e smiled.

"And by the Jimcracky I'm squared! Got any rubber boots?"

"No; went out of stock early in the winter." Dave snickered slowly.
"And I'm the pertickler party that hocus-pocused 'em."

"Not you. I gave special orders to the clerks. They weren't sold in
lots."

"No more they wa'n't. One man to the pair and one pair to the man, and
a couple of hundred of them; but it was my dust they chucked into the
scales an nobody else's. Drink? Don't mind. Easy! Put up your sack.
Call it rebate, for I kin afford it. . . Goin' out? Not this year, I
guess. Wash-up's comin'."

A strike on Henderson the middle of April, which promised to be
sensational, drew St. Vincent to Stewart River. And a little later,
Jacob Welse, interested on Gallagher Gulch and with an eye riveted on
the copper mines of White River, went up into the same district, and
with him went Frona, for it was more vacation than business. In the
mean time, Corliss and Bishop, who had been on trail for a month or
more running over the Mayo and McQuestion Country, rounded up on the
left fork of Henderson, where a block of claims waited to be surveyed.

But by May, spring was so far advanced that travel on the creeks became
perilous, and on the last of the thawing ice the miners travelled down
to the bunch of islands below the mouth of the Stewart, where they went
into temporary quarters or crowded the hospitality of those who
possessed cabins. Corliss and Bishop located on Split-up Island (so
called through the habit parties from the Outside had of dividing there
and going several ways), where Tommy McPherson was comfortably
situated. A couple of days later, Jacob Welse and Frona arrived from a
hazardous trip out of White River, and pitched tent on the high ground
at the upper end of Split-up. A few _chechaquos_, the first of the
spring rush, strung in exhausted and went into camp against the
breaking of the river. Also, there were still men going out who,
barred by the rotten ice, came ashore to build poling-boats and await
the break-up or to negotiate with the residents for canoes. Notably
among these was the Baron Courbertin.

"Ah! Excruciating! Magnificent! Is it not?"

So Frona first ran across him on the following day. "What?" she asked,
giving him her hand.

"You! You!" doffing his cap. "It is a delight!"

"I am sure--" she began.

"No! No!" He shook his curly mop warmly. "It is not you. See!" He
turned to a Peterbor