“Across the lake?  That’s what I was heading for.”

“Seems Surprise Lake is becoming populous,” Smoke complained, emptying the coffee-pot.

“Go on, you’re joking, aren’t you?” the man said, astonishment painted on his face.

Smoke laughed.  “That’s the way it takes everybody.  You see those high ledges across there to the northwest?  There’s where I first saw it.  No warning.  Just suddenly caught the view of the whole lake from there.  I’d given up looking for it, too.

“Same here,” the other agreed.  “I’d headed back and was expecting to fetch the Stewart last night, when out I popped in sight of the lake.  If that’s it, where’s the Stewart?  And where have I been all the time?  And how did you come here?  And what’s your name?”

“Bellew.  Kit Bellew.”

“Oh!  I know you.”  The man’s eyes and face were bright with a joyous smile, and his hand flashed eagerly out to Smoke’s.  “I’ve heard all about you.”

“Been reading police-court news, I see,” Smoke sparred modestly.

“Nope.”  The man laughed and shook his head.  “Merely recent Klondike history.  I might have recognized you if you’d been shaved.  I watched you putting it all over the gambling crowd when you were bucking roulette in the Elkhorn.  My name’s Carson—­Andy Carson; and I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am to meet up with you.”

He was a slender man, wiry with health, with quick black eyes and a magnetism of camaraderie.

“And this is Surprise Lake?” he murmured incredulously.

“It certainly is.”

“And its bottom’s buttered with gold?”

“Sure.  There’s some of the churning.”  Smoke dipped in his overalls pocket and brought forth half a dozen nuggets.  “That’s the stuff.  All you have to do is go down to bottom, blind if you want to, and pick up a handful.  Then you’ve got to run half a mile to get up your circulation.”

“Well, gosh-dash my dingbats, if you haven’t beaten me to it,” Carson swore whimsically, but his disappointment was patent.  “An’ I thought I’d scooped the whole caboodle.  Anyway, I’ve had the fun of getting here.”

“Fun!” Smoke cried.  “Why, if we can ever get our hands on all that bottom, we’ll make Rockefeller look like thirty cents.”

“But it’s yours,” was Carson’s objection.

“Nothing to it, my friend.  You’ve got to realize that no gold deposit like it has been discovered in all the history of mining.  It will take you and me and my partner and all the friends we’ve got to lay our hands on it.  All Bonanza and Eldorado, dumped together, wouldn’t be richer than half an acre down here.  The problem is to drain the lake.  It will take millions.  And there’s only one thing I’m afraid of.  There’s so much of it that if we fail to control the output it will bring about the demonetization of gold.”

“And you tell me—­” Carson broke off, speechless and amazed.