Keenly disappointed they went down to their two friends that night and told them of their bad luck in not getting gold when they got into gravel. They were interrupted by excited exclamations and questions. Surely it couldn't be really gravel, they must be mistaken for no gravel could get up there. If it were true gravel it meant the upsetting of all current placer mining theories, and the prospect of unlimited possibilities of new gold deposits on hillsides and benches. Such news would set the whole Klondike on the stampede again. But of course there must be a mistake. It was broken up slide-rock and not gravel. Next morning they would come up and have a look. So they did and there was no doubt about the gravel. The cheechacos were advised to go on "sinking" and on no account to "talk" at store or roadhouse. After every thaw the Australians went up to see how things looked. One day "colors" were found in the pan, and after that the four worked together unceasingly in rushing the digging as fast as the need of thawing would permit. The light flakes of yellow gold continued but it wasn't "pay" yet.

One memorable evening, after an all-day spell of work without panning, the four men gathered in the little cabin around the panning tub in the corner to test dirt taken out eight feet lower than the last sample. They were all bending over eagerly, watching in the dim candle light one of the sourdoughs, an expert, who was squatted beside the tub with the pan in his hands under water. Holding it aslant, he twisted it back and forth with a sort of circular motion until the top dirt was gradually washed off and the gravelly stones left. These he scraped off with his hands and then repeated the whole process. Slowly the pan was emptying. If there was any gold it would be slipping down to the bottom of the pan at the lower edge of it. The candle was held closer and breathlessly the four men watched as the last few inches of the pan bottom cleared of dirt. There was only an inch of black sand and gravel now. The miner swirled the pan in the water again, then brought it up and near the candle, ran his finger through the margin of dirt still remaining and as he did so he left uncovered a shining track of yellow gold! There was a moment's silence, a hurried, deft swirl in the water and the pan was carried over to the table. There with bent heads they gazed with tense emotion first at the slender thread of gold and then at one another. Not much in itself, but it meant—well, who could tell what amazing new finds it might mean? Perhaps richer than anything yet known! Soon they were talking in earnest excited tones. The impossible had come true and they had found, on that hill side, a "prospect" which, if the pay dirt continued for any distance or depth, would bring untold wealth to them. It was a great night in that Klondike cabin. The sourdoughs confessed without reservation their attempt to play off a joke and how they had long been ashamed of it. The cheechacos laughed it off in good-will that was heightened by the happy outcome of it all. The Australians were to stake claims beside them that night and then to rouse their friends who were near and have them stake on half interests. The hillside was to be called on the records "Cheechaco Hill" in memory of its discoverers.

By the next day the news had leaked out, the camp went crazy, and in a week every piece of ground right over the Klondike summits from creek to creek had been staked off in claims, no matter how absurdly unlikely the locality was, although in the scramble many very rich hillsides were found.

Some punster said that the only "benches" in the Klondike that weren't staked were those of my log-church at Gold Bottom! And it was practically true. I remember once when going down Indian River noticing a tree with its trunk "blazed," and on the blaze these words were written: "I, Ole Nelson, claim 25 ft. straight up in the air for climbing purposes!" He had been chased up that tree by a bear and had put the event on record in this way, and indeed about the only direction by that time that was open for staking was "up in the air."

There was, however, much reason for this indiscriminate staking. It seemed as if gold was likely to be found anywhere now that it climbed up the hillsides. But in a year or two the mining operations showed how the gold got there. Ages ago there had been an upheaval of some kind that had changed the course of the streams and had made valleys hills, and hills valleys. These deposits were in what had formerly been river or creek bottoms. The hill-side seemed an unlikely place but the gold was there, and the digging disclosed it buried deep where God had placed it, not haphazard, but according to one of the laws of nature.

XI.
The Lost Patrol

In the Spring of 1918, following the smashing attack of the Germans towards Amiens, orders came from the French Military Headquarters, that all civilians were to move from towns near the line to safer areas further back. This order nearly got me into a "mix-up." It happened I was billeted at Madame Buay's humble home in La Brebis, when the new regulation came to them like a bomb from the blue.

One day soon after, at 5.30 A.M., Madame and her boy came to my room to bid me a tearful adieu. It was arranged by the authorities that they must leave before nine o'clock that morning. There was much talk, and would I help her so kindly by buying her poor little rabbits. They would starve if left behind and she could not take them. "There were just three," she said. I bought them for twenty francs; thought they would make a savoury stew for our Mess.

About half past nine, I went to view my livestock. When behold, to my dismay, I found that my three rabbits had increased, in the course of nature, to ten, and there were signs of more "in the offing." On the top of this came an unexpected message for the Battalion to move out at 2 P.M. that day. I tried to sell my rabbits to the local butcher, who had been permitted to stay until he cleared out his stock of meat. But no, he wouldn't buy them. They weren't, of course, fit to kill for food. At last in desperation, for I couldn't leave the beasts to starve, I rounded up the half-dozen small boys left in the place and unloaded my rabbits on them. I knew the ordinary boy cannot resist the offer of a live rabbit, even though father and mother might object. I would be gone by that time anyway. I tell only the simple truth, (those who know rabbits will not question it), when I state that I had not three nor ten, but sixteen rabbits, big and little, to give away to the boys. A second contingent had arrived numbering six! I was relieved to be quit of them, for at the rate they had multiplied that day I could see myself, before many weeks, marching at the head of a battalion of rabbits!