m. And I ain't
going out now. I get the mail and I come right back. I won't stop the
night at Dyea. I'll hit up Chilcoot soon as I change the dogs and get
the mail and grub. And so I swear once more, by the mill-tails of hell
and the head of John the Baptist, I'll never hit for the Outside till I
make my pile. And I tell you-all, here and now, it's got to be an
almighty big pile."

"How much might you call a pile?" Bettles demanded from beneath, his
arms clutched lovingly around Daylight's legs.

"Yes, how much? What do you call a pile?" others cried.

Daylight steadied himself for a moment and debated. "Four or five
millions," he said slowly, and held up his hand for silence as his
statement was received with derisive yells. "I'll be real
conservative, and put the bottom notch at a million. And for not an
ounce less'n that will I go out of the country."

Again his statement was received with an outburst of derision. Not only
had the total gold output of the Yukon up to date been below five
millions, but no man had ever made a strike of a hundred thousand, much
less of a million.

"You-all listen to me. You seen Jack Kearns get a hunch to-night. We
had him sure beat before the draw. His ornery three kings was no good.
But he just knew there was another king coming--that was his hunch--and
he got it. And I tell you-all I got a hunch. There's a big strike
coming on the Yukon, and it's just about due. I don't mean no ornery
Moosehide, Birch-Creek kind of a strike. I mean a real rip-snorter
hair-raiser. I tell you-all she's in the air and hell-bent for
election. Nothing can stop her, and she'll come up river. There's
where you-all track my moccasins in the near future if you-all want to
find me--somewhere in the country around Stewart River, Indian River,
and Klondike River. When I get back with the mail, I'll head that way
so fast you-all won't see my trail for smoke. She's a-coming, fellows,
gold from the grass roots down, a hundred dollars to the pan, and a
stampede in from the Outside fifty thousand strong. You-all'll think
all hell's busted loose when that strike is made."

He raised his glass to his lips. "Here's kindness, and hoping you-all
will be in on it."

He drank and stepped down from the chair, falling into another one of
Bettles' bear-hugs.

"If I was you, Daylight, I wouldn't mush to-day," Joe Hines counselled,
coming in from consulting the spirit thermometer outside the door