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take me with my brother here to your gold creek, or any gold creek that
is not taken up by white men already. Understand, Pete?"

The Indian nodded. He loved liquor better than gold, but Yukon
authorities had prohibited the sale of the stuff to Indians, and
strictly enforced the law, so, though he had attempted in various ways
to purchase it in Dawson he had not been successful. Here was the offer
of a whole gallon in exchange for gold so far away that the white man
would probably die before he reached it, even if he attempted to cover
the distance; and the Indian acquiesced in the bargain.

Thomas MacDougall wanted to be shown some of Pete's gold, and so
remarked; whereupon the latter thrust his hand into his trouser's
pockets, well hidden by the fur parkie he wore, took out a poke and
threw it upon the table. When Thomas had untied the string and held the
moose-hide sack by its two lower corners bottom upwards there clattered
out upon the boards enough of good-sized golden nuggets to cause the
eyes of the doubter to sparkle with interest.

"Are you sure you did not steal these from some white man's cabin on
Bonanza or Eldorado, Pete?" queried the skeptic Thomas.

"No steal 'um,--catch 'um big crik,--plent' gold,--heap. You sabee?"

Thomas understood, but only partly believed. His brother argued that it
was a case of "nothing venture, nothing have" and he would take the risk
and follow Pete into the wintry wilderness.

If indecision is a sign of weak minds then there are but few
feeble-minded men in an Alaskan gold camp. Here men decide matters
quickly. It is touch and go with them. This trip might mean the end of
all things earthly to the two MacDougalls, but they determined to make
the venture. They might fail of finding gold in quantities, but that was
their fate if they remained in Dawson. They could die but once. Having
risked so much, and come so far already, it was small effort to stake
still more of time, effort and money, and they decided to follow Pete.

A week later the two brothers, (their company augmented by two white men
and as many Indians, besides long-haired Pete, the guide) might have
been seen slowly but carefully making their way through the snowy hill
region of the headwaters of the Klondyke River. Mapped carelessly, as it
often is, this appears a small and unpretending stream; but to the
Indian or prospector who has tracked its length from a small creeklet at
starting to a wide and rushi