“Impossible.”
“No, I shall manage to limp along somehow.”
“Impossible, I tell you!” cried Dallas. “You must stay to take care of the claim; and then there is the gold—and the dog.”
Abel was silenced; and the next morning, taking his empty sledge, and trusting to obtain enough food at the shanties which he would pass on the track, Dallas started.
Abel watched him pass away into the gloom of the dark morning, and then turned and limped back sadly to where the dog lay dozing by the fire, apparently still too weak to stir.
Abel’s bed had been drawn aside, and there was a hole in the ground, while upon the upturned barrel which formed their table stood a little leather bag half full of scales, scraps, and nuggets of gold—that which remained after Dallas had taken out a sufficiency to purchase stores at the town on the Yukon.
Abel’s first act was to stoop down, mend the fire, and pat the dog, which responded by rapping the earth with his tail. Then the leather bag was tied up, replaced in the bank hole, which was then filled up, the earth beaten down flat, and the sacks and skins which formed the bed drawn back into their places.
He stooped down and patted the dog.
“Pah! Why don’t you lie farther from the fire? You make the hut smell horribly with your burnt hair.”