Part 47

"Hello!" he called, then heard his own name pronounced.

"Johnny Cantwell, by all that's holy!"

The next moment he was shaking hands vigorously with two old friends from Nome.

"Martin and me are bound for Saint Mikes," one of them explained. "Where the deuce did you come from, Johnny?"

"The 'outside.' Started for Stony River, but--"

"Stony River!" The new-comers began to laugh loudly and Cantwell joined them. It was the first time he had laughed for weeks. He realized the fact with a start, then recollected also his sleeping partner, and said:

"'Sh-h! Mort's inside, asleep!"

During the night everything had changed for Johnny Cantwell; his mental attitude, his hatred, his whole reasonless insanity. Everything was different now, even his debt was canceled, the weight of obligation was removed, and his diseased fancies were completely cured.

"Yes! Stony River," he repeated, grinning broadly. "I bit!"

Martin burst forth, gleefully: "They caught MacDonald at Holy Cross and ran him out on a limb. He'll never start another stampede. Old man Baker gun-branded him."

"What's the matter with Mort?" inquired the second traveler.

"He's resting up. Yesterday, during the storm he--" Johnny was upon the point of saying "played out," but changed it to "had an accident. We thought it was serious, but a few days' rest 'll bring him around all right. He saved me at Katmai, coming in. I petered out and threw up my tail, but he got me through. Come inside and tell him the news."

"Sure thing."

"Well, well!" Martin said. "So you and Mort are still partners, eh?"

"Still partners?" Johnny took up the pail of water. "Well, rather! We'll always be partners." His voice was young and full and hearty as he continued: "Why, Mort's the best damned fellow in the world. I'd lay down my life for him."

THE STAMPEDE

From their vantage on the dump, the red gravel of which ran like a raw scar down the mountainside, the men looked out across the gulch, above the western range of hills to the yellow setting sun. Far below them the creek was dotted with other tiny pay dumps of the same red gravel over which men crawled, antlike, or upon which they labored at windlass. Thin wisps of smoke rose from the cabin roofs, bespeaking the supper hour.

They had done a hard day's work, these two, and wearily descended to their shack, which hugged the hillside beneath.

Ten hours with pick and shovel in a drift where the charcoal-gas flickers a candle-flame will reduce one's artistic keenness, and together they slouched along the path, heedless alike of view or color.

As Crowley built the fire Buck scoured himself in the wet snow beside the door, emerging from his ablutions as cook. The former stretched upon the bunk with growing luxury. "Gee whiz! I'm tuckered out. Twelve hours in that air is too much for anybody."

"Sure," growled the other. "Bet I sleep good to-night, all right, all right. What's the use, anyhow?" he continued, disgustedly. "I'm sore on the whole works. If the Yukon was open I'd chuck it all."

"What! Go back to the States? Give up?"

"Well, yes, if you want to call it that, though I think I've shown I ain't a quitter. Lord! I've rustled steady for two years, and what have I got? Nothing--except my interest in this pauperized hill claim."

"If two years of hard luck gives you cold feet, you ain't worthy of the dignity of 'prospector.' This here is the only honorable calling there is. There's no competition and cuttin' throats in our business, nor we don't rob the widders and orphans. A prospector is defined as a semi-human being with a low forehead but a high sense of honor, a stummick that shies at salads, but a heart that's full of grit. They don't never lay down, and the very beauty of the business is that you never know when you're due. Some day a guy comes along: 'I hit her over yonder, bo,' says he, whereupon you insert yourself into a pack-strap, pound the trail, and the next you know you're a millionaire or two."

"Bah! No more stampedes for me. I've killed myself too often--there's nothing in 'em. I'm sick of it, I tell you, and I'm going out to God's country. No more wild scrambles and hardships for Buck."

A step sounded on the chips without, and a slender, sallow man entered.

"Hello, Maynard!" they chorused, and welcomed him to a seat.

"What are you doing out here?"