elected judge, and it was he who apportioned the grub. A man who broke
the law took his chances. The Yukon swept him away, and he might or
might not win to Bering Sea. A few days' grub gave him a fighting
chance. No grub meant practically capital punishment, though there was a
slim chance, all depending on the season of the year.

Having disposed of Arizona Jack and watched him out of sight, the
population turned from the bank and went to work on its claims--all
except Curly Jim, who ran the one faro layout in all the Northland and
who speculated in prospect-holes on the sides. Two things happened that
day that were momentous. In the late morning Marcus O'Brien struck it.
He washed out a dollar, a dollar and a half, and two dollars, from three
successive pans. He had found the streak. Curly Jim looked into the
hole, washed a few pans himself, and offered O'Brien ten thousand dollars
for all rights--five thousand in dust, and, in lieu of the other five
thousand, a half interest in his faro layout. O'Brien refused the offer.
He was there to make money out of the earth, he declared with heat, and
not out of his fellow-men. And anyway, he didn't like faro. Besides, he
appraised his strike at a whole lot more than ten thousand.

The second event of moment occurred in the afternoon, when Siskiyou
Pearly ran his boat into the bank and tied up. He was fresh from the
Outside, and had in his possession a four-months-old newspaper.
Furthermore, he had half a dozen barrels of whisky, all consigned to
Curly Jim. The men of Red Cow quit work. They sampled the whisky--at a
dollar a drink, weighed out on Curly's scales; and they discussed the
news. And all would have been well, had not Curly Jim conceived a
nefarious scheme, which was, namely, first to get Marcus O'Brien drunk,
and next, to buy his mine from him.

The first half of the scheme worked beautifully. It began in the early
evening, and by nine o'clock O'Brien had reached the singing stage. He
clung with one arm around Curly Jim's neck, and even essayed the late
lamented Ferguson's song about the little birds. He considered he was
quite safe in this, what of the fact that the only man in camp with
artistic feelings was even then speeding down the Yukon on the breast of
a five-mile current.

But the second half of the scheme failed to connect. No matter how much
whisky was poured down his neck, O'Brien could not be brought to realize
that it was his bou