"Come on! Shove them cans back in the hole an' le's go stake ouh claims. Yo' done stoke yo'n, ain't yo', O'Brien?"
"Oi've shtaked nawthin'! Oi jist scooped ut out here an' there, phwere their claims wasn't. Oi want none av this counthry! Oi've had enough av ut as ut is! Oi won't shtay wan minit longer thin Oi've got to—not av Oi c'n shovel out pure gold be th' scoopful! Oi want to be war-rm wanst more, an' live loike a civiloized Christian shud live, wid a pig an' a cow, an' a bit av a gar-rden.
"Ye'll not be thinkin' av shtayin' here?" he asked anxiously.
"No, O'Brien," answered Waseche, "not this trip. But we ah goin' to stake ouh claims an' then, lateh, why me an' th' kid heah—we ah comin' back!"
"Come back av ye want to," said O'Brien with a shrug. "But luk out ye don't come back wanst too often. Phwere's Car-rlson, an' Pete Mateese? Thim's min that come back! An' wait till ye see th' skulls an' the bones along th' gravel at th' edge av th' wather—thim wuz min, too, wanst—they come back. An' luk at me! Four av us come in be way av Peel River—an' three av us is dead—an' many's th' toime Oi've wisht Oi wuz wan av thim." O'Brien replaced the stone, and the three turned their attention to their surroundings. One side of the room was piled to the ceiling with the caribou venison and fish of which O'Brien had spoken. They also found a sled and a complete set of harness for a six-dog team—Carlson's six dogs that had found their way into the boiling pots of the White Indians. Scattered about the stone floor lay numerous curiously shaped stone and copper implements, evidently the mining tools of a primitive race of people, and among these Connie also found ancient weapons of ivory and bone.
Slowly they made their way toward the entrance, pausing now and then to examine the rough walls of the tunnel which had been laboriously driven through the mass of copper ore.
"Wonder who worked this mine?" speculated Connie. "Just think of men working for years and years, I s'pose, to dig out copper—with all that gold lying free in the gravel."
"Yeh, son, seems queeah to us. But when yo' come to think of it, coppeh's wo'th a heap mo'n gold, when it comes down to usin' it fo' hammehs, an' ha'poons, an' dishes. Gold ain't no real good, nohow—'cept fo' what it'll buy. An' if they ain't no place to spend it, a man mout a heap sight betteh dig out coppeh."
The sun was shining brightly on the snow when the three finally stood at the tunnel-mouth and gazed out into the valley of the Ignatook. A light wind carried the steam and frozen fog particles toward the opposite bank, whose high cliffs appeared from time to time as islands in a billowy white sea. Almost at their feet the waters of the creek wound between banks of glittering snow crystals, and above them the great bank of frozen mist eddied and rolled. The stakes Carlson had driven to mark his claim, and that of Pete Mateese, were plainly visible, and upon the black gravel at the water's edge were strewn the weather-darkened bones of many men.