between them and this garbage dump of creation. They never want to hear
the name of Yukon again except as a cuss-word. I'm going to keep on
buying outfits. You boys see if I don't clean up a bunch of money."

"It's too bad to take advantage of them," I suggested.

"Too bad nothing! That's business; your necessity, my opportunity. Oh,
you'd never make a money-getter, my boy, this side of the
millennium--and you Scotch too."

"That's nothing," said Jim; "wait till I tell you of the deal I made
to-day. You recollect I packed a flat-iron among my stuff, an' you boys
joshed me about it, said I was bughouse. But I figured out: there's
camp-meetin's an' socials up there, an' a nice, dinky, white shirt once
in a way goes pretty good. Anyway, thinks I, if there ain't no one else
to dress for in that wilderness, I'll dress for the Almighty. So I
sticks to my old flat-iron."

He looked at us with a twinkle in his eye and then went on.

"Well, it seems there's only three more flat-irons in camp, an' all the
hot sports wantin' boiled shirts done up, an' all the painted Jezebels
hollerin' to have their lingery fixed, an' the wash-ladies just goin'
round crazy for flat-irons. Well, I didn't want to sell mine, but the
old coloured lady that runs the Bong Tong Laundry (an' a sister in the
Lord) came to me with tears in her eyes, an' at last I was prevailed on
to separate from it."

"How much, Jim?"

"Well, I didn't want to be too hard on the old girl, so I let her down
easy."

"How much?"

"Well, you see there's only three or four of them flat-irons in camp, so
I asked a hundred an' fifty dollars, an' quick's a flash, she took me
into a store an' paid me in gold-dust."

He flourished a little poke of dust in our laughing faces.

"That's pretty good," I said; "everything seems topsy-turvy up here.
Why, to-day I saw a man come in with a box of apples which the crowd
begged him to open. He was selling those apples at a dollar apiece, and
the folks were just fighting to get them."

It was so with everything. Extraordinary prices ruled. Eggs and candles
had been sold for a dollar each, and potatoes for a dollar a pound;
while on the trail in '97 horse-shoe nails were selling at _a dollar a
nail_.

Once more I roamed the long street with that awful restless agony in my
heart. Where was she, my girl, so precious now it seemed I had lost her?
Why does love mean so much to some, so little to others? Perhaps I am
the victim of