Frank died as the first ashen streaks of dawn came through the window and lit the sickly face of the brother who had slain him.  There was no longer need of the rope; in fact, Joe implored his captor with such earnestness not to leave him alone that ’Poleon untied his hands, feeling sure that he was impotent.  Joe followed him outside, and stood near by while he harnessed the dogs; he accompanied every step the woodsman took—­wild horses could not have dragged him away in his present frame of mind—­and finally, when they set out back toward the Canadian Line, he shambled along ahead of the team with head down and eyes averted from the gruesome bundle that lay in the sled.  His punishment had overtaken him and he was unequal to it.

Dawson was in ferment, for the news of another “strike” had come in and a stampede was under way.  Discoveries of gold, or rumors of them, had been common.  The camp had thrilled to many Arabian Nights tales, but this one was quite the most sensational of all.  So amazing, so unbelievable was it, in truth, that those who had been too often fooled laughed at it and declared it impossible on its face.  Some woodcutters on the hills above El Dorado had been getting out dry timber for the drift fires, so ran the report, and in shooting the tree-trunks down into the valley they had discovered a deposit of wash gravel.  One of them, possessed of the prospector’s instinct, had gophered a capful of the gravel from off the rim where the plunging tree-trunks had dug through the snow and exposed the outcropping bedrock, and, to satisfy his curiosity, had taken it down to camp for a test.  He had thawed and panned it; to his amazement, he had discovered that it carried an astonishing value in gold—­coarse, rough gold—­exactly like that in the creek pay-streak, except with less signs of abrasion and erosion.  Rumor placed the contents of that first prospect at ten dollars.  Ten cents would have meant the riches of Aladdin, but—­ ten dollars!  No wonder the wiseacres shook their heads.  Ten dollars to the pan, on a hilltop!  Absurd!  How did metal of that specific gravity get up there?  How could there be wash gravel on the crest of a mountain?  There was no sense to such a proposition.

But such old California placer miners as chanced to hear of it lost no time in hitting the trail.  They were familiar with high bars, prehistoric riverbeds, and they went as fast as their old legs would carry them.

More faith was put in the story when it became known that the diggings were being deserted and that the men of El Dorado and Bonanza were quitting their jobs, actually leaving their thawed drifts to freeze while they scattered over the domes and saddles round about, staking claims.  That settled matters, so far as Dawson was concerned; men who had dogs hitched them up, those who had none rolled their packs; soon the trail up the Klondike was black and the recorder’s office prepared for riotous activity.