dishes!' commanded Parker.

'I say, Sandy; there's a good fellow--just run down to the Missouri
Camp and borrow some cinnamon,' begged Lake.

'Oh! oh! hurry up! Why don't--' But the crash of meat and boxes, in the
cache, abruptly quenched this peremptory summons.

'Come now, Sandy; it won't take a minute to go down to the Missouri--'

'You leave him alone,' interrupted Parker. 'How am I to mix the
biscuits if the table isn't cleared off?'

Sandy paused in indecision, till suddenly the fact that he was
Langham's 'man' dawned upon him. Then he apologetically threw down the
greasy dishcloth, and went to his master's rescue.

These promising scions of wealthy progenitors had come to the Northland
in search of laurels, with much money to burn, and a 'man' apiece.
Luckily for their souls, the other two men were up the White River in
search of a mythical quartz-ledge; so Sandy had to grin under the
responsibility of three healthy masters, each of whom was possessed of
peculiar cookery ideas. Twice that morning had a disruption of the
whole camp been imminent, only averted by immense concessions from one
or the other of these knights of the chafing-dish. But at last their
mutual creation, a really dainty dinner, was completed.

Then they sat down to a three-cornered game of 'cut-throat,'--a
proceeding which did away with all casus belli for future hostilities,
and permitted the victor to depart on a most important mission.

This fortune fell to Parker, who parted his hair in the middle, put on
his mittens and bearskin cap, and stepped over to Malemute Kid's cabin.
And when he returned, it was in the company of Grace Bentham and
Malemute Kid,--the former very sorry her husband could not share with
her their hospitality, for he had gone up to look at the Henderson
Creek mines, and the latter still a trifle stiff from breaking trail
down the Stuart River.

Meyers had been asked, but had declined, being deeply engrossed in an
experiment of raising bread from hops.

Well, they could do without the husband; but a woman--why they had not
seen one all winter, and the presence of this one promised a new era in
their lives.

They were college men and gentlemen, these three young fellows,
yearning for the flesh-pots they had been so long denied. Probably
Grace Bentham suffered from a similar hunger; at least, it meant much
to her, the first bright hour in many weeks of darkness.

But that wonderful first course, which claim