w Dave down and face him afterwards. It was all
planned suddenly. The Russian music-player, the Count, was her obedient
slave. She planned it, I know. I learned as much from old Victor
afterwards. The Count took his orders from her, and caught that first
steamboat down. It was the _Golden Rocket_. And so did Flush of Gold
catch it. And so did I. I was going to Circle City, and I was
flabbergasted when I found Flush of Gold on board. I didn't see her name
down on the passenger list. She was with the Count fellow all the time,
happy and smiling, and I noticed that the Count fellow was down on the
list as having his wife along. There it was, state-room, number, and
all. The first I knew that he was married, only I didn't see anything of
the wife . . . unless Flush of Gold was so counted. I wondered if they'd
got married ashore before starting. There'd been talk about them in
Dawson, you see, and bets had been laid that the Count fellow had cut
Dave out.

"I talked with the purser. He didn't know anything more about it than I
did; he didn't know Flush of Gold, anyway, and besides, he was almost
rushed to death. You know what a Yukon steamboat is, but you can't guess
what the _Golden Rocket_ was when it left Dawson that June of 1898. She
was a hummer. Being the first steamer out, she carried all the scurvy
patients and hospital wrecks. Then she must have carried a couple of
millions of Klondike dust and nuggets, to say nothing of a packed and
jammed passenger list, deck passengers galore, and bucks and squaws and
dogs without end. And she was loaded down to the guards with freight and
baggage. There was a mountain of the same on the fore-lower-deck, and
each little stop along the way added to it. I saw the box come aboard at
Teelee Portage, and I knew it for what it was, though I little guessed
the joker that was in it. And they piled it on top of everything else on
the fore-lower-deck, and they didn't pile it any too securely either. The
mate expected to come back to it again, and then forgot about it. I
thought at the time that there was something familiar about the big husky
dog that climbed over the baggage and freight and lay down next to the
box. And then we passed the _Glendale_, bound up for Dawson. As she
saluted us, I thought of Dave on board of her and hurrying to Dawson to
Flush of Gold. I turned and looked at her where she stood by the rail.
Her eyes were bright, but she looked a bit