fate. The engines had started up again, and they were
going on.

"I'm told," said the Captain rather severely, "that Minook's a busted
camp."

"Oh, is it?" returned the ragged one cheerfully. Then he remembered
that this Captain Rainey had grub-staked a man in the autumn--a man who
was reported to know where to look for the Mother Lode, the mighty
parent of the Yukon placers. "I can tell you the facts about Minook."
He followed the Captain up on the hurricane-deck, giving him details
about the new strike, and the wonderful richness of Idaho Bar. "Nobody
would know about it to-day, but that the right man went prospecting
there." (One in the eye for whoever said Minook was "busted," and
another for the prospector Rainey had sent to look for----) "You see,
men like Pitcairn have given up lookin' for the Mother Lode. They say
you might as well look for Mother Eve; you got to make out with her
descendants. Yukon gold, Pitcairn says, comes from an older rock series
than this"--he stood in the shower of sparks constantly spraying from
the smoke-stack to the fireproof deck, and he waved his hand airily at
the red rock of the Ramparts--"far older than any of these. The gold up
here has all come out o' rock that went out o' the rock business
millions o' years ago. Most o' that Mother Lode the miners are lookin'
for is sand now, thirteen hundred miles away in Norton Sound."

"Just my luck," said the Captain gloomily, going a little for'ard, as
though definitely giving up mining and returning to his own proper
business.

"But the rest o' the Mother Lode, the gold and magnetic iron, was too
heavy to travel. That's what's linin' the gold basins o' the
North--linin' Idaho Bar thick."

The Captain sighed.

"Twelve," a voice sang out on the lower deck.

"Twelve," repeated the Captain.

"Twelve," echoed the pilot at the wheel.

"Twelve and a half," from the man below, a tall, lean fellow, casting
the sounding-pole. With a rhythmic nonchalance he plants the long black
and white staff at the ship's side, draws it up dripping, plunges it
down again, draws it up, and sends it down hour after hour. He never
seems to tire; he never seems to see anything but the water-mark, never
to say anything but what he is chanting now, "Twelve and a half," or
some variation merely numerical. You come to think him as little human
as the calendar, only that his numbers are told off with the
significance of sound, the suggested menace of a cry. If