generate after a five-mile walk on a country turn-pike. Bah!
It makes me sick! Got a match?" "Don't git the tantrums, youngster."
Bettles passed over the required fire-stick and waxed patriarchal. "Ye've
gotter 'low some for the breakin'-in. Sufferin' cracky! don't I
recollect the first time I hit the trail! Stiff? I've seen the time
it'd take me ten minutes to git my mouth from the water-hole an' come to
my feet--every jint crackin' an' kickin' fit to kill. Cramp? In sech
knots it'd take the camp half a day to untangle me. You're all right,
for a cub, any ye've the true sperrit. Come this day year, you'll walk
all us old bucks into the ground any time. An' best in your favor, you
hain't got that streak of fat in your make-up which has sent many a husky
man to the bosom of Abraham afore his right and proper time."

"Streak of fat?"

"Yep. Comes along of bulk. 'T ain't the big men as is the best when it
comes to the trail."

"Never heard of it."

"Never heered of it, eh? Well, it's a dead straight, open-an'-shut fact,
an' no gittin' round. Bulk's all well enough for a mighty big effort,
but 'thout stayin' powers it ain't worth a continental whoop; an' stayin'
powers an' bulk ain't runnin' mates. Takes the small, wiry fellows when
it comes to gittin' right down an' hangin' on like a lean-jowled dog to a
bone. Why, hell's fire, the big men they ain't in it!"

"By gar!" broke in Louis Savoy, "dat is no, vot you call, josh! I know
one mans, so vaire beeg like ze buffalo. Wit him, on ze Sulphur Creek
stampede, go one small mans, Lon McFane. You know dat Lon McFane, dat
leetle Irisher wit ze red hair and ze grin. An' dey walk an' walk an'
walk, all ze day long an' ze night long. And beeg mans, him become vaire
tired, an' lay down mooch in ze snow. And leetle mans keek beeg mans,
an' him cry like, vot you call--ah! vot you call ze kid. And leetle mans
keek an' keek an' keek, an' bime by, long time, long way, keek beeg mans
into my cabin. Tree days 'fore him crawl out my blankets. Nevaire I see
beeg squaw like him. No nevaire. Him haf vot you call ze streak of fat.
You bet."

"But there was Axel Gunderson," Prince spoke up. The great Scandinavian,
with the tragic events which shadowed his passing, had made a deep mark
on the mining engineer. "He lies up there, somewhere." He swept his
hand in the vague direction of the mysterious east.

"Biggest man that ever turned his heels to Salt Water,