Not half an hour later a Chinaman crossed the creek under his pole
between two swinging baskets. He found a nugget there which brought him
over $30,000.

This, then, is the tale of what Fortune did to Curly Gillmore.

* * * * *

"Whoop-ee! Ki-yi-ee hick-ee! Yi-ee-ee!"

"There comes Curly," said Teddy Karns," never altering the steady flow
of the whiskey he was pouring into a tin cup for Sailor Jack to drink.

"Made a big strike, I hear."

"Yea-ah. About $25,000, they say. Might be a million, the way the female
critters run," Ted laughed, as the hurdy-gurdy girls with shrieks of
laughter pounced upon the noisy newcomer.

"Well, hel-lo, Nance, and Liz, and Babe, and Bouncin' Bet, old gal! All
ready to help me sling it, ain't you? But where's little pale Alice?"

"Oh, Allie? She's back in the tents. Sick tonight. Awful bad, she's
took. She'll be shufflin' off 'fore long, an' rid o' mortal misery."

"Poor little soldier!"

"Sweet, she was, an' born to be good. Why, I remember (we came 'round
the Horn on the same sailin' vessel) that they wasn't a ailin' baby on