"Huh! I can hike along on the stumps an' wear the heels off your
moccasins. Though it ain't no use. I've ben figgerin'. Creek
claims is five hundred feet. Call 'em ten to the mile. They's a
thousand stampeders ahead of us, an' that creek ain't no hundred
miles long. Somebody's goin' to get left, an' it makes a noise like
you an' me."

Before replying, Smoke let out an unexpected link that threw Shorty
half a dozen feet in the rear.

"If you saved your breath and kept up, we'd cut down a few of that
thousand," he chided.

"Who? Me? If you's get outa the way I'd show you a pace what is."

Smoke laughed, and let out another link. The whole aspect of the
adventure had changed. Through his brain was running a phrase of
the mad philosopher--"the transvaluation of values." In truth, he
was less interested in staking a fortune than in beating Shorty.
After all, he concluded, it wasn't the reward of the game but the
playing of it that counted. Mind, and muscle, and stamina, and
soul, were challenged in a contest with this Shorty, a man who had
never opened the books, and who did not know grand opera from rag-
time, nor an epic from a chilblain.

"Shorty, I've got you skinned to death. I've reconstructed every
cell in my body since I hit the beach at Dyea. My flesh is as
stringy as whipcords, and as bitter and mean as the bite of a
rattlesnake. A few months ago I'd have patted myself on the back to