y
quoted as saying, "Glory Hallelujah Gulch was the richest placer he'd
ever struck." Nobody added that it was also the only one. But this
matter of a stampede is not controlled by reason; it is a thing of the
nerves; while you are ridiculing someone else your legs are carrying
you off on the same errand.

In a mining-camp the saloon is the community's heart. However little a
man cares to drink, or to dance, or to play cards, he goes to the
saloon as to the one place where he may meet his fellows, do business,
and hear the news. The saloon is the Market Place. It is also the Cafe,
the Theatre, the Club, the Stock Exchange, the Barber's Shop, the
Bank--in short, you might as well be dead as not be a patron of the
Gold Nugget.

Yet neither the Colonel nor the Boy had been there since the night of
their arrival. On returning from that first triumphant inspection of
McGinty's diggings, the Colonel had been handed a sealed envelope
without address.

"How do you know it's for me?"

"She said it was for the Big Chap," answered Blandford Keith.

The Colonel read:

"_Come to the Gold Nugget as soon as you get this, and hear something
to your advantage_.--MAUDIE."

So he had stayed away, having plenty to occupy him in helping to
organise the new district. He was strolling past the saloon the morning
after the Secret Meeting, when down into the street, like a kingfisher
into a stream, Maudie darted, and held up the Colonel.

"Ain't you had my letter?"

"Oh--a--yes--but I've been busy."

"Guess so!" she said with undisguised scorn. "Where's Si McGinty?"

"Reckon he's out at the gulch. I've got to go down to the A. C. now and
buy some grub to take out." He was moving on.

"Take where?" She followed him up.

"To McGinty's gulch."

"What for?"

"Why, to live on, while my pardner and I do the assessment work."

"Then it's true! McGinty's been fillin' you full o' guff." The Colonel
looked at her a little haughtily.

"See here: I ain't busy, as a rule, about other folks' funerals, but--"
She looked at him curiously. "It's cold here; come in a minute." There
was no hint of vulgar nonsense, but something very earnest in the pert
little face that had been so pretty. They went in. "Order drinks," she
said aside, "and don't talk before Jimmie."

She chaffed the bartender, and leaned idly against the counter. When a
group of returned stampeders came in, she sat down at a rough little
faro-table, leaned her elbows on it