Then he poured the beans and soup
over each portion. The biscuits were placed within reach, and the
supper was served.

The sick man devoured his uncouth food with great relish. The soup
which had been first given him had done him much good, and now the
"solid" completed the restoration so opportunely begun. He was a
vigorous man, and his exhaustion had chiefly been brought about by
lack of food. Now, as he sat with his empty pannikin in front of him,
he looked gratefully over at his rescuers, and slowly munched some dry
biscuit, and sipped occasionally from a great beaker of black coffee.
Life was very sweet to him at that moment, and he thought joyfully of
the belt inside his clothes laden with the golden result of his
labours on Forty Mile Creek.

Now the half-breed turned to him.

"Feeling pretty good?" he observed, conversationally.

"Yes, thanks to you and your friends. You must let me pay you for
this." The suggestion was coarsely put. Returning strength was
restoring the stranger to his usual condition of mind. There was
little refinement about this man from the Yukon.

The other waived the suggestion.

"Sour-belly's pretty good tack when y' can't get any better. Been many
days on the road?"

"Three weeks." The traveller was conscious of three pairs of eyes
fixed upon his face.

"Hoofing right along?"

"Yes. I missed the trail nearly a week back. Followed the track of a
dog-train. It came some distance this way. Then I lost it."

"Ah! Food ran out, maybe."

The half-breed had now turned away, and was gazing at the stove as
though it had a great fascination for him.

"Yes, I meant to make the Pass where I could lay in a fresh store.
Instead of that I wandered on till I found the empty pack got too
heavy, then I left it."

"Left it?" The half-breed raised his two little tufts of eyebrows, but
his eyes remained staring at the stove.

"Oh, it was empty--clean empty. You see, I didn't trust anything but
food in my pack."

"No. That's so. Maybe gold isn't safe in a pack?"

The pock-marked face remained turned towards the glowing stove. The
man's manner was quite indifferent. It suggested that he merely wished
to talk.

The traveller seemed to draw back into his shell at the mention of
gold. A slight pause followed.

"Maybe you ain't been digging up there?" the half-breed went on
presently.

"It's rotten bad digging on the Creek," the traveller said, clumsily
endeavouring to evade the quest