I kicked my blistered heels in the air and grunted aimless
encouragement.

"I was prospectin' a claim on Caribou Creek, and had her punched as
full of holes as a sponge cake, when the necessity of a change
appealed to me. I was out of everything more nourishing than hope
and one slab of pay-streaked bacon, when two tenderfeet 'mushed' up
the gulch, and invited themselves into my cabin to watch me pan.
It's the simplest thing known to science to salt a tenderfoot, so I
didn't have no trouble in selling out for three thousand dollars.

"You see, they couldn't kick, 'cause some of us 'old timers' was
bound to get their money anyhow--just a question of time; and their
inexperience was cheap at the price. Also, they was real nice boys,
and I hated to see 'em fall amongst them crooks at Dawson. It was a
short-horned triumph, though. Like the Dead Sea biscuits of
Scripture, it turned to ashes in my mouth. It wasn't three days
later that they struck it; right in my last shaft, within a foot of
where I quit diggin'. They rocked out fifty ounces first day. When
the news filtered to me, of course, I never made no holler. I
couldn't--that is, honestly--but I bought a six hundred dollar grub
stake, loaded it aboard a dory, and--having instructed the trader
regarding the disposition of my mortal, drunken remains, I fanned
through that camp like a prairie fire shot in the sirloin with a hot
wind.

"Of course, it wasn't such a big spree; nothing gaudy or Swedelike;
but them that should know, claimed it was a model of refinement.
Yes, I have got many encomiums on its general proportions and
artistic finish. One hundred dollars an hour for twenty-four hours,
all in red licker, confined to and in me and my choicest
sympathizers. I reckon all our booze combined would have made a fair
sluice-head. Anyhow, I woke up considerable farther down the dim
vistas of time and about the same distance down the Yukon, in the
bottom of my dory, seekin' new fields at six miles an hour. The
trader had follered my last will and testament scrupulous, even to
coverin' up my legs.

"That's how I drifted into Rampart City, and Justus Morrow.

"This here town was the same as any new camp; a mile long and
eighteen inches wide, consisting of saloons, dance-halls, saloons,
trading-posts, saloons, places to get licker, and saloons. Might not
have been so many dancehalls and trading-posts as I've mentioned, and
a few more saloons.

"I dropped i