me at Katmai, coming in. I petered out and threw up my
tail, but he got me through. Come inside and tell him the news."

"Sure thing."

"Well, well!" Martin said. "So you and Mort are still partners, eh?"

"_Still_ partners?" Johnny took up the pail of water. "Well, rather!
We'll always be partners." His voice was young and full and hearty as he
continued: "Why, Mort's the best damned fellow in the world. I'd lay
down my life for him."

THE STAMPEDE

From their vantage on the dump, the red gravel of which ran like a raw
scar down the mountainside, the men looked out across the gulch, above
the western range of hills to the yellow setting sun. Far below them the
creek was dotted with other tiny pay dumps of the same red gravel over
which men crawled, antlike, or upon which they labored at windlass. Thin
wisps of smoke rose from the cabin roofs, bespeaking the supper hour.

They had done a hard day's work, these two, and wearily descended to
their shack, which hugged the hillside beneath.

Ten hours with pick and shovel in a drift where the charcoal-gas
flickers a candle-flame will reduce one's artistic keenness, and
together they slouched along the path, heedless alike of view or color.

As Crowley built the fire Buck scoured himself in the wet snow beside
the door, emerging from his ablutions as cook. The former stretched upon
the bunk with growing luxury. "Gee whiz! I'm tuckered out. Twelve hours
in that air is too much for anybody."

"Sure," growled the other. "Bet I sleep good to-night, all right, all
right. What's the use, anyhow?" he continued, disgustedly. "I'm sore on
the whole works. If the Yukon was open I'd chuck it all."

"What! Go back to the States? Give up?"

"Well, yes, if you want to call it that, though I think I've shown I
ain't a quitter. Lord! I've rustled steady for two years, and what have
I got? Nothing--except my interest in this pauperized hill claim."

"If two years of hard luck gives you cold feet, you ain't worthy of the
dignity of 'prospector.' This here is the only honorable calling there
is. There's no competition and cuttin' throats in our business, nor we
don't rob the widders and orphans. A prospector is defined as a
semi-human being with a low forehead but a high sense of honor, a
stummick that shies at salads, but a heart that's full of grit. They
don't never lay down, and the very beauty of the business is that you
never know when you're due. Some day a guy