et, reserved men, the latter talkative and boisterous.

"The Captain was speaking of the lure that gold holds for the human
race," replied Tad Butler in answer to Stacy Brown's question. "I guess
the Captain is right, too."

"Be warned in time, Chunky," added Rector.

"I've never seen enough gold to become lured by it," retorted the fat
boy. "I should like to see enough to excite me just once. I shouldn't
mind being lured that way. Would you, Walt?"

Walter Perkins shook his head and smiled.

"I fear you will have to shake yourself--get over your natural
laziness--before you can hope to," chuckled Ned. "I doubt if you would
know a lure if you met one on Main Street in Chillicothe."

"Try me and see," grinned Stacy.

"There must be a lot of gold up here, judging from what I have read, and
from the number of persons going after it," added Tad, with a sweeping
gesture that included the deckload of miners and prospectors. "But the
hardships and the heart-breakings must be terrible. I have read a lot
about the terrors that men have gone through in this country, especially
in the awful winters they have in Alaska."

"I shouldn't mind them if I had a sledge and a pack of dogs to tote me
around, the way they do up here," declared Chunky.

"That would be great fun," agreed young Perkins. "You wouldn't have far
to fall if you got bucked off from that kind of broncho, would you,
Stacy?"

"Not unless you fell off a mountain," answered Ned, glancing at the
distant towering cliffs of the coast range.

"I was asking the Captain about those four men yonder," said Tad.

"Oh, the fellows who don't speak to anyone?" nodded Rector.

"Yes."

"Who are they? I have wondered about them."

"I don't know their names, but the skipper tells me they are known as
the Gold Diggers of Taku Pass," replied Butler. "The queer part of it
is, he says, that no one, so far as he is aware, knows even that there
is such a place as Taku Pass. They don't know themselves," added Tad
with a smile.

"That's strange," wondered Rector. "Crazy?"

"No, I think not. They are prospecting for an unknown claim," replied
Tad.

"I--I don't know anything about that," spoke up Stacy Brown. "But I know
who those fellows are."

"You do?" exclaimed the boys in chorus.

"Yes. I asked them. That's the way to find out what you want to know,
isn't it?" chuckled Stacy.

"Who are they?" asked Butler laughingly.

"The minery-looking fellow is Sam Dawson. The