ards Shorty appeared at the Elkhorn. From his
bleeding knuckles and the skin off one cheek, it was evident that he had
given Stine and Sprague what was coming.

"You ought to see that cabin," he chuckled, as they stood at the bar.
"Rough-house ain't no name for it. Dollars to doughnuts nary one of 'em
shows up on the street for a week. An' now it's all figgered out for you
an' me. Grub's a dollar an' a half a pound. They ain't no work for wages
without you have your own grub. Moose-meat's sellin' for two dollars a
pound an' they ain't none. We got enough money for a month's grub an'
ammunition, an' we hike up the Klondike to the back country. If they
ain't no moose, we go an' live with the Indians. But if we ain't got
five thousand pounds of meat six weeks from now, I'll--I'll sure go back
an' apologize to our bosses. Is it a go?"

Kit's hand went out, and they shook. Then he faltered. "I don't know
anything about hunting," he said.

Shorty lifted his glass.

"But you're a sure meat-eater, an' I'll learn you."

III. THE STAMPEDE TO SQUAW CREEK.

Two months after Smoke Bellew and Shorty went after moose for a
grub-stake, they were back in the Elkhorn saloon at Dawson. The hunting
was done, the meat hauled in and sold for two dollars and a half a
pound, and between them they possessed three thousand dollars in gold
dust and a good team of dogs. They had played in luck. Despite the fact
that the gold-rush had driven the game a hundred miles or more into the
mountains, they had, within half that distance, bagged four moose in a
narrow canyon.

The mystery of the strayed animals was no greater than the luck of their
killers, for within the day four famished Indian families, reporting no
game in three days' journey back, camped beside them. Meat was traded
for starving dogs, and after a week of feeding, Smoke and Shorty
harnessed the animals and began freighting the meat to the eager Dawson
market.

The problem of the two men now was to turn their gold-dust into food.
The current price for flour and beans was a dollar and a half a pound,
but the difficulty was to find a seller. Dawson was in the throes of
famine. Hundreds of men, with money but no food, had been compelled to
leave the country. Many had gone down the river on the last water, and
many more, with barely enough food to last, had walked the six hundred
miles over the ice to Dyea.

Smoke met Shorty in the warm saloon, and found the latter jubilan