lerk, the Halfbreed and
Bullhammer, while three days' start ahead were the Winklesteins.

"These Jews have the only system," commented the Prodigal; "they ran the
'Elight' Restaurant in Bennett and got action on their beans and flour
and bacon. The Madam cooked, the old man did the chores and the girl
waited on table. They've roped in a bunch of money, and now they've lit
out for Dawson in a nice, tight little scow with their outfits turned
into wads of the long green."

I kept a keen lookout for them and every day I hoped we would overtake
their scow, for constantly I thought of Berna. Her little face, so
wistfully tender, haunted me, and over and over in my mind I kept
recalling our last meeting.

At times I blamed myself for letting her go so easily, and then again I
was thankful that I had not allowed my heart to run away with my head.
For I was beginning to wonder if I had not given her my heart, given it
easily, willingly and without reserve. And in truth at the idea I felt
a strange thrill of joy. The girl seemed to me all that was fair,
lovable and sweet.

We were now skimming over Tagish Lake. With grey head bared to the
breeze and a hymn stave on his lips, Salvation Jim steered in the strong
sunlight. His face was full of cheer, his eyes alight with kindly hope.
Leaning over the side, the Prodigal was dragging a spoon-bait to catch
the monster trout that lived in those depths. The Jam-wagon, as if
disgusted at our enforced idleness, slumbered at the bow. As he slept I
noticed his fine nostrils, his thin, bitter lips, his bare brawny arms,
tattooed with strange devices. How clean he kept his teeth and nails!
There was the stamp of the thoroughbred all over him. In what strange
parts of the world had he run amuck? What fair, gracious women mourned
for him in far-away England?

Ah, those enchanted days, the sky spaces abrim with light, the
gargantuan mountains, the eager army of adventurers, undismayed at the
gloomy vastness!

We came to Windy Arm, rugged, desolate and despairful. Down it, with
menace and terror on its wings, rushes the furious wind, driving boats
and scows crashing on an iron shore. In the night we heard shouts; we
saw wreckage piled up on the beach, but we pulled away. For twelve weary
hours we pulled at the oars, and in the end our danger was past.

We came to Lake Tagish; a dead calm, a blazing sun, a seething mist of
mosquitoes. We sweltered in the heat; we strained, with blistered