e flat came the answering
whistles of the relays. Shorty was at the gee-pole, and Smoke and
Saltman walked side by side.

"Look here, Bill," Smoke said. "I'll make you a proposition. Do you want
to come in alone on this?"

Saltman did not hesitate. "An' throw the gang down? No, sir. We'll all
come in."

"You first, then," Smoke exclaimed, lurching into a clinch and tipping
the other into deep snow beside the trail.

Shorty hawed the dogs and swung the team to the south on the trail that
led among the scattered cabins on the rolling slopes to the rear of
Dawson. Smoke and Saltman, locked together, rolled in the snow. Smoke
considered himself in gilt-edged condition, but Saltman outweighed him
by fifty pounds of clean, trail-hardened muscle and repeatedly mastered
him. Time and time again he got Smoke on his back, and Smoke lay
complacently and rested. But each time Saltman attempted to get off him
and get away, Smoke reached out a detaining, tripping hand that brought
about a new clinch and wrestle.

"You can go some," Saltman acknowledged, panting at the end of ten
minutes, as he sat astride Smoke's chest. "But I down you every time."

"And I hold you every time," Smoke panted back. "That's what I'm here
for, just to hold you. Where do you think Shorty's getting to all this
time?"

Saltman made a wild effort to go clear, and all but succeeded. Smoke
gripped his ankle and threw him in a headlong tumble. From down the hill
came anxious questioning whistles. Saltman sat up and whistled a shrill
answer, and was grappled by Smoke, who rolled him face upward and sat
astride his chest, his knees resting on Saltman's biceps, his hands
on Saltman's shoulders and holding him down. And in this position the
stampeders found them. Smoke laughed and got up.

"Well, good-night, fellows," he said, and started down the hill, with
sixty exasperated and grimly determined stampeders at his heels.

He turned north past the sawmill and the hospital and took the river
trail along the precipitous bluffs at the base of Moosehide Mountain.
Circling the Indian village, he held on to the mouth of Moose Creek,
then turned and faced his pursuers.

"You make me tired," he said, with a good imitation of a snarl.

"Hope we ain't a-forcin' you," Saltman murmured politely.

"Oh, no, not at all," Smoke snarled with an even better imitation, as
he passed among them on the back-trail to Dawson. Twice he attempted to
cross the trailless icejam