After the removal of Phon's boulder there was no more talk of washing with pan or rocker, no more thought of digging or mining. Even Chance and Phon were content with the quantity of gold which lay ready to their hands at Pete's Creek. The only trouble was that at Pete's Creek the yellow stuff was absolutely worthless, and that between Pete's Creek, where the gold lay, and those cities of men in which gold is of more value than anything else upon earth, were several hundred miles of wild country, where a man might be lost in the forest, or drowned in the river, or starved on the mountain, just like a beggarly coyoté, and that although he was richer than a Rothschild.
Steve had heard of men in Cariboo who had paid others ten dollars a day to carry their gold-dust for them, and he would gladly have done as much himself; but, unluckily, the only men within reach of him were as rich as he was, and wanted help just as badly. So Steve joined Corbett and Phon, and the three men sat together looking down upon as much wealth as would buy the life-long labour, aye, the very bodies and souls, of a hundred ordinary men, and yet they were conscious that it was about even betting that they would all three die beggars—die starving for want of a loaf of bread, though each man carried round his waist the price of a score of royal banquets!
Steve was the first to break the silence. Pointing away over the rolling forest lands, towards the bed of the Frazer river, he said:
"It looks pretty simple, Ned, and I guess we could get there and back in a week."
"Do you? You would be a good woodsman if you got to the river in a week, and a better one if you ever found your way back here at all."
"How's that? You don't mean to say that you think it possible that we shall lose the creek again now that we have found it?"
"We ought not to, Steve, but that is a bad country to get through and an easy one to get lost in;" and Corbett's eyes dwelt mistrustingly upon the dark, dense woods, the deep gullies, the impervious stretches of brûlé, and the choking growth of young pines which lay between the knoll upon which they sat and the distant benches of the Frazer river.
"Well what had we better do, Ned? If we don't take care we shall get caught in a cold snap before we know where we are."
"We had better leave here to-morrow morning, I think, Steve, carrying all the gold we can with us, and make straight for the Frazer. There we may meet some miners going out for the winter, and if they have not struck it rich themselves they may be willing to pack the stuff out for us. If not, we must look for old Rampike and wait for the spring."
"What! and put up with nearly another year of this dog's life with all that lying there?"