xt in front, who happened to be Stark, observing every move and trick
of him, and, during the frequent pauses, making a point of listening
and watching him guardedly.

All through the afternoon the five men wound up the valley, following
one another's footsteps, emerging from sombre thickets of fir to
flounder across wide pastures of "nigger-heads," that wobbled and
wriggled and bowed beneath their feet, until at cost of much effort and
profanity they gained the firmer footing of the forest. Occasionally
they came upon the stream, and found easier going along its gravel
bars, till a bend threw them again into the meadows and mesas on either
hand. Their course led them far up the big valley to another stream
that entered from the right, bearing backward in a great bow towards
the Yukon, and always there were dense clouds of mosquitoes above their
heads. At one point Stark, hot and irritable, remarked:

"There must be a shorter cut than this, Lee?"

"I reckon there is," the miner replied, "but I've always had a pack to
carry, so I chose the level ground ruther than climb the divides."

"S'pose dose people at camp hear 'bout dis strike an' beat us in?"
suggested Poleon.

"It wouldn't be easy going for them after they got there," Stark said,
sourly. "I, for one, wouldn't stand for it."

"Nor I," agreed Runnion.

"I don't see how you'd help yourself," the trader remarked. "One man's
got as good a right as another."

"I guess I'd help myself, all right," Stark laughed, significantly, as
did Runnion, who added:

"Lee is entitled to put in anybody he wants on his own discovery, and
if anybody tries to get ahead of us there's liable to be trouble."

"I reckon if I don't know no short-cut, nobody else does," Lee
remarked, whereupon Doret spoke up reassuringly:

"Dere's no use gettin' scare' lak' dat, biccause nobody knows w'ere
Lee's creek she's locate' but John an' me, an' dere's nobody w'at knows
he mak' de strike but us four."

"That's right," said Gale; "the only other way across is by Black Bear
Creek, and there ain't a half-dozen men ever been up to the head of
that stream, much less over the divide, so I don't allow there's any
use to fret ourselves."

They went on their way, travelling leisurely until late evening, when
they camped at the mouth of the valley up which the miner's cabin lay.
They chose a long gravel bar, that curved like a scimitar, and made
down upon its outer tip where the breeze tended to