rough the window to see him
jam the recorder shapelessly into a chair, place pen and ink in his
hand, and force him to execute two receipts. It is not a popular
practice, this blanketing, as the temper of the watchers showed.

"Serves 'em right, the hogs," some one said, and he voiced the universal
sentiment.

That night, as they ravened over their meager meal, Knute came to them,
hesitatingly. He was greatly worried and apprehension wrinkled his
wooden face.

"Saay! W'at you t'ink 'bout Sully?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"By yingo, ay t'ink he's lose!"

"Lost! How's that?"

In his dialect, broken by anxiety, he told how Sully and he had
quarreled on the big divide. Maddened by failure to gain on Crowley, the
former had insisted on following the mountain crests in the hope of
quicker travel. The Swede had yielded reluctantly till, frightened by
the network of radiating gulches which spread out beneath their feet in
a bewildering sameness, he had refused to go farther. They had
quarreled. In a fit of fury Sully had hurled his pack away, and Knute's
last vision of him had been as he went raving and cursing onward like a
madman, traveling fast in his fury. Knute had retreated, dropped into
the valley, and eventually reached his goal.

There is no time for reliefs on a stampede. The gentler emotions are
left in camp with the women. He who would risk life, torture, and
privation for a stranger will trample pitilessly on friend and enemy
blinded by the gold glitter or drunken with the chase of the rainbow.

For five days and nights the army lived on its feet, streaming up
gullies where lay the hint of wealth or swarming over the somber bluffs;
and hourly the madness grew, feeding on itself, till they fought like
beasts. Fabulous values were begotten. Giant sales were bruited about.
Flying rumors of gold at the cross-roots inflamed them to further
frenzy.

A town site was laid out and a terrible scramble for lots ensued.

One man was buried in the plot he claimed, his disputant being adjudged
the owner by virtue of his quicker draw. It was manslaughter, they knew,
but no one spared the time to guard him, so he went free. Nor did he run
away. One cannot, while the craze is on.

Five days of this, and then the stream broke. With it broke the delirium
of the five hundred. The valleys roared and bawled from bluff to bluff,
while the flats became seas of seething ice and rubbish. Thus, cut off
from home, they found thei