of
the stampede had sustained us, and we scarcely had noted the flight of
time. We had been walking for fourteen hours, yet not a man faltered. I
was ready to drop with fatigue; my feet were a mass of blisters, and
every step was intolerable pain to me. But still our leader kept on.

"I guess we'll fool those trying to follow us," snapped Ribwood grimly.

Suddenly the Prodigal said to me: "Say, you boys will have to go on
without me. I'm all in. Go ahead, I'll follow after I'm rested up."

He dropped in a limp heap on the ground and instantly fell asleep.
Several of the others had dropped out too. They fell asleep where they
gave up, utterly exhausted. We had now been going sixteen hours, and
still our leader kept on.

"You're pretty tough for a youngster," growled one of them to me. "Keep
it up, we're almost there."

So I hobbled along painfully, though the desire to throw myself down was
becoming imperative. Just ahead was Jim, sturdily holding his own. The
others were reduced to a bare half-dozen.

It was about four in the afternoon when we reached the creek. Up it our
leader plunged, till he came to a place where a rude shaft had been dug.
We gathered around him. He was a typical prospector, a child of hope,
lean, swarthy, clear-eyed.

"Here it is, boys," he said. "Here's my discovery stake. Now you fellows
go up or down, anywhere you've a notion to, and put in your stakes. You
all know what a lottery it is. Maybe you'll stake a million-dollar
claim, maybe a blank. Mining's all a gamble. But go ahead, boys. I wish
you luck."

So we strung out, and, coming in rotation, Jim and I staked seven and
eight below discovery.

"Seven's a lucky number for me," said Jim; "I've a notion this claim's a
good one."

"I don't care," I said, "for all the gold in the world. What I want is
sleep, sleep, rest and sleep."

So I threw myself down on a bit of moss, and, covering my head with my
coat to ward off the mosquitoes, in a few minutes I was dead to the
world.

CHAPTER XII

I was awakened by the Prodigal.

"Rouse up," he was saying; "you've slept right round the clock. We've
got to get back to town and record those claims. Jim's gone three hours
ago."

It was five o'clock of a crystal Yukon morning, with the world clear-cut
and fresh as at the dawn of Things. I was sleep-stupid, sore, stiff in
every joint. Racking pains made me groan at every movement, and the
chill night air had brought on twinges of