amsey.

Yes, the Hudson people said, it was quite probable that Ramsey had
passed in that way. Some hundreds of prospectors had gone in during the
past three years, but the current created by the Klondike rush had drawn
most of them out and up the Sound.

One man declared that he had seen Ramsey ship for Skagway on the
"Dirigo," and, after a little help and a few more drinks, gave a minute
description of a famous nugget pin which the passing pilgrim said the
prospector wore.

And so the capitalist took the next boat for Skagway.

By the time he reached Dawson the death-rattle had begun to assert
itself in the bosom of the boom. The most diligent inquiry failed to
reveal the presence of the noted prospector. On the contrary, many
old-timers from Colorado and California declared that Ramsey had never
reached the Dike--that is, not since the boom. In a walled tent on a
shimmering sand-bar at the mouth of the crystal Klondike, Captain Jack
Crawford, the "Poet Scout," severely sober in that land of large
thirsts, wearing his old-time halo of lady-like behavior and hair, was
conducting an "Ice Cream Emporium and Soft-drink Saloon."

"No," said the scout, with the tips of his tapered fingers trembling on
an empty table, straining forward and staring into the stranger's face;
"no, Jack Ramsey has not been here; and if what you say be true--he
sleeps alone in yonder fastness. Alas, poor Ramsey!--Ah knew 'im well";
and he sank on a seat, shaking with sobs.

* * * * *

The English-American, on his way out, stopped at Simpson again. From a
half-breed trapper he heard of a white man who had crossed the Coast
Range three grasses ago. This white man had three or four head of
cattle, a Cree servant, and a queer-looking cayuse with long ears and a
mournful, melancholy cry. This latter member of the gang carried the
outfit.

Taking this half-caste Cree to guide him, the mining man set out in
search of the long-lost Ramsey. They crossed the first range and
searched the streams north of the Peace River pass, almost to the crest
of the continent, but found no trace of the prospector.

When the summer died and the wilderness was darkened by the Northern
night, the search was abandoned.

The years drifted into the past, and finally the Chinook Mining and
Milling Company went to the wall. The English-American promoter,
smarting under criticism, reimbursed each of his associates and took
over the offi