"Didn't you bring none?"
"Nary a pound. There's women and children at the Circle, and there
wasn't more than enough for them, so I pulled out."
"There's plenty below," Hopper assured him.
"How far?"
"We don't know yet. There's a boat-load of 'chekakos' bound for Dawson
somewhere between here and Cochrane's Landing. They'll be froze in now,
and tenderfeet always has grub. Soon's we get some more snow we'll do
some freightin'."
Before he retired that night McGill had bought a town lot, and a week
later there was a cabin on it, for he was a man who knew how to work.
Then, during the interval between the close of navigation and the
opening of winter travel he looked over the country and staked some
claims. He did not locate at random, but used a discrimination based
upon ten years' experience in the arctics, and when cold weather set in
he felt satisfied with his work. Men with half his holdings reckoned
their fortunes at extravagant figures; transfers of unproved properties
for handsome terms were common; millions were made daily, on paper.
Soon after the winter had settled, two strangers "mushed" in from
down-river. For ten days they had pulled their own sled through the
first dry, trackless snow of the season, and they were well spent, but
they brought news that the steamboat was in winter quarters a hundred
and fifty miles below. They assured McGill, moreover, that there was
plenty of food aboard, so, a day later, he set off on their back trail
with his dog-team. By now the melancholy autumn was gone, the air was
frozen clean of every taint, the frost made men's blood gallop through
their veins. It changed McGill into a boy again. His lungs ached from
the throbbing power within them, his loping stride was as smooth as that
of a timber-wolf, his loud, deep laughter caused the dogs to yelp in
answer.
When he finally burst out of the silence and into the midst of the
gold-seekers with tidings of the new camp only a hundred and fifty miles
away they shook off their lethargy and awoke to a great excitement. He
told all he honestly knew about Ophir, and with nimble fancies they
added two words of their own to every one of his. They stopped work upon
their winter quarters and made ready to push on afoot--on hands and
knees, if necessary. Here was a man who had made a fortune in one short
autumn, for with the customary ignorance of tenderfeet they perceived no
distinction between a mining claim and a mine. A gold-mine, they
reasoned, was worth anything one wished to imagine, from a hundred
thousand to a million; thirty gold-mines were worth thirty
millions--figure it out for yourself. The conservative ones cut the
result in half and were well satisfied with it. They were glad they had
come.
The steamboat captain offered McGill a bed in his own cabin, for the log
houses were not yet completed, and that night at supper the miner met
the rest of the big family. Among them was a girl. Once McGill had
beheld her, he could see none of the others; he became an automaton,
directing his words at random, but focusing his soul upon her. He could
not recall her name, for her first glance had driven all memory out of
his head, and during the meal he feasted his hungry eyes upon her,
feeling a yearning such as he had never before experienced. He did not
pause to argue what it foretold; it is doubtful if he would have
realized had he taken time to think, for he had never known women well,
and ten years in the Yukon country had dimmed what youthful
recollections he possessed. When he went to bed he was in a daze that
did not vanish even when the captain, after carefully locking the doors
and closing the cabin shutters, crawled under the bunk and brought forth
a five-gallon keg of whisky, which he fondled like a mother her babe.
"Wait till you taste it," crooned the old man. "Nothing like it north of
Vancouver. If I didn't keep it hid I'd have a mutiny."
He removed a steaming kettle from the stove, then, unearthing some sugar
from the chart-case, mixed a toddy, muttering: "Just wait, that's all.
You just wait!" With the pains of a chemist he divided the beverage into
two equal portions, rolled the contents of his own glass under his
tongue with a look of beatitude on his wrinkled features, then inquired,
"What did I tell you?"
"It's great," McGill acknowledged. "First real liquor I've tasted for
months." Then he fell to staring at the fire.