The Colonel seemed absorbed in that eternal interrogation of the tent-top.

“Mine, you know”—­Mac drew nearer still, and went on in the lowered voice—­“mine’s a special case.  A man’s bound to do all he can for his boys.”

“I didn’t know you had boys.”

Mac jerked “Yes” with his square head.  “Bobbie’s goin’ on six now.”

“The others older?”

“Others?” Mac stared an instant.  “Oh, there’s only one more.”  He grinned with embarrassment, and hitched his head towards Kaviak.

“I guess you’ve jawed enough,” said Maudie, leaving the others and coming to the foot of the bed.

“And Maudie’s goin’ back, too,” said the sick man.

She nodded.

“And you’re never goin’ to leave her again?”

“No.”

“Maudie’s a little bit of All Right,” said the patient.  The Big Chimney men assented, but with sudden misgiving.

“What was that job ye said ye were wantin’ me forr?”

“Oh, Maudie’s got a friend of hers to fix it up.”

“Fix what up?” demanded Potts.

“Little postscript to my will.”

Mac jerked his head at the nurse.  With that clear sight of dying eyes the Colonel understood.  A meaner spirit would have been galled at the part those “Louisville Instructions” had been playing, but cheap cynicism was not in the Colonel’s line.  He knew the awful pinch of life up here, and he thought no less of his comrades for asking that last service of getting them home.  But it was the day of the final “clean-up” for the Colonel; he must not leave misapprehension behind.

“I wanted Maudie to have my Minook claim——­”

“Got a Minook claim o’ my own.”

“So I’ve left it to be divided——­”

They all looked up.

“One-half to go to a little girl in ’Frisco, and the other half—­well, I’ve left the other half to Kaviak.  Strikes me he ought to have a little piece o’ the North.”

“Y-yes!”

“Oh, yes!”

“Good idea!”

“Mac thought he’d go over to the other tent and cook some dinner.  There was a general movement.  As they were going out: 

“Boy!”

“Yes?” He came back, Nig followed, and the two stood by the camp-bed waiting their Colonel’s orders.

“Don’t you go wastin’ any more time huntin’ gold-mines.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“Go back to your own work; go back to your own people.”

The Boy listened and looked away.

“It’s good to go pioneering, but it’s good to go home.  Oh-h—!” the face on the pillow was convulsed for that swift passing moment—­“best of all to go home.  And if you leave your home too long, your home leaves you.”

“Home doesn’t seem so important as it did when I came up here.”

The Colonel fastened one hand feverishly on his pardner’s arm.

“I’ve been afraid of that.  It’s magic; break away.  Promise me you’ll go back and stay.  Lord, Lord!” he laughed feebly, “to think a fella should have to be urged to leave the North alone.  Wonderful place, but there’s Black Magic in it.  Or who’d ever come—­who’d ever stay?”