from the house he stopped, and returned for the
shovel and pick and washing-pan, with a view to filling in his spare time
and banishing from his mind the painful scene of last night.

The red sun was just mounting the horizon as he strode off, and birds were
singing gayly in the woods. Half an hour's walk brought him out of the
timber into comparatively bare country. Aimlessly he wandered on, drinking
in the fresh morning air and stopping to gaze at the brilliant landscape
from time to time. Below him, to the west, a small creek made a junction
with the Yukon, its red water foaming over broken boulders, and leaping
ten perpendicular feet to join the parent stream. He sauntered down
towards it, the washing-pan clanking against the shovel as he walked.

Few men would have dug for gold along that creek; the surface had all the
characteristics of unadulterated muck. He stuck the pick into it for the
mere fun of hitting something. Though the sun shone warmly and rich the
grass grew on either bank, the eternal ice was down under the surface.

In one hour he managed to dig out a cubic yard of earth. Having satisfied
his hunger for exercise, he flung the shovel down and began to smoke.

Looking down the creek, he saw a clumsy flat-bottomed boat, piled high
with cargo, swirling down the river, with a tousled-haired man in the
stern keeping her from the bank by means of a pole.

"Chips," he murmured. "He must have started last night. So the food is
here, and we can hike out to-day, thank God!"

As he looked, the punt struck a submerged sandbank and beached on it.
Chips' little body bent on the pole, but except to swivel the punt on its
axis it had no other result.

Jim stood up, and seizing his tools, made down the creek. He shouted to
Chips, and the latter looked at him imploringly. Jim waded through the
water and reached the craft.

"You should have kept her out more in the center, my friend," he said.

"Current go swift there--no make the landing."

"Hm! perhaps you're right. Here, take these aboard--I'll come back with
you."

He put the shovel and pick over the side of the boat and catching hold of
the stern, pushed hard. Chips gave a yell of joy as the punt slithered and
then jolted into deep water. Jim clambered aboard and took the pole. Half
an hour later they beached her at the landing-place.

Devinne and the other half-breed came running down the slope. The former
looked at Jim in surprise.

"Where did you