big Olaf,
and at the southwestern corner Big Olaf and he drove