ied the man addressed, laughing,
but without promising. "So long!"

"So long," called out the bartender in reply. Then to those in the room:
"Them fellers are hittin' the trail in good shape with all they need for
six weeks, but when that's gone they'll have ter come to us to fill up
again. There aint no other place this side of Nome to buy a hunk of
terbac that I knows of, eh, Curley?"

"Nope, nor drinks, nor grub neither, by Jove!" removing the smutty cob
pipe from between his teeth in order to smile widely as was habitual
with Curley.

"I wish 'em much joy with that Selawik gang," said the man behind the
bar.

"Well, there's a few whites there, and then there's ole Kuikutuk and his
brood, besides a dozen other natives. Does the ole shaman's squaw still
live in his igloo?"

"Oh, yes, I guess so. She did the last I heerd," answered the other.

"Ole Kuik better look sharp when Gibbs gits there, for I have heerd that
the young fool was awful sweet on his pretty woman last year," and wide
smiling Curly pulled his parkie hood over his head preparatory to
leaving the roadhouse, after delivering himself of this piece of gossip.

"Them chaps is swelled up now all right enough, but just wait a bit.
They may come back with their feathers picked, for the job they've
struck aint a summer picnic, and that's no josh, either."

In this manner were the departed miners and their actions commented
upon; not in the most complimentary way, to be sure, as is the custom
with many when those around them seem prosperous.

In the meantime the prospectors pushed on. Lakes, rivers and mountains
were crossed. In the latter the lowest passes and the most used trails
were selected, but these were always rough and bewildering at best--a
few blazoned spruces on the hills or hatchet-hacked willows near the
creeks, a tin can placed upon a stake or a bit of rag flying from a
twig; all these but poorly marked the paths which were seldom pressed by
the foot of a human being. Weeks might elapse, or months even, when no
soul passed that way. Perhaps the whir of a partridge's wing as he flew
from one feeding ground to another on the tundra was the only sound
disturbing the still air for hours; or when a red fox, made sprightly by
hunger, left as few foot-prints on the snow as possible, by leaping with
great bounds forward to the hills.

Buckland River and its tributaries were left behind. No gold of any
account had as yet been found in their vic