of flying sparks, as they were to the pain in their
fever-racked bodies.

It was lucky they were still able to make a fire. The flames gave them
warmth and kept the wolves at bay. But for that and the occasional
small game they had been able to shoot, they would have perished long
ago, and then the gold-fever would have claimed two victims more. For
days and days they had tramped aimlessly through that wild region,
prospecting for the yellow metal, until, footsore and weary, nature at
last gave way. They had lost their bearings and could go no farther.
Miles away from the nearest human habitation, they were face to face
with death from starvation. Then the weather changed; it suddenly grew
very cold; before they knew it, the blizzard was upon them. The
suffering had been terrible, the obstacles inconceivable, yet they
never faltered. A goal lay before them, and they pushed right on,
determined to attain it. The prospector for gold plays for heavy
stakes--a fortune or his life. Never willing to acknowledge defeat,
undeterred by continual, heart-breaking disappointment, still he pushes
on. Spurred by the irresistible lure of gold, there is no place so
dangerous or so difficult of access that he will not penetrate to it.
In winter he perishes of cold, in summer he is overcome by the heat,
yet no matter. Nothing short of death itself can stop him in his
determined, insensate quest for wealth.

It grew gradually lighter. The sky was overcast and threatening. A
light snow began to fall. One of the men shivered and opened his eyes.
Looking stupidly about him, with a long-drawn-out yawn, first at the
dying fire, then at his still unconscious mate, he jumped up with a
shout. At first he was too dazed with sleep to stand straight, and his
teeth chattered from the cold. He was also ravenously hungry. But first
they must think of the fire. That must be kept up at all costs. He was
so weak that he staggered, and his clothes hung from him in rags; but
shambling over to where his companion lay, he shook him roughly:

"Hello, Jim--hello, there! The d----d fire is almost out. Quick, man!"

Thus unceremoniously aroused from his trance-like slumber, John
Madison, or what remained of him, lifted his head and painfully raised
himself on one elbow. He was a pitiable-looking object. His hair, all
dishevelled and matted, hung down over haggard-looking eyes; his cheeks
were hollow from hunger, his ghastly pale face, livid from the cold,
was