Harper and Joe Ladue," said Joe Hines. "They're
always at that game. You know that big flat jest below the Klondike
and under Moosehide Mountain? Well, the recorder at Forty Mile was
tellin' me they staked that not a month ago--The Harper & Ladue Town
Site. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Elijah and Finn joined him in his laughter; but Daylight was gravely in
earnest.

"There she is!" he cried. "The hunch is working! It's in the air, I
tell you-all! What'd they-all stake the big flat for if they-all
didn't get the hunch? Wish I'd staked it."

The regret in his voice was provocative of a second burst of laughter.

"Laugh, you-all, laugh! That's what's the trouble with you-all.
You-all think gold-hunting is the only way to make a stake. But let me
tell you-all that when the big strike sure does come, you-all'll do a
little surface-scratchin' and muck-raking, but danged little you-all'll
have to show for it. You-all laugh at quicksilver in the riffles and
think flour gold was manufactured by God Almighty for the express
purpose of fooling suckers and chechaquos. Nothing but coarse gold for
you-all, that's your way, not getting half of it out of the ground and
losing into the tailings half of what you-all do get.

"But the men that land big will be them that stake the town sites,
organize the tradin' companies, start the banks--"

Here the explosion of mirth drowned him out. Banks in Alaska! The idea
of it was excruciating.

"Yep, and start the stock exchanges--"

Again they were convulsed. Joe Hines rolled over on his sleeping-robe,
holding his sides.

"And after them will come the big mining sharks that buy whole creeks
where you-all have been scratching like a lot of picayune hens, and
they-all will go to hydraulicking in summer and steam-thawing in
winter--"

Steam-thawing! That was the limit. Daylight was certainly exceeding
himself in his consummate fun-making. Steam-thawing--when even
wood-burning was an untried experiment, a dream in the air!

"Laugh, dang you, laugh! Why your eyes ain't open yet. You-all are a
bunch of little mewing kittens. I tell you-all if that strike comes on
Klondike, Harper and Ladue will be millionaires. And if it comes on
Stewart, you-all watch the Elam Harnish town site boom. In them days,
when you-all come around makin' poor mouths..." He heaved a sigh of
resignation. "Well, I suppose I'll have to give you-all a grub-stake
or soup, or something or other."

Daylight had v