carelessly. "If you boys can't stand the strain you'd better stay
where you are," said he. "Grub's sky-high in Dawson, and mighty
short. I knew what I was up against, so I came prepared. Better go
home and try it next summer."

The first speaker, he of the sullen visage, turned his back,
muttering, resentfully: "Another wise guy! They make me sick! I've
a notion to go through anyhow."

"Don't try that," cautioned the man from Skagway. "If you got past
the Police they'd follow you to hell but what they'd bring you
back. They ain't like our police."

Still meditating his plight, Pierce Phillips edged out of the
crowd and walked slowly down the street. It was not a street at
all, except by courtesy, for it was no more than an open
waterfront faced by a few log buildings and a meandering line of
new white tents. Tents were going up everywhere and all of them
bore painful evidence of their newness. So did the clothes of
their owners for that matter--men's garments still bore their
price-tags. The beach was crowded with piles of merchandise over
which there was much wrangling, barges plying regularly back and
forth from the anchored ships added hourly to the confusion. As
outfits were dumped upon the sand their owners assembled them and
bore them away to their temporary camp sites. In this occupation
every man faced his own responsibilities single-handed, for there
were neither drays nor carts nor vehicles of any sort.

As Phillips looked on at the disorder along the water's edge, as
he stared up the fir-flanked Dyea valley, whither a steady stream