“But the deeper he went, the better prospects he got.”  She stood up now, close to the Colonel.  The Boy stopped work and leaned on the wood pile, listening.  “Pitcairn told Charlie and me (on the strict q. t.) that the gold channel crossed the divide at No. 10, and the only gold on Little Minookust what spilt down on those six claims as the gold went crossin’ the gulch.  The real placer is that old channel above the pup, and boys”—­in her enthusiasm she even included the Colonel’s objectionable pardner—­“boys, it’s rich as blazes!”

“I wonder——­” drawled the Colonel, recovering a little from his first thrill.

“I wouldn’t advise you to waste much time wonderin’,” she said with fire.  “What I’m tellin’ you is scientific.  Pitcairn is straight as a string.  You won’t get any hymns out o’ Pitcairn, but you’ll get fair and square.  His news is worth a lot.  If you got any natchral gumption anywhere about you, you can have a claim worth anything from ten to fifty thousand dollars this time to-morrow.”

“Well, well!  Good Lord!  Hey, Boy, what we goin’ to do?”

“Well, you don’t want to get excited,” admonished the queer little Arctic animal, jumping up suddenly; “but you can bunk early and get a four a.m. wiggle on.  Charlie and me’ll meet you on the Minookl.  Ta-ta!” tad she whisked away as suddenly as a chipmunk.

They couldn’t sleep.  Some minutes before the time named they were quietly leaving Keith’s shack.  Out on the trail there were two or three men already disappearing towards Little Minook here was Maudie, all by herself, sprinting along like a good fellow, on the thin surface of the last night’s frost.  She walked in native water-boots, but her snow-shoes stuck out above the small pack neatly lashed on her straight little shoulders.  They waited for her.

She came up very brisk and businesslike.  To their good-mornings she only nodded in a funny, preoccupied way, never opening her lips.

“Charlie gone on?” inquired the Colonel presently.

She shook her head.  “Knocked out.”

“Been fightin’?”

“No; ran a race to Hunter.”

“To jump that claim?”

She nodded.

“Did he beat?”

She laughed.  “Butts had the start.  They got there together at nine o’clock!”

“Three hours before jumpin’ time?”

Again she nodded.  “And found four more waitin’ on the same fool errand.”

“What did they do?”

“Called a meetin’.  Couldn’t agree.  It looked like there’d be a fight, and a fast race to the Recorder among the survivors.  But before the meetin’ was adjourned, those four that had got there first (they were pretty gay a’ready), they opened some hootch, so Butts and Charlie knew they’d nothing to fear except from one another.”

On the top of the divide that gave them their last glimpse of Rampart she stopped an instant and looked back.  The quick flash of anxiety deepening to defiance made the others turn.  The bit they could see of the water-front thoroughfare was alive.  The inhabitants were rushing about like a swarm of agitated ants.