"Dave never took part in the big stampede to Dawson when Carmack made the
Bonanza strike. You see, Dave was just then over on Mammon Creek
strikin' it himself. He discovered Mammon Creek. Cleaned eighty-four
thousand up that winter, and opened up the claim so that it promised a
couple of hundred thousand for the next winter. Then, summer bein' on
and the ground sloshy, he took a trip up the Yukon to Dawson to see what
Carmack's strike looked like. And there he saw Flush of Gold. I
remember the night. I shall always remember. It was something sudden,
and it makes one shiver to think of a strong man with all the strength
withered out of him by one glance from the soft eyes of a weak, blond,
female creature like Flush of Gold. It was at her dad's cabin, old
Victor Chauvet's. Some friend had brought Dave along to talk over town
sites on Mammon Creek. But little talking did he do, and what he did was
mostly gibberish. I tell you the sight of Flush of Gold had sent Dave
clean daffy. Old Victor Chauvet insisted after Dave left that he had
been drunk. And so he had. He was drunk, but Flush of Gold was the
strong drink that made him so.

"That settled it, that first glimpse he caught of her. He did not start
back down the Yukon in a week, as he had intended. He lingered on a
month, two months, all summer. And we who had suffered understood, and
wondered what the outcome would be. Undoubtedly, in our minds, it seemed
that Flush of Gold had met her master. And why not? There was romance
sprinkled all over Dave Walsh. He was a Mammon King, he had made the
Mammon Creek strike; he was an old sour dough, one of the oldest pioneers
in the land--men turned to look at him when he went by, and said to one
another in awed undertones, 'There goes Dave Walsh.' And why not? He
stood six feet four; he had yellow hair himself that curled on his neck;
and he was a bull--a yellow-maned bull just turned thirty-one.