son, when dogs was down, Nig
could get his dollar a day, but his masters couldn't get fifty cents.

CHAPTER XVII

THE GREAT STAMPEDE

"Die Menchen suchen und suchen, wollen immer was Besseres finden....
Gott geb' ihnen nur Geduld!"

Men in the Gold Nugget were talking about some claims, staked and
recorded in due form, but on which the statutory work had not been
done.

"What about 'em?"

"They're jumpable at midnight."

French Charlie invited the Boy to go along, but neither he nor the
Colonel felt enthusiastic.

"They're no good, those claims, except to sell to some sucker, and
we're not in that business _yet_, sah."

They had just done twenty miles in slush and mire, and their hearts
were heavier than their heels. No, they would go to bed while the
others did the jumpin', and next day they would fill Keith's wood-bin.

"So if work does turn up we won't have to worry about usin' up his
firin'." In the chill of the next evening they were cording the results
of the day's chopping, when Maudie, in fur coat, skirts to the knee,
and high rubber boots, appeared behind Keith's shack. Without deigning
to notice the Boy, "Ain't seen you all day," says she to the Colonel.

"Busy," he replied, scarcely looking up.

"Did you do any jumpin' last night?"

"No."

"_That's_ all right."

She seated herself with satisfaction on a log. She looked at the Boy
impudently, as much as to say, "When that blot on the landscape is
removed, I'll tell you something." The Boy had not the smallest
intention of removing the blot.

Grudgingly he admitted to himself that, away from the unsavory
atmosphere of the Gold Nugget, there was nothing in Maudie positively
offensive. At this moment, with her shrewd little face peering pertly
out from her parki-hood, she looked more than ever like an audacious
child, or like some strange, new little Arctic animal with a whimsical
human air.

"Look here, Colonel," she said presently, either despairing of getting
rid of the Boy or ceasing to care about it: "you got to get a wiggle on
to-morrow."

"What for?"

She looked round, first over one shoulder, then over the other. "Well,
it's on the quiet."

The Kentuckian nodded. But she winked her blue eyes suspiciously at the
Boy.

"Oh, _he's_ all right."

"Well, you been down to Little Minook, ain't you?"

"Yes."

"And you seen how the pay pinches out above No. 10?"

"Yes."

"Well, now, if it ain't above No. 10, where is i