"Smoke,"

She laughed in the frost, and he was certain it was the prettiest
laughter he had ever heard.

"And have you married and raised all those children you were telling
me about?" Before he could retort, she went on. "How many
chechaquos are there behind?"

"Several thousand, I imagine. We passed over three hundred. And
they weren't wasting any time."

"It's the old story," she said bitterly. "The new-comers get in on
the rich creeks, and the old-timers who dared and suffered and made
this country, get nothing. Old-timers made this discovery on Squaw
Creek--how it leaked out is the mystery--and they sent word up to
all the old-timers on Sea Lion. But it's ten miles farther than
Dawson, and when they arrive they'll find the creek staked to the
skyline by the Dawson chechaquos. It isn't right, it isn't fair,
such perversity of luck."

"It is too bad," Smoke sympathized. "But I'm hanged if I know what
you're going to do about it. First come, first served, you know."

"I wish I could do something," she flashed back at him. "I'd like
to see them all freeze on the trail, or have everything terrible
happen to them, so long as the Sea Lion stampede arrived first."

"You've certainly got it in for us, hard," he laughed.