thin the plague of
insects. They were all old-stagers in the ways of camplife, so there
was no lost motion or bickering as to their respective duties. Their
preparations were simple. First they built a circle of smudges out of
wet driftwood, and inside this Lee kindled a camp-fire of dry sticks,
upon which he cooked, protected by the smoke of the others, while Gale
went back to the edge of the forest and felled a dozen small firs, the
branches of which he clipped. These Poleon and Runnion bore down to the
end of the spit for bedding, while Stark chopped a pile of dry wood for
the night. Gale noted that the new man swung an axe with the free
dexterity of one to whom its feel was familiar, also that he never made
a slip nor dulled it on the gravel of the bar, displaying an all-round
completeness and a knack of doing things efficiently that won reluctant
approval from the trader despite the unreasoning dislike he had taken
to him.

Lee was ready for them by the time they had finished their tasks, and,
fanned by the breeze that sucked up the stream and lulled by the
waters, they ate their scanty supper. Their one-eyed guide had lived so
long among mosquitoes and had become so inoculated with their poison
that he was in a measure impervious to their sting, hence the insects
gathered on his wrinkled, hair-grown hide only to give up in melancholy
disgust and fly to other and fuller-blooded feeding-grounds. Camp had
been made early, at Gale's suggestion, instead of pushing on a few
miles farther, as Lee had intended; and now, when the cool evening fell
and the draught quickened, it became possible to lay off gloves and
head-gear; so they sat about the fire, talking, smoking, and rubbing
their tired feet.

It is at such hours and in the smoke of such fires that men hark
backward and bring forth the sacred, time-worn memories they have
treasured, to turn them over fondly by the glow of dying embers. It is
at such times that men's garrulity asserts itself, for the barriers of
caution are let down, as are the gates of remembrance, and it is then
that friends and enemies are made, for there are those who cannot
listen and others who cannot understand.

"No Creek" Lee, the one-eyed miner who had made this lucky strike, told
in simple words of his long and solitary quest, when ill-luck had risen
with him at the dawn and misfortune had stalked beside him as he
drifted and drank from camp to camp, while the gloom of a settled
pessi