fternoon a great tent had been stretched over a
framework of peeled poles built on the lot where he and Necia had stood
earlier in the day. Before dark his saloon was running. To be sure,
there was no floor, and his polished fixtures looked strangely new and
incongruous, but the town at large had assumed a similar air of
incompleteness and crude immaturity, and little wonder, for it had
grown threefold in half a day. Stark swiftly unpacked his gambling
implements, keen to scent every advantage, and out of the handful of
pale-faced jackals who follow at the heels of a healthy herd, he hired
men to run them and to deal. By night Flambeau was a mining-camp.

Late in the evening the boat swung out into the river, and disclosed a
strange scene of transformation to the puzzled captain of a few hours
ago. The riverbank was lined with canvas shelters, illumined dully by
the tent-lights within till they looked like a nest of glowworms in
deep grass. A long, hoarse blast of good wishes rose from the steamer,
then she sighed her way around the point above bearing forth the
message that a new camp had been born.

CHAPTER X

MEADE BURRELL FINDS A PATH IN THE MOONLIGHT

"No Creek" Lee had come into his own at last, and was a hero, for the
story of his long ill-luck was common gossip now, and men praised him
for his courage. He had never been praised for anything before and was
uncertain just how to take it.

"Say, are these people kiddin' me?" he inquired, confidentially, of
Poleon.

"W'y? Wat you mean?"

"Well, there's a feller makin' a speech about me down by the landing."

"Wat he say?"

"It ain't nothin' to fight over. He says I'm another Dan'l Boom,
leadin' the march of empire westward."

"Dat's nice, for sure."

"Certainly sounds good, but is it on the level?"

"Wal, I guess so," admitted Poleon.

The prospector swelled with indignation. "Then, why in hell didn't you
fellers tell me long ago?"

The scanty ounce or two of gold from his claim lay in the scales at the
post, where every new-comer might examine it, and, realizing that he
was a never-ending source of information, they fawned on him for his
tips, bribing him with newspapers, worth a dollar each, or with cigars,
which he wrapped up carefully and placed in his mackinaw till every
pocket of the rusty garment bulged so that he could not sit without
losing them. They dwelt upon his lightest word, and stood him up beside
the bar where they filled