of transporting it across summer swamps and tundras, then up and over that mysterious and forbidding Chilkoot of which he had heard so much, would bring the total capital required up to impossible proportions.  The prospect was indeed dismaying.  Phillips had been ashore less than an hour, but already he had gained some faint idea of the country that lay ahead of him; already he had noted the almost absolute lack of transportation; already he had learned the price of packers, and as a result he found himself at an impasse.

One thousand dollars and two hundred pounds!  It was enough to dash high hopes.  And yet, strangely enough, Phillips was not discouraged.  He was rather surprised at his own rebound after the first shock; his reasonless optimism vaguely amazed him, until, in contemplating the matter, he discovered that his thoughts were running somewhat after this fashion: 

“They told me I couldn’t make it; they said something was sure to happen.  Well, it has.  I’m up against it—­hard.  Most fellows would quit and go home, but I sha’n’t.  I’m going to win out, somehow, for this is the real thing.  This is Life, Adventure.  It will be wonderful to look back and say:  ’I did it.  Nothing stopped me.  I landed at Dyea with one hundred and thirty-five dollars, but look at me now!’”

Thoughts such as these were in his mind, and their resolute nature must have been reflected in his face, for a voice aroused him from his meditations.

“It don’t seem to faze you much, partner.  I s’pose you came heeled?” Phillips looked up and into a sullen, angry face.

“It nearly kills me,” he smiled.  “I’m the worst-heeled man in the crowd.”

“Well, it’s a darned outrage.  A ton of grub?  Why, have you seen the trail?  Take a look; it’s a man-killer, and the rate is forty cents a pound to Linderman.  It’ll go to fifty now—­maybe a dollar--and there aren’t enough packers to handle half the stuff.”

“Things are worse at Skagway,” another man volunteered.  “I came up yesterday, and they’re losing a hundred head of horses a day—­ bogging ’em down and breaking their legs.  You can walk on dead carcasses from the Porcupine to the Summit.”

A third stranger, evidently one of the well-provided few, laughed 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.”