"By gar!" broke in Louis Savoy, "dat is no, vot you call, josh! I know
one mans, so vaire beeg like ze buffalo. Wit him, on ze Sulphur Creek
stampede, go one small mans, Lon McFane. You know dat Lon McFane, dat
leetle Irisher wit ze red hair and ze grin. An' dey walk an' walk an'
walk, all ze day long an' ze night long. And beeg mans, him become vaire
tired, an' lay down mooch in ze snow. And leetle mans keek beeg mans,
an' him cry like, vot you call--ah! vot you call ze kid. And leetle mans
keek an' keek an' keek, an' bime by, long time, long way, keek beeg mans
into my cabin. Tree days 'fore him crawl out my blankets. Nevaire I see
beeg squaw like him. No nevaire. Him haf vot you call ze streak of fat.
You bet."

"But there was Axel Gunderson," Prince spoke up. The great Scandinavian,
with the tragic events which shadowed his passing, had made a deep mark
on the mining engineer. "He lies up there, somewhere." He swept his
hand in the vague direction of the mysterious east.

"Biggest man that ever turned his heels to Salt Water, or run a moose
down with sheer grit," supplemented Bettles; "but he's the prove-the-rule
exception. Look at his woman, Unga,--tip the scales at a hundred an'
ten, clean meat an' nary ounce to spare. She'd bank grit 'gainst his for
all there was in him, an' see him, an' go him better if it was possible.
Nothing over the earth, or in it, or under it, she wouldn't 'a' done."

"But she loved him," objected the engineer.

"'T ain't that. It--"

"Look you, brothers," broke in Sitka Charley from his seat on the grub-