hen I named the creek 'Bonanza,'
staked Discovery, and we come here and recorded."

He looked about him anxiously for signs of belief, but found himself in
a circle of incredulous faces--all save Daylight, who had studied his
countenance while he told his story.

"How much is Harper and Ladue givin' you for manufacturing a stampede?"
some one asked.

"They don't know nothing about it," Carmack answered. "I tell you it's
the God Almighty's truth. I washed out three ounces in an hour."

"And there's the gold," Daylight said. "I tell you-all boys they ain't
never been gold like that in the blower before. Look at the color of
it."

"A trifle darker," Curly Parson said. "Most likely Carmack's been
carrying a couple of silver dollars along in the same sack. And what's
more, if there's anything in it, why ain't Bob Henderson smoking along
to record?"

"He's up on Gold Bottom," Carmack explained. "We made the strike
coming back."

A burst of laughter was his reward.

"Who-all'll go pardners with me and pull out in a poling-boat to-morrow
for this here Bonanza?" Daylight asked.

No one volunteered.

"Then who-all'll take a job from me, cash wages in advance, to pole up
a thousand pounds of grub?"

Curly Parsons and another, Pat Monahan, accepted, and, with his
customary speed, Daylight paid them their wages in advance and arranged
the purchase of the supplies, though he emptied his sack in doing so.
He was leaving the Sourdough, when he suddenly turned back to the bar
from the door.

"Got another hunch?" was the query.

"I sure have," he answered. "Flour's sure going to be worth what a man
will pay for it this winter up on the Klondike. Who'll lend me some
money?"

On the instant a score of the men who had declined to accompany him on
the wild-goose chase were crowding about him with proffered gold-sacks.

"How much flour do you want?" asked the Alaska Commercial Company's
storekeeper.

"About two ton."

The proffered gold-sacks were not withdrawn, though their owners were
guilty of an outrageous burst of merriment.

"What are you going to do with two tons?" the store-keeper demanded.

"Son," Daylight made reply, "you-all ain't been in this country long
enough to know all its curves. I'm going to start a sauerkraut factory
and combined dandruff remedy."

He borrowed money right and left, engaging and paying six other men to
bring up the flour in half as many more poling-boats. Again his sack