"Well, then," Tisdale began reluctantly, "I must take you back a year. I
was completing trail reconnaissance from the new Alaska Midway surveys in
the Susitna Valley, through Rainy Pass, to connect with the mail route
from the interior to Nome, and, to avoid returning another season, kept my
party late in the field. It was the close of September when we struck
Seward Peninsula and miserably cold, with gales sweeping in from Bering
Sea. The grass had frozen, and before we reached a cache of oats I had
relied on, most of our horses perished; we arrived at Nome too late for
the last steamer of the year. That is how I came to winter there, and why
a letter Weatherbee had written in October was so long finding me. It was
forwarded from Seattle with other mail I cabled for, back to Prince
William Sound, over the Fairbanks-Valdez trail, and out again by the
winter route three thousand miles to Nome. It was the middle of March when
I received it, and he had asked me to buy his half interest in the Aurora
mine. He needed the money to go out to the States."

Tisdale's voice broke a little; and for a moment he looked off through the
open door. "Perhaps some of you remember I grub-staked him for a half
share when he left the Tanana to prospect down along the Alaska Range.
After he located, I forwarded him small amounts several times to carry on
development work. I never had been on the ground, but he explained he was
handicapped by high water and was trying to divert the channel of a creek.
In that last letter he said he had carried the scheme nearly through; the
next season would pay my money back and more; the Aurora would pan out the
richest strike he had ever made. But that did not trouble me. I knew if
Weatherbee had spent two years on that placer, the gravels had something
to show. The point that weighed was that he was willing to go home at last
to the States. I had urged him before I put up the grub-stake, but he had
answered: 'Not until I have made good.' It was hardly probable that,
failing to hear from me, he had sold out to any one else. From his