l's success had fired the others, and soon they were fishing in the
pale-blue twilight of the night. They kept it up until after twelve
o'clock, when they turned in with a catch of three salmon, several
whitefish, and a burbot, which Randy at first took for a codfish. They
slept soundly, and early in the morning tried the sport again, starting
for home at about noon, and arriving there with their burdens some time
after midnight, worn out but happy.

It was found that Foster Portney had not been idle during their
absence. From time to time, as the canned eatables were disposed of,
they had saved the tins, and now he had cleaned them out and filled some
with such berries as still remained on the bushes about the gulch. To
seal the cans up he had brought from Dawson City a stick of lead, and
for an iron had used the end of a broken pick.

"That will give us some fresh berries," he said. "And along with canned
salmon, and salted and smoked whitefish, burbot, and wild goose, I
reckon we'll get along fairly well, unless the winter proves an extra
long one."

As much as they felt the necessity of preparing for winter, Randy and
Earl hated to lose the time when there was the chance to make so much
money at the sluice boxes. So as soon as they were able, they got down
to the gulch again, and never did two lads work harder. They were
accompanied by Fred, and a day later their uncle also joined them.

The dirt from the pocket had been cleaned up, and it had yielded over
twenty ounces of gold. They were now working on the regular sand and
gravel scraped from the bedrock of the gulch, and though this did not
pay so well, yet it brought in enough to make them all satisfied. There
was a good deal of excitement, too, when it came to cleaning out the
sluice boxes, for almost every day one or another found a nugget,
sometimes small, and then again as large as a walnut.

"How much do you think we are averaging?" asked Randy, one day, and his
uncle replied that he could not figure very closely, but he would put it
down as over a hundred dollars per day. This meant twenty-five dollars a
day as the boy's share, and he felt more content than ever to slave
along in the gulch.

For it was slaving along, this constantly picking and digging and
carting the dirt, sand, and gravel to the sluice boxes and throwing it
in. Every night Randy's back ached, and sometimes he would come in with
feet that were sopping wet, and covered up to his waist